Writes Idrees Kahloon in "Economists Love Immigration. Why Do So Many Americans Hate It? In a democracy, a policy appraisal has to contend with political as well as economic consequences" (The New Yorker).
It’s notable that neither John Rawls nor Robert Nozick, the past century’s two greatest thinkers about the social contract, was eager to reckon with the matter of migration in his magnum opus. In "A Theory of Justice," Rawls argued that the rules ordering a just society are the ones we would agree to behind a veil of ignorance about our position in it. If the entire world could be placed behind one such veil, would it settle for the present-day system of tightly regulated borders? It seems unlikely, but Rawls dodged the issue by limiting his analysis to 'closed' societies, in which migration was assumed away....
In “Immigration and Democracy” (Oxford), Sarah Song, a professor of law and political science at Berkeley.... writes, “part of what it means for a political community to be self-determining is that it controls whom to admit as new members.”...
But America today has forty-five million foreign-born residents—the most of any country, and as many as the next four combined. And Biden, loudly hawkish on unauthorized immigration, has quietly expanded the number of legal admissions.... If America’s [demographic transition] proceeds peacefully, it would mark success for one of the greatest experiments any democracy has ever tried, and help secure economic primacy over closed and sclerotic societies like China’s....
53 comments:
Americans do not hate immigration; they are sick to death of illegal immigration.
So economists "love" the burden placed on our economy by the invasion at our southern border.
Who knew, besides this guy?
"Economists Love Immigration. Why Do So Many Americans Hate It?"
How many Americans hate immigration?
I know there's a great deal of dislike for illegal immigration.
But immigration itself?
Idrees Kahloon, with the ol' reliable Straw Man argument. 'Why do you Americans hate immigrants ?', in the best snooty harvard-New Yorker accent.
I dunno Idrees, I dunno. Your bio says you cook a lot, so - have you stopped eating your neighborhood dogs yet?
There's a grammatical mistake in the quote in the post title:
"... a series of uncomfortable questions arise" — Should be: "a series of uncomfortable questions arises."
"Series" is singular.
China isn't closed and sclerotic because of a lack of diversity: they are a fascist, communist dictatorship.
And we are not a democracy because of diversity but, increasingly, despite it. Rather, we are less of a functioning democracy because of it.
Even immigrants statistically oppose more immigration -- except the wealthy ones, who see America as their best chance at oligarchy.
Not democracy.
Maybe we need more diverse economists.
"White Nationalist" is latest phrase in a long list pejoratives brought to the forefront by the crazed lefties. I can't recall hearing the phrase prior to President Soiled Pants being selected to the "White" House. Of course it is tossed out there primarily by white liberals.
The virtue signaling lefties love illegal immigration because they know no economics.
"It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state"
Milton Friedman
All those "asylum seekers" are seeking welfare, not freedom.
You can't have the luxury of political philosophy unless you take care of economic necessity first. If you ignore economic necessity in favor of political philosophy, you end up being no longer able to afford political philosophy.
Western civilization needs to stop feeling guilty about being successful. We have produced a world in which standards of living worldwide are better than at any other time in history, even as our population is higher than at any other time in history.
"Why Do So Many Americans Hate [Immigration]?"
ILLEGAL Immigration!!!
I'd be embarrassed to be this dishonest/stupid.
Welfare state, democracy, open borders: Pick any two.
It is not complicated. Of course, intelligent, very well-educated people have difficulties understanding the obvious.
Oh, the economy will grow so much if we allow infinite number of immigrants into the country. The fact that they will completely overwhelm the social programs and bankrupt the country doesn't matter. The fact that they will politically destabilize the country as they vote for more money for themselves doesn't matter. People tend to forget that when the United States was very open to immigration, if you came to the country and didn't have a way to support yourself, you either died or you went home, and if you made trouble the locals would shoot you.
1/2
["What moral weight, for instance, should be accorded to the human desire for cultural continuity? Taken to an extreme, it could legitimatize the sort of ethnic separation that white nationalists aspire to when they recite their credo known as the Fourteen Words: 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.'....]
"Cultural" Continuity is also Genetic Continuity, which is literally the primary directive of all life on the planet. The desire to maintain a homogenous - or at least a supermajority - homeland for you genetic kindred (and its linked outward expressions we call 'culture') is moral in both the biblical sense (I'll get to that later) and the material one. The New Yorker understands this of course when it talks of 'decolonization' of places outside of Europe.
