How the Far-Right Views the Economy and the Stab-in-the-Back Myth

[Cope]

Influential journalists - how do you measure influence? Do you have examples for, say the UK, which journalists you'd count among this group? Most journalists are only, if ever, influential among the particular readership they are catering to anyway.

1. Journalists do not exist in a vaccum; they influence each other just as much, if not more, than they influence their audiences.

2. This is a discussion about the elite, not about the rank and file. Senior editors, anchors, producers and directors of national and/or multinational media outlets are able to reach tens of millions of people through their organizations. The majority of the major outlets in the western world, even though they may disagree on superficial issues, have adopted a liberal stance. Breitbart, RT (which isn't western but has a strong international presence) and to a lesser extent Fox News are exceptions to this.

Academics - far too broad a sweep. In the EU this would encompass between 20% and 40% of the population. This cannot reasonably be conceived as an elite without watering down the term beyond usefulness.

It is beyond any doubt that academics (faculty members, ph.d. holders, professors etc.) are significantly more likely to identify with liberal or left wing movements than they are with mainstream conservatism let alone anything on the independent right. This problem being more pronounced in the US and in the social sciences and humanities is particularly worrying since it is people with a background in these subjects who tend to end up in positions of political power. Moreover, we know from historical data that it hasn't always been this way - which is evidence left wing views are not somehow more intellectually enlightened (a claim often made by those attempting to justify the effective monopoly that the left has over higher learning institutions).

- the business people are more inclined to economic liberalism than social liberalism. If anything where former rich CEOs emerge as founders of political parties they tend to go for more populist, right wing rhetorics than socially liberal or multicultural agendas and the propensity of such CEOs to still meddle in their home country's politics by lobbyism or creating political foundations contradicts their alleged cosmopolitanism: If they were actually truly cosmopolitan they'd give a damn about a particular country with their kind of money and live whereever and however they wanted with little attachment to a particular country.

You're drawing a distinction where there isn't one: cosmopolitan liberalism is both an economic and a social doctrine. Multiculturalism (as it is understood in a contemporary context) is an inevitable consequence of governments and powerful corporations flooding labour markets with foreign workers. The moral rationale which is used to justify it (inclusion, tolerance, diversity etc.) exists merely to facilitate the economic model. So far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing historically unusual about elite classes using contrived moral codes to promote their own financial interests in this way.

- Newspaper owners easily produce some of the most salient examples against your claim, such as the conservative Murdoch or Axel Springer, the rightleaning guy owning Germany's best selling tabloid Bild.

This would only be true if a) I had claimed that the elite was exclusively liberal b) the Murdoch press didn't exist on the liberal spectrum. You apparently aren't aware, for instance, that the Sun openly supported Blair's rise to power or that the Mail's Grieg advocated for the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union.

- politicans and senior civil servants vary naturally across party adherence and cannot really be ascribed a distinct leaning. Even Merkle, the hate figure of the far right, once proclaimed that multiculturalism is dead, so there is not much point in claiming this group to be overly multicultural or cosmopolitan or socially liberal. Senior civil servants are furthermore often not appointed for life but change with ministers and governments. The lower echelons of ministerial bureaucracy, which hold lifetime jobs, aren't powerful enough to shape policy by themselves.

The majority of politicians in national legislatures in western societies adhere to the values of cosmopolitan liberalism. The fact that Merkel may have attempted to soothe certain voters by pretending to oppose mass migrant economics and multiculturalism is irrelevant.

[Iskar]

1. Journalists do not exist in a vaccum; they influence each other just as much, if not more, than they influence their audiences.

2. This is a discussion about the elite, not about the rank and file. Senior editors, anchors, producers and directors of national and/or multinational media outlets are able to reach tens of millions of people through their organizations. The majority of the major outlets in the western world, even though they may disagree on superficial issues, have adopted a liberal stance. Breitbart, RT (which isn't western but has a strong international presence) and to a lesser extent Fox News are exceptions to this.

