Defending openness with cognitive closure

The Economist recently had a piece claiming that the left-right divide had been overtaken by the open-closed divide. It had this to say on the Brexit vote: 

So far, Britain’s decision to leave the European Union has been the anti-globalists’ biggest prize: the vote in June to abandon the world’s most successful free-trade club was won by cynically pandering to voters’ insular instincts, splitting mainstream parties down the middle.

Really? There were no legitimate concerns behind the Brexit vote?

Two-thirds of British voters voted for the EEC (i.e. the European Communities aka Common Market) in 1975, yet a 52-48% majority voted against the EU in 2016. Had British voters suddenly become more stupid or gullible in the intervening 41 years? Or had circumstances changed? Had what they were being sold changed?

No, yes and yes.

A different Europe
Immigration has accelerated, and its implications have changed. The approved model has gone from assimilation (newcomers adapt to residents) to multiculturalism (residents adapt to newcomers) along with a Muslim religious revival which accentuates visible differences in clothing (pdf) and associates it with violence. (An immigration policy which kills citizens is a problematic immigration policy: particularly when it does so into the second generation.)

The provincial working class lost political defenders as the modernist left became postmodern progressivism. Importing new voters reduces the provincial working class's political significance further while increasing pressure on government services and redistributing the benefits of economic growth away from the indigenous working class.

The Economist tells us that Brexit was a vote against:

the world’s most successful free-trade club ...

The EEC was the most successful free trade area, the EU is very much not--not a successful free trade area (thanks to the Euro, economic growth has flatlined in much of the EU) as well as not just a free trade area but something which aspires to far more. Over 40 years of experience had greatly reduced voter support for the EU-that-is compared to the EEC-that-was.

Nor did it help that the UK did not join the Euro. First, the Euro is a huge statement of future intent. Secondly, it was a dramatic demonstration of EU failure, of how not joining in the Ever Greater Union roller-coaster could be a very good idea. Just as it did not help that the UK had not opted to join the Schengen agreement, for essentially the same reasons.

Treating opposition to the actually-existing-EU as simply malefic opposition to "openness" is being remarkably obtuse. One does not defend an open society with such cognitive closure.

There is evidence that the EU continues to (on balance) increase economic freedom. Faced, however, with a choice between increased accountability and increased economic freedom, I will pick increased accountability every time: it is so much the better long term bet. Indeed, it precisely the way that EU processes profoundly muddied who was responsible for what which helps explain the popular antipathy.

Undermining social bargaining
The Economist cites the EU as an example of international integration. In a phrase, institutionalised globalisation.

Economist Kevin O'Rourke (whose work with Jeffrey Williamson is necessary reading to understand the nature of globalisation) has pointed out that globalisation produces losers, that the Brexit backlash "has been a long time coming". His immediate conclusion is that the solution to more immigration is more government services, citing economist Dani Rodrik's claim that markets and states are complements.

This is to misread the evidence he is citing about European states in the C19th and early C20th. Yes, more highly taxed states were more open, but this was more consequence than cause. They were able to sustain the (relatively) high tax/high openness balance by having inclusive and effective social bargaining. Which is precisely what the pomo progressivist embrace of language taboos, the rhetoric of denunciation (racist! sexist! xenophobic! etc), identity politics, judicial activism (specifically, social change by judicial decision) and internationalisation all seriously undermine.

In particular, much of the function of contemporary immigrant politics [about immigration] is precisely to strip status and positive attention from the resident (white) working class, which leads to precisely the politics of neglect O'Rourke is complaining about. 

Why on earth would one think that, given the dynamics of contemporary politics, expanded government action would be to the benefit of the backlash voters? Ask the residents of Rotherham how much the Progressivist Ascendancy state is not on their side. 

The historical cases that O'Rourke is citing were also not immigrant states; if anything, they were emigrant states. His suggestion that supporters of openness, in effect, tell citizens that they should pay higher taxes (either now, or in the future through greater public debt) to expand services to incorporate extra migrants just pushes the political scarcity problems to the next level.

Moreover, the more diverse the incoming migrants, the more difficult inclusive social bargaining becomes, due to increased diversity in preferences and expectations and increased difficulties in information flows. Conversely, mass emigration tends to select for more social conformity among the remaining population, as those who differ are more likely emigrate, thereby making inclusive social bargaining easier among the citizens who stay.

It is so much easier to have a high services/high openness social bargaining in overwhelmingly monocultural societies (Scandinavia) or explicitly specific-pillar societies (Netherlands) or in highly decentralised ones (Switzerland). There is a reason why the much more diverse Anglo societies tended to have lower levels of tax/openness trade-offs and why the (over-centralised) United Kingdom had and has perennial Celtic fringe problems. 

It is all very well to talk of the "open v closed" divide, but not if one is going to treat concerns about openness as stupid/malefic and integration projects as simply good things. Seriously damaged processes of social bargaining are the issue to zero in on, not alleged voter stupidity or malice, nor treating increased government services as any sort of likely panacea.


[Cross-posted at Skepticlawyer.]