Globalised Racism

Who are these people who we're being told have been left behind by globalisation? We have the lowest unemployment statistics in over a decade, for heaven't sake, What has undoubtedly happened is that successive Conservative governments have cut benefits in the name of austerity, which could feasibly be laid at the door of globalisation and the irresponsibility of financial markets.

Is it possible that the jobs that have been created are the wrong kind of jobs, that the remaining unemployment has now been super-concentrated at the unskilled end of the market? When you think about it, all progress leaves someone behind; the hunter-gatherer was left behind with the invention of farming; the manual labourer was left behind with the industrial revolution (hence the Luddites); mass production left many unemployed and the digital revolution is leaving the unskilled behind. However, how can that be addressed? You certainly can't turn back the tide of progress and things can't be uninvented. Reducing the benefits of those left behind certainly can't be the solution, but training can. The problem remains that training requirements can't always be predicted in advance of seismic changes in progress.

Changing tack - are we all racist at heart, under the right (or rather wrong) circumstances?

There have been many attempts to link racism to education and/or income, but while there may be a prima facie case, correlation is not necessarily the same as causation. Closer scrutiny has shown that rich, educated people can be just as racist as some poor, uneducated people. Conversely, many poor, uneducated people are totally devoid of racism.

Could racism be more to to do with proximity to immigrants? If you're middle class and educated or live in the countryside, you are more likely to be insulated from immigrants and as a consequence not see them as a threat - let's face it, you wont find too many immigrants in leafy suburbs or country villages. Live in an urban sink estate, however, and you're more likely to be living cheek-by-jowl with them and see (real or imagined) threats to jobs, culture and security. The result is that most middle class and countryside people view immigrants quite dispassionately and as a consequence could fallaciously believe themselves not to have a racist bone in their body - nothing has arisen to challenge their laissez faire view on race. Change their circumstances and you could end up with a rabid racists. There, but for the grace of God, etc...

That's not to say, however, that there aren't wealthy racists living in rural villages, but that's more to do with warped ideology than fear. Perhaps the racism expressed by some may not be a belief in the generic superiority of their race at all, but a genuine and justified fear of a very small community that gets exponentially extrapolated.