It is beyond any doubt that academics (faculty members, ph.d. holders, professors etc.) are significantly more likely to identify with liberal or left wing movements than they are with mainstream conservatism let alone anything on the independent right. This problem being more pronounced in the US and in the social sciences and humanities is particularly worrying since it is people with a background in these subjects who tend to end up in positions of political power. Moreover, we know from historical data that it hasn't always been this way - which is evidence left wing views are not somehow more intellectually enlightened (a claim often made by those attempting to justify the effective monopoly that the left has over higher learning institutions).

You're drawing a distinction where there isn't one: cosmopolitan liberalism is both an economic and a social doctrine. Multiculturalism (as it is understood in a contemporary context) is an inevitable consequence of governments and powerful corporations flooding labour markets with foreign workers. The moral rationale which is used to justify it (inclusion, tolerance, diversity etc.) exists merely to facilitate the economic model. So far as I can tell, there is absolutely nothing historically unusual about elite classes using contrived moral codes to promote their own financial interests in this way.

This would only be true if a) I had claimed that the elite was exclusively liberal b) the Murdoch press didn't exist on the liberal spectrum. You apparently aren't aware, for instance, that the Sun openly supported Blair's rise to power or that the Mail's Grieg advocated for the United Kingdom's continued membership of the European Union.

The majority of politicians in national legislatures in western societies adhere to the values of cosmopolitan liberalism. The fact that Merkel may have attempted to soothe certain voters by pretending to oppose mass migrant economics and multiculturalism is irrelevant.

Right, I think we need to clarify some things.

You use "cosmopolitan liberalism" as a coherent social and economic doctrine. Can you specify what the contents of said alleged doctrine are and how you determine whether someone subscribes to it?

The news, papers, journalists, etc. very much cover the whole spectrum. If they didn't another outlet would spring up to cover that niche and gather market shares. From my experience at least in the UK and Germany newspapers vary across the complete spectrum. For instance in Germany you have among others Bild (populist right), Frankfurter Allgemeine (centre right), Süddeutsche (centre left), taz (populist left), and on top of that lots of local newspapers of varying orientation. When I'm in Britain I tend to read the Torygraph, the Times and the Independent to balance each other out around the centre (while I cannot stomach either the raving nationalist half-lies of the Daily Mail nor the unironic selfrighteous moral activism of the Guardian).

Academics in the social sciences are mostly leftish, I agree with that, but the detrimental variations of that with all the SJW activism are mostly an American phenomenon that cannot be generalised to the rest of the wider West. For Germany at lest economy and the law are two disciplines that tend much further towards the right than the left, providing a certain degree of counter example.

As for this:

governments and powerful corporations flooding labour markets with foreign workers. The moral rationale which is used to justify it (inclusion, tolerance, diversity etc.) exists merely to facilitate the economic model.

and this

mass migrant economics

you will have to
a) acknowledge that one cannot "flood" markets with people as they aren't objects and have agency of their own, and
b) provide evidence to the effect that any western government or sufficiently influential corporation actively did so - in the face of the facts that

b.1) European governments went to great lengths to patrol the meditarranean, put up huge fences on exterior borders and even made common cause with Erdogan, by then already an explicit rival to the West on multiple issues and fronts, to curb the number of arrivals in Europe
b.2) Western societies are at a level of mechanisation and professionalisation that they no longer need cheap labour but on the contrary face a shortage of professional and well educated employees, hence there being little economic rationale to "import" cheap, unskilled labour that does not fill the relevant gaps but puts stress on the social systems
b.3) The law prohibiting large swathes of the migrants from taking up any kind of meaningful work let alone a fulltime job unless they are officially given asylum (which is the smallest portion) or subsidiary protection (temporary permit of residence for people fleeing from war, but not persecution). People from countries recognised as secure countries of origin and those not given asylum or subsidiary protection are not given a working permit either.

and finally
c) explain what "mass migrant economics" are supposed to be, also in face of points b.1 to b.3.

[Cope]

You use "cosmopolitan liberalism" as a coherent social and economic doctrine. Can you specify what the contents of said alleged doctrine are and how you determine whether someone subscribes to it?

