Is the "Brexit" good or bad for the legal profession? Forum

[Mark Aldridge]

Law students, what are your thoughts on this?

[teleste]

http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2016/06/24/bre ... r-lawyers/

[TheoO]

Nobody will be able to answer this now with an certainty. But in the short-term, most probably negative.

[jbagelboy]

Bad. Markets have crashed and humanity is generally worse off.

[White Dwarf]

If it's good, it's only good for a bunch of big law partners.

Long term, I don't think it will make much of a difference, at least in the US.

[Pomeranian]

If it triggers a chain reaction of other nations (like France and Italy) bailing the EU, it would create instability and rattle the economy worldwide including here in the US.

[deepseapartners]

If you are a US cap markets lawyer in London, bad. But I suspect all the other negative effects will be several degrees of separation away from the actual Brexit vote, and will not be accurately known for months, if not years.

[Mark Aldridge]

Bad. Markets have crashed and humanity is generally worse off.

why do you think that humanity is worse off now?

[kellyfrost]

It will have zero noticeable impact on the legal profession in the United States.

[jbagelboy]

Bad. Markets have crashed and humanity is generally worse off.

why do you think that humanity is worse off now?

dozens of reasons, but primarily because the European project has been the greatest geopolitical force preventing major power war since the middle of the last century and this event undermines that goal thereby making the death of hundreds of millions more likely, and second because nativism, xenophobia, and the fiction of "national sovereignty" are egregious and intellectually indefensible positions counter to the social order of liberal democracies that nonetheless found a home in the brexit movement.

[TheoO]

Bad. Markets have crashed and humanity is generally worse off.

why do you think that humanity is worse off now?

dozens of reasons, but primarily because the European project has been the greatest geopolitical force preventing major power war since the middle of the last century and this event undermines that goal thereby making the death of hundreds of millions more likely, and second because nativism, xenophobia, and the fiction of "national sovereignty" are egregious and intellectually indefensible positions counter to the social order of liberal democracies that nonetheless found a home in the brexit movement.

Eh, this seems like a fairly abstract politician and social question more than an immediate economic one.

What we can say is that this adds to the total amount of insecurity in the world today, which puts a hamper on investment. Whether it will be significant enough to impact law firms, we won't find out for a while.

[jbagelboy]

Bad. Markets have crashed and humanity is generally worse off.

why do you think that humanity is worse off now?

dozens of reasons, but primarily because the European project has been the greatest geopolitical force preventing major power war since the middle of the last century and this event undermines that goal thereby making the death of hundreds of millions more likely, and second because nativism, xenophobia, and the fiction of "national sovereignty" are egregious and intellectually indefensible positions counter to the social order of liberal democracies that nonetheless found a home in the brexit movement.

Eh, this seems like a fairly abstract politician and social question more than an immediate economic one.

What we can say is that this adds to the total amount of insecurity in the world today, which puts a hamper on investment. Whether it will be significant enough to impact law firms, we won't find out for a while.

I was responding to why humanity is worse off. the markets crashing is a distinct point

[Mark Aldridge]

Bad. Markets have crashed and humanity is generally worse off.

why do you think that humanity is worse off now?

dozens of reasons, but primarily because the European project has been the greatest geopolitical force preventing major power war since the middle of the last century and this event undermines that goal thereby making the death of hundreds of millions more likely, and second because nativism, xenophobia, and the fiction of "national sovereignty" are egregious and intellectually indefensible positions counter to the social order of liberal democracies that nonetheless found a home in the brexit movement.

I don't think the EU would have ever prevented the right kind of irredentist nationalism from charcoaling WWIII, or that the EU can be credited with having prevented one. The connection is just too tenuous.

Why do you say that national sovereignty is intellectually defensible? The people living in a country should be able to determine the future of their country.

What surprises me is how anyone is surprised at the result. There's no reason a working class family from Liverpool should feel as though Brussels has its interest at heart.

[star fox]

Pretty sure the superpowers having nukes capable of blowing up the planet is what has prevented major power war.

[cavalier1138]

Why do you say that national sovereignty is intellectually defensible? The people living in a country should be able to determine the future of their country.

Because national borders are arbitrary and have done very little throughout history except provoke conflict. There's nothing wrong with pride in your culture, but unbridled nationalism is just a hair's breadth away from fascism, racism, and bigotry. For references, see Hitler, Trump, etc.

[Gtr411]

Why do you say that national sovereignty is intellectually defensible? The people living in a country should be able to determine the future of their country.

Because national borders are arbitrary and have done very little throughout history except provoke conflict. There's nothing wrong with pride in your culture, but unbridled nationalism is just a hair's breadth away from fascism, racism, and bigotry. For references, see Hitler, Trump, etc.

