Globalization and the Backlash of Populism

[@isatousarr7044]

The relationship between globalization and the rise of populism is complex and highlights the multifaceted nature of economic and cultural shifts in the modern world. While globalization has led to economic growth, cultural exchange, and technological progress, it has also contributed to growing inequalities and social disruptions that have fueled the backlash of populist movements. Understanding this dynamic is crucial for addressing the root causes of populist sentiments and promoting a more equitable and stable global society. Globalization, driven by advances in trade, technology, and communication, has opened up opportunities for many countries to participate in the global economy. It has facilitated the movement of goods, services, ideas, and people, leading to greater interconnectedness and economic interdependence. However, while some have benefitted significantly from globalization, others have experienced job displacement, wage stagnation, and loss of cultural identity. In particular, working-class communities in developed countries have often found themselves struggling as industries outsourced jobs to regions with lower labor costs. This economic dislocation, combined with the perception that elites and multinational corporations reap the benefits of globalization while ordinary people bear the costs, has created fertile ground for populist leaders who promise to prioritize the needs of "the people" over globalist agendas. Populist movements typically emerge as a response to the perceived failures of established political systems to protect citizens' interests. Populist leaders often frame themselves as champions of the common person, advocating for policies that push back against globalization and emphasize national sovereignty. They criticize international agreements, multinational institutions, and trade policies as mechanisms that benefit a select few at the expense of local economies and cultural values. The rhetoric of "protecting jobs" and "defending national identity" has resonated with those who feel marginalized or left behind by the pace of change brought about by globalization. Cultural factors also play a significant role in the backlash against globalization. The increased movement of people across borders, driven by migration, has sometimes been perceived as a threat to local cultures and traditions, fueling fears of cultural dilution or loss of national identity. Populist movements capitalize on these fears, framing migration and multiculturalism as challenges that must be controlled or reversed. This can lead to policies that are restrictive and exclusionary, impacting not just economic policies but also social cohesion and human rights. Addressing the challenges posed by globalization and the rise of populism requires a nuanced approach that recognizes both the benefits and the drawbacks of a globally interconnected world. It involves ensuring that the benefits of globalization are more evenly distributed, with policies that support workers affected by economic change, promote fair trade, and invest in education and retraining programs. Governments must also work to build trust by promoting inclusive dialogue that acknowledges the concerns of communities affected by globalization and addresses fears related to cultural change. At the same time, it is essential to counteract the divisive and often misleading narratives of populist movements with accurate information and constructive policies. Engaging in transparent communication, fostering international cooperation, and promoting cross-cultural understanding can help create a more balanced view of globalization and mitigate the appeal of extremist or exclusionary rhetoric. In conclusion, while globalization has undeniably contributed to economic and cultural progress, its uneven impact has fueled the rise of populism by amplifying economic disparities and cultural anxieties. Addressing this backlash requires comprehensive policies that prioritize fairness, inclusion, and sustainable development, ensuring that globalization works for all people rather than only a privileged few. Only through a thoughtful, cooperative approach can societies move past the divisive effects of populism and toward a more harmonious global future.

[@derikharlow1890]

I'm surprised by Peter Hall's comment that people are not concerned about growing inequality, just stagnant wages. If we saw stagnant wages across the board people would think "well that is just the state of the economy today," but when we see a large and consistent growth in salaries and wealth for just the upper class then inequality is definitely going to be an issue.

[@brucemyers323]

He seems fairly tone deaf across the board. Academic bubble.

[@MarkoKraguljac]

Thomas Frank described his ilk quite nicely. Check it out. One segment of it can be found on my channel.

[@patrickholt2270]

Other than Socialists and old style social-Gospel Christians (and Jews), most people don't care much about inequality as a brute fact. What they notice is their income becoming more and more inadequate. Inequality has its political effect by putting more and more people into that majority category of struggling. It's the demographic trend that makes the elite media increasing implausible to most people whose experience it doesn't reflect or care about.

[@spitezor]

He also manages to single out white men as the only ones who are unhappy with their loss of status and security.

[@peadarr]

The thing about economists is, they usually don't include rent and housing in cost of living calculations. So in their minds wages have kept pace with cost of living. But take rent and housing( which is the biggest single cost for most people) into consideration, this becomes ludicrous.

[@Mageroeth]

Blyth is the only person here that's seems to be outside this shitty little rich academia bubble...

[@oboogie2]

He grew up poor on public assistance.