Without wanting to write an essay, I would say that cosmopolitan liberalism is a political and ethical philosophy which, whilst covering a broad spectrum of views, idealizes and tacitly promotes the notion of a global society in the context of progressive egalitarianism, humanitarianism and market economics. It is a position which is sceptical of the nation state, of culturally homogeneous societies and of protectionism. As with all political theories, many of its adherents subscribe to it in only in part, and for different reasons. The form it adopts also varies internationally. Since most of its institutional advocates are cognizant of geopolitical realities, cosmopolitanism is typically pursued incrementally and often via stealth.

Off the top of my head, some of the indicators that a person "subscribes" to cosmopolitan liberal positions are:

- They have a preference for supranational institutions and multilateral (as opposed to bilateral) agreements.
- They support market economics propped up by mass migration, international regulations and a progressive tax code.
- They are nominally democratic but tend to have a "technocratic" streak.
- They overestimate the ability of the state to solve problems but are not overt authoritarians.
- They believe that access to state healthcare or subsidies (and also in some instances voting rights) should not be contingent on national citizenship or an ability to demonstrate residency.
- They strongly oppose nationalist perspectives, particularly of certain groups.
- They routinely repeat empty platitudes about "diversity", "inclusion" and "tolerance".
- They see little benefit in cultural or religious homogeneity and argue that unity is enforceable by law.
- They openly accept progressive interpretations of the politics of identity and deliberately exaggerate its relevance for the purposes of profiteering or electioneering.
- They claim that globalization is unavoidable and routinely use that claim to appeal to the inevitability of outcomes which they prefer.

The news, papers, journalists, etc. very much cover the whole spectrum. If they didn't another outlet would spring up to cover that niche and gather market shares. From my experience at least in the UK and Germany newspapers vary across the complete spectrum. For instance in Germany you have among others Bild (populist right), Frankfurter Allgemeine (centre right), Süddeutsche (centre left), taz (populist left), and on top of that lots of local newspapers of varying orientation. When I'm in Britain I tend to read the Torygraph, the Times and the Independent to balance each other out around the centre (while I cannot stomach either the raving nationalist half-lies of the Daily Mail nor the unironic selfrightous moral activism of the Guardian).

My position was never that cosmopolitan liberalism has an absolute monopoly over the press, so the point you make about variability across the political spectrum is not particularly relevant. I argued that the majority of the most powerful media outlets in western society lean toward cosmopolitan liberal positions. If we look at the influence of the leading news outlets in the US and the UK, don't think that this is an unreasonable hypothesis.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Red denotes liberal or left leaning. Blue denotes conservative or right wing leaning.

A complicating factor here is that not all of the conservative/right wing outlets listed stand in opposition to cosmopolitan liberalism. The Murdoch press in particular is a mixed bag: as I highlighted in my previous post, it has a history of supporting Blairism and one-nation Toryism in England whilst taking a harder conservative stance in the US.

Academics in the social sciencies are mostly leftish, I agree with that, but the detrimental variations of that with all the SJW activism are mostly an American phenomenon that cannot be generalised to the rest of the wider West. For Germany at lest economy and the law are two disciplines that tend much further towards the right than the left, providing a certain degree of counter example.

Once again, my point was not about "detrimental variations" of the liberal perspective; it was a simple claim that the "on balance, the western world, the elite class tends strongly toward cosmopolitan liberalism".

one cannot "flood" markets with people as they aren't objects and have agency of their own

This is a semantic point. Mass migrant economics have been deliberately pursued by the elite class in western countries for the past two decades.

b.1) European governments went to great lengths to patrol the meditarranean, put up huge fences on exterior borders and even made common cause with Erdogan, by then already an explicit rival to the West on multiple issues and fronts, to curb the number of arrivals in Europe

I don't know why you're focussing on the Syrian migrant crisis as if it were somehow emblematic of typical migratory flows. If I were to look at German migratory figures over the past twenty years I imagine that I'd find eastern Europeans (Russians, Poles, Hungarians) and Turks, not Arabs, were the largest group. Nevertheless, you know perfectly well that the European Union only took significant steps to close the Balkan route after it had lost control of the domestic situation. You also know that low native German birth rates was a significant cause of long term concern and that Merkel almost certainly saw the refugee crisis as an opportunity to alleviate that concern.

b.2) Western societies are at a level of mechanisation and professionalisation that they no longer need cheap labour but on the contrary face a shortage of professional and well educated employees, hence there being little economic rationale to "import" cheap, unskilled labour that does not fill the relevant gaps but puts stress on the social systems

1. On the one hand you're arguing that western societies "no longer need cheap labour" (a lie) but on the other you acknowledge that there are "relevant gaps" for cheap unskilled labour. This is a contradiction.

