I was in London the day of and after the Brexit vote in 2016. I still remember the shock of so many people there, including EU citizens who didn't know where they'd live or work when it was all over. I often wonder what happened to some of those people.
As I recall, nobody who actually lived in London wanted Brexit to happen - the only person I met who did was a cabbie who lived outside of the city. He told us we were his last ride. He had to get home to vote. I hope at least he got what he wanted.
From my perspective, Brexit has always seemed like an absolutely massive economic, political, and cultural self-own. It seems like it was born from a sense of self-importance that was based in a kind of Britain that just doesn't exist anymore - one that is the head of an empire, not just a piece of one. I understand why the arguments for it worked, but I wish they hadn't, because this nonsense (and much worse!) was always where it was going to end up.
But I'm not British, so what do I know? My country hasn't done much better in terms of political decision making. For those who supported it here, I sincerely hope it's been worth it.
It wasn't politically correct to vote Brexit, so nobody mentioned it and just voted.
I couldn't vote as a European in UK but I would have voted Leave.
I'd take a business / economic hit over having a political end economic entity rule my country, especially one which contains countries that are ticking bombs with no hope to recover.
No amount of austerity will fix Greece's and Italy's economies and there are no plans of reducing their gigantic governments.
Varoufakis has been speaking for ages and nobody is listening.
> It wasn't politically correct to vote Brexit, so nobody mentioned it and just voted.
I'm sure this is part of what I experienced, but we asked a lot of people and there wasn't much noncommittal "not sures" or anything. It was a lot of flat "no ways."
> I'd take a business / economic hit over having a political end economic entity rule my country, especially one which contains countries that are ticking bombs with no hope to recover.
I've heard this line of reasoning before, and it's never quite made sense to me. The EU is an enormous area populated mostly with economies that are doing relatively fine. They're not all going to be fine all the time. Britain hasn't always been economically super healthy - the 1970s, when it joined the EU, were a pretty poor period in its economic history - and it still got the benefit of being in the EU. I don't want my state to secede from the Union because other states elsewhere have problems I don't have (though obviously plenty of people have felt that way throughout history).
It just feels like a lot of "I help mine and only mine" over "we all help each other," where "mine" means "people who are in the same geographical region as me, roughly speaking, with some exceptions." Who we decide to care about or not all feels really arbitrary, just as borders between countries are pretty arbitrary.
I'm not saying you personally are selfish, or that British people are selfish, but it does feel like a deeply self-serving and frankly misguided impulse. Britain and so much of the world are as peaceful and prosperous as they are today is because of a safe, peaceful global environment based on mutual assistance. (That's not to say things haven't gotten worse in the last ~10 years - just that for as bad as things are in this downturn now, they were so much worse in the not-too-distant past.)
I really appreciate your answer! I think it's easy to frame this as a "selfishness" issue - and I'm sure a lot of people who voted for Brexit just wanted to get rid of immigrants. That's not my case, as I'm an immigrant myself (and son of immigrants in my mother country).
I think we shouldn't have centralised form of governments because the more you move the problem away and try to generalise it, the more you end up with solutions that upset a minority of your consumers.
If we take a democratically elected government that follow through with their promises, you're not upsetting a majority of your consumers, but you will likely upset a minority.
On top of this, by centralising problem solving, you create a machine that has an excuse to be fed with everyone's money. And you can be sure a percentage of that, will be spent just on the inefficiency of the machine, which derives from not having competition and market forces driving down the price.
The best solution to make everyone happy is then to have a society where any combination of rules is possible. People can naturally cluster based on the rules they like and make some compromises based on that.
I don't think we should have anyone imposing laws or taxing someone else. We can get by with services provided by private companies. Private Health Care, private Protection Services, private Courts, private contracts between individuals. Voluntarily provided donations to aid those who have no money.
If you put my anarcho-capitalist society on one extreme and the Soviet Union on the other, you can see that having a government per country is somewhere in the middle - and, IMHO, it's bad enough; having a single Union for several countries where the rules are all the same and decided by democracy, means moving more towards the Soviet Union model, where even more people are unhappy.
