Have you ever considered why anyone chooses to be a globalist? It's not at all a trivial question like why someone is a socialist, a liberal, a conservative or even a nazi. All of these are directly derived from moral or cultural indoctrination or self-developed ideas. Or with the believer's own words "this is the truth".
However they are all affecting the person and his surroundings. Globalism does not. It affects people far away. One can honestly believe that an ideology or way of life is "truth". But why does he care if other people live differently. I have no idea about the political situation of Uganda or Uruguay because I don't live there and they never intruded my life. It's not about being "irrelevant", China is very relevant in the global trade and politics, yet I couldn't name 3 top ranking officials or tell how the current administration is different than the previous, because it's not my damn business. I can talk about my own country and those that intruded our politics, forcing us to resist (mainly the USA and Germany). I'm also somewhat informed about those who are supporting the liberal globalists (France, UK) and their boogeyman, Russia. But please note that all my interest is centered on my own life and any foreign actor became interesting as an attacker or an ally against these attacks. Anyone who didn't bother us (or bother those who bother us) are none of my concern.
Globalists on the other hand are very interested in the politics of countries that means no threat to them. They wage wars to change them, they sabotate elections, they pour money into "NGO"-s, lobby at home to sanction other countries, without any visible personal interest. Let me just talk about the recent news that the EU (practically: Germany) issued an ultimatum to Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic (Slovakia is missing for some reason), demanding to take migrants or face sanctions. This makes no rational sense. Taking migrants is either good or bad. If it's bad, Germany shouldn't take migrants either. If it's good, Germany should keep all the migrants. Either way, they have no reason to care about what the Eastern EU countries do with migrants.
The logic of any good faith idealist is:
Someone believing he is right is content with bringing "truth" to his circles. Only those aware of being wrong are planning on World domination, because they know they need it. "Right" will spread on its own, by envy and copy. "Wrong" must be forced upon everyone else.
However they are all affecting the person and his surroundings. Globalism does not. It affects people far away. One can honestly believe that an ideology or way of life is "truth". But why does he care if other people live differently. I have no idea about the political situation of Uganda or Uruguay because I don't live there and they never intruded my life. It's not about being "irrelevant", China is very relevant in the global trade and politics, yet I couldn't name 3 top ranking officials or tell how the current administration is different than the previous, because it's not my damn business. I can talk about my own country and those that intruded our politics, forcing us to resist (mainly the USA and Germany). I'm also somewhat informed about those who are supporting the liberal globalists (France, UK) and their boogeyman, Russia. But please note that all my interest is centered on my own life and any foreign actor became interesting as an attacker or an ally against these attacks. Anyone who didn't bother us (or bother those who bother us) are none of my concern.
Globalists on the other hand are very interested in the politics of countries that means no threat to them. They wage wars to change them, they sabotate elections, they pour money into "NGO"-s, lobby at home to sanction other countries, without any visible personal interest. Let me just talk about the recent news that the EU (practically: Germany) issued an ultimatum to Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic (Slovakia is missing for some reason), demanding to take migrants or face sanctions. This makes no rational sense. Taking migrants is either good or bad. If it's bad, Germany shouldn't take migrants either. If it's good, Germany should keep all the migrants. Either way, they have no reason to care about what the Eastern EU countries do with migrants.
The logic of any good faith idealist is:
- I know the "truth"
- Based on the "truth" I can make a better society
- Because we are better, we will be advanced and happy
- So the rest of the World will envy and copy us
Someone believing he is right is content with bringing "truth" to his circles. Only those aware of being wrong are planning on World domination, because they know they need it. "Right" will spread on its own, by envy and copy. "Wrong" must be forced upon everyone else.
24 comments:
Not quite. The globalists are working for self-interest. The point of immigration, “free” trade deals, super-national treaties like the EU, and all other globalist schemes, is to eliminate the leverage of local labor, national democratic governments, and social contracts in order to hold on to a higher proportion of profits from the economy, and consolidate as much power as possible in the hands of a small technocratic elite. It’s basically a reverse of the post WW2 order. The current globalism has been predicted with great accuracy more than 50 years ago, by authors on both the right and the left.
