* First of all, globalisation is not a “scheme” for the rich to get richer. The economic advantages of the free exchange of goods, ideas and people are well understood going back to Adam Smith and David Ricardo. I am not getting into this, but at least 10 Nobel Prizes in economics had this as a theme over the past half a century.
Secondly, globalisation is not really an economic or political phenomenon, but rather a technological one. Globalisation has been fostered mostly by the dramatic increase in communication and transport technologies over the past 40 years. Such technological developments make the exchange of goods, services and capital between countries much easier than they were decades ago.
The fundamental problem is that conservatives assume the World to be static. They think that, because nations are a reality, that they always wil be and that if something is disrupting that it must be a conspiracy. The nation-state is a modern invention. In the ancient World humans lives either in tribes, city-states or empires. The only state with any large territory in the past were empires. The political entity was the city-state.
There is a pattern here that started in the Paleolithic Era and has hold true since then, of tribes coming together to form larger and more organized structures(cities). Cities expanding their territories to become even larger and more organized entities(nations). And now, national borders are falling apart due to advancements in communication and transport technologies, and nation-states are slowly dissolving into something even larger, namely, a true global civilization. But conservatives don’t notice the trend.
What is happening is that, due to the advancements in technology, we are progressing to become a Type I civilization in the Kardashev Scale. That is, a true global civilization. Because this process is technological, it cannot be stopped politically, only slowed. Nationalist movements wil omly stall temporarilly the process, but not stop it.
Also, Sailer’s denunciation of “universalist” morality is baffling. It is baffling because he tries to argue that caring for human beings based on their human condition irrespective of where they are born is less moral than determining their humanity based on whether or not they were born in an arbitrarilly set geographical construct(a nation). Yes, Sailer, it is so terrible to consider a human being born far away just as human and worthy of his humanity as a human being born close to me. I guess I am a monster(sigh). Assigning worth to human beings based on geography is irrational, more arbitrary and less rational than assigning it based on whether they are human or not. Hence, “universalist” morality IS more moral than the particular brand of particularist morality Sailer subscribes to(citizenism)
As for the rich wanting cheap labor, that is true. No one like to pay more for stuff than less. The people that work for the rich are also like that, and try to bargain prices just as the rich do. That’s human nature.
However, you are wrong, Sailer, that the elite does not believe in “universalist” morality and are only vouching for it for profits. They do. The daughter of a rich white man is far more likely to marry a rich Chinese man with a Harvard degree than an alcoholic white bum or construction worker. The elite tend to be intelligent, and intelligent people tend to TRULY dislike ethnocentrism and tribalism. That doesn’t mean that they don’t discriminate. They do. But their discrimination tends to be more sophisticated than that. Rich people care more about things like education, income and table manners than they do about race and nationality. Their discrimination is perceived by them to be more moral because it is based on PERSONAL attributes, and not attributes that do not depend on merit, like nationality or race. Education, income and manners are all things that can be changed by volitional effort. So the elite thinks that it is ok to discriminate based on this criteria because these are all things that you have at least some control over and therefore can be used to gauge your character. The elite considers discriminating someone based on their nationality or race to be distasteful because these are things that you can’t change. Therefore, it is cruel and unfair to discriminate someone based on that. The elite tends to be intelligent, and intelligent people tend to be more ethic than dumb people. How many rich people you see engaging in murder? Or even hooliganism or drunkeness? Because they are intelligent, they use a more sophisticated moral criteria to determine whether they like someone or not, one based on personal traits and merits and not on things that you can change such as race and nationality, which are accidents of birth. The elite TRULY dislikes racism and nationalism because nationalism is seen as a form of tribalism where people who are not members if the tribe are de-humanized irrespective of their personal traits as human beings. I know many, many elite people and I can assure you that they do believe in their core moral values. I see rich people doing business and even marrying with people of other nationalities and races all the time, as long as they like them on a PERSONAL level.
* People know ‘who they are’.
The Japanese know ‘who they are’.
The Chinese know ‘who they are’.
Jewish people know ‘who they are’.
Indians know ‘who they are’.
Palestinians know ‘who they are’.
Blacks know ‘who they are’.
But only with whites, or more properly the forces that control discourse in white society, has this utterly dangerous, ridiculous nonsensical downright fiction arisen in the past half century that white people cannot ‘know who they are’.
* The ‘remain’ camp were full in with their talk of doom and gloom, ‘experts’ and ‘emergency budgets’.
Yet, a week after brexit the FTSE is back where it was, and the pound has stabilized a few percentage points below last week’s level. Yields on British government bonds are, in fact, now lower.
Surely, if brexit would cause economic catastrophe – as was widely prophesied last week, the collapse in sterling and the consequent massive jacking up of interest rates would have happened *immediately* after the brexit vote, as investors responded to the shock of economic meltdown – any delayed reaction, surely, cannot be due to brexit – as the fact is now known.
I’ve lived through enough British economic crises such as ‘Black Wednesday’ in 1992, so I know what economic turmoil looks like. This has been nothing of the sort. The markets have taken it in their stride.
So much for the ‘experts’.
* In the debate over Brexit 2, the departure of the England soccer team after an unexpected defeat by Iceland, most of the blame is being laid on the blond goalkeeper, Joe Hart. No word yet on whether the team’s lack of tactical sophistication resulting in players running around like headless chickens could have been related to the ethnic balance of the team.
* The old English soccer teams were not always that successful on the international stage but at least they played as a team, were reasonably entertaining and wholly committed to fighting for their country; were proud to be in the team.
In the last two decades things have gone pear-shaped: players appear to lose all sense of build-up, tactics, sobriety when they run out. This may reflect the crowding out of England eligible players by foreigners in the Premier League. But it also appears to reflect a decline of character; perhaps also a loss of indentity with England qua England.
I am agnostic on whether an ethnically mixed team has a similar cohesion and spirit as an ethnically homogeneous team outside of the money-orientated playing systems of the PL.
But my interest in following England has declined with the decline in the number of white players. This is not because is disrespect or dislike the non-white players but because a national team that increasingly does not look like the nation (even now) does not hold the same romance and feeling that “our lads” are out there battling foreigners on my behalf. Numbers matter. Other games may be different; soccer is the national game.
(The manager of the French team before the Euros was accused a racism for leaving out a couple of non-white players when there were only about four white players in the starting line-up. It may not be a coincidence that soccer is not terribly popular in France.)
* Galut is Hebrew for exile or diaspora – in other words Jews living outside of Israel. Zionist theory was that living in galut was distorting to the character of Jews, turning them into rent seekers, sycophants, etc. but they would be a normal people back in their own country and pursue honest work like picking oranges instead of being Fed Chairmen. I don’t think it quite worked out that way.
* British political customs tend to be a little better than American political customs.
Part of it is that Prime Ministers aren’t deified the way American Presidents have been, especially since Pearl Harbor. Notice that American Presidents never have a job again after they leave office, not since John Quincy Adams went into the House. But former PMs can rise again, the way former PM Balfour became Foreign Secretary.