從英國脫歐 看反智主義與「厚」經濟的興起

從英國脫歐 看反智主義與「厚」經濟的興起

2016年07月09日

台新投信董事長吳火生

「歐盟完了，歐盟死了！」帶著喜悅又詫異的心情，英國獨立黨黨魁奈吉‧法拉吉（Nigel Farage）興奮地振臂吶喊。喜悅的是他鼓吹了17年的脫歐行動終於開花結果，詫異是因為他幾個小時前還認為留歐派會獲勝。然而，當天震驚的不只他一人，全球金融市場都驚呆了。這個超乎市場預期的結果不僅造成英鎊斷崖式的貶值，6/24當天全球股市總市值就蒸發了約3.3兆美元，遠遠超過雷曼兄弟破產時的1.7兆美元。

這次的英國退歐對於市場衝擊如此之大，是因為代表少數人智慧的「賭盤」，還有反映多數人意見的「民調」，及象徵集體智慧的「金融市場」在投票前都是反映留歐。綜觀近幾年全球政局的轉變，從美國茶黨的崛起，到歐洲極端主義的盛行，及全球民族主義和民粹主義的波濤洶湧來看，英國脫歐反映的不單只是金融市場失準，更確立了「反智主義」浪潮的趨勢。

所謂的「反智主義」（Anti-intellectualism） 指的是人們對事情的判斷不是出自於理智，而是來自於激情、偏見。套用在政治上來看，當人民對於現狀不滿時，會開始表達對於政治精英的厭惡和不信任，參與投票往往只是為了出一口氣，而非做出最有利的選擇。簡單來說，「我的無知和你的智慧一樣有價值」。

反智主義在近年又逐漸興起有幾個主要原因：第一，經濟復甦不符大眾期待。2008年金融危機之後，世界各國透過了大規模的貨幣和財政撙節政策，逐漸將經濟活動拉回常軌，但隨著股市和房地產等風險資產價格的上漲，同時也造成貧富差距愈拉愈大，與經濟指標好轉型成諷刺的對比。《二十一世紀資本論》的作者湯瑪斯‧皮凱提（Thomas Piketty）就點出這個所得分配不均的現象。因此對大部分經濟情況並無改善甚至過得更糟的民眾來說，對於政府和政治人物不只灰心且懷怨在心。

其次，族群衝突加深對立。原先被視為第4波民主化的中東茉莉花革命，在陷入失序的內戰後，反而演變成為近代最大的難民危機。自2010年以來，每年皆有超過150萬的難民進入歐盟，幾年下來，對於歐洲人來說，除了工作權被外來移民搶走之外，治安也亮起了紅燈，這間接刺激了歐洲極右派政黨的快速成長。包含法國國民陣線和德國另類選擇，都以極激進排外的民族主義和民粹主義訴求獲得不少的支持。這次英國的退歐，難民議題也是導致最後選情逆轉的關鍵因素。

政黨惡鬥令人厭惡，產生情緒性投票，也是問題之一。歐巴馬上任以後的大政府主張加深了和共和黨之間的摩擦，從2012年財政懸崖危機到2013歐巴馬健保，以及去年因為墮胎議題而導致國會停擺，這些不斷地爭議都讓民眾對於政治人物感到失望。這種對於傳統精英階級的不滿以及反彈，也在這次美國總統初選徹底地展現出來，言語直白帶有民粹主義的唐諾德‧川普（Donald Trump）意外獲得許多不滿現狀的藍領階級的支持，讓今年美國總統大選增添許多變數。

反智主義還有一大風險在於它存在著「連鎖效應」，各國的非主流政治可以自我助長，甚至跨境呼應。另外一點便是「集體智慧失效」，本應是金融市場基石的集體智慧，在未來預測普選型政治投票的能力會逐漸失準，因為金融市場的主要玩家是理智的、較富裕的階層，而普選投票者卻對立端的另一階層，兩端距離太遠，使得預測的有效性大幅度降低，進而使長尾風險會更常出現，而這些因為反智主義所帶來的地緣政治風險也會增加市場的波動性。

在這樣的環境下，我們的投資策略該如何調整因應？首先，試著將資產配置多元化，透過不同區域和不同資產之間的低度關聯性，來降低單一政治／社會事件所帶來的風險，同時透過動態的調整和靈活的配置來因應變化快速的國內外情勢。再者，主動避開反智主義的熱區。目前看來，歐洲在未來幾年仍會是地緣政治風險最高的區域，包含接下來奧地利的總統大選，義大利的公投，明年法國和德國的大選，再加上英國要會如何執行退歐的流程，都為歐洲帶來很大的不確定性。

我們建議可以將資金逐漸移轉至「厚經濟」（THICK）國家：台灣（Taiwan）、香港（Hong Kong）、印度（India）、中國（China）、韓國（Korea），這些亞洲國家不僅沒有難民相關議題，政治局勢相對穩定，而且估值也相對偏低，台灣股市還有世界數一數二的高現金殖利率，在未來「負利率」越來越普遍的環境下將越發凸顯吸引力。

