Will voters evolve after Brexit?

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 02/07/2016 (3511 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Some 30 years ago, sitting in a Brandon University economics class taught by the late Errol Black, my fellow student Kevin Chambers and I mulled the coming developments in the then-termed European Union/European Common Market. Obviously this was long before the credit crunch of 2008, or Greece’s economic collapse, or similar almost-crashes in Spain and Italy.

The conversation, as best I recall, rotated around the concept of how nations that had long despised each other, and battled in countless wars, could dismiss historical hatreds in some neo-liberal iteration of a brave new world in which intellectualism triumphs all.

Could the Germans and French, the bitterest of foes only decades before, surrender their economic sovereignty to the European headquarters in Brussels? Could Belgium trust the Germans? Likewise, Greece. Likewise, Poland. You get the idea.

Would nations give up control over fiscal and monetary policy? In fact, it appears they didn’t. Greece, as a case in point, simply lied about their fiscal straits to the EU in a bid to join. The EU, to its everlasting detriment, failed to do its basic due diligence. The rest is history.

How would nations with generous social safety nets deal with the free movement of immigrants throughout the EU? After all, if free movement is a central tenet of eliminating borders, then sensibly those in need would seek more generous living conditions. This would undoubtedly overwhelm the host nations.

As we saw last week in England, by and large rural voters, perhaps less sophisticated in the media’s eyes, supported the notion of leaving the European Union. The result was tumultuous — markets and currencies were roiled. The very future of the EU, and perhaps other multinational trade agreements, is now in jeopardy.

Thirty years ago, those two university students didn’t foresee the future — they were simply questioning whether human nature evolves in the long-term. The United Nations hasn’t put a stop to all wars. It hasn’t even stopped genocides. Can education, negotiation and enlightenment, or so we think, lead us away from human emotions such as anger, greed, tribalism and conflict? It appears humans haven’t evolved much since we started walking the Earth upright.

So what happens from here?

My hope is that we educate ourselves about the price of both “cheap” and globalization. That is, our desire to claim the benefits of globalization, and there are many, has led us to forgo the benefits of having our own diversified domestic economy. High-paying manufacturing jobs have migrated to lower cost jurisdictions and we have not benefited to a promised degree from advances in technology. In real terms, too few people have enjoyed economic gains for decades while tremendous wealth is accruing to the privileged in our society.

This type of anger was behind the Tea Party’s surge in 2008, and behind the popularity of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders in 2016. In a complicated time, facing the cutting edge of globalization, higher taxes, and failing to benefit from technological advances, the middle and working classes are being squeezed like never before, and there is tangible anger in the voting public.

Is it unreasonable to expect voters to distrust the same politicians who gave them the EU, with its wide open immigration, higher taxes and falling quality of life? While the EU didn’t cause all of these issues, it existed at a time in which these trends exploded. This doesn’t imply “cause and effect,” but the overlapping of globalization and stagnant job growth/wealth creation doesn’t auger well for politicians telling “commoners” how simplistic they are and that their opinions don’t matter.

The same is true of the North American Free Trade Agreement. It promised wealth but has only delivered on this promise to some. Is it so difficult to believe voters out there, fearing for their own survival, are willing to embrace angry, jingoistic buffoonery rather than talk seriously about issues in a constructive manner?

This is particularly true when the very people who got us here are telling us to stay the course with only their highly-priced credentials to justify these arguments.

My philosophy is that open markets and technological innovation will ultimately resolve many issues currently troubling us — but to simply dismiss the reasonable fears expressed by those not participating in this new economy is to fail them. It is my hope this Brexit referendum will help voters focus, understand the importance of their rights and obligations in a free society, and to take their franchise seriously.