2. If it is true that Western societies do not need to significantly subsidize their ailing native populations with working age migrants that can only mean that the governments in question are acting out of ideological conviction or incompetence.

3. The problem with mass migration (from an economic perspective) is not so much that it "puts stress on the social systems", it's that it used as an economic tool to keep the lower end of the market place disproportionately competitive in order to facilitate the financial interests of large employers.

b.3) The law prohibiting large swathes of the migrants from taking up any kind of meaningful work let alone a fulltime job unless they are officially given asylum (which is the smallest portion) or subsidiary protection (temporary permit of residence for people fleeing from war, but not persecution). People from countries recognised as secure countries of origin and those not given asylum or subsidiary protection are not given a working permit either.

Again, you're placing the Syrian migrant crisis front and centre as if it is generally representative of mass migrant economics.

[The spartan]

Not to derail your back and forth too much as it has been interesting to read, but I do feel compelled to chime in about the "economic perspective" of migration. I can tell you that, from a modern economic perspective, national borders are understood as artificial barriers on the market as they reduce the ability for labor to shift as needed. Much like a government enforced price floor, restricting labor flow distorts the market and artificially keeps prices of goods high. This means more expensive goods for working class citizens. Now, someone could have a different priority other than market efficiency and think it is ok to keep prices high for goods to achieve some other goal, but it is never more efficient or economically sound to restrict ones labor pool.

[Cope]

Not to derail your back and forth too much as it has been interesting to read, but I do feel compelled to chime in about the "economic perspective" of migration. I can tell you that, from a modern economic perspective, national borders are understood as artificial barriers on the market as they reduce the ability for labor to shift as needed. Much like a government enforced price floor, restricting labor flow distorts the market and artificially keeps prices of goods high. This means more expensive goods for working class citizens. Now, someone could have a different priority other than market efficiency and think it is ok to keep prices high for goods to achieve some other goal, but it is never more efficient or economically sound to restrict ones labor pool.

That depends on whose economic perspective you're referring to. If you're competing at the lower end of the labour market, the value your labour is increased by migratory regulation; if you're toward the top (a large employer, either state or private) then a saturated labour pool keeps your overhead costs down. One of the most acidic hypocrisies of the liberal left is its firm commitment to market regulation in every area of the economy with the exception of the international flows of labour; this is where they throw working people under the bus (African Americans suffer the most from Hispanic migration in Southern US states) and then accuse said workers of the worst sort of immorality for complaining. I think, more than anything else, it was this attitude which made it impossible for me to continue supporting these people.

[Iskar]

First of all, sorry for the following zebra post, there is just a lot of substance I need to reply to, which you may well take as a compliment.

Without wanting to write an essay, I would say that cosmopolitan liberalism is a political and ethical philosophy which, whilst covering a broad spectrum of views, idealizes and tacitly promotes the notion of a global society in the context of progressive egalitarianism, humanitarianism and market economics. It is a position which is sceptical of the nation state, of culturally homogeneous societies and of protectionism. As with all political theories, many of its adherents subscribe to it in only in part, and for different reasons. The form it adopts also varies internationally. Since most of its institutional advocates are cognizant of geopolitical realities, cosmopolitanism is typically pursued incrementally and often via stealth.

So in other words a notion one can fling about and at basically everyone but weasle out of whenever needed because of your numerous caveats I bolded. An alleged ideology or "philosophy" that has no clear followership (first bolding), no clear motivation (second bolding), no spatial coherence (third bolding) and in case of doubt only infinitesimal measurability in actual policy (fourth bolding) is not a coherent ideology at all but only a convenietly construed and unfalsifiable Feindbild.

Off the top of my head, some of the indicators that a person "subscribes" to cosmopolitan liberal positions are:

I'll reply to these point by point.

- They have a preference for supranational institutions and multilateral (as opposed to bilateral) agreements.