(工商時報)

中產階級下流化不關我的事？

中產階級下流化不關我的事？

2016年07月07日

丁學文

大家都說英國脫歐會很慘、英鎊會暴跌，大不列顛會變成小英格蘭！可是我很窮，即使利己損人，我也要賭一把，所以6月23日英國老百姓公投決定脫歐；大家都說罷工會被公司開除，公司形象會崩壞，很多人搭不到飛機很可憐！可是我很窮，即使利己損人，我也要賭一把，所以6月24日華航空服員決定罷工；大家都說這幫人不懂政治，只會口出狂言！可是我很窮，即使利己損人，我也要賭一把，所以柯P大人以及川普大亨橫空出世。這個世界瀰漫著一股不滿現狀、急思突破的怒氣，難怪最新一期經濟學人要以〈憤怒政治學〉（The politics of anger）來形容現今全球反骨的現象。

曾經日不落的大不列顛，一直溫良恭儉讓的台灣，怎麼會這樣？我覺得真正原因就是大家窮怕了。看看台灣，工資20年鐵打不動，已經變成琅琅上口地理所當然，卻沒有人可以提出解決方法，愛台灣的人越來越無奈，越來越失落。原因何在？除了台灣經濟高速增長的年代不再，更因為在資本為王的時代，你不是既得利益者、富二代或官二代，你就會發現賺錢越來越難。問題是沒有可以期待的未來，沒有可以改變這種狀態的機會，曾經的激情慢慢被消磨成憤怒，終於陷入「可是我很窮，即使利己損人，我也要賭一把」的不得不。

這很奇怪，大家用著比過去更好的手機，有著比過去更夯的娛樂享受，為什麼卻有很窮的感覺？這是長期寬鬆貨幣環境下，資產畸形上漲的結果。如果你是趕上泡沫盛宴的一群，擁有不動產、有價證券，你就可以靠房價、資本利得、房租擁有穩定、不斷現金流的生活。但一般人即使工作多年，如果未持有資產，就會越來越窮。這說明什麼？說明資產比人力更值錢。人賺錢難、錢賺錢易，反映出人力資源所得回報竟然比資產低，新政府必須想方設法讓逐利資本願意追逐人才，千萬別再以台灣人才物美價廉而洋洋得意，唯有讓資本回頭爭奪人才，企業資本支出才會增加，股市動能方能重啟，人力回報一旦上升，大家就會有更多向上流動的機會。

清末，曾國藩曾說，社會大亂之前，必有三種前兆：其一是無論何事，均黑白不分。其二是善良的人越來越客氣，無用之人越來越猖狂。其三是所有問題明明嚴重惡化，卻都被合理化及默許，還以不痛不癢、莫名其妙的方式虛應一番，卻不見人願意為這艘破船補補窟窿，甚至還假裝沒有看見。憑藉台灣過去的累積，原本大家想在體制內成功，只要像狗，忠誠可靠，恪盡職守，會看家護院、保護主人就會平步青雲；想在體制外奮鬥，只要像狼一樣，靈敏快捷，願意奮鬥冒險, 就會突圍而出。在既得利益者的刻意不作為下，現在的台灣，狗不再一定有人養著，還常勞力勞心，裡外不是人。而狼再狠，面對沒有獵物的戰場，早已不再是狼和食物的較量，而是狼與狼之間的撕咬。既然體制內吃不飽還會餓肚子，體制外拚死拚活還搶不到食物，當然最後只剩哭窮及憤怒了。

日本學者Miura Atsushi在《下流社會》一書提出中產階級下流化的概念，他認為一向穩定的中產階級正在萎縮，從中產躋身上流者鳳毛麟角，淪入下流者卻源源不斷，加上網絡和社交媒體的風行，哭窮成為一種政治正確，而炫富則被集體攻擊。最後只見社會處處負面情緒，累積爆發的就是憤怒。我覺得吧，人生一世，草木一秋。大家想追求的是活得積極、向上、有樂趣的日子，沒有人喜歡生活在負面情緒、憤怒哭窮的社會。台灣已經退無可退，政府一定要創造公平環境，提供機會，讓台灣人力得到合理定價，讓大家有可以改變命運的願想。

同時，必須去除攔住年輕人中產之路的門檻，比如收入不平等、通貨膨脹、房價上漲等。簡單來說，就是要讓現在的中產階級實現人盡其才、有限收入保值增值的機會，要讓下一代有公平競爭、躋身上流的機會。人生在世，要想毫不利己，太難；只會損人不利己，太蠢。最好是人己兩利，但窮怕了，就會出現寧願利己損人，也要賭一把的怪象，這樣的台灣不會與你我無關。

（作者為創投合夥人）

(中國時報)

You Break It, You Own It

You Break It, You Own It

Thomas L. Friedman JUNE 29, 2016

The British vote by a narrow majority to leave the European Union is not the end of the world — but it does show us how we can get there.