Very good (and long) article that just came out explaining the history of it all: https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2017/05/new-class-war/
Short snip, by George Orwell of all people:
“Capitalism is disappearing, but Socialism is not replacing it. What is now arising is a new kind of planned, centralized society which will be neither capitalist nor, in any accepted sense of the word, democratic. The rulers of this new society will be the people who effectively control the means of production: that is, business executives, technicians, bureaucrats and soldiers, lumped together by Burnham, under the name of “managers.” These people will eliminate the old capitalist class, crush the working class, and so organize society that all power and economic privilege remain in their own hands. . . . The new “managerial” societies will not consist of a patchwork of small, independent states, but of great super-states grouped round the main industrial centers in Europe, Asia and America. Internally, each society will be hierarchical, with an aristocracy of talent at the top and a mass of semi-slaves at the bottom.” Sound familiar?
There is another, far more Machiavellian reason.
Sure, it starts like an innocent game of "Civilization", where you plan your perfect city / society that runs perfectly because all the people in it are NPCs. They probably had good intentions at this stage, "help the peoples" and all that.
But at some point, these megalomaniacal shitwads realize that they don't have to "help" the people under their control, they only have to limit their options to serving them. There is huge profit in control, and power as well.
Forced introduction of "refugees" is an inspired strategy, there are billions of low rent, completely incompatible with any western society potential "refugees" available on the planet. Bring them in, have them turn the job market upside down, if you're lucky they'll cause chaos of some kind as well. At some point, the populace will welcome the military as a police to "keep them safe", while at the same time having their standard of living thrown out with the bathwater. Even better? There are loads of misguided idiots that CHEER THIS ON in the guise of being "multicultural" and "fighting racism."
At this time in history? I don't think there is any doubt that there is a zeitgeist of "globalists" heading the world to a global government under their control. You'll still get to vote "in your country" but it will mean nothing once the "Judge Dredd Future (tm)" is fully realized.
"If it's bad, Germany shouldn't take migrants either."
And beeing called Nazis by the rest of the EU (what all german politicans fear... ...serously)...
...besides this our bureaucracy is not even able to tell the difference between refugees and our own soldiers (great, eh? But they have biometrical Pictures of all Germans in their database \o/ ).
Not talking about that the rerouting of "not accepted" / "criminal" / "illegal" refugees is almost nonexistent.
Since all of this makes no rational sense...
...this whole refugees-welcome-"Propganda" without thinking rationally 5 minutes (about the non-election consequences) started this shit (roughly).
So you (the whole EU) are supposed to choke down this part of Merkels national political actions.
As you see I'd very happy seeing her re elected in 2017.
Mostly just think free trade and open borders are good for economic growth. I like money. It pays for stuff.
@Anon, Smokeman: you merely rephrased what I've said: globalists are aware that their actions are harming the World, but they do it anyway.
@Desolate: no one would have called Germans Nazis, because they had the luxury of not having to do ANYTHING to stop the migrants. There are at least 5 borders between Germany and Libya or Turkey. If Merkel just says nothing, the border countries would stop the migrants and THEY would be called Nazis by the lefties. Hungary already rounded our bunch up and placed them into camps. Then Merkel announced "let them come to Germany, we take them all"!
The migrant issue is a complicated one and is worth discussing. However, it seems you boil down the position to "if it is not in my country's self interest, we should not do it."
This approach leads to all kinds of short-sightedness and free rider problems. It can justify heavy tarriffs to prop up local industry, abusing the environment for short term profit, persecution of minority groups, and lots of other bad things.
Globalism ultimately is having the countries of the world work together much like the citizens of a single country can work together. There is nothing wrong with this.
It's about money. Don't kid yourself, it's always about money. For someone who prides themselves about understanding video game money you're surprisingly bad at understanding how real world money works.
In the long run refugees are probably a good thing. You're missing the short term. Look a couple countries south and you'll find EU countries stressed to the breaking point dealing with the economic reality of all the refugees. No single country in the EU can handle them. To the EU as a whole it's a rounding error of a rounding error. Spread them out and it's barely noticeable, don't and whichever country ends up with them will be hit hard.
The Euro isn't so much a currency, as a currency basket made up of all the different national economies of the member countries. Ruin a couple national economies trying to handle the influx of refugees and the value of the Euro tanks. Everyone in the EU suffers heavily from the destabilized currency because the EU for a whole lot of very good reasons tied the single currency Euro to it's international trade power.