What is bad about those and what particularly cosmopolitan or liberal? Multilateralism and supranational institutions are just a rule-based approach to international relations and an attempt to curb the brute rule of force.

- They support market economics propped up by mass migration, international regulations and a progressive tax code.

How do you "prop up" market economy by mass migration in highly mechanised economies?

- They are nominally democratic but tend to have a "technocratic" streak.

This is a very nebulous allegation that you will have to both make more specific and prove that it applies to any relevant members of the political elite in the West.

- They overestimate the ability of the state to solve problems but are not overt authoritarians.

How do you quantify "overestimate" and what problems in particular. This is a very sweeping statement. Also, how does this supposed etatism click with the supposed liberalism and the internationalism? Sounds like an inherent contradiction.

- They believe that access to state healthcare or subsidies (and also in some instances voting rights) should not be contingent on national citizenship or an ability to demonstrate residency.

Access to healthcare and minimum living standards (aka shelter and not starving) is basic human dignity, not some globalist conspiracy.

- They strongly oppose nationalist perspectives, particularly of certain groups.

Which groups? And what is bad about opposing nationalism given what it did to Europe?

- They routinely repeat empty platitudes about "diversity", "inclusion" and "tolerance".

Give me quotes of Western politicians doing that please. I read the newspaper on a daily basis and I rarely read of such appeals. I hear more about it from the US but it is well known they have a conceptual problem with identity politics over there. Of the three there is also nothing bad about promoting tolerance.

- They see little benefit in cultural or religious homogeneity and argue that unity both enforceable and enforceable by law.

Because our modern states are not founded on the former but on the latter. Even the silly US DoI written by slave owners says as much. Beyond the very monocultural requirement to adhere to the basic principles of human rights and dignity, religion and culture are very much private matters for everyone. That is quite the achievement of enlightenment and secularisation.

- They openly accept progressive interpretations of the politics of identity and deliberately exaggerate its relevance for the purposes of profiteering or electioneering.

That is a very US centric view. I have yet to notice such in Eurpean politics.

- They claim that globalization is unavoidable and routinely use that claim to appeal to the inevitability of outcomes which they prefer.

Increasing spatial and digital mobility does make a globalisation of human affairs inevitable in fact. The question is how we deal with it and shape it, not whether we oppose it. Hardly anything ideological about this, unless the ideology we are talking about is "realism".

My position was never that cosmopolitan liberalism has an absolute monopoly over the press, so the point you make about variability across the political spectrum is not particularly relevant. I argued that the majority of the most powerful media outlets in western society lean toward cosmopolitan liberal positions. If we look at the influence of the leading news outlets in the US and the UK, don't think that this is an unreasonable hypothesis.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Red denotes liberal or left leaning. Blue denotes conservative or right wing leaning.

A complicating factor here is that not all of the conservative/right wing outlets listed stand in opposition to cosmopolitan liberalism. The Murdoch press in particular is a mixed bag: as I highlighted in my previous post, it has a history of supporting Blairism and one-nation Toryism in England whilst taking a harder conservative stance in the US.

Where do those statistics come from, and how are "reach", "attention share" and especially "power" quantified and measured?

This is a semantic point. Mass migrant economics have been deliberately pursued by the elite class in western countries for the past two decades.

You still owe me a definition of "mass migrant economics" and now a proof of the latter claim as well.

I don't know why you're focussing on the Syrian migrant crisis as if it were somehow emblematic of typical migratory flows. If I were to look at German migratory figures over the past twenty years I imagine that I'd find eastern Europeans (Russians, Poles, Hungarians) and Turks, not Arabs, were the largest group. Nevertheless, you know perfectly well that the European Union only took significant steps to close the Balkan route after it had lost control of the domestic situation. You also know that low native German birth rates was a significant cause of long term concern and that Merkel almost certainly saw the refugee crisis as an opportunity to alleviate that concern.

Discourse is very much shaped by the controversy about the recent migrant crisis and in fact such notions as "mass migrant economics", "cosmpolitan liberalism", "globalist elite", etc. have only come up since then in the main public discourse. But we can talk about earlier migratory movements as well, if you like.

1. On the one hand you're arguing that western societies "no longer need cheap labour" (a lie) but on the other you acknowledge that there are "relevant gaps" for cheap unskilled labour. This is a contradiction.