1. This is insane. A world without borders is a world without states. Are you in favor of a world government?

2. Put "unbridled" in front of any word, and it immediately becomes bad. This is like someone asking if you like milk, and you responding that you dislike rotten milk.

[cavalier1138]

Why do you say that national sovereignty is intellectually defensible? The people living in a country should be able to determine the future of their country.

Because national borders are arbitrary and have done very little throughout history except provoke conflict. There's nothing wrong with pride in your culture, but unbridled nationalism is just a hair's breadth away from fascism, racism, and bigotry. For references, see Hitler, Trump, etc.

1. This is insane. A world without borders is a world without states. Are you in favor of a world government?

2. Put "unbridled" in front of any word, and it immediately becomes bad. This is like someone asking if you like milk, and you responding that you dislike rotten milk.

1. Am I in favor of immediately dissolving borders and the free-for-all that would result? No. But borders are the result and provocateurs of conflict. And they're meaningless, because they've never been consistent for more than a few decades at a time. They only serve to further the fiction that current nations are the result of immutable, proud traditions. And yes, I am in favor of a world government. Why would that be a bad idea, exactly?

2. Fine, nationalism is a positive way of saying racism. Nationalism does not serve to do anything except create an "other" for the populace to rally against, and I'm tired of pretending it's something worth celebrating.

I swear, people invoke the idea of a world government the exact same way Joe McCarthy used to invoke the idea of communism.

[First Offense]

Why do you say that national sovereignty is intellectually defensible? The people living in a country should be able to determine the future of their country.

Because national borders are arbitrary and have done very little throughout history except provoke conflict. There's nothing wrong with pride in your culture, but unbridled nationalism is just a hair's breadth away from fascism, racism, and bigotry. For references, see Hitler, Trump, etc.

1. This is insane. A world without borders is a world without states. Are you in favor of a world government?

2. Put "unbridled" in front of any word, and it immediately becomes bad. This is like someone asking if you like milk, and you responding that you dislike rotten milk.

1. Am I in favor of immediately dissolving borders and the free-for-all that would result? No. But borders are the result and provocateurs of conflict. And they're meaningless, because they've never been consistent for more than a few decades at a time. They only serve to further the fiction that current nations are the result of immutable, proud traditions. And yes, I am in favor of a world government. Why would that be a bad idea, exactly?

2. Fine, nationalism is a positive way of saying racism. Nationalism does not serve to do anything except create an "other" for the populace to rally against, and I'm tired of pretending it's something worth celebrating.

I swear, people invoke the idea of a world government the exact same way Joe McCarthy used to invoke the idea of communism.

I like you.

[Gtr411]

Why do you say that national sovereignty is intellectually defensible? The people living in a country should be able to determine the future of their country.

Because national borders are arbitrary and have done very little throughout history except provoke conflict. There's nothing wrong with pride in your culture, but unbridled nationalism is just a hair's breadth away from fascism, racism, and bigotry. For references, see Hitler, Trump, etc.

1. This is insane. A world without borders is a world without states. Are you in favor of a world government?

2. Put "unbridled" in front of any word, and it immediately becomes bad. This is like someone asking if you like milk, and you responding that you dislike rotten milk.

1. Am I in favor of immediately dissolving borders and the free-for-all that would result? No. But borders are the result and provocateurs of conflict. And they're meaningless, because they've never been consistent for more than a few decades at a time. They only serve to further the fiction that current nations are the result of immutable, proud traditions. And yes, I am in favor of a world government. Why would that be a bad idea, exactly?

2. Fine, nationalism is a positive way of saying racism. Nationalism does not serve to do anything except create an "other" for the populace to rally against, and I'm tired of pretending it's something worth celebrating.

I swear, people invoke the idea of a world government the exact same way Joe McCarthy used to invoke the idea of communism.

1. If you are for a world government, then you are incredibly outside of the political mainstream. That's fine, but you need to recognize this fact.

2. People are against the idea of a world government because they want their leaders to have similar values to them. Look at opinion polls across the world. People are very different and believe in vastly different things. My guess is that the median person in Saudia Arabia, Singapore, Kenya, you, and I would all have different and contradictory ideas about what this world government would look like.

3. The fact that borders are arbitrary and not static doesn't make them meaningless. They are an essential tool of governance at the local, national, and international level. The fact that they aren't everything doesn't make them nothing.

4. Nationalism isn't bad. I cheered for the US soccer team last week. That was nationalism. I joined the military partially because of love of country, aka, nationalism. You keep acting like all nationalism is extreme. Well it's not. Can it go overboard and cause problems? Sure. The same way alcohol can. Guess what. I still like beer.