A major European power, a longtime defender of liberal democracy, pluralism and free markets, falls under the sway of a few cynical politicians who see a chance to exploit public fears of immigration to advance their careers. They create a stark binary choice on an incredibly complex issue, of which few people understand the full scope — stay in or quit the E.U.

These politicians assume that the dog will never catch the car and they will have the best of all worlds — opposing something unpopular but not having to deal with the implications of the public actually voting to get rid of it. But they so dumb down the debate with lies, fear­mongering and misdirection, and with only a simple majority required to win, that the leave­-the-­E.U. crowd carries the day by a small margin. Presto: the dog catches the car.

And, of course, it has no idea now what to do with this car. There is no plan. There is just barking.

Like I said, not the end of the world yet, but if a few more E.U. countries try this trick we’ll have quite a little mess on our hands. Attention Donald Trump voters: this is what happens to a country that falls for hucksters who think that life can just imitate Twitter — that there are simple answers to hard questions — and that small men can rearrange big complex systems by just erecting a wall and everything will be peachy.

But I digress. Because although withdrawing from the E.U. is not the right answer for Britain, the fact that this argument won, albeit with lies, tells you that people are feeling deeply anxious about something.

It’s the story of our time: the pace of change in technology, globalization and climate have started to outrun the ability of our political systems to build the social, educational, community, workplace and political innovations needed for some citizens to keep up.

We have globalized trade and manufacturing, and we have introduced robots and artificial intelligent systems, far faster than we have designed the social safety nets, trade surge protectors and educational advancement options that would allow people caught in this transition to have the time, space and tools to thrive.

It’s left a lot of people dizzy and dislocated. At the same time, we have opened borders deliberately — or experienced the influx of illegal migration from failing states at an unprecedented scale — and this too has left some people feeling culturally unanchored, that they are losing their “home” in the deepest sense of that word.

The physical reality of immigration, particularly in Europe, has run ahead of not only the host countries’ ability to integrate people but also of the immigrants’ ability to integrate themselves — and both are necessary for social stability.

And these rapid changes are taking place when our politics has never been more gridlocked and unable to respond with just common sense — like governments borrowing money at near zero interest to invest in much-­needed infrastructure that creates jobs and enables us to better exploit these technologies.

“Political power in the West has been failing its own test of legitimacy and accountability since 2008 — and in its desperation has chosen to erode it further by unforgivably abdicating responsibility through the use of a referendum on the E.U.,” said Nader Mousavizadeh, who co-­leads the London­-based global consulting firm Macro Advisory Partners.

But we need to understand that “the issue before us is ‘integration’ not ‘immigration,’” Mousavizadeh added. The lived experience in most cities in Europe today, is the fact that “a pluralistic, multiethnic society has grown up here, actually rather peacefully, and it has brought enormous benefits and prosperity. We need to change the focus of the problem — and the solution — from the physical reality of immigration to the political and economic challenge of integration.” Schools, hospitals and public institutions generally will not rise to the challenge of the 21st century “if social integration is failing.”

Indeed, in my view, the countries that nurture pluralism the best will be the ones that thrive the most in the 21st century. They will have the most political stability, attract the most talent and be able to collaborate with the most people. But it’s hard work. Yet in an age when technology is integrating us more tightly together and delivering tremendous flows of innovation, knowledge, connectivity and commerce, the future belongs to those who build webs not walls, who can integrate not separate, to get the most out of these flows.

Britain leaving the E.U. is a lose-­lose proposition. I hope the “Regrexit” campaign can reverse Brexit and that Americans will dump Trump. Never forget, after the destruction of World War II, the E.U. project “emerged as a force for peace, prosperity, democracy and freedom in the world,” noted Eric Beinhocker, the executive director of the Institute for New Economic Thinking at Oxford. “This is one of humankind’s great achievements. Rather than let it be destroyed we must use the shock of the Brexit vote to reimagine, reform, and rebuild a new Europe.” 

Democrats Need to Wake Up

Democrats Need to Wake Up

By BERNIE SANDERS JUNE 28, 2016 Surprise, surprise.

Workers in Britain, many of whom have seen a decline in their standard of living while the very rich in their country have become much richer, have turned their backs on the European Union and a globalized economy that is failing them and their children.

And it’s not just the British who are suffering. That increasingly globalized economy, established and maintained by the world’s economic elite, is failing people everywhere.

Incredibly, the wealthiest 62 people on this planet own as much wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population — around 3.6 billion people. The top 1 percent now owns more wealth than the whole of the bottom 99 percent. The very, very rich enjoy unimaginable luxury while billions of people endure abject poverty, unemployment, and inadequate health care, education, housing and drinking water. Could this rejection of the current form of the global economy happen in the United States? You bet it could.

During my campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination, I’ve visited 46 states. What I saw and heard on too many occasions were painful realities that the political and media establishment fail even to recognize. In the last 15 years, nearly 60,000 factories in this country have closed, and more than 4.8 million well­-paid manufacturing jobs have disappeared. Much of this is related to disastrous trade agreements that encourage corporations to move to low-­wage countries.