Nah, the gap I was talking about is a gap among the professional workforce, not in the cheap unskilled labour segment. As for the "lie", see this article for instance that elaborates on the increasing shortage of skilled labour in developed countries as well as the recent report on the skilled labour situation of the Federal Goverment, especiall the table on p.66, indicating that the unemployment rate for unskilled labour is at about 20% and thus four times higher than that for moderately educated labour (4.6%) and almost eight times higher than that for academically educated labour (2.4%). I daresay these numbers indicate that we don't need more cheap labour in our economy.

2. If it is true that Western societies do not need to significantly subsidize their ailing native populations with working age migrants that can only mean that the governments in question are acting out of ideological conviction or incompetence.

By which you silently include the premise that said government did in fact actively take measures to cause and facility mass migration - a claim that you have yet to substantiate.

3. The problem with mass migration (from an economic perspective) is not so much that it "puts stress on the social systems", it's that it used as an economic tool to keep the lower end of the market place disproportionately competitive in order to facilitate the financial interests of large employers.

A failing argument in a society with minimum wages, as are most European countries.

[The spartan]

That depends on whose economic perspective you're referring to. If you're competing at the lower end of the labour market, the value your labour is increased by migratory regulation; if you're toward the top (a large employer, either state or private) then a saturated labour pool keeps your overhead costs down. One of the most acidic hypocrisies of the liberal left is its firm commitment to market regulation in every area of the economy with the exception of the international flows of labour; this is where they throw working people under the bus (African Americans suffer the most from Hispanic migration in Southern US states) and then accuse said workers of the worst sort of immorality for complaining. I think, more than anything else, it was this attitude which made it impossible for me to continue supporting these people.

I was specifically speaking to the overall efficiency of the market. As economists understand it, any protectionist policy that would maintain labor shortages would offset any increased wages with even higher prices of goods they would be buying. If your wages go up 3% and the average cost of all goods you buy goes up by 4%, you are effectively making less money. This is why economists seem so disgusted by protectionist policies; as all markets play into one another, doing something like putting tariffs on foreign steel, while it will save some jobs in the steel manufacturing industry, will inevitably be shedding even more jobs in complementary industries. It is rare to see an economist giving economic justification for protectionist policies, you could really only give social policies and justification.

What low skilled workers really should be worried about is the ever increasing utility of capital. Tech advances are blasting low skilled employment all over the place (although it also greatly lowers prices) and, in the long run, constrict low skilled labor. This is why Bill Gates has talked about instituting a tax on capital replacement of labor (the "Robot Tax"). Your economic efforts are better spent there rather than fretting about immigration.

[Cope]

First of all, sorry for the following zebra post, there is just a lot of substance I need to reply to, which you may well take as a compliment.

So in other words a notion one can fling about and at basically everyone but weasle out of whenever needed because of your numerous caveats I bolded. An alleged ideology or "philosophy" that has no clear followership (first bolding), no clear motivation (second bolding), no spatial coherence (third bolding) and in case of doubt only infinitesimal measurability in actual policy (fourth bolding) is not a coherent ideology at all.

You can level this complaint against any general political categorization. On the basis that the segments of my argument you've highlighted are applicable to any and all ideological positions, you might as well be arguing that group-based political distinctions are invalid.

What is bad about those and what particularly cosmopolitan or liberal? Multilateralism and supranational institutions are just a rule-based approach to international relations and an attempt to curb the brute rule of force.

I didn't say they were "bad". I said that cosmopolitan liberals have a "preference for supranational institutions". I think it's fairly self-evident why someone who views themselves and others in the context of a global or international community (ie. a cosmopolitan) would have a preference for institutions which transcend national barriers.

How do you "prop up" market economy by mass migration in highly mechanised economies?

Mass migration supports market economies by facilitating the availability of labour, skilled or otherwise. Inward migration into Germany and the United Kingdom in 2018 was ~1.6m and ~0.625m respectively. In the US, the foreign born population reaching ~45m in 2017, a near historic high (proportional to the total population).

This is a very nebulous allegation that you will have to both make more specific and prove that it applies to any relevant members of the political elite in the West.

