Globalisation is killing Britain
By most parameters, be it education, healthcare and democratic participation, Britain lags behind most other 'industrialised' nations. Britain has a 'three tier' society: firstly, the public sector which eats up a huge slice of national income. Secondly, a civil society of private business working in a bureaucratic, anti-profit environment. The third constituency is the disenfranchised working class - losers in the glorious era of 'globalisation', peripheral to the main political parties, and living in the unfettered gig economy of Britain.
Three tier Britain has created a divisive society where large parts of the population feel disenfranchised. The divisions are indicative on two levels: the economic and the cultural. In the economic sphere there is the supply side issue of social mobility. On the cultural side there is also the knotty problem of free trade/protectionism. This, although appearing to be an economic choice, is predominantly a cultural one.
Governments look after their constituencies, and the constituency of the working class has shifted. It has been replaced by a managerial and bureaucratic class which appeals to the Brahmin-like Labour Party. Trump has recognised this conundrum and sees that to ignore your traditional base is historical suicide. Therefore protectionism, perceived by the disenfranchised as in their interests, goes against the idea of the 'rational' voter.
Stuck in the middle of the malaise is the lack of social mobility in the UK. A Goldman Sachs study shows how poorly the UK performs with social mobility. Sharon Bell of Goldman Sachs maintains that:
‘The primary thing is that the U.K., relative to the rest of Europe, looks pretty poor on most metrics on social mobility and things have actually deteriorated further in the last few years...’[1]
The Sutton Trust, an organisation which studies social mobility, concluded that:
‘The poor academic performance of disadvantaged boys, especially those from white working-class backgrounds, is a tragic waste of talent with a significant economic cost...’
In education, according to the Department for Education (DfE), white working class schoolchildren are less likely to go to University than ever before.[2] In Britain this is not merely an economic reality but a cultural construction. It stems from the brutal fact that globalisation has been a disaster for the British working class.
However elite governance, i.e. the Labour Party, is estranged from its traditional support base. Liberal elites shun the white working class. This is largely due to a conscious policy of deindustrialisation and the catastrophic effects on working class jobs. At the same time the state sector has turned into a Hobbesian 'Leviathan' - a 'win-win' since the destruction of employment means an uptick in social services employment.
In the US a 'New Class War', [3] is described by Michael Lind. The new elites are managerial and international in outlook. The post war consensus between Labour and Capital; the New Deal trade off, collapsed with deindustrialisation. The US is ahead of the curve now-with the Trump administration recognising their constituency. The tsunami of globalisation of course suited the western economic brief: higher rates on the return on profit and lower social incomes ( i.e., the economist Piketty's r>d). It meant cheaper consumer goods. But globalisation has led to the concentration of wealth and an acceleration of inherited wealth (Piketty). The globalist narrative is lost in the new rust belts, both in the US and Britain. It echoes, for example, Richard Reeves 'Of Boys and Men', which paints a dysfunctional picture of rootless, lost youth, having foregone the cultural ties of work and culture which had defined the working class.
The common arguments for free trade do not register with the working class. Walk outside of Chicago and one can see dereliction. Northern British cities have lost their 'telos' - there is no meaning besides a broken consumerist fetish. Free trade does facilitate the division of labour and cheaper manufacturing inputs. The argument goes that free trade leads to higher skilled jobs domestically. That’s the theory and perhaps it works in the long run - but as Keynes said - we are all dead in the long run. These new high-tech jobs haven’t materialised in Chicago, Michigan, Newcastle or Manchester.
‘Robots will do the work in the future’, it is claimed. But who will do the consuming? Capitalism needs an endless circle of consumers; hence new invented needs. The crux of the dilemma is to open up economies and invest in real growth through social mobility, root out corruption (public-private consultancy) and the dead money in bureaucracy. This will strengthen both the working class and our future.
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Brian Patrick Bolger has taught Political Philosophy and Applied Linguistics in universities across Europe. He is an adviser to several Think Tanks and Corporates on Geopolitical Issues.