If the problem is having import taxes and bureaucracy between countries, just get rid of them, you don't need to shift power far away to solve that.
If the problem is that moving across countries is too complicated, just get rid of restriction, you don't need to shift power far away to solve that.
I'm not happy with the world we have, and I know many people who believe in the European project are not happy as well.
Still, I think the solution is LESS government, not MORE.
Have you ever read The Dispossessed? Inevitably, I think, your anarchist society would end up being a society with a government - just not the same government as we currently have. Maybe the power would be more hidden, or less responsible to the people, but there would still be a government managing it. That's not to say it wouldn't be better in some ways - but people have to coordinate in order to solve large problems, and that's what governments do.
In an ideal version of your system, everything is great. In an ideal version of my system, everything is great. Comparing your ideally functioning system to the Soviet Union is like comparing a perfectly ripe apple to a decaying, moldy orange from 20 years ago. Likewise, the EU is an imperfect example of the thing it is trying to be, but it is still better than the things that preceded it. The pains of Brexit we are seeing now are not "growing pains" or "adjustment pains", IMO - they are the pains of moving from a better way of doing things (which had its own sets of downsides) back to what a worse way of doing things, where "better" and "worse" mean "more efficient at helping people get what they need and do what they want" and "less efficient and helping people with those same things".
The likely reality is that if a system is populated by people incentivized to behave badly, it will suck to exist in for a lot of people, probably most. A good system is one populated mostly by people incentivized to act well. The incentive could come in many forms - cultural expectations, religious teachings, economic incentives, and so on. You could definitely establish an allegedly anarchist society that had the right cultural and societal incentives to be stable - if you could set up those incentives first. Ditto with a communist society. The problem is not what we call the organizations responsible for managing cooperation between people at scale, it's how we train humanity to interact with and consider them.
Therefore, the right system to pick is whichever one we can achieve that is most likely to be an improvement on the one we have given the current set of incentives - and right now, given the scale of the problems facing global society, I think a more globalized, less isolated, more open system is the one to choose. Brexit is a step back, to me, because it moves us more towards systems that will not work for the challenges we face, no matter what we call them or how we culturally couch them, because it disincentivizes people from caring about others at the scale necessary to solve problems common to both.
I'm familiar with Le Guin's books and, while I like her writing, I don't think anarcho-syndicalism has any chance at being practical. I assume you refer to the anarchist colony believing to be free while depending on selling minerals to the mother country - which sees it as a mining colony. It's tricky whether to frame it as trade or taxes. What would happen if they stopped selling minerals to the mother country? Probably an invasion?
If you're interested in expanding your library on anarchy (jumping on the ancap side), I'd recommend David Friedman's The Machinery of Freedom (or its YouTube summary), which talks about the possible practicalities of running an anarcho-capitalist society.
Replying to your point: Companies solve large problems as well. They also compete with each other to provide a solution, providing more efficient solutions. Do you think the government could have come up with Google or Tesla?
I think the discriminating feature of a government is not large scale synchronisation but holding the monopoly on violence (and threats: if you don't pay a percentage of your profits, you'll be thrown in jail). Hopefully an anarchic society wouldn't be able to replicate that (thanks to the balance of multiple Rights Enforcement Agencies (as Friedman call them)).
In an anarcho-capitalist society you're likely going to end up with different companies providing protection and health care - and insurances on top. Not having a single defining law but multiple contracts (that can be arbitrated in private courts) could give people the flexibility to live closer to their ideal rules. You don't like your health care? Look for another provider.
The choice is in the hands of the consumers.
I don't understand what Europe is trying to be, if not another USA. The USA went from being a minarchist federation to the largest employer in the world, charging taxes as high as Europe to all its citizens. If that's not moving toward socialism, I don't know what it is.
The pains felt by the UK are:
- More VAT import taxes levied by its Government
- More bureaucracy with the flow of goods and people imposed by EU and the UK
I sincerely hate both with a passion and I think they have no space in society - with any country: I see your point, things actually got worse in that regard and Brexit will make trade worse and more expensive between UK and EU.