I don't think it much of a contentious statement to claim that cosmopolitan liberals in positions of institutional power have started to build up a reputation for holding anyone who exists outside of their orthodoxy in moral and intellectual contempt. These are some examples which come to mind:

- The Lisbon Treaty.
- The DNC's sabotage of the Sanders campaign.
- The "Russiagate" conspiracies.
- The subjugation of Greece.
- The repeated parliamentary attempts to subvert the Brexit referendum.

I could further point to the use of the language of marginalization and moral degradation which has become common place in the rhetoric of the liberal elite ("populist, "deplorable", "racist", "bigot", "post-truth" etc.) or the attempts made by big tech companies, often working in conjunction with powerful advertisers and state entities to sideline right wing voices from popular digital spaces.

How do you quantify "overestimate" and what problems in particular. This is a very sweeping statement. Also, how does this supposed etatism click with the supposed liberalism and the internationalism? Sounds like an inherent contradiction.

The large volume of laws (and legal instruments) passed over the past forty years in western societies is one indication of an overestimation of the state's ability to solve problems. The European Union alone has passed tens of thousands of legal acts over the past 25 years, whilst in the United Kingdom, lawmaking increased significantly in the post Thatcher decades particularly under Labour leadership. You can also look at state expenditure and levels of national debt to see how the role of government has increasingly changed from one of defense to one of general caretaker.

Access to healthcare and minimum living standards (aka shelter and not starving) is basic human dignity, not some globalist conspiracy.

I didn't say it was a conspiracy: I said that it's a position that cosmopolitan liberals adhere to.

Which groups? And what is bad about opposing nationalism given what it did to Europe?

The general unwillingness of cosmopolitan liberals to engage with nationalist groups is well documented. I don't think it would be controversial to argue, for instance, that of the parties represented in the Bundestag the AfD are the most widely loathed. I could say something similar about the SD in Sweden or the FN.

Give me quotes of Western politicians doing that please. I read the newspaper on a daily basis and I rarely read of such appeals. I hear more about it from the US but it is well known they have a conceptual problem with identity politics over there. Of the three there is also nothing bad about promoting tolerance.

Perhaps the language isn't as recognizable to you if you're reading plenty of German/French material, but Basil II actually posted some interesting source material related to the explosion of that sort of terminology in the public discourse of the past few years, particularly in the press. You can visit the websites of virtually any institution in the United Kingdom and find examples of this language being used: the Police, the Army, the BBC, the Civil Service, Parliament. It's also absolutely common place for publicly known corporations to deploy these terms in their public relations campaigns.

Because our modern states are not founded on the former but on the latter. Even the silly US DoI written by slave owners says as much. Beyond the very monocultural requirement to adhere to the basic principles of human rights and dignity religion and culture are very much private matters for everyone. That is quite the achievement of enlightenment and secularisation.

This, again, is an explanation for the belief, not an attempt to refute its existence. In any case what you've written here is an idealized version of reality.

That is a very US centric view. I have yet to notice such in Eurpean politics.

The US is the most dominant force in western civilization; it's not unusual for the practices of its liberal elite to seep through into European politics.

Increasing spatial and digital mobility does make a globalisation of human affairs inevitable in fact. The question is how we deal with it and shape it, not whether we oppose it. Hardly anything ideological about this, unless the ideology we are talking about is "realism".

Another explanation for the belief, not an attempt to refute its existence.

Where do those statistics come from, and how are "reach", "attention share" and especially "power" quantified and measures?

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....act_id=2989719

You still owe me a definition of "mass migrant economics"

Mass migrant economics is the practice of profiteering from large movements of foreign labour into a national economy.

now a proof of the latter claim as well.

You know that Germany has a history of below replacement fertility rates among natives; you know that it is the 2nd favourite destination for migrants worldwide; you know that it has accepted ten million new arrivals in less than a decade; you know that it's foreign born population has risen significantly over recent years; you know that it is a signatory to treaties which give millions of citizens from much poorer countries unfettered access to its society. What I don't know is why, in the face of this evidence, you're still asking me to "prove" that its government has has deliberately sought to use large scale movements of labour to prop up its economy.