[@nasbanditnasbandit8837]

Blyth is really really good mate, and bold... talks straight .

[@schticknic]

All you need to know about what is going on is nutshelled by the get first comment by the British moderator & her ongoing vibe. Seriously... her response to a middle class person saying "enough is enough" is "you mean peace & prosperity since WWII?" WTF is she smoking? I mean the smugness of that comment takes your breath away. Peace for whom? Prosperity for whom? Modem Capitalism​ is based on military, imperialism, murder. When the middle classes in those Western countries were doing super well financially, they could allow themselves to be Propagandized into thinking the system was ok. now they're not, and it's ALL FALLING APART. Reality had set in. Even Mark didn't push back on her vibe that "the great moderation" ever fucking existed.

[@KLM738XO]

Agree. The fact is that it isn't the EU that guaranteed peace and prosperity in Europe, it was the USA and NATO that did that,. She is extremely shallow in her thinking.

[@squamish4244]

Stephen Pinker has many good videos and talks on here about why the world isn't nearly as shitty as we think it is, and why we think it is so shitty despite all the evidence to the contrary.

[@GonzoTehGreat]

This discussion is "Western" biased. Europe and USA make up 20% of the world population while Asia makes up 60%. Africa makes up another 15% but it excluded from the discussion! If you ask Asians (and Africans) what they think of globalisation and populism you'll get different answers. The average person alive today is better off than during any earlier period in human history. The problem is people don't study history nearly enough! Poverty, inequality, war, racism, bigotry, lack of freedom, lack of opportunity etc. were all worse and more common historically speaking than they are today. Instead, what we're seeing now is a correction from a decades of hubris and arrogance - a "return to the mean" which history tells us is the norm. Unfortunately people don't handle uncertainty well, especially a generation which grew up sheltered from it!

[@kristich2891]

(After Blythe's "call to arms") Moderator: "That's NOT what academics do." Blythe: "Scottish ones do." God I love the Scots.

[@alloomis1635]

no, they don't. talk is cheap, especially for tenured dons. yanis is making some attempt, ill-designed in my opinion, but everyone else is just gossiping, for a fee.

[@fterimage]

It's only when they fear violence they'll envision solutions which don't enshrine their self-interest.

[@thelton100]

so do i.

[@scottmialltablet]

The funny thing with lots of these videos is that there's often talk about Wage Stagnation, but there's very little talk about the rise of cost of living and what is driving that rise in the cost of living. My bills have more than doubled in the past 20 years because the cost of utilities has risen and there is now a need for a new utility - the internet - which is extremely expensive. (devices to connect to the internet, updating those devices every few years so that you can still access the sites you need to access, protecting those devices from online crime, etc.) We haven't lost any old utilities, we might have had Landlines replaced with (far more expensive) cellphones, for the most part we've simply added to it. (I would like to include Cable TV in this, but that's something I've actually gotten rid of. I can't get rid of the Internet/Communications, Hydro, Water and Heating) You can include all sorts of new service charges at banks and on credit cards (which are more of a necessity today than ever before due to online purchases, online payments, online anything that usually requires a credit card), having to pay for parking damn near everywhere you go (just one concrete example where places are adding new "fees" in an attempt to make more money), adding in new taxes and fee's on gasoline (add that into the cost of transporting goods from overseas to your home country) and the rise in price for public transport all at the same time as a wage stagnation, and it's starting to come to a head. Add to that you have the "Liberal" side of the equation that is actively encouraging the destruction of some communities - particularly Rural communities, but even smaller urban communities are being included now - essentially no care for the amount of social upheaval this will entail. "If there are no jobs where you are, move to where the jobs are." is the typical line of thinking but the unspoken line is "Your old way of looking at things is bad and you should throw them away - all of them.". There is no care on the Left to the deep and impossible to measure feelings that many people have to their communities and to their literal land, which is ironic given how much emphasis the Left is putting on immeasurables like Feelings and Beliefs. Why vote for someone who is saying "Leave your family. Leave your community. Leave your history and traditions. Move to California or New York or somewhere far away. Your family, your land, your traditions, your histories are simply holding you back - throw them away. They're racist, sexist, homophobic, built on lies and theft and oppression anyway - they are bad. As long as you stay there, you are bad too."? On the Right you have parasites who are simply using these rural yokels to stay in power. Get the yokels scared that the Libruls are gunna Take Yer Guns! And Replace you with dem Illegals! VOTE GOP OR ELSE YOUR DAUGHTER IS GONNA MARRY A DAMN N... attractive and articulate urban man." They've been doing this for decades, but at least they were keeping SOME of the industries afloat in those area's (not for any care for the people there, but because you couldn't transfer coal jobs to Bangladesh and there was still a need for coal) but now that there isn't as much of a need for these industries, even the GOP is giving up on these people. Why vote for people who say "Eh, you're just another vote in the ballot box who will vote for us on command. Sit, Voter, Sit! Stay, Voter, Stay! Vote GOP Voter, Vote GOP! Good Voter. Now go back to your dying community until the next election. Oh by the way, we don't need your industry anymore, so damn those Libs and their "scientific advancement!" They're making you redundant! Vote GOP! (ignore the tax breaks I'm giving these companies to do the same things in Mexico. That's just Socialists trying to undermine Capitalism.)"? Eventually someone is going to come around who can rally people like Trump but is actually competent in running a government and pushing through their agenda. And they will overcorrect this situation - badly. My fear is that it's going to end up being profoundly anti-science and anti-reason and that it's going to be predicated on the idea of screwing the 1% above anything else.(because while Communism might hurt me... the history of communism shows that the 1% being resisted gets hurt far, FAR more in the short term. Gulags, guillotines, firing squads anyone? I'm just going to get to stand in lines for bread, but at least I'll be alive to do it.) And we'll be lucky if that goes off without any nukes being launched.