5. Calling nationalism "racist" shows how little there actually is to your argument. If I cheer for the US to beat the UK at soccer, am I racist? If a black man who was born in Africa joins the US Army for live of country, is he racist? All you are doing is name calling.

[cavalier1138]

There are a lot of bad arguments to unpack there:

First of all, the notion that a worldwide government is "outside the political mainstream" implies that absolutely no one supports centralized authorities like the UN, EU, World Bank, etc. Since all of these agencies are going strong, I'd suggest that you're the one with the extreme views. And any government has leaders who don't share the values of all their people. The Supreme Court didn't have the values of the South when they decided Brown vs. Board of Ed., but you'd be fighting an uphill battle to argue that the Brown decision was bad governance.

Borders are objectively meaningless. They are a grown-up version of siblings in the backseat of a car claiming that one is encroaching on the other's side. Subjectively, they carry a lot of weight, and that's a problem. Under a more centralized authority, these problems would probably start to be dealt with in a more permanent way (observe how the EU has basically ensured that the children of Western Europe have grown up without war for several decades now.

And the fact that you didn't get too drunk and punch someone because they were rooting for the wrong team (i.e. had the great misfortune to not have been born in your country) isn't a sign that nationalism is good. It still foments discord between groups of people who have absolutely nothing that would otherwise come between them.

I'm sure there are plenty of good people who are also somewhat patriotic, but that doesn't make patriotism a good trait, in and of itself. Military personnel are trained to kill for love of country. This isn't to denigrate your service; that's an actual fact of military training. We could get into the necessity of war, etc., but claiming that being ready to kill for your country is inherently a good thing is a non-starter of an argument.

Anyway, all this just is getting far afield: a bunch of old, bigoted British people just screwed over generations to come by voting for isolationism in a country that has never survived by being isolationist.

[Tiago Splitter]

Anyway, all this just is getting far afield: a bunch of old, bigoted British people just screwed over generations to come by voting for isolationism in a country that has never survived by being isolationist.

Britain could easily turn around tomorrow and open up its borders while agreeing to unilateral free trade with every country in the world. It won't and that's the problem. But being or not being in the EU doesn't have anything to do with those issues. The EU is as protectionist as they come.

[Gtr411]

Yeah, I think my take away is that we are very different people who will never agree on this. The only thing I will say is, be careful with your words. You are calling a lot of good people racist because they think differently than you. Maybe tone down the language a bit.

[PresidentPepe]

Banned

[jbagelboy]

Anyway, all this just is getting far afield: a bunch of old, bigoted British people just screwed over generations to come by voting for isolationism in a country that has never survived by being isolationist.

Britain could easily turn around tomorrow and open up its borders while agreeing to unilateral free trade with every country in the world. It won't and that's the problem. But being or not being in the EU doesn't have anything to do with those issues. The EU is as protectionist as they come.

Eh. It has something to do with those issues. Britain has a lot more power within the EU than outside of it.

[Mark Aldridge]

There are a lot of bad arguments to unpack there:

First of all, the notion that a worldwide government is "outside the political mainstream" implies that absolutely no one supports centralized authorities like the UN, EU, World Bank, etc. Since all of these agencies are going strong, I'd suggest that you're the one with the extreme views. And any government has leaders who don't share the values of all their people. The Supreme Court didn't have the values of the South when they decided Brown vs. Board of Ed., but you'd be fighting an uphill battle to argue that the Brown decision was bad governance.

Borders are objectively meaningless. They are a grown-up version of siblings in the backseat of a car claiming that one is encroaching on the other's side. Subjectively, they carry a lot of weight, and that's a problem. Under a more centralized authority, these problems would probably start to be dealt with in a more permanent way (observe how the EU has basically ensured that the children of Western Europe have grown up without war for several decades now.

And the fact that you didn't get too drunk and punch someone because they were rooting for the wrong team (i.e. had the great misfortune to not have been born in your country) isn't a sign that nationalism is good. It still foments discord between groups of people who have absolutely nothing that would otherwise come between them.

I'm sure there are plenty of good people who are also somewhat patriotic, but that doesn't make patriotism a good trait, in and of itself. Military personnel are trained to kill for love of country. This isn't to denigrate your service; that's an actual fact of military training. We could get into the necessity of war, etc., but claiming that being ready to kill for your country is inherently a good thing is a non-starter of an argument.

Anyway, all this just is getting far afield: a bunch of old, bigoted British people just screwed over generations to come by voting for isolationism in a country that has never survived by being isolationist.

Borders are definitely not meaningless. If you are in the business of running a country it is important to know what and who is coming in and out. they are not two kids fighting over imaginary lines in a back seat. They contain people who can decide what sort of society they want to live in under the principle of self-determination.

How would a one world, stateless government work? Who would get to make the decisions?