Discourse is very much shaped by the controversy about the recent migrant crisis and in fact such notions as "mass migrant economics", "cosmpolitan liberalism", "globalist elite", etc. have only come up since then in the main public discourse. But we can talk about earlier migratory movements as well, if you like.

As you seem to acknowledge, for many westerners countries, this is flat out wrong. In the United Kingdom, concerns about migration date back to before the Commonwealth Immigrants Act. Even in a more contemporary setting it is clear that UKIP and the FN were building a strong platform in opposition to uncontrolled migration well before the Syrian migrant crisis fully materialised in 2015.

Nah, the gap I was talking about is a gap among the professional workforce, not in the cheap unskilled labour segment. As for the "lie", see this article for instance that elaborates on the increasing shortage of skilled labour in developed countries as well as the recent report on the skilled labour situation of the Federal Goverment, especiall the table on p.66, indicating that the unemployment rate for unskilled labour is at about 20% and thus then four times than that for lower educated labour (4.6%) and almost eight times higher than that for academically educated labour (2.4%). I daresay these numbers indicate that we don't need more cheap labour in our economy.

"Cheap labour" isn't synonymous with "cheap unskilled labour"; your post shows only that less educated people were more likely to be unemployed, not that the German elite doesn't profit from mass migration.

By which you silently include the premise that said government did in fact actively take measures to cause and facility mass migration - a claim that you have yet to substantiate.

This isn't a coherent response to the point I raised. If you think that migration outcomes do not reflect the objectives of migratory policies then you are accusing said policies of being ineffectual and the politicians/departments which manage them as being incompetent. If, by contrast, you think that migration outcomes do reflect the objectives of migratory policies then one can only assume, given the figures, that mass migration is being deliberately facilitated by the state.

A failing argument in a society with minimum wages, as are most European countries.

I don't see how the existence of a minimum wage disproves my point.

[Aexodus]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmopolitanism

It seems to be about the idea of global citizens, or even a global state if not a supranational one.

Philosophical cosmopolitans are moral universalists: they believe that all humans, and not merely compatriots or fellow-citizens, come under the same moral standards. The boundaries between nations, states, cultures or societies are therefore morally irrelevant. A widely cited example of a contemporary cosmopolitan is Kwame Anthony Appiah.^[13]

Ring any bells?

Some philosophers and scholars argue that the objective and subjective conditions arising in today's unique historical moment, an emerging planetary phase of civilization, creates a latent potential for the emergence of a cosmopolitan identity as global citizens and possible formation of a global citizens movement.^[14] These emerging objective and subjective conditions in the planetary phase include improved and affordable telecommunications; space travel and the first images of our fragile planet floating in the vastness of space; the emergence of global warming and other ecological threats to our collective existence; new global institutions such as the United Nations, World Trade Organization, or International Criminal Court; the rise of transnational corporations and integration of markets often termed economic globalization; the emergence of global NGOs and transnationalsocial movements, such as the World Social Forum; and so on. Globalization, a more common term, typically refers more narrowly to the economic and trade relations and misses the broader cultural, social, political, environmental, demographic, values and knowledge transitions taking place.

And Epic you’re probably getting it the wrong way round, it’s more likely liberal cosmopolitanism, or just plain cosmopolitanism we’re talking about. It’s more the latter than it is Liberal.

If one values the familiar more than the foreign, what are the consequences? Paul Gilroy offers a possible alternative to this emphasis on familiarity arguing that "methodical cultivation of a degree of estrangement from one's own culture and history ... might qualify as essential to a cosmopolitan commitment."^[18]:67 This estrangement entails a "process of exposure to otherness" in order to foster "the irreducible value of diversity within sameness."^[18]:67Estrangement, therefore, could lead to de-emphasising the familiar in ethics by integrating otherness.

Is the above the reason why “diversity and inclusion” is vaunted and promoted so much?

Much of the political thinking of the last two centuries has taken nationalism and the framework of the sovereign nation-state for granted. Now, with the advance of globalization and the increased facility of travel and communication, some thinkers consider that the political system based on the nation-state has become obsolete and that it is time to design a better and more efficient alternative. Jesús Mosterín analyzes how the world political system should be organized in order to maximize individual freedom and individual opportunity.