Still, if that's the price to pay to avoid greater redistributive European policies (like the 750bln€ for Covid affected countries), I think that's the lesser evil.
> I assume you refer to the anarchist colony believing to be free while depending on selling minerals to the mother country - which sees it as a mining colony. It's tricky whether to frame it as trade or taxes. What would happen if they stopped selling minerals to the mother country? Probably an invasion?
Given that the colony is free, in that the other countries don't in any way interact with (or even have awareness of) their affairs, I don't see what the issue is with that presentation. The colony is engaging in an agreement with another entity to sell goods to a different one - isn't that what such a polity does? Le Guin is clear that the politics of the homeworld, until the events of the novel, have no bearing on the politics of the colony.
> Do you think the government could have come up with Google or Tesla?
Yes. The US government is arguably responsible for the existence of the Internet via DARPA. It put a man on the moon. It developed the most powerful weapon in human history, in secret. Naturally, this is as part of a complex system of interrelated government, academic, corporate, and even non-profit groups - but these were government programs first and foremost. Why couldn't it have? Further, how much of Google and Tesla's technology is based on government-funded research?
> I think the discriminating feature of a government is not large scale synchronisation but holding the monopoly on violence (and threats: if you don't pay a percentage of your profits, you'll be thrown in jail).
I am open to considering "near-monopoly on societally acceptable violence" as a secondary purpose for government, but I still think - and this can be seen as far back as the early United States' founding documents, and well before - that "organizing large groups of people for a variety of purposes" is a more defining charactaristic.
> In an anarcho-capitalist society you're likely going to end up with different companies providing protection and health care - and insurances on top. Not having a single defining law but multiple contracts (that can be arbitrated in private courts) could give people the flexibility to live closer to their ideal rules. You don't like your health care? Look for another provider.
What if there isn't one? What if you can't afford any of the good ones? What if the one you have locked you into a lifetime contract and you can't leave? What if your employer is the only power in your area and won't change its mind about what kind of healthcare they allow you to get?
> The choice is in the hands of the consumers.
Is healthcare a basic right, or a commodity? Is anything a basic right? If not, why not?
> I don't understand what Europe is trying to be, if not another USA.
If that is what it wants to be, I don't see a problem with it - and, to be clear, if Britain really wanted out from that, it is their right. Nowhere am I suggesting that they didn't have the right to leave. I just wish they hadn't, and think it is bad for them.
> The USA went from being a minarchist federation to the largest employer in the world, charging taxes as high as Europe to all its citizens. If that's not moving toward socialism, I don't know what it is.
It definitely is. In fact, one of the frustrating things about American society today is that we're so afraid of using the word "socialist" to describe what we are (because it is Evil Bad Term because USSR and Venezuela) that we have no good simple word to describe the fact that we are a socialist mixed-economy Western-style republic, just a somewhat less socialist one than most of the others.
I just don't see that as a bad thing - in fact, I would like us to be more like the others, not less. The problems in American society, in my view, are much more systematic and intractable than they are in many other places in part because we're not willing to give more people more of what they need. (Though, to be honest, I think we could both get what we want if the US turned into a federation of less-closely-aligned states with different policies and laws for people who wanted different ways of living and being governed. That just feels like a fantasy/not realistically achievable.)
> Still, if that's the price to pay to avoid greater redistributive European policies (like the 750bln€ for Covid affected countries), I think that's the lesser evil.
I completely disagree, and indeed, I don't see redistributive policies as an evil of any kind.
But honestly, you don't have to answer all these questions or respond to all these points, if you don't want to take the time. I'm stating them to explore the corners of all the ways I feel your preferred systems of society are insufficient in the context my worldview. I suspect that there may be enough daylight between our fundamental perceptions of what people are, what they are allowed to do, and what they are obligated to provide to each other that we will not agree on many core principals, and a discussion of those is certainly outside the scope of this thread on Brexit - not that I am not happy to have it.