[@rathelmmc3194]

Well said, though I'm a bit more optimistic. I think we're in an era of re-correction back toward helping labor. I don't think the powerful are so dumb that they'll run the system completely in the ground to the point that a competent Trump takes over. Really Trump may turn into a "shot's fired" example. We'll see over the next decade.

[@brianarps8756]

No, "the problem" of popularism is not generated top down by politicians. Instead politicians respond to the attitudes and perceptions they discover by using focus groups and polling. Without that they would be just as confused and lost as you lot are. Specifically Trump did not create his electorate he discovered it. The exception is possibly Bernie Sanders who discovered an audience but them set out to sell them a program. That program is transforming the audience, by giving them something other than confirmation that they are right to be angry. Now they have something positive to work for. Bernie also picked up on the Occupy theme that the problem is the one percent. This is the seed of revolution and should not be ignored. A final point: don't use the term fascist. No one agrees what a fascist is, only that it isn't nice. Telling people who voted for Le Pen that they are Fascists is pointless because they know that they are not, and they also know that you are abusing them, and that just makes them turn off. Treat them with respect.

[@JosipRadnik1]

well said

[@urduib]

Good and fair points

[@Patrick-gf5xg]

Voting for a Fascist party doesn't make you a fascist.

[@squamish4244]

It doesn't help though. "How did these fascists get into power? It wasn't me!!!"

[@squamish4244]

Actually, there is a general academic agreement about what fascism is. We know what it looks like historically. But if you reject academics as elitists and history as alarmism, then what are we supposed to say?

[@ConsciousnessisRough]

Peter Hall sounds like he's stuck in 1990. And the elitism on display here (with the exception of Mark) is sickening.

[@patrickholt2270]

Parties are fragmenting, imploding and disappearing because social class as a concern and the working class interest has been driven from the parliamentary mainstream. The parties have adopted a consensus of serving the interests of the rich almost exclusively and no deviation from neo-liberal economic policies or change to rapid worsening of inequality. When previously the working class and the cause of reducing economic inequality was well represented, the electorate were highly polarised along class lines and highly loyal to the party of and for the wealthy or the party of and for workers. Then the parties were incredibly strong, politics was very stable, and the economy was much healthier and there was a tangible sense that things were improving and inequality was reducing. The parties which have shed the working class as their cause have shed that loyalty and shrunk turnouts, and worsening of inequality has accelerated to such a apace that people are desperate for a change, and it is the failure of the so-called centre-left to move back left which has been their own self-inflicted downfall. What is needed then is more class conflict to stabilise politics and fend off the extremists, not less, including recognising that what the elite and their media have been pleased to label as "centre" is in fact part of the extremism that has to be fought, which ought to be obvious to any sober observer of the imperialistic war addiction that dominates foreign affairs.

[@ElizabethAnneO1]

Patrick Holt i

[@patrickholt2270]

Say again?

[@ElizabethAnneO1]

Patrick Holt - Sorry, Pocket dial ! If I wanted to say anything it would be. Well said! I totally agree with you

[@Areflection4]

Well said!

[@celestialteapot3310]

Just checked in to see what they're saying about us in the bubble.