Despite major increases in productivity, the median male worker in America today is making $726 dollars less than he did in 1973, while the median female worker is making $1,154 less than she did in 2007, after adjusting for inflation. Nearly 47 million Americans live in poverty. An estimated 28 million have no health insurance, while many others are underinsured. Millions of people are struggling with outrageous levels of student debt. For perhaps the first time in modern history, our younger generation will probably have a lower standard of living than their parents.

Frighteningly, millions of poorly educated Americans will have a shorter life span than the previous generation as they succumb to despair, drugs and alcohol. Meanwhile, in our country the top one­-tenth of 1 percent now owns almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent. Fifty­-eight percent of all new income is going to the top 1 percent. Wall Street and billionaires, through their “super PACs,” are able to buy elections.

On my campaign, I’ve talked to workers unable to make it on $8 or $9 an hour; retirees struggling to purchase the medicine they need on $9,000 a year of Social Security; young people unable to afford college. I also visited the American citizens of Puerto Rico, where some 58 percent of the children live in poverty and only a little more than 40 percent of the adult population has a job or is seeking one.

Let’s be clear. The global economy is not working for the majority of people in our country and the world. This is an economic model developed by the economic elite to benefit the economic elite. We need real change. But we do not need change based on the demagogy, bigotry and anti-immigrant sentiment that punctuated so much of the Leave campaign’s rhetoric — and is central to Donald J. Trump’s message.

We need a president who will vigorously support international cooperation that brings the people of the world closer together, reduces hyper-nationalism and decreases the possibility of war. We also need a president who respects the democratic rights of the people, and who will fight for an economy that protects the interests of working people, not just Wall Street, the drug companies and other powerful special interests. We need to fundamentally reject our “free trade” policies and move to fair trade. Americans should not have to compete against workers in low­-wage countries who earn pennies an hour.

We must defeat the Trans­-Pacific Partnership. We must help poor countries develop sustainable economic models. We need to end the international scandal in which large corporations and the wealthy avoid paying trillions of dollars in taxes to their national governments. We need to create tens of millions of jobs worldwide by combating global climate change and by transforming the world’s energy system away from fossil fuels. We need international efforts to cut military spending around the globe and address the causes of war: poverty, hatred, hopelessness and ignorance.

The notion that Donald Trump could benefit from the same forces that gave the Leave proponents a majority in Britain should sound an alarm for the Democratic Party in the United States.

Millions of American voters, like the Leave supporters, are understandably angry and frustrated by the economic forces that are destroying the middle class. In this pivotal moment, the Democratic Party and a new Democratic president need to make clear that we stand with those who are struggling and who have been left behind. We must create national and global economies that work for all, not just a handful of billionaires.

Britain’s Brexit Leap in the Dark

Britain’s Brexit Leap in the Dark

Roger Cohen JUNE 24, 2016 LONDON —

The British have given the world’s political, financial and business establishment a massive kick in the teeth by voting to leave the European Union, a historic decision that will plunge Britain into uncertainty for years to come and reverses the integration on which the Continent’s stability has been based.

Warnings about the dire consequences of a British exit from President Barack Obama, Britain’s political leaders, major corporations based in Britain and the International Monetary Fund proved useless. If anything, they goaded a mood of defiant anger against those very elites.

This resentment has its roots in many things but may be summed up as a revolt against global capitalism. To heck with the experts and political correctness was the predominant mood in the end.

A majority of Britons had no time for the politicians that brought the world a disastrous war in Iraq, the 2008 financial meltdown, European austerity, stagnant working-­class wages, high immigration and tax havens for the super­rich.

That some of these issues have no direct link to the European Union or its much­maligned Brussels bureaucrats did not matter. It was a convenient target in this restive moment that has also made Donald Trump the presumptive Republican nominee — and may now take him further still on a similar wave of nativism and anti­-establishment rage.

David Cameron, the British prime minister prodded into holding the referendum by the right of his Conservative Party, said he would resign, staying on in a caretaker capacity for a few months. This was the right call, and an inevitable one.

He has led the country into a debacle. The pound duly plunged some 10 percent to its lowest level since 1985. Global markets were rattled. Mainstream European politicians lamented a sad day for Europe and Britain; rightists like Marine Le Pen in France exulted. The world has entered a period of grave volatility.

Ever­-greater unity was a foundation stone since the 1950s not only of peace in Europe, putting an end to the repetitive wars that had ravaged generations of Europeans, but also of the global political order. Now all bets are off. A process of European unraveling may have begun.

A core assumption of American foreign policy — that a united Europe had overcomes its divisions — has been undermined. Geert Wilders, the right­wing anti­-immigrant Dutch politician, promptly tweeted: “Hurrah for the British! Now it is our turn. Time for a Dutch referendum!” The European Union is more vulnerable than at any point since its inception.

The sacred images of old — like French President François Mitterrand and German Chancellor Helmut Kohl hand­in­hand at Verdun — have lost their resonance. The travails of the euro, the tide of immigration (both within the European Union from poorer to richer members and from outside), and high unemployment have led to an eerie collective loss of patience, prudence and memory. Anything but this has become a widespread sentiment; irrationality is in the air.