What's compelling about 'The Fourteen Words' in today's society isn't the idea that the whole world should be White, but that the idea that White People seeking a future for White Children creats such vitrol among the elite. Replace White with any other ethnic group and nobody would find the statement, as is, controversial.
[On the other hand, there’s the question of whether rich countries have Good Samaritan responsibilities to help poorer ones....]
The Good Samaritan took the injured man to the nearest inn, and gave him a few coins to take care of his immidiete needs. He did not invite him back to him home, give him his son's inheritance, and offer up his daughter.
2/2
[Modern political philosophers have largely found extreme limitations on people’s ability to migrate to be unjustifiable....]
A group of unnamed liberals of the current era argue that the mainstrea ideology of the current era liberals to be the only allowable one.
[If humans all have equal moral worth, how can it be fair to let the dumb luck of birth determine opportunity to such an extreme degree?"]
Equal worth... to whom.
My brother has more worth to me than a stranger halfway across the world. This is true for everyone on the planet. Forcing us to accept the base concept as given is wrong. We can all have equal worth on some cosmic scale (although secularists never give proof for why one genetic meatbag must inherently have the same worth as another) but that is irrelevant in terms of why one society must have zero barriers of entry to another.
And if we are going with a religious argument (doubtful, from the New Yorker), then we are not all equal by anyone's metric, nor are we again required to commit suicide in the persuit of the absurd.
From an explicitly Christian point of view, the idea of all nations becomming one is mentioned three times - Tower of Babel, Temptation of Christ, and Revelations - all involve the union of nations being acts of rebellion against God. Whereas nations as distinct peoples and entities are referred to as Good many times.
This is another one of those 'I hold contempt for people who use religion to determine political positions so this wouldn't work on me, but if I throw these worse out there maybe it will work on you" arguments by the NewYorker.
Finally, we get into the idea that we are all just atomized individuals placed on the earth by random chance. Just bad luck X was born in Omaha and Y was born in Mogadishu. Boo hoo.
Except both X and Y (and for that matter, Omaha and Mogadishu) are not just random elements in a chaotic universe. You are the sum of a billion choices and events of your ancestors, and you are as much their living legacy as you are just an individual who appeared somewhere by dumb luck. If my ancestors fought and bled for their homogenity (ie, not being raped and conquered by some other group), and then on top of that build a relatively prosperous, relatively corrupt-free, relatively peaceful land *and kept it*, then am I really just a meatbag of dumb luck, or the very reason they struggled for so long in the first place. In which case, I have a *duty* not to simply hurr durr it's all about ME and throw my spoils to the rest of the world, but to protect the collective birthright and be a steward of it for the rest of my progeny.
Maybe instead of complaining why people in Mogadishu had the bad luck to be born there, we should examine the elements that over the centuries made Mogadishu what it is today, and perhaps suggest it is immoral in the extreme to subject these elements on the denizens of Omaha.
Grammar be obsolete.
We're against "illegal" immigration. It brings with it diseases and crime and it dilutes the legal residents voting power.
Americans do NOT hate immigration. That's how the New Yorker wants to paint the narrative to be: that we hate. We're haters. We're bad people.
Americans love immigration when it is done properly and when it is done according to the laws that we have passed and when it is not used against us like a fking weapon by Democrats bent on obtaining political power by any illegal means necessary. Americans like the rule of law and this nation has abandoned it. That will not end well for the people who brought it about. They're going to find themselves and their families at the end of a bayonet before it's all over.
The New Yorker can go fk itself. We hate the New Yorker, not immigration.
The problem of certain social experiments is that, should they fail (spectacularly) there are no reset buttons.
What could go wrong?
Does she mention Aristotle's Politics? Some great thinkers are greater than others.
Does she mention Aristotle's Politics? Some great thinkers are greater than others.
"Economists love x" and the question is never "Why should anyone care what Economists think?"
You import the third world on the scale we are doing it, you will get the third world version of the United States. The country cannot and will not assimilate these people at this scale of operation. Within 50 years, every single urban area in the United States will look like Tijuana or Lagos does today. We are already half the way there. The Democrats see only new Democrat voters, and don't give a flying fuck about anything else.