You talked about globalists then provided an example that was not globalists but interventionist. The two groups frequently work together in areas of overlap but they have very different drivers. Globalists to drive trade policy (acting out of mutual self-interest) while interventionists think that those with the ability to help others have a moral imperative to use that power when they see others in need.
The Germany example is an interventionist example. As long as basic safety concerns are met, it is almost irrelevant for them whether taking migrants is a net gain/cost. The overriding imperative is that they see people in through no fault of their own and since Germany can help it should help.
@Eaten by a Grue: my starting point is "if it's not my own self interest, we should not do it"
@Halycon: I've yet to see a study that said that refugees from different cultures did anything good in the long run. Actually studies show that second generation migrants are less integrated than their parents. But even if they are good in the long run, those who want them for the long run should pay for them short run.
@dobablo: You can't be globalist without being interventionalist, as countries that refuses to open their markets must be forced and made example of, otherwise no country would do it.
Little bit of Polish perspective:
1) It is not that we are completely not taking in immigrants. Many NGO and even Church tries to accommodate refugee families. Just not by boatload. Thing is most of them sees that welfare here is 1/4 of what is in West and promptly vanish.
2) Meanwhile we are taking in many Ukrainians. Think it will be in millions soon. But they are not playing the refugee card. They are here to pick up work left by large chunk of local population, that current govt fed with enough welfare that you cannot find people to fill in lower-paying/low skilled jobs. Ukrainians do work. And I kind of suspect that we will have protests from all those lazy bums that refused to work in first place, that Ukrainians are "taking their jobs".
Globalism has many faces. On one hand you have things like online games when you can meet end interact with people around whole world. And that is great. Being able to visit most of the Earth if you wish to is great too.
Trying to fit everybody into one civilization/cultural paradigm is bad. Not only it does not take local conditions into account but can only result in widespread chaos, as you destroy local "idiot containment system" and replace it with basicaly nothing, as democracy implemented in naive manner is nothing but "self entitled idiot encouragement system".
Half of population is under average intelligence by definition. Western democracies work because there is (well, used to be) consensus about what are appropriate options. For years that consensus was forged in upper echelons of political elites and journalists, and lower classes were fed well enough to accept the "limited choice democracy" as something good.
Thing is most of the people around the globe do need authority, be it religious or otherwise, because they have no mental capability to judge for themselves. You have your gamey M&S, but they are those intelligent enough to operate computer to a degree. The pool is deeper. And without authority backed by serious threat those people do what their basic primitive instincts dictate. And if you read about things like WWII, you see just how thin is the civilization even here in Europe.
On the other hand globalist tend to think that manufactured consensus of western world can be applied globally. What they seem to forget that people only accept this consensus if either fed enough or threatened enough. In absence of these two anyone will see them as idiot nuisances they are.
I mean, just how many such agendas, like "green energy", "electric cars" and "measuring curvature of banana" you need before no-one will treat you seriously?
Lastly, there is ever present wealth transfer. ECB prints money like crazy. This whole immigrant stuff do cost serious real resources. So you have perfect storm of monetary inflation and resource crunch, which results in "middle class" being send into death row .. which is of course ignored by globalist bunch, because it is state-dependent welfare-queens who are the easy -to-pick votes (and will never vote for anybody cutting welfare). And in time, all those "immigrants" or their children will likely end up being voters, and most likely of the perma-welfare variety.
All while people that actually work are bled dry. At some point they will simply refuse to do anything beyond making appearance of work, just like they did here during "communism". Thing to look for: toilet paper shortage, it always seem to start with that.
In centuries prior there always were some place, some frontier, where man willing to work honestly can succeed. Side effect of globalism is that there is really none now.
This makes no rational sense.
erbschuld ("generational guilt" I guess is the english term), doesn't make any sense. germany is wilfully blind to the current meta and the history leading to it.
along with mass rapes and terrorist attacks.
don't underestimate our german panic to be called a "nazi". the majority still thinks these are isolated incidents without any connection, agenda or overall similar pattern behind them. the public media flat out deny talking about it and do their best to keep ethnicity and religion of attackers hidden as long as possible. and in the end they can always say that it was a cultural misunderstanding.