The colossal leap in the dark that a traditionally cautious people — the British — were prepared to take has to be taken seriously. It suggests that other such leaps could occur elsewhere, perhaps in Trump’s America. A Trump victory in November is more plausible now because it has an immediate precedent in a developed democracy ready to trash the status quo for the high-­risk unknown.

Fifty­two percent of the British population was ready to face higher unemployment, a weaker currency, possible recession, political turbulence, the loss of access to a market of a half-­billion people, a messy divorce that may take as long as two years to complete, a very long subsequent negotiation of Britain’s relationship with Europe, and the tortuous redrafting of laws and trade treaties and environmental regulations — all for what the right­wing leader Nigel Farage daftly called “Independence Day.”

Britain was a sovereign nation before this vote in every significant sense. It remains so. Estrangement Day would be more apt.

The English were also prepared to risk something else: the break­up of the United Kingdom. Scotland voted to remain in the European Union by a margin of 62 percent to 38 percent. Northern Ireland voted to remain by 56 percent to 44 percent. The Scots will now likely seek a second referendum on independence. Divisions were not only national. London voted overwhelmingly to remain. But the countryside, small towns and hard­-hit industrial provincial industrial centers voted overwhelmingly to leave and carried the day. A Britain fissured between a liberal, metropolitan class centered in London and the rest was revealed.

Europe’s failings — and they have been conspicuous over the past decade — are simply not sufficient to explain what Britain has done to itself. This was a vote against the global economic and social order that the first 16 years of the 21st century have produced. Where it leads is unclear. The worst is not inevitable but it is plausible.

 Britain will remain an important power. But it will punch beneath its weight. It faces serious, long-­term political and economic risk. Anger was most focused on the hundreds of thousands of immigrants coming into Britain each year, most from other European Union nations like Poland. Farage’s U.K. Independence Party, abetted by much of the press, was able to whip up a storm that conflated E.U. immigration with the trickle from the Middle East.

Wild myths, like imminent Turkish membership of the European Union, were cultivated. Violence entered the campaign on a wave of xenophobia and take­our-country back rhetoric. In this light, it is not surprising that Trump supporters were delighted. Sarah Palin welcomed the “good news.” One tweet from a supporter read: “I’m thrilled with U.K. 1st step — time 4 all the dominoes 2 fall, every country to leave & end the E.U.”

Trump arrived in Britain on Friday, a timely visit. He said the vote to quit the E.U. was “a great thing” and the British “took back their country.” He did not say from whom, but the specter of our times is a dark, controlling global force stealing national identity. It is quite likely that Cameron’s successor will be Boris Johnson, the bombastic, mercurial and sometimes fact­-lite former London mayor with his trademark mop of blond hair. Johnson was a leader of the campaign for “Brexit”; he may now reap his political reward. The Era of the Hair looms.

Timothy Garton Ash, the historian, paraphrasing Churchill on democracy, wrote before the referendum that: “The Europe we have today is the worst possible Europe, apart from all the other Europes that have been tried from time to time.” It was a wise call to prudence in the imperfect real world. Now, driven by myths about sovereignty and invading hordes, Britain has ushered in another time of treacherous trial for the European Continent and for itself. My nephew wrote on Facebook that he had never been less proud of his country. I feel the same way about the country I grew up in and left.

Brexit’s Stunning Coup

Brexit’s Stunning Coup By TONY BLAIR JUNE 24, 2016 London

— THE decision of British voters in Thursday’s referendum to leave the European Union will have vast consequences for Britain, for Europe and for the world. For a day, the British people were the government, and by 52 percent to 48 percent, they took the decision to go.

I was a British prime minister who believed completely that Britain’s future lay in Europe. I was the prime minister responsible for legislating substantial selfrule in Scotland so that it would remain part of the United Kingdom. I negotiated the Good Friday Agreement so that Northern Ireland could be at peace within Britain. Because the result of the referendum has put so much of this at risk, Friday became a day of great personal, as well as political, sadness.

The immediate impact of the Brexit vote is economic. The fallout has been as swift as it was predictable. At one point on Friday, the pound hit a 30­year low against the dollar, and a leading British stock index had dropped more than 8 percent. The nation’s credit rating is under threat. The lasting effect, however, may be political, and with global implications. If the economic shocks continue, then the British experiment will serve as a warning. But if they abate, then populist movements in other countries will gain momentum. How did this happen?

The right in British politics found an issue that’s causing palpitations in the body politic the world over: immigration. Part of the Conservative Party, allied with the far­right U.K. Independence Party, took this issue and focused its campaign to leave Europe on it. This strategy could not have succeeded, though, without finding common cause with a significant segment of Labour voters. These Labour supporters did not get a clear message from their own party, whose leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was lukewarm about remaining in the union. They were drawn by the Leavers’ promise that Brexit would bring an end to the country’s perceived immigration problems. And, worried about their flatlining incomes and cuts in public spending, these Labour voters saw this vote as an opportunity to register an anti­government protest. The strains within Britain that led to this referendum result are universal, at least in the West. Insurgent movements of left and right, posing as standardbearers of a popular revolt against the political establishment, can spread and grow at scale and speed.