I won't reply to everything as we're getting into several conversation at the same time, beers on me if we ever meet in real life :D
I think we found the the source of divergence!
I don't think there should be any "rights", simply because having a right implies someone else will have to uphold it, which means it's unclear how much we're paying for it. Given a right is something that affects me, I want to be free to lose it, if I so desire.
The reason I don't like redistributive policies is because they non consensual.
I don't believe in free will (I don't think we are more than very clever machines), and maybe that's why I put a higher value on choice than on guaranteeing life.
At the same time, I think that voluntarily donations are more than enough to cover for those in needs.
There are so many people I talk to who are genuinely happy to pay taxes and there are many people who are not happy to pay taxes (in my case, mainly not to pay for an inefficient and warmongering model) who are happy to donate money in other causes.
So here I am, dreaming of a truly voluntarily society.
> I don't think there should be any "rights", simply because having a right implies someone else will have to uphold it, which means it's unclear how much we're paying for it. Given a right is something that affects me, I want to be free to lose it, if I so desire.
Your goal, as I understand it, is never to force anyone to do anything they don't want to do. Is that right? If so, it must be affirmative only - if I want to kill you, but you do not want me to kill you, then I don't get to kill you because I can't kill you if you don't want me to.
If that's a correct understanding, here's what I would like you to answer:
> I don't believe in free will (I don't think we are more than very clever machines), and maybe that's why I put a higher value on choice than on guaranteeing life.
What does it mean to have free will? "The power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one's own discretion?" That's the definition I'm familiar with.
If we have no free will, what's the point of choice? What does it matter, if we are machines, whether we can choose anything? Why can't I do what I "want" to you, given that the concept of "want" implies, deterministically, that I must desire it and therefore must do it?
That is, if I am going to kill you, that is because I must and always will. It isn't up to me, because nothing is. So what is the point of a rule trying that tries to stop me?
I will be able to remain (as everyone else who moved to the UK before 2021).
As skilled migrant, getting a work visa is not very hard from any country to be fair (albeit it costs money to you or to your employer and it's therefore likely to have a reflection on your salary).
EDIT: Incidentally, I'm not planning to stay in the UK for much longer, but that's just because I'm moving to a country with lower taxes, not out of concerns for Brexit.
> I couldn't vote as a European in UK but I would have voted Leave.
Thank God for that, as you seem to not understand any of the issues involved. Greece's problems relate to the Euro which the UK had opted out of. And the notion that some central EU interloper has invaded us and taken over our legislature is just fantasy put about by Little Englander and disaster capitalists.
It’s fascinating how many of the Leave arguments, as much as they exist, either boil down to not understanding how the EU works, or blaming the EU for mistakes that the UK government made.
For 6 weeks in 2018 the EU ran a survey asking its citzens whether they want to the bi-annual clock change to stop. (Do you see it? I didn't). 4.6M (of the total population of around 448M) participated.
With the exception of Germany (3.19%), Austria (2.94%) and Luxembourg (1.78%) all other countries had less than 1% of their population canvassed.
The EU concludes that 84% of its population want Europe to stop changing the clocks[1].
The Commission proposed, the Parliament voted[2] (did you see that in any MSP election material? I didn't) and when the Council of Minsters approves, it will become law.
That is the sausage-making of the EU laws: canvass 1% of the population who you'll know will support your argument and claim your democratic mandate.
I agree that, by not having adopted the Euro, the UK was outside of a lot of the mess.
I still think the structural problems of weaker EU countries will cause more problems than benefits in the future for key nets contributors (like the UK was).
The Covid 750B€ fund, aptly named Next Generation EU (repayments will start in 2028), is another example of a worrying redistributive trend that makes me want to not be in the EU.
Its the result of a large part of the population being -defacto- disconnected from any economic activity. Yes they receive unemployment benefits /social welfare. Often for generations - but this just is not enough.
The mind knows you do not contribute to your community, even though your pot is full of food. Autarky rebellions like brexxit address this dependence on society needing a member.
I find this psychological need not really catered for in UBI concepts.