Sure there are some refugees in need and I would support a strong vetting process to keep them out of harms way if immediate danger warrants such action. but if they already fuck up by mixing shia and sunni together in camps they obviously don't want to understand anything and are absolutely not fit to decide at all.
If I would publicly say this. I would have to pay heavy fines under sedition laws (Volksverhetzung https://dejure.org/gesetze/StGB/130.html) and my lower to middle class life would end.
I think you are expecting too much out of pure self-interest. It is a good guide for many things, but not all things. An example is the free rider problem.
Also, about globalist versus interventionist, dobablo is right. Sure, intervenionists are globalists, in a sense, but not all globalists are interventionists. Someone could simply be a free trade proponent (against imposing tarriffs), and be a globalist.
And what in the world are you talking about with opening markets? There are so many benefits to international trade - nations have been doing it for millenia of their own free will. Remember silk road.
“@Anon, Smokeman: you merely rephrased what I've said: globalists are aware that their actions are harming the World, but they do it anyway.”
Aaa, your Ayn Rand conditioning has blinded you to the fact that all pie (economic one include) is zero sum: for someone to have more, someone has to have less. And one could always have more pie. This means no matter how much you grow it, there’s never gonna be enough for everyone, because I(or mr globalist) want all of it. Worse, I would (as a perfectly self-interested, but short-sighted, rational) prefer a system that shrinks and destroys the pie, if it means I get a bigger slice, and get more power.
For a self-interested, rational, (and short sighted) Homo Economicus , right = “what benefits me, at the expense of others”, wrong = “what doesn’t benefit me, even if it benefits others”. So then the globalists are doing what’s “right”. Sure, they can’t come out and say “we are doing a system that will enrich and hand all the power to 5-10% of us and turn everyone else into indentured serfs – vote for me!”, they have to couch the argument with all kind of BS, and then enforce the BS. Obviously on the long run it’s a terrible Nash equilibrium, everybody will lose including the globalists. Even Gordon “Greed Is Good” Gekko has come to realizing this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnduUjFr-yw
“Everybody do self-interest” only really works when everybody also has a perfect long-term/big-picture perception, otherwise the equilibrium is going to suck. Sadly the human species is big on the former, very short on the latter.
Rational explanation: Germany, with birth rate and population problem, saw an easy way to solve it with this mass of migrants. Now the reality has become clear, they change their mind and try to offload them.
"They want to prevent their people yell "look at Eastern Europe, they have no migrants and they have no problems!" and the only way to do it is exporting the same problems there."
Eastern Europe tends to export a lot of people too.
Gevlon, dont forget that Poland at least agreed to take refugees. They singed treaty and took money for it (suspendes). Now they dont want to keep up their end of the deal and EU is rightfully mad about it, because they were basicly scammed out of they money.
Taking migrants is either good or bad. If it's bad, Germany shouldn't take migrants either. If it's good, Germany should keep all the migrants.
That's a needlessly binary claim. There is such a thing as a middle ground. It would be bad for Germany to deny asylum seekers entry entirely (the wrong thing to do on humanitarian and partly economic grounds) but it would also be bad for Germany to absorb all of them, because despite German strength and efficiency they would not be able to cope with the structural strain (policing, housing, etc.) of absorbing so many people so quickly.
As you well know, it is also a test of European foreign policy. I realise Germany and France make the weather in the EU, but you cannot treat this as some bilateral meddling by Germany in Hungary's affairs. If the EU is to exist as an credible actor at all, then its member states have to abide by Union law, which Hungary is currently violating. (Dublin protocol)
Of course, if you conflate migrants, both economic and humanitarian, with "rapes and terror attacks," or in Orban's term, "disease," there is no hope for a decent discussion on the subject. Perhaps a Huxit would be the best solution.
@Gevlon: The nazi-comparsion kept other politicians and the "normal citizen" from opposing "refugees welcome".
Merkel just did the best thing for her re election and the worst possible for Germany & Europe & the refugees.
@Anon: About birth rates in Germany. This was non issie when couples did not have to keep up two jobs. And it is almost impossible getting your kid (not even think about two) into a daycare center if you are not qualified for social welfare.