Today’s polarized and fragmented news coverage only encourages such insurgencies — an effect magnified many times by the social media revolution. It was already clear before the Brexit vote that modern populist movements could take control of political parties. What wasn’t clear was whether they could take over a country like Britain. Now we know they can.

Those in the political center were demonized as out­-of-­touch elites, as though the people leading the insurgency were ordinary folks — which, in the case of the Brexit campaign, is a laughable proposition. The campaign made the word “expert” virtually a term of abuse, and when experts warned of the economic harm that would follow Brexit, they were castigated as “scaremongers.” Immigrants were described as a bunch of scroungers coming to grab Britons’ jobs and benefits when, in reality, the recent migrants from Eastern Europe contribute far more in taxes than they take in welfare payments. And besides, immigration to Britain from outside the European Union will not be affected by the referendum decision.

The political center has lost its power to persuade and its essential means of connection to the people it seeks to represent. Instead, we are seeing a convergence of the far left and far right. The right attacks immigrants while the left rails at bankers, but the spirit of insurgency, the venting of anger at those in power and the addiction to simple, demagogic answers to complex problems are the same for both extremes. Underlying it all is a shared hostility to globalization.

Britain and Europe now face a protracted period of economic and political uncertainty, as the British government tries to negotiate a future outside the single market where half of Britain’s goods and services are traded. These new arrangements — to be clear about the scale of the challenge — must be negotiated with all the other 27 countries, their individual parliaments and the European Parliament. Some governments may be cooperative; others won’t want to make leaving easy for Britain, in order to discourage similar movements. Britain is a strong country, with a resilient people and energy and creativity in abundance. I don’t doubt Britons’ capacity to come through, whatever the cost. But the stress on the United Kingdom is already apparent. Voters in Scotland chose by a large margin to remain in Europe, with the result that there are renewed calls for another referendum on Scottish independence. Northern Ireland has benefited from virtually open borders with the Republic of Ireland. That freedom is at risk because the North’s border with the South now becomes the European Union’s border, a potential threat to the Northern Ireland peace process.

If the people — usually a repository of common sense and practicality — do something that appears neither sensible nor practical, then it forces a period of long and hard reflection.

My own politics is waking to this new political landscape. The same dangerous impulses are visible, too, in American politics, but the challenges of globalization cannot be met by isolationism or shutting borders. The center must regain its political traction, rediscover its capacity to analyze the problems we all face and find solutions that rise above the populist anger. If we do not succeed in beating back the far left and far right before they take the nations of Europe on this reckless experiment, it will end the way such rash action always does in history: at best, in disillusion; at worst, in rancorous division. The center must hold. Tony Blair was the prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland from 1997 to 2007.

‘Brexit’ Revolt Casts a Shadow Over Hillary Clinton’s Cautious Path

‘Brexit’ Revolt Casts a Shadow Over Hillary Clinton’s Cautious Path

By PATRICK HEALY JUNE 25, 2016

For Hillary Clinton, Britain’s emotionally charged uprising against the European Union is the sort of populist victory over establishment politics that she fears in the coming presidential election.

Mrs. Clinton shares more with the defeated “Remain” campaign than just their common slogan, “Stronger Together.” Her fundamental argument, much akin to Prime Minister David Cameron’s against British withdrawal from the European Union, is that Americans should value stability and incremental change over the risks entailed in radical change and the possibility of chaos if Donald J. Trump wins the presidency.

She offers reasonableness instead of resentment, urging voters to see the big picture and promising to manage economic and immigration upheaval, just as Mr. Cameron did. She, too, is a pragmatic internationalist battling against nationalist anger, cautioning that the turmoil after the so­-called Brexit vote underscores a need for “calm, steady, experienced leadership in the White House.”

But prudence is cold comfort to people fed up with more-­of-­the-­same. According to their friends and advisers, Mrs. Clinton and former President Bill Clinton have worried for months that she was out of sync with the mood of the electorate, and that her politically safe messages — like “I’m a progressive who gets results” — were far less compelling to frustrated voters than the “political revolution” of Senator Bernie Sanders or Mr. Trump’s grievance-­driven promise to “Make America Great Again.”

 Mr. Sanders and Mr. Trump won a combined 25 million votes during the primary season, compared with 16 million for Mrs. Clinton. And while many of Mr. Sanders’s supporters are expected to support her in November, she has not recalibrated her message to try to tap into the anger that he and Mr. Trump channeled. Nor does Mrs. Clinton have any plans, advisers say, to take cues from the Brexit campaign and start soft­pedaling her support for globalized markets, or denouncing porous borders, illegal immigrants and the lack of job protections in free­trade agreements. Much distinguishes the presidential contest from the British fight, of course, including a head-­to­-head matchup between well­-known candidates, a sharply different economic context, and a long and proud history of immigration.