To me, there's an irony that the nationalist desire to sever Britain from the EU is the best way to hasten the dissolution of Great Britain. Now that Brexit is done with, reunification of Ireland and Scottish Independence are in the conversation.
I'm also not British so I don't know how serious those conversations are. But the assured economic and political disaster of Brexit wasn't enough to stop that ridiculous idea, so who's to say the same won't happen to the marginally less ridiculous proposition to reunify Ireland and establish an independent Scotland for the first time in centuries?
It’s generally assumed that Irish unification will happen sometime this century. Demographic trends in Northern Ireland have been towards union with Ireland and away from remaining in the UK. Especially since Ireland is becoming less catholic, which was one of the bigger sources of trouble(s). The fact that NI has the right to call a referendum at will certainly makes this a likely outcome within the next half century or so.
Brexit will probably accelerate this process, as it’s impossible for London to completely break with EU trade policy, not put up a tariff border between England and NI, and respect the Good Friday agreement. It’s a “pick two” kind of situation. Given that a hard break with EU trade policy has the biggest constituency, it seems likely that the other outcome will do nothing but accelerate the process of Irish unification.
I worked in Finance in 2016 & 2017, on the team that managed the trade & position store for the entire company. We kept a few big graphs up of the important statistics of the day, including total daily trades. Nobody thought much about Brexit because the traders knew that they wouldn’t be so foolish as to vote for it. The pandemonium once everyone realized the vote came back yes was unbelievable. We blew through the record number of trades by a factor of 2x. I thought I’d never see anything like it ... until November 2016.
humiliation is just semantics here. the bigger picture is that it was the same forces and interests that were behind MAGA, Brexit, AfD/Germany, LePen/France, Orban/Hungary FPÖ/Austria, Northern-League/Italy, Geert-Wilders/NL, etc etc ...
Many other (EU) countries that experienced a right-wing surge - and it wasn't an isolated problem of "the Brits (or Americans) had gone crazy". US politics were more visible (=no surprise: biggest Western country and also noisiest media and propaganda dressed up as entertainment).
But to recall: S. Bannon and N. Farage meeting at the same venues, inviting each other to give talks and share ideas on strategy to turn the world Nazi (we have literally white power groups in my city who got inspired by these scumbags and followed them regardless of them being "foreigners").
Meanwhile we know from Panama Papers that Banks got funding from Russia to bankroll the UKIP campaign, the Austrian minister invited Putin to her wedding, German ex chancellor Schröder immediately joined the Gazprom board after exiting politics and was instrumental to secure Norstream2. Literally every individual or party in the above list has received funding from Russia to drive their right wing campaigns, all while Putin is sitting in a palace. Also it should be made clear that nobody (Putin or any other dictator) would have had the remotest chance of compromising and undermining politics if it wouldn't have been for the left and its incompetent self absorbed doctrine over the past 3 decades (and even after the 2008 financial crisis).
So while nobody is helped by comparisons of who is off the worst we should remember that there is a whole structure behind this who see it as "fighting for their business interests". And while we're in the next months no doubt all tearing each other apart about this the real villains are at large and hiding behind the crumbling facade of our "democratic institutions".
IMO acknowledging that this is a global problem that needs to be quashed no matter where we are is an important step in finding a cure.
As a British supporter of the EU living in the USA - no it isn't, in the slightest. Indeed, the two are so intrinsically linked, it's best not to think of them as separate.
As I recall, nobody who actually lived in London wanted Brexit to happen - the only person I met who did was a cabbie who lived outside of the city. He told us we were his last ride. He had to get home to vote. I hope at least he got what he wanted.
From my perspective, Brexit has always seemed like an absolutely massive economic, political, and cultural self-own. It seems like it was born from a sense of self-importance that was based in a kind of Britain that just doesn't exist anymore - one that is the head of an empire, not just a piece of one. I understand why the arguments for it worked, but I wish they hadn't, because this nonsense (and much worse!) was always where it was going to end up.
But I'm not British, so what do I know? My country hasn't done much better in terms of political decision making. For those who supported it here, I sincerely hope it's been worth it.