
The Guardian view on France’s election: a win for Macron and hope - mbaha
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/23/the-guardian-view-on-france-election-a-win-for-macron-and-hope
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hackuser
> Neither of the candidates of the established parties of left and right will
> be in the runoff.

From one perspective, it's very surprising that establishment parties are
doing so badly in Western countries. There is no real crisis in the West.
There is no crisis of security (war, etc.), no crisis of economics (recession
or depression), etc.

Compare to the 1930s and 40s, for example, when a depression beyond anything
any living person in the West has experienced crushed economies, and the worst
war in history swept across large parts of the world.

These days, certainly there are problems but there always are. Certainly there
is a _sense_ of crisis, but if you step back, things are actually pretty good
and stable - _except for that sense of crisis_.

What did the establishment do that was so wrong?

~~~
mbaha
I think you can very easily find in Europe citizens angry at the establishment
because they're seeing that globalisation hasn't paid off _that much_ for
them.

Lower class citizens are having more difficulties finding "cushion jobs", and
by cushion jobs, I simply mean very stable employments contracts vs the
uberisation of everything.

Middle class citizens are losing their jobs in a dangerously fast pace. I'm
not even talking about the firings, but simply the extreme market shift
towards to automation which is making many well-paid, secure, _by the books_
job careers pretty much obsolete.

What you have left is everyone else who is enjoying this rather peaceful,
crisis-free, and rich in opportunities period.

I hope we will be able to tighten these gaps in the future, but it's very hard
since... well, we're not really prepared to it. We're still accustomed to 'low
risk, low-to-mid reward' while we should strive for more 'high risk, high
reward (but low risk != starving to death)'

PS: To answer your _actual question_ , I do however think: Nothing. We haven't
just adapted more.

------
thomastjeffery
78% voter turnout. I wish this would happen in the US.