Yet in addition to worrying that she is out of step, Mrs. Clinton is somewhat hemmed in by her record: She supported her husband’s North American Free Trade Agreement, which caused significant economic pain in the industrial Midwest after it went into effect in 1994. And her nuanced views about free trade are a harder sell to many voters than Mr. Trump’s fire­-breathing vows to trash bad trade deals and use tariffs as economic weapons of national defense.

While Mrs. Clinton is counting on Mr. Trump’s history of racist and sexist remarks to doom his candidacy, Thursday’s Brexit referendum was an unnerving reminder that voter anger is deeper and broader than many elite politicians and veteran pollsters realize.

In swing states like Ohio, many Democrats and Republicans yearn for an economic comeback and are not confident that Mrs. Clinton understands their frustrations or has the ideas and wherewithal to deliver the sort of change that could satisfy them.

“Brexit is clearly a cautionary tale for the Clinton campaign not to get too complacent with a potential victory,” said David B. Cohen, a professor of political science at the University of Akron. “Trump, Sanders and those in Great Britain who ran the Leave campaign are tapping into an anger and anxiety that is clearly festering. Working­-class folks in the United States are similar to working­-class folks in Europe. And a lot of those working­-class people feel as if the international economic system is not working for them and strangling the middle class.”

Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist, said the British vote was the clearest sign yet that “the intensity against the status quo is far more real than many are still willing to acknowledge.” “If the Trump victory in the primary wasn’t enough of one, the Brexit vote serves as a major wake­up call indicating just how frustrated average voters are with those in power,” Mr. DuHaime said.

Several Democrats cautioned against drawing too many lessons from the Brexit vote, saying mass immigration and economic malaise were bigger problems in Britain and the European Union than in the United States. They also said many British voters were revolting against a bureaucracy in Brussels that they regarded as bloated, overpaid and prone to interfering in the affairs of sovereign countries.

Yet the Democrats acknowledged that the worldview held by Mrs. Clinton and many of the party’s elites was not as attractive to many voters as it once was. “Liberal internationalism seems to have been dying for a while,” said Mark S. Mellman, a Democratic pollster who is not involved with the Clinton campaign. “But while that may be the animating philosophy of foreign policy intellectuals the world over, it is not the animating philosophy of America, nor of our domestic politics.”

For Sean Harrington, a husband and father of three who owns the Town Pump Tavern in downtown Detroit, the support for free-­trade deals and international markets cannot die fast enough. Taking a break from his bookkeeping duties on Friday, he said President Clinton’s economic policies were still “ruining the economy” by giving benefits to large corporations that move jobs overseas, while in states like Michigan, “the average work force loses.” “If my fellow Americans were doing better, there would be more money around and traded in and out of my pockets,” said Mr. Harrington, a registered independent who is undecided between Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Trump.

On the campaign trail, Mrs. Clinton regularly pledges to “make sure our economy works for everyone, not just those at the top,” as she put it on Wednesday in Raleigh, N.C., where she also promised to reject “bad trade deals and unfair trade practices.” She also argued in favor of Britain’s remaining in the European Union.

But she was not surprised that the “Leave” campaign won, her advisers said Friday, because she understands the extent of voter anger. Her advisers said they were confident the referendum in Britain did not mirror the presidential election in the United States. “These are two different countries, with very different circumstances and demographics, facing different choices,” said Jennifer Palmieri, Mrs. Clinton’s communications director. “We believe American voters are looking for concrete solutions to address their economic frustrations and unlikely to find the turmoil, economic uncertainty and roiling of markets caused by the Brexit vote particularly appealing.”

Frank Luntz, a Republican expert on political messaging, said Mr. Cameron and the “Remain” camp had failed to “personalize, individualize or humanize their campaign.” The “Stronger Together” slogan shared by the “Remain” campaign and Mrs. Clinton feels bloodless and overly intellectual compared with the more emotional, country­-first appeals of Mr. Trump and the “Leave” movement, he said. “The problem with the concept of ‘together’ is that it promotes groupthink rather than individual pursuits,” Mr. Luntz said. “We are in an age of individual action, not collective responsibility.”

Mrs. Clinton’s arguments against Mr. Trump often require a great deal of explanation to voters, which can sometimes turn them off. While Mr. Trump thrills his audiences with big promises — without saying much about how he would fulfill them — Mrs. Clinton can get caught in the gears of policy. One recent exception was a foreign policy speech in early June, when she hit a rhythm and ripped into Mr. Trump with memorable lines like “He says he has foreign policy experience because he ran the Miss Universe pageant in Russia.” But when Mrs. Clinton takes pains to explain why Mr. Trump’s promises and policies do not add up, or are too risky, she runs a risk of her own: that she will sound as though she is instructing or talking down to her audience.

Not many voters want a lecturer as president. “A slogan and a message must be aspirational — either give people hope things will get better or that the bad stuff will stop — both,” said Ruth Sherman, a political communications analyst who is not affiliated with any campaign. Referring to one of Mrs. Clinton’s taglines, she said: “Hillary’s ‘I’m with her’ — I remember thinking when I first saw it, ‘Really?’ It’s not my job to be with her. She should be with me.”