[@ThePriority99]

Helen Boaden, thirty years at the BBC says ' emotion not rationality ' ; typical BBC groupthink duality . Emotion is NOT the opposite of rationality , it's what we as humans need when we can't compute something . Otherwise we'd be stuck in the problem . And that same old, same old sitting above the problem looking down on the little people below. Metaphorically the little people reached for their gun and guess what they found it and pulled the trigger. Suck it up Helen.

[@AW-hd7zr]

I’ve watched many of Mark’s videos talking about the surge in populism. Something I’m not understanding though: Why do we study and analyze the rise and status of populism? Wouldn’t it make sense to also study the effects of elitism? I don’t think a bunch of intellectuals in a university discussing why people are populists is going to solve the issues that make people populist.

[@michealmurphy438]

They are right on opportunity. The evidence shows that inequality is strongly correlated with all measure of social problems, not overall wealth. Inequality correlates highly with social mobility. The inability for young people, especially young men, to distinguish themselves through hard work and effort, has an imesurable psychological effect on behaviour. Automation will make it worse, and I don't know if society is equipped to deal with it.

[@dickhamilton3517]

your description doesn't tell when this talk happened

[@HarvardCID]

Apologies for the oversight. The dates of the talk are on the opening slide to the video. April 18-19, 2017.

[@nikzanzev2402]

What is this about Romania that the interviewer was talking about? I have been out of Eastern Europe for about 15 years now and did not know that things were that bad there...

[@roc7880]

I am from Romania and I have no idea she was talking about. especially when she said about rights that survived the Nazi and Communist era and now disappear! I was not a fan of the government in 2017 but they did not any of this sort

[@spartacusforlife1508]

people are not stupid. Many may be unable to put into words the economic and political effects of modern day living but they do feel the effects. Their explanations for this may come across as idiotic and in some cases racist but they understand that things are not right. What many feel is that the wealthy get away with everything whilst they tend to feel the full force of life's inequalities. Politicians appear to represent the rich, business and bankers whilst ignoring the electorate until the elections come around. The politicians attempts to put various groups against each other worked after the economic crash but that has now waned due to how the economy has affected those same groups equally.

[@yanyannyaany]

if the academics could see the numbers for asset price inflation and fall in quality of goods/standard of living as normal people see them, they would "get it" but their charts don't have those columns. they are too silly to see inflation of financial assets (including mortgages) is no different from inflation of bread and bananas, houses are no longer affordable and the subsidized affordable food doesn't taste good... please stop calling it stagnant wages, its clearly been falling in real terms. Boomers are the ultimate entitled generation, pay the butler the same but give them selves a raise cuz they did such a good job at everything.

[@28318511]

helen needs to do little research, the uk constitution is there, just not on one organic document. question, how can you have a constitutional monarchy... without a constitution?

[@fclp67]

The female reporter here seems quite weird in that even though the guests tell her that these people are in distress and the income inequality is higher and such, she still seems to cling to that old system, because it benefits her, but it doesn't benefit the rest of society.

[@dougl8248]

Why would you "breath a big sigh of relief" if the criminals take over again?

[@ameremortal]

Some of these economists have lost touch with the real world. It reminds me of the comedians who can only write jokes about airplanes and hotel rooms after they make it in the business.

[@squamish4244]

Brexit still only won by a very narrow margin. Trump actually lost the popular vote by a large margin, against one of the most disliked candidates in recent memory, and only won due to the peculiarities of the American political system. Is that indicative of a populist backlash? To an extent, but perhaps not as much as the comment sections of these videos would have you believe.

[@fterimage]

You're ignoring the fact the left is also breaking away - Bernie, Corbyn - there's revolt there too - it's just going in two different directions away from the status quo. Most of these academics (save for ones like Blyth) aren't going to see the reality of this until they see the reality of axes getting buried jaw deep into their skulls - by then it's too late. Stupid is as stupid does.

[@g.williams2047]

There is a revolution on the left as well. The difference is that in the US, the populist right won with Trump while Bernie sold out.

[@richardburt9812]

Helen Boaden is great!

[@mrzack888]

11:00 brain fart

[@pitduck7499]

what a very very very smug lady..

[@scootjockey]

Blyth is still on the otherside of the fence,in my opinion. Excistence what does it matter i excist on the best terms i can , the past is part of the future,the present is well out of hand.

[@donaldgrant9067]

More talking and no answers.

[@theekim6625]

the dinos don't have a clue.