The other people of the world are entirely free to build better societies where they and their families were born. Had the indigenous population of North America the ability to stop the European settlers, what would our intellectual class of today say about that? Our "philosophers", were they intellectually consistent, should say "Good job," right? Can anyone imagine Idrees Kahloon criticizing the indigenous Americans for tossing the Europeans back across the sea?
You either defend your borders, or you will be overrun by a foreign population who won't give one fuck about you, your family, or your neighbors, and may well kill them in the competition for resources. You don't have to like this fact, but facts don't give a shit about your feelings. The Idrees Kahloons of the world are the enemy inside the perimeter, and they are advocating for annihilation of the citizens of the West and their descendents, whether they know this or not.
Quite the juxtaposition. On the one hand, there are the Good Samaritans. On the other hand, there are the White Nationalists/Nazis.
On the third hand, there is Sweden, where the prime minister has recently said:
“Let me be clear: Massive immigration and poor integration just doesn’t work. That is why we are now changing Sweden’s migration policy and making it the strictest in the EU.”
Ann: But what about the sic in the last paragraph?
Immigration is purely a political question; not a moral one. We all know the Dems - both through Ted Kennedy's immigration law and Biden's failing to enforce any immigration laws - intend to add more Dem voters so that their party will rule forever. That's it. It's not about helping poor people.
And as VDH has observed, there has never been a successful republic with a number of ethnic and racial tribes fighting each other and for political spoils. Look at the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda.
Identity politics or tribalism is how the Dems destroy the unique American culture. It's all about money and power.
When I hear kids talking a language other than English, I know we are doomed. My friend from Burkina Faso, however, has his kids speaking English. Some immigrants get it.
Look at How Well immigration has worked for Sweden!!
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/may/26/fatal-shootings-have-risen-in-sweden-despite-fall-across-europe-report-finds
Sweden is the only European country where fatal shootings have risen significantly since 2000, leaping from one of the lowest rates of gun violence on the continent to one of the highest in less than a decade, a report has found.
It's Weird! back when All the people in Sweden, were Swedish.. NO CRIME
Now that they successfully imported LARGE numbers of 3rd world thugs.. HIGH CRIME
Go figure?
Humans are tribal by nature. Happy to help their neighbors. Happy to help people who want to be teammates, follow the correct application process and agree to follow team rules. Have no use for anyone else who come here without those prerequisites. People shouldn’t be guaranteed that my hard work will support them when they just walk in. When my grandparents came here over 100 years ago, the only guarantee was the opportunity to find their way in a land where they were free to do so. Failure resulted in starvation.
Ann- it is unreasonable to expect the author of a New Yorker article to have a command of English grammar commensurate with our generation's standards.
All well and good if we're all adhering to Rawls' principles. Are we though?
Illegals keep tidy hotel rooms too!
Q. What ever happened to the "Best and the Brightest"?
In a representative republic, where authoritarian progress is constrained by constitution, the government and others of single/central/monopolistic ideals, have to contend with civil rights of citizens. Or so it was, in principle. That said, people are not opposed to immigration, but rather [catastrophic] [anthropogenic] immigration reform (e.g. democratic gerrymandering, labor arbitrage) in lieu of emigration reform, Critical Diversity Theory (CDT) in lieu of diversity, and abortion in lieu of Life.
" it could legitimatize the sort of ethnic separation that white nationalists aspire to when they recite their credo known as the Fourteen Words: 'We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.'.... "
This made me laugh. I've never heard of this and here's the New Yorker quoting it as though it's some kind of policy-setting threat. Nine-tenths of the Left's discourse seems to be based entirely on fevered imagings.
Good catch on that grammatical error in the headline. But I don't know why you added "[sic]" to the dependent clause "If America’s proceeds peacefully."
If you read the sentence in context -- I mean, also look at the sentence right before that one -- it says, "Demographic transitions have often been marred by oppression and violence. If America’s proceeds peacefully, [etc.]."
So the possessive "America’s" has to mean "America’s demographic transition." Perhaps the thought could have been expressed better. But I saw no error that deserved a "[sic]" there.
Ann Althouse said...There's a grammatical mistake in the quote in the post title:
An understandable mistake. I'm an editor and I make it sometimes--when there is a dependent clause between the noun and the verb, the correct verb will sometimes sound clunky while the incorrect one hits the ear just right.
