The problem with nationalism
I can certainly understand why people are lured in by the cries of nationalist politics. But, the worst part is not the misconception. It is that it will never be understood by those who don't understand it already.
Fundamentally, the biggest problems lie in how long it takes to feel the effects of the decisions. If the effects are prolonged enough, people will fail to associate them with their appropriate root cause. Or fail to even identify them at all.
Boycotting foreign products for instance. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is, while the products may come from elsewhere, they nonetheless generate jobs locally as well. Many foreign companies have local warehouses. They employ local shipping companies. And the list goes on. In other words, in boycotting goods from another city, state, province or country may still end up hitting close to home. Furthermore, the local producers may not be able to keep up which could drive costs up even further than attempting to purchase local already does.
I'm certainly not against buying local. In fact, I try to do so as long as it is reasonable. But, at the same time I fully realize, every product I buy from a foreign destination probably passes through dozens of local hands before it gets to me. I'm not going to needlessly penalize those people simply because their lifestyle is impacted by foreign trade.
Putting tax money back in the pockets of the people is another rallying cry. Again, the effects are generally felt quite distantly from the actual actions. And people aren't really rational about these things. I look at the Cap and Trade system which Ontario is now backing out of. Sure, some companies who exceeded their cap had to pass along the increased costs to consumers. But, not only does this promote better competition with emerging technologies, the money was also used to help fund programs for things like retrofitting homes with more energy efficient upgrades and subsidizing electric vehicles.
So, while it was, on the hand increasing costs in polluting industries, it put money back into consumers pockets if they were willing to be a part of the solution. And the money combined with the savings from moving to either more efficient solutions or renewable ones would more than offset any losses.
That money also went it other projects. Eventually, those projects will likely run out of money now. Also, costs on polluting products are going to keep going up. All of the pollutants also happen to be non-renewable energy, which means, eventually we will start to run out of them. And then prices will sky rocket. The policies being scrapped now helped slow the rate at which we headed down that path AND helped us prepare for when it came. By the time we hit that though, we will have long forgotten than our own idiocy killed off the very programs which would have both helped to stall that fate and prepare us for it.
It is a lot like privatizing something like education or health. When you don't have any kids of your own that need schooling you might feel furious that your tax money is helping educate other people. If we took that money away, many people would not attend school. For the first few years, nothing much would change for those keeping onto their tax money. Within 5-10 years labor shortages would start to become a systemic problem. Within 10-25 years the labor shortage would still exist, but would matter less as the country descended (comparative to other countries) into a dark age. We'd fall behind in every sector in terms of quality and competitiveness. In the span of a generation or two, we'd cease to be a first world country.
Health services are another great one. When you're healthy and/or have insurance you might scoff at things. But, end public healthcare and all of a sudden, if you have insurance it will spike, and likely by more than you got back in your pocket as a result of cutting out healthcare. Because now that insurance needs to cover things which it didn't need to cover before. And if you don't have insurance... well, you'll quickly regret your decision when you get sick.
You can make similar arguments around immigration. Immigration is a solution to the biggest problem facing 1st world nations. Their populations would shrink without it. If the population shrinks, the economy shrinks. If the economy shrinks the currency loses value AND jobs disappear. In other words, everything will get more expensive AND in the long run there will be increasingly fewer jobs. But, in the short term... there would be less immigrants for you to whine about. You'd be willing to praise the policy for reducing some metric even though you really don't understand how it impacts you. And you'll be blissfully ignorant when the fallout hits.
Nationalism creates policies which sound like great slogans. They sound so great and simple, that people blissfully assume that their implementation is an automatic victory. Many, likely don't even see it as possible that those policies could cause the very things they implemented to escape from.
They won't result in more jobs. They won't save dying industries. The money you get back in your pockets, you'll lose again tenfold. The truth... sucks. But, constraining resources and making enemies won't solve the problem.
Fundamentally, the biggest problems lie in how long it takes to feel the effects of the decisions. If the effects are prolonged enough, people will fail to associate them with their appropriate root cause. Or fail to even identify them at all.
Boycotting foreign products for instance. What a lot of people don't seem to understand is, while the products may come from elsewhere, they nonetheless generate jobs locally as well. Many foreign companies have local warehouses. They employ local shipping companies. And the list goes on. In other words, in boycotting goods from another city, state, province or country may still end up hitting close to home. Furthermore, the local producers may not be able to keep up which could drive costs up even further than attempting to purchase local already does.
I'm certainly not against buying local. In fact, I try to do so as long as it is reasonable. But, at the same time I fully realize, every product I buy from a foreign destination probably passes through dozens of local hands before it gets to me. I'm not going to needlessly penalize those people simply because their lifestyle is impacted by foreign trade.
Putting tax money back in the pockets of the people is another rallying cry. Again, the effects are generally felt quite distantly from the actual actions. And people aren't really rational about these things. I look at the Cap and Trade system which Ontario is now backing out of. Sure, some companies who exceeded their cap had to pass along the increased costs to consumers. But, not only does this promote better competition with emerging technologies, the money was also used to help fund programs for things like retrofitting homes with more energy efficient upgrades and subsidizing electric vehicles.
So, while it was, on the hand increasing costs in polluting industries, it put money back into consumers pockets if they were willing to be a part of the solution. And the money combined with the savings from moving to either more efficient solutions or renewable ones would more than offset any losses.
That money also went it other projects. Eventually, those projects will likely run out of money now. Also, costs on polluting products are going to keep going up. All of the pollutants also happen to be non-renewable energy, which means, eventually we will start to run out of them. And then prices will sky rocket. The policies being scrapped now helped slow the rate at which we headed down that path AND helped us prepare for when it came. By the time we hit that though, we will have long forgotten than our own idiocy killed off the very programs which would have both helped to stall that fate and prepare us for it.
It is a lot like privatizing something like education or health. When you don't have any kids of your own that need schooling you might feel furious that your tax money is helping educate other people. If we took that money away, many people would not attend school. For the first few years, nothing much would change for those keeping onto their tax money. Within 5-10 years labor shortages would start to become a systemic problem. Within 10-25 years the labor shortage would still exist, but would matter less as the country descended (comparative to other countries) into a dark age. We'd fall behind in every sector in terms of quality and competitiveness. In the span of a generation or two, we'd cease to be a first world country.
Health services are another great one. When you're healthy and/or have insurance you might scoff at things. But, end public healthcare and all of a sudden, if you have insurance it will spike, and likely by more than you got back in your pocket as a result of cutting out healthcare. Because now that insurance needs to cover things which it didn't need to cover before. And if you don't have insurance... well, you'll quickly regret your decision when you get sick.
You can make similar arguments around immigration. Immigration is a solution to the biggest problem facing 1st world nations. Their populations would shrink without it. If the population shrinks, the economy shrinks. If the economy shrinks the currency loses value AND jobs disappear. In other words, everything will get more expensive AND in the long run there will be increasingly fewer jobs. But, in the short term... there would be less immigrants for you to whine about. You'd be willing to praise the policy for reducing some metric even though you really don't understand how it impacts you. And you'll be blissfully ignorant when the fallout hits.
Nationalism creates policies which sound like great slogans. They sound so great and simple, that people blissfully assume that their implementation is an automatic victory. Many, likely don't even see it as possible that those policies could cause the very things they implemented to escape from.
They won't result in more jobs. They won't save dying industries. The money you get back in your pockets, you'll lose again tenfold. The truth... sucks. But, constraining resources and making enemies won't solve the problem.
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