@Anon, Desolate: Merkel didn't have to reject any migrants. She could tell "refugees are welcome" without having a single migrant in Germany. The Dublin rules said that EU border countries must take care of the migrants. So all she had to say "The EU takes care for all migrants according to Dublin law" and all migrants were detained in Hungarian camps. They WERE detained, the police was working around the clock collecting them.
But Merkel said "screw Dublin, all migrants can come to GERMANY". That's when they were let loose and swarmed to Germany.
@Anon: rational self interest ends when you no longer need money. Remember that Rand suggested millionaires to just stop working and retreat to their islands! If you have a million dollar and work to get another, you aren't following your interest (which is to have fun for the rest of your life with whatever way you like). You are either competing for prestige or you want to change the World!
Let me offer an alternative interpretation...
It's a raid, against an amorphous 'boss', which is mostly harmless, but some its tendrils can really hurt. Hurt really hard.
The raid consists of 8-12 people who take on the fight, risking wipes in order to figure out how to defeat the enemy.
But the group doesn't consist of just those fighters - there are at least 12 other people in the group. Some of which are clearly, overwhelmed, but one or two step up to the challenge nonetheless, even if reluctantly. But there are also some who could make a difference, but refuse to do so, because it would be inconvenient - they're doing just enough to not be kicked in order to be around for the loot drop
@Goblin, didn't you coin a term for such people?
again, GG failed to grasp the essential basics of the EU treaties.
The EU is a political union of several European states, which have agreed to honour the rules and reglementations established in the EU treaty.
In 2016, EU council decided with the majority of the EU council's members vote to share the refugees after a specific quota. Decisions of the EU council must be followed by all the member states.
The refusal of accepting immigrants who land in Greece or Italy has been an ongoing problem as Italy and Greece are mostly left alone with the refugees, immigrants and the cost of accommodating these folks. It was established in the Dublin III agreements that this burden should be shared.
Many east european member states obviously ignored that, violating the EU treaty while still collecting EU money and prospering thanks to evil Germany's investments.
Sorry, if Hungary is not happy with the decisions made in the EU, leave and pay the money back. Oh, and please take back the millions of hungarian refugees that other countries accepted only a few decades ago...
The matter you are talking about has nothing to do with globalism or meddling with other country's politics. Hungary and the other afore mentiones states are members (still) of the EU. Their leaders have agreed to respect and follow the rules established in the EU treaty. If these countries have a problem with that, the doors are always open to leave.
The EU would be far better off without east european countries with underdevelopped democratic structures, corruption issues and extreme nationalist views. These countries are mentally about 60 years behind the rest of Europe.
I would not have any issue with these "rogue" nations, if they would refrain from collecting EU's money when they do not agree to follow the rules and respect the EU treaty.
I'd be totally OK if these countries were honest and told Bruxelles that they do not intend to followe suit to the immigrant's agreement and therefore put their membership on hold...
@Gevlon
What if the "fun for the rest of life" is to make even more millions? Or competing for prestige/changing the world? Or what if I retreat to the island, have the fun (or spend it all on financing PVP), and end up spending the million. Then I need to make another one. Million is also an arbitrary number, in some cities it isn't enough to buy a 3 bedroom house, let alone islands. What's the exact bar at which someone should retire, 'cause nobody seems to have reached it. Also the tenth rule of acquisition.
On a more fundamental level, retreating from the rat race on an island isn't a tenable position, due to the second law of thermodynamics: The other people who aren't millionaires (yet) will come for you: competitive industries, tax the rich governments, pirates, thieves. So work must be put in to maintain this position, and that means you must stay in the race, keep the pressure, finance(bribe) politicians to pass favorable laws for you, hire security, and this means you must keep pumping money.
In theory the EU is an equal union of states, in reality it is just a vehicle for German imperialism. It is shown to be an unworkable construct when put under moderate stress (by economics in 2008, and by refugee problem in 2016).
It may have just worked, had Germany not reunified and once again tried to dominate the whole of Europe (Margret Thatcher worried exactly that would happen). If West and East Germany existed as separate states within the EU, then it would be more balanced. Presently it is just a recipe for resentment and will fall apart within 10 years.
Post a Comment