Modern political philosophers have largely found extreme limitations on people’s ability to migrate to be unjustifiable.
Modern political philosophers aren't very smart. We're not talking about people's right to migrate as a general concept, we are talking about the obligation of a country to accept people they don't want. What about the right of the people in that country to control their borders?
Economists are buffoons, then.
"Economists Love Immigration. Why Do So Many Americans Hate It?"
This is what conflation actually looks like.
“ Ann: But what about the sic in the last paragraph? ”
I was confused by my own ellipsis. It needed bracketed material. Fixed.
"The Good Samaritan took the injured man to the nearest inn, and gave him a few coins to take care of his immidiete needs. He did not invite him back to him home, give him his son's inheritance, and offer up his daughter."
Excellent.
"JAORE said...
The problem of certain social experiments is that, should they fail (spectacularly) there are no reset buttons.
What could go wrong?"
Accepting more Somalis than any other state -- by a wide margin -- gave Minnesota the "Feeding our Future" fraud and Ilhan Omar, who's surname very well may be fraudulent too.
So would the left love a 45 million person illegal immigration from countries like Poland, Hungary, etc. where the immigrants have experienced constitutional order and are conservative and believe in Constitutional order? I think not. Their points about immigration are bullshit because they only support fundamentally changing America away from rule of law and toward rule of the leftist elite.
Idrees makes the common mistake and insult of conflating all types of immigratiion into a single thing. I would venture to guess that the vast majority of people are in favor of legal immigration, and most are against illegal immigration.
With our declining birthrate, if we don't reform out entitlements, we need more young people, but only the Congress gets to set immigration law/policy and the President is obligated to enforce that law. Failure to do so is an abrogation of his sworn oath and should be unanimous impreachment and removal from office. Both Obama and Biden deserved to be impeached and removed for this reason.
My wife is a legal immigrant. She went through all of the hassle and expense to come to the US legally. After we met in college and got married, she applied for her (brown) green card. We had to sign papers that stated if either of us ended up on public assistance for any reason, she could be deported. It didn't matter if I was paralyzed in an accident, she could be forced to leave the country. That was in 1983. Somewhere between then and now, that provision must have been dropped. My wife waited 5 years, took the test and paid more money to become a naturalized US citizen. She worked a full career as a nurse and paid a lot of taxes along the way. She's retired now. We still pay a lot of taxes.
To those who advocate open borders, people like my wife are chumps. She could've just entered the country illegally and applied for all sorts of welfare like the cool kids are doing.
I know a lot of legal immigrants. None of them like being a chump. None of them are in favor of illegal immigration, and neither are most Americans.
Progressives don't think any thing is wrong with an open border. WHY?? Illegal immigration is what Americans hate, and the invasion is just pissing us off even more. When the Sanctuary cities and states start crying because they are getting what they were spouting off that they wanted so much, but expect the rest of us to pay for, they can jump off a cliff. THEY did this...let THEM pay for their bad policies. Leave us alone, and let Progressives take them into THEIR houses since they want them so badly.
Economists like AOC, the brilliant graduate of Economics of Brown University???
"Taken to an extreme, it could legitimatize the sort of ethnic separation that white nationalists aspire to when they recite their credo..."
How does this differ from the ethnic separation demanded by blacks on many college campuses?
Asking for a friend...
It's like saying Americans hate Fri ers vs drunk drivers.
Lots of good ideas about it here. Thank you commentsriat. Yes, economists recognize immigration is generally an economic good. New people arrive, they work, they buy things- food, clothing, housing, they pay taxes. In that context it works. Economists also like entry fees. Pay the US government instead of the coyote. We can argue about how much…and no bennies just for showing up.
There’s an argument to be had about job protections, too. Economists hate that shit…
Why do so many Americans hate [immigration]?
Hmm. Putting an unsupported assertion right there in the title of your article. Not off to a good start.
So, we talking about immigration in general? Or ILLEGAL immigration? Or you just tryin' to sneak that past us?
=====
Oh. I see now that was the first comment here at Althouse. Believe I'll mark this Idrees Kahloon, whoever he/she is, down as a not very subtle propagandist, not to be trusted. Next article?
