Daily Times

“Let’s take back control of huge sums of money, take back control of immigration, take back control of our democracy”- Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. These were the words by UK’s PM elected recently on December 12, 2019, elections. Brexit is going to happen and it is official now as it is officially approved by the UK’s parliament. Brexit was initially initiated by David Cameron through a referendum in Britain. The majority voted to leave the European Union. Many argued that Brexit is pro-globalization and pro-capitalism deal, while some have an opposite point of view. Here we will try to find out what Brexit is? its relation to globalization and capitalism. What follows is a guide to Brexit and both of these concepts relation.

Brexit is a portmanteau of two words ‘Britain’ and ‘Exit’, collectively Brexit. It is a move to take a final leave from the European Union. This move has the power to change Britain’s politics, trade, immigration and her future. In 2013, former Prime Minister David Cameron promised to settle this matter for once and all. 52% of the population voted to leave European Union and voters were mostly atavists-who look back to a lost past(old people). This struggle cost UK two Prime Ministers, David Cameron and Theresa May, both resigned due to this unresolved matter. Then Boris Johnson came to power to resolve and lock a better deal with the European Union. After December 12, 2019 elections, he won a majority in the House of Commons by 365 seats by 650. It gave him an edge to get Brexit done through approval in the parliament. Now, the UK will leave the European Union by January 31, 2020. From the start; journalists, writers and watchdogs have kept relating Brexit with globalization and capitalism. To find out why we need to understand both concepts one by one.

Globalization is the process by which businesses and other organizations develop international influence or start operating on an international scale. It describes the way countries and people around the world interact and integrate. Many things have become globalized as people come into contact. Economic globalization is how countries are coming together as one big global economy, making international trade easier.

While, capitalism, on the other hand, is an economic system, in which the government plays a secondary role. People and companies make most of the decisions and own most of the property. The means of production are entirely privately owned by individuals or companies including the profit.

As we now have an understanding of globalization and capitalism. So, we can carry on our argument further to their relation with Brexit.

Globalization has a lot of advantages for Britons like; foreign jobs, free movement of people, free financial markets, free trade movements, availability of information to everyone, a wide range of opportunities to avail, connectivity of individuals. Lastly, peace and harmony among the nations in the bloc. These advantages are nothing but mere lies for everyone. With these perks of globalization, there is a wide-range of dis-advantages and I think they are dominating. Disadvantages like; dissatisfaction with Neo-liberal world order, economic inequality, lack of access to information, data breaching, technological increment.

Now the question is, who are these lies facilitating? Why is everyone talking about it? Is it every one or specific segment of society? And if that is so, who are they?

These people are called capitalist and this so-called capitalism is all about these people. Globalization and capitalism are directly related to each other. In globalization everyone has an equal opportunity of free trade, free movement in whichever country, access to all information, no allegations on immigrants and job seekers and so on. The question here is, is any poor getting these benefits? The answer is no. Globalization is all about capitalists, for the people who are decision-makers, policymakers, big organizations, entrepreneurs and CEOs. These are the people who make decisions of countries and companies to go global, to get benefits from the privileges of globalization. They do so, just to fill their own pockets, which in return suppresses the poor.

Let’s analyse all the privileges of capitalism provided by globalization, which are disadvantages for poor class. Starting from the disadvantages of globalization mentioned earlier. Let’s examine them one by one.

Firstly, dis-satisfaction with the neo-liberal world order. Neo-liberal is a term that deals specifically with economic ideas about free markets, deregulation of financial markets, privatization, individualism and the shift away from state welfare provision. This term is mostly practiced by big companies to trade in free markets and to increase the wealth of individuals. This focuses on the increment of the wealth of capitalists. With these perks of globalization, the capitalists will get many benefits that will shift the power equilibrium towards them. Their wealth will be increased by the movement of goods in free markets, this in return will provide them an edge to play in financial markets as well. This is a nightmare for poor class because their wealth is decreasing due to capitalism backed by globalization.

Secondly, an increase in globalization has caused an increase in capitalism. Economic inequality has risen to the maximum. According to the Credit Suisse report, in the UK, the richest 1% own 12% of the wealth and the richest 10% own 44% of the wealth. Capitalists are the people who own most of the property and businesses. So, they are encouraging globalization to fulfill their maximum profit desires. This in return will cause financial chaos in poor class. How? Let’s take an example: an employee who works for a big multinational company is making a deal of 1 billion pounds with a client and the employee has a salary of 20,000 pounds. He is the person who is working day and night to lock that deal and giving that organization 1 billion pounds worth deal but getting merely nothing in return.

Capitalists are using these poor employees to gain huge profits by giving them nothing in return and these poor employees with 20,000 pounds will pay their debts and bills forever again to capitalists.

Thirdly, globalization claims that it provides information to everyone, everywhere in the world, sadly it is nothing but merely a lie. Globalization is providing this information only to the capitalists who can afford this luxury. This information is not free to use, how can a suppressed poor pay for that information, who can’t even pay for his food. Our education system is only facilitating capitalists. Private schools and universities demand huge sums of money for degrees. Sadly, the poor cannot access this information. So, it is nothing but a lie of a provision of information to everyone everywhere.

Fourth, due to globalization, companies and big multinationals are collecting data on an individual’s web research, location and preferences. They are selling this data to the governments and other firms who will use this data for their benefit. Data breaching is considered as a fraud, yet no laws and regulations have been provided against the sellers. Recently, facebook and google were accused of data breaching. This again facilitates the capitalists.

Lastly, the world nowadays is transforming to innovations like; the internet of things, artificial intelligence, bio-engineering, industry 4.0 and web 4.0. Globalization claims to give access to these technologies to everyone around the globe. Everyone here denotes everyone who owns wealth, property and businesses. The class which will get benefits from these global trends will be capitalists, not the poor class.

Brexit has realized that globalization is nothing but the rhetoric of the privileged. That was the reason for Britons voting to leave the European Union. Because their government could not focus on their own people instead they were facilitating the whole continent. The UK was sacrificing its democracy and huge sum of money to hold those little benefits. In the end, they realized that their policies and privileges are facilitating no one but capitalism. After Brexit, Britain will have a chance to focus on their country. They can spend those huge sums of money for the welfare of their people. It cost 320m pounds a week to the UK while remaining in the European Union. Hence, the more you divide, the easy it is to control. They examined that through their old policies that capitalism will return ferociously as ever and it will haunt their poor classes.

In conclusion, we introduced Brexit along with globalization and capitalism. We discussed what these three are. We also examined Brexit’s relation to globalization and capitalism. In the end, by taking Britain out, her government will have control over its reserves, democracy, and immigration. Britain realized they should leave the European Union before the mere lies of globalization and capitalism destroy the country. “Some people think that it [Brexit] is the end of the world. It’s not. On the contrary, it’s a massive opportunity for this country”- PM Boris Johnson.

The writer is a CSS aspirant and a Bachelors in Business at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad