No Mrs. May, Brexit does not mean Brexit
Hamid Bouchikhi
Professor of management at ESSEC Business School. Membre du Conseil supérieur de l'éducation, de la formation et de la recherche scientifique, Royaume du Maroc.
Like millions of people, I went to bed very late in the night of the referendum relieved that the remain seemed to edge the leave vote with a thin margin and was shocked by the final results the following morning. And like many people, I got addicted to Brexit commentaries and debates on British, French, and international media.
Four months later, and after a salutary summer break, I have come to view the Brexit as only the visible tip of an iceberg that lies deeply and beyond the geographical limits of the United Kingdom. Contrary to Mrs. May’s "Brexit means Brexit" famous phrase, I contend that 'Brexit does not mean Brexit' and must be viewed as the localized, British, expression of a much wider and deeper problem that cannot be fixed by Britons alone.
The iceberg whose tip popped up in the UK in June 2016 grew over several decades in reaction to the dark side of globalization. While the free movement of people, goods, services and capital is morally and economically good, the politicians and business leaders who promoted them failed or did not want to recognize that human societies are complex systems where actions, even the best intended, inevitably generate unexpected and, sometimes, counter-productive consequences.
Two such consequences have been the impoverishment of large sections of Western societies and a sense of loss, true or imagined, of identity.
These symptoms are not specific to the United Kingdom and are visible to the naked eye elsewhere in Europe and in the United States. Podemos in Spain, the Five Star movement in Italy, the Afd party in Germany, the National Front in France, and Mr. Trump in the United States are tips of the same iceberg.
This is what I mean when I say that Brexit is not about Brexit but about deeper and widely shared issues that neither the UK, nor the European Union alone can fix. The majority of British citizens who supported Brexit did not only vote against staying in the European Union. Rather, they seized the opportunity of the referendum to force their leaders to take stock of the unfriendly face of globalization that came to be epitomized by the European Union project.
Ironically, the British politicians who promoted Brexit do not seem to realize the radical contradiction between the message expressed by the majority of the British people and their pledge to make the United Kingdom into a renewed champion of free trade and globalization, as an alternative to the supposedly European straightjacket. Instead of adressing the downside of unfettered free trade and globalization, British politicians want to escalate them. Following this path amounts to curing the disease with the very things that caused it in the first place. Mrs. May, who was a lukewarm remainer, seems aware of the contradiction and adopted a 'pro social' posture in the conservative party congress encapsulated in the 'country that works for everyone' slogan. It remains to be seen whether this was a mere tactical trick to sooth the anxieties expressed by the majority of Britons or the beginning of a genuine idelological reorientation of the Tory party toward a social market economy. The odds do not seem to favor the latter option.
Those who expect Mrs. May and her party, alone, to build a post-Brexit Great Britain must moderate their expectations. What is at stake is no less than the invention of a new global economic and social order where people can enjoy the benefits of free movement without being economically left on the sidelines and without feeling their collective identities under siege.
This may look like squaring the circle but I am an optimist and hope that the leaders of our world will take Brexit and other tips of the same iceberg as a mandate for balancing globalization if they don't want their peoples to throw the baby with the bath water.
Founder Quadrant Capital Management Ltd
8 年Hi Hamid, People form different world views based on their lives and experiences. True knowledge is a circle and most people can only see a small arc. So anyway this is the part that I see and I blogged about it and it got picked up by some others and reposted.... But just to summarise, the EU is unreformable and its undemocratic methods, which are exactly intentional by the framers of the EU, are actually responsible for its failure. And it will fail. The euro will break up within the next few years, this will lead to the collapse of the eurozone banking system which will cause a depression. There will be civil unrest and massive political change. Just as a driver who drives too fast in the fog and causes a pile up on the motorway is guilty of causing death by negligence, so current leaders deserve jail for their negligence and irresponsibility in foisting free movement of people and destroying subtle balances that have formed for the poorest in our societies by allowing workers livelihoods to be destroyed by being undercut by cheap imported foreign labour. How anyone can argue that this is good is inconceivable, and the result of them looking at the wrong part of the circle. So anyway, the icebergs you talk about cannot be fixed collectively because consensus can never be formed because some people do not (and will never) understand the problem and are proposing incorrect solutions and believe they have the right to use force on others to enforce their wrongness. Here's my piece https://banknxt.com/58416/brexit-positive-force/ Best regards to you.
Owner, Teachins; Investment Performance, Attribution and Risk Specialists
8 年So, all change today. Once the dust settles it may start to become apparent that the High Court decision has actually just got the PM 'off the hook'. This thread has been about the advisability of 'brexit' at all in the National Interest ... but below the surface, any of us with experience of projects can see that 'brexit'- although having a 'live date' - is not going forward as a project despite 4+ months of work. In fact the Govt can't even get past the first 'top level' decision of so-called 'hard' or 'soft' brexit ... and even this decision has become less rather than more clear in recent weeks with the Nissan decision and what compensation for brexit commitments might have been made to the company ... and what other companies consequently might expect!. It is clear to many who consider the detail that the whole project was heading for the rocks.
Doctoral Student at University of Tennessee, Knoxville
8 年Look, I'm an American high school student, so you can take this for what its worth. The citizens of the UK had a choice. From the point of view of practically every economic analyst that I've heard of, they made the choice that would be more difficult to justify the consequences of. They had the right to do this, even if it is rooted in xenophobia (although I know the English prefer the term"national identity"- don't worry, we have the same thing here in the US). We can say what we want, and obviously we will, but so long as Theresa May is PM, it looks like the UK is leaving. Globalism is indeed frightening, and nobody can blame the UK for having its doubts, but as someone who tries not to make life-altering decisions on a moment's impulse, it is difficult for me to respect the opinion of a nation who googles the body it's a member of AFTER the vote, when they should already know what the EU IS (yes, Englishfolk, feel free to hate me). Informed or not, however, it was their call, and we and they must live with the outcome. If the government does not respect the vote, they will be deemed elitist (as I'm sure I will for posting this), so the vocal pro-Leavers have them cornered. But herein lies the problem- using the global economy as a factual tool in this argument makes you elitist. In a different debate, it would make you insightful, aware of the bigger picture. That's why US students take European history. So yes, pro-Leavers, I don't know what its like to be "ruled" from Brussels, and I don't know what its like to "lose" "national identity," but using economic analysis that does not exclude the rest of the world does not make me elitist, and it does not make Prof. Bouchiki elitist.
Making it all just happen
8 年Though I agree (who doesn't?) that the EU has many flaws, I think the Brexit is a tragic mistake. It is a very clear and useful message to the bureaucrats in Brussels, but let’s hope for the Britons the Brexit will not become reality. With all due respect, Britain is not so great anymore that it can thrive by itself. The only industry basically keeping it afloat is the financial industry, and that just happens to be the industry that will be suffering the most from a Brexit. London obviously can’t be the financial capital of the EU when it is not in it anymore. See my own article for more arguments against a Brexit. A policy of isolation is never a good idea, history has proven it many times. Why be so stubborn about Brexit=Brexit when such a tiny majority voted in favor? Usually elections can be revoked every couple of years with new elections. Why not this one? It is silly not to rethink choices every once in a while.