This is instructive in explaining Brexit and Trump. There’s been disbelief at the outcomes in both the U.K. and the U.S.: “How could people vote to burn the house down?! How could they be so stupid?!”

These reactions seem to miss something very fundamental about what’s happening here.

Policies such as trade, globalization and immigration have all been proven to be of great global economic benefit. Look at the impact they have had on global poverty:

The rise of China tracks closely to the above chart; and it shows just how much trade and globalization has done to lift billions out of poverty.

But while China and the developing world have benefited enormously from trade, so too has the developed world. The benefits of comparative advantage are real. But the question then becomes: for every extra dollar that has accrued to the US and the UK, who has been the beneficiary?

Here’s a hint: it’s not the people who are voting for Trump and Brexit. These folks don’t care about the chart above, or what it represents as an accomplishment for humanity.

It’s not their chart.

This is their chart, and they’re not on the lines that are going up:

This represents the game of ultimatum that is going on right now. Structurally, there’s been plenty of economic growth inside the U.S. — vastly increasing the pile of money to be divided. But these charts also hint at who the players are in the game.

The first player consists of those people inside the U.S. and U.K. who have benefitted from globalization and trade: the “elites”, derisively referred to as “the 1%”.

And the second player? That’s everyone inside the United States and the United Kingdom who aren’t in those upper income echelons. They’re all the lines in the second chart that aren’t going up.

These folks are seeing the pile of money in the game growing ever bigger. And they’re also watching on, as the other player keeps an ever-larger share of that pile for themselves.

Now, it’s tempting to adopt a humanist argument: that it’s OK to sacrifice these folks for the greater good. You see this argument all the time: that what is happening in the first chart makes what is happening in the second chart acceptable. That dragging China and the world out of poverty makes it OK for America’s middle class to suffer.

Putting aside how incredibly tone deaf it is for those who are benefiting inside the developed world to point at the collateral beneficiaries in China as a rationale for continuing the policies that have led us to this place (I’m sure benefiting China’s poor was their real motivation all along), there’s something else that needs to be said:

It’s just plain wrong.

The choice is a false one. The benefits from trade and immigration and globalization are so huge, even for developed countries, that should it have been managed properly, everyone inside of these countries would be doing better than they otherwise would have.

But they’re not, because it’s not been managed well. And now, we’re staring the barrel of all it all disappearing because one player is being greedy about it.