If Mr. Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is resonant — “by far the best slogan of all the candidates,” Ms. Sherman said — Mrs. Clinton is counting on voters to appreciate policy ideas that are more strategic than feel­-good. She argued in Raleigh, for instance, that markets like the European Union “work best when all the stakeholders share in the benefits.” While that statement was hardly in the aspirational vein that Ms. Sherman recommends, it set a clear goal and was less divisive than Mr. Trump’s comments on the British referendum.

The American electorate has tilted this year toward presidential candidates who make them feel as much as think, but Mrs. Clinton and her allies hope that voters will reflect on the vote in Britain and opt for the steadiness and predictability that she promises. “I don’t think the average American who has a retirement account right now is thrilled about Donald Trump’s support of Brexit,” said Thomas R. Nides, who was a deputy secretary of state under Mrs. Clinton.

“Hillary Clinton understands we always need to change — but change that doesn’t cause unintended consequences for the average American.” 

Brexit and Europe’s Angry Old Men

Brexit and Europe’s Angry Old Men

Jochen Bittner JUNE 24, 2016 Hamburg, Germany —

I WAS born in 1973, the year Britain entered the European Economic Community. And like Britain, I have always been skeptical about the quasi­religious, ever­closer­union ideology that gripped so many proponents of the European Union, especially the anxious old men of my parents’ generation, who swore that the only alternative to unification was a relapse into nationalism.

And now this. Just as Europeans of my generation were being relieved of those anxious old men, another type stepped onstage: the angry old men.

These politicians — men and women, to be sure — are young enough not to have experienced world war, but they are old enough to idealize the pre­1989 era and a simpler, pre­globalization world. At the same time, they are obviously too sclerotic to imagine how democratic institutions can adjust to the new realities. With their aggressive posturing, these Nigel Farages, Marine Le Pens, Geert Wilderses and Donald J. Trumps are driving the debate — and possibly driving the West off a cliff. “It’s a victory for ordinary, decent people who have taken on the establishment,” declared Nigel Farage, the head of the U.K. Independence Party.

Rubbish. It was a victory for people who have neither the guts nor the imagination to take on the downsides of globalization. Yes, globalization and Europeanization have taken their tolls, both on traditional forms of democracy and on traditional job security. But instead of tackling these problems, the Farages of the world have started the next ideological war. There was a time when I thought the pro­European ideologues were the ones who were out of touch.

I remember, not too long ago, watching one of them in full flight. It was Martin Schulz, the president of the European Parliament, giving a speech at a German university. He started by asking the students in the lecture hall to imagine how many of them would actually be sitting there if this were the year 1945. About half of you would be dead, Mr. Schulz said, as his index finger drew a line across our heads, and many others would be crippled and wounded. Wow, I thought, what a splendid opening for a debate on the shortcomings of the European Union.

Even though Europeans of my age do believe in Europe, the righteous theatrics of the integrationists were hard to endure. But now our future is in danger of being taken away by the other extreme, by the maniacs of disintegration.

A YouGov poll conducted in the run­up to the British referendum showed that the vote for Brexit was very much one of the old against the young. The older the voter, the more he or she was inclined to leave. Some 64 percent of the age group from 18 to 24 said they would vote for Remain; just 35 percent of those between 50 and 64 wanted to stay.

We — the young, optimistic millions across Europe — cannot lose the West to Mr. Farage and his ilk, to demagogues who have actually much more in common with the scapegoating culture of the Arab world they so despise than with the enlightened, rational tradition of Europe.

 We can still repair the damage done to democracy in our rush to move beyond national borders by admitting to the problems. If, for instance, European internal migrants really have lowered the wages in Britain, this is a serious problem. But it can be dealt with through, say, stricter control of the labor market — not abandonment of the entire framework for European cooperation. Instead, migrants and refugees have become the vessel for the charge that the mighty at the top have unleashed a form of uncontrolled globalization whose effects will hit the people at the bottom hardest.

Predictably, the German chancellor Angela Merkel’s welcome­mat policy to refugees, and her insistence that Europe follow her lead, will be blamed for much of the momentum behind the Leave vote. And that’s fair. As principally right as her message was, the chancellor did little to correct the impression that Europe was suddenly welcoming everyone, and that elites like her didn’t understand the consequences of their actions.

Yet it is dangerously foolish to believe that, with or without Ms. Merkel’s policies, Europe can somehow shut its doors and ignore the pressing weight of the developing world on its borders — or that European countries are better positioned to respond individually, rather than as a unified whole. The British vote feels momentous, but we will most likely look back at it as merely the first in a series of fights for the soul of Europe.

The outpouring of anger and anti­establishment aggression in Europe has only begun. The next countries where the political bulldozers see their chances to act out their long-kept lust for demolition are the Netherlands and France. We can no longer think of reconciliation between the opposing views of destruction and progress. The angry old men will not be mollified, their xenophobia cannot be controlled or channeled into constructive cooperation. We, the young, the future of Europe, must push back. Too much time has been lost already.