The train from London to Amsterdam is a 3h52m joke at the expense of nation states. Four countries rushed by without polite announcements over loudspeakers at each crossing. Uncertain citizenship staff serve drinks in three languages. The message on the screen (“Welcome à bord d’Eurostar”) is a French pun.
In 2018, when this route started, Donald Trump was in office, Jair Bolsonaro was elected, and Brexit fans were still in my inbox. It has proven to have stronger staying power than all of them.
Car No. 16 Car No. 25 is a good place to observe the strange elasticity of liberalism. I don’t just mean the election type, though let’s start with that. The only major Western head of government who can now be called a populist is Georgia Meloni, and even she curbs her enthusiasm. After a decade or so after “metropolis” became a pejorative, Britain’s next leader will likely be a man whose constituencies include Primrose Hill and (it’s perfect) Bloomsbury.
But I’m really talking about something else: life on the ground. The trend against globalization of the past decade means the end of frictionless life. There will be problems with the movement of goods and people. This process was salutarily facilitated by the blockade, which sealed the borders and cast a medieval silence on the great cities. I’m even candid about how things turned out. I have a good ride. Time to move into a clunkier, less immediate world.
So where is it?
Uber isn’t what it was circa 2015, but it’s still good and improving. (I comfortably spent a year in Los Angeles without a car.) The labor shortages plaguing airports and restaurants turned out to be just one summer of trouble. Almost whatever I want, Amazon still sends within 72 hours.
If you want to spend a few years abroad, it will be easier than it was ten years ago. Now is the harvest time for immigrants. In 2021, Canada will admit more permanent residents than at any time since 1913. More people were admitted last year (and as a goal, not an oversight). France also set a similar record. Net immigration to the UK is much higher than it was before Brexit. The foreign-born population now accounts for more than 18 percent of the German population. What Hong Kong lost as a global center, Singapore is regaining to some extent.
Give it time, you’ll say. But it’s been more than five years since Trump started (he might say “acknowledged”) a trade war with China. Long ago, “deglobalization” was the currency of the press.i should feel Some Change now. While the rich can always spend money to get rid of life’s little frictions, I’m your upper middle income globalist. I have easier access to events. However, the worst thing I’ve ever experienced is the time it takes for a beloved recliner to arrive from the port of Los Angeles.It’s hard, it’s not Sparta flooded.
what else? Prices are higher, but that’s true for everyone, not just people who live like me. Family cars are more expensive, not just hotel rooms and Ubers.In other words, I am not a relatively loser.
You have to be a tax bracket or two below me for that. As elitist as it is portrayed, what globalization has done is democratize what the rich once kept to themselves. (Think cheap flights and the spread of premium coffee.) So deglobalization is exerting friction on middle-income earners: 25-year-old me would be smothered. It is up to anti-globalists to decide whether these constitute acceptable tactical sacrifices.
Anyway, I’m fine, thanks, and maybe you are too. course? Don’t overestimate the big political trends that people like me write about. Their consequences are often scattered across the population. And a localized event—technical, infrastructural—can be registered on an individual level. Monzo, which launched in 2015 and allowed me to bank via an app, has added more grease to my life than all the political turmoil since has hindered them. So is this train. I may go to Paris next week. or not. I’ll see how I feel that day.
Email to janan.ganesh@ft.com