One of the things that shocks some people is India, or at least the Indian subcontinent, had the highest percentage of the world's GDP for a substantial period of human history. At the time the world had not industrialized, so wealth was primarily agricultural output. As 90%+ of the world's population was involved with farming, farming wealth was closely associated with overall population, and, furthermore, overall wealth was closely associated with farming wealth. India had the world's largest population, so they were the wealthiest. Never mind that a substantial number of these peasants could barely feed themselves and were quite poor, but a large number of poor peasants increase the overall GDP quite substantially. Once Europe started to industrialize and GDP was delinked from agriculture, India's percentage dropped precipitously.
Many economists see more people = more wealth. They don't really care if the more people are uneducated, non-skilled workers that are exceptionally poor. They just want bodies. Bodies equal wealth. They are technically correct that more workers do lead to more wealth, but it is not exactly the way countries want to produce wealth. Importing a massive underclass of foreigners in an uncontrolled manner tends to not produce positive outcomes, even if the overall GDP goes up.
Welfare state, democracy, open borders: Pick any two.
I'll just have the one in the middle, thanks.
Economists like AOC, the brilliant graduate of Economics of Brown University??
Boston University…and essentially a minor. You don’t need micro or macro economics at BU for that. You can take all the woke econ like Econ of Racism and Climate Change Economics and you’re good…
Economists know the expense of everything and the value of nothing. Keep the bean counters on tap but not on top.
There is no such thing as White Culture anywhere in the world, least of all the US which has many ethnicities and mixtures of ethnicities
It’s something Intellectuals made up.
The sum of ethnic subcultures isn’t a culture. Perhaps the similarity among subcultures on certain issues could give the illusion of a Culture, but it’s an illusion.
Intellectuals, like the rest of us, confuse stereotypes with concepts and then use words to ossify their mistakes.
People don't hate immigration! They hate that people are abusing the asylum criteria when they merely want to come for economic reasons and are willing to break our laws and jump the lines to do so.
I have friends whose families waited in line and spent most of their money to come.
Does Harvard have an application process or do they just let all students jump the walls of Harvard Yard and have a mad rush for open beds? America is like Harvard; we're the best in the world and everyone wants to be here. We should be allocating our access by seeking the very very best and the brightest from around the world, who will come and work hard and create companies and inventions here that will grow not only the USA but the world.
Does U-W Madison allow a bum's rush for the finite spots in a class and just let the kids from Stevens Point and Parkside and Euclaire totally disregard the process and make a bum's rush for beds?
Personally I would rather America focus on excellence and growth and being a world beacon instead of mediocrity and fairness.
We have laws and a Process and most Americans want this observed. We also want a certain amount of assimilation and loyalty whole still respecting home culture and traditions.
People are not against immigration! They are against criminal lawbreakers.
Also, when these people come and take $100k per month hotels who is pay for that? We did not got on this. In fact it is against our laws! And Mayor Adams in NYC is going to pay families $125/day to house illegal immigrants when we only pay $26 for foster kids? Good luck to all foster kids who will now be crowded out by criminals!
Our own American kids and veterans are being kicked to the curb as Biden seeks a more compliant voting base.
Are these lawbreakers going to put stress and strain on our welfare systems? How do you feel about not gettign your Social Security because some criminal needs it more? Or having your real estate taxes soar to provide ESL and a parallel education system to the illegals? These are real issues we will confront with this insane policy.
I live near a Sanctuary City and see the virtue signaling hitting the fan as reality hits. Biden has no right to impose these costs on America as he grubs for votes and panders to the illegals. Here in Chicago black people are pissed they are being pushed aside to cater to illegal criminals.
Open Borders and Welfare States cannot coexist. It will rip the social fabric... There will be a cost to empowering the Mexican Cartels.
In the Home Depots I frequent, large numbers of migrant workers also shop. The bathrooms have trash cans next to the toilets in the stalls, because peasant migrant workers were raised knowing that the toilet paper can't go down the toilet, it will block up the (inadequate) house plumbing and overflow the toilet. The used toilet paper goes in the trash can, then gets burned or landfilled. Before the trash cans were installed, the used toilet paper piled up on the floor next to the toilets. So an accomodation to different cultural practices was made by Home Depot, so they wouldn't have as big a mess cleaning up the used toilet paper.
Economists might need to add detail to their "cultural assimilation" calculations to include more than just racial differences.
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