How bad ideas about migration are causing economic hardship and turning the partisan divide into an irreconcilable chasm. This newsletter was originally written as a response to a highly articulate article in Quillette, equally critical of both extremes in the American political and cultural landscape. In this essay, I try to look to the foundational issue which I believe is causing the rift and driving populism as an issue. I would highly recommend watching the Niall Ferguson talk at Google Zeitgeist and looking at the living standards and cultural cohesion of Australia, which, with its rate of 30% foreign-born citizens, has far higher levels of inward migration than either America or the UK, yet seems to have sidestepped mainly of the more contentious political movements sweeping the advanced economies of the West.
When you have lived long enough in a foreign country, you eventually begin to realize that the one you left behind, once accepted as utterly unique since it was all you knew, is not particularly di… (from the article)
It’s a great essay, extremely well-written and lucid. I also agree with much of the sentiment, but fear that as a cosmopolitan liberal, and likely high in trait open to new experience and low in ingroup, the author seems to believe many of the tropes perpetrated by the legacy media. Donald Trump is an idiot, and his reckless disregard in staging his equivalent of a WWE event at the Capitol- no doubt to appeal to his vain sense of narcissism- will forever condemn his legacy, but one seriously has to question the plausibility of the claim that it was either an Insurrection or even a deliberate attempt to start a riot.
But more seriously, there is a liberal cognitive bias which sees any anti-immigration sentiment as a sign of embedded racism- even the claim that voting in racial self-interest is racism is implausible (only 32% of Americans and 24% of Brits see voting to maintain racial demographics are racist, and they are almost exclusively drawn for the ranks of the Left, and mostly the white Left).
One only has to look at Brexit to see that exactly the same sentiments which apply on the political Right in America, also existed in relation the mass immigration of white Eastern Europeans. And it’s a sentiment not borne of animus towards others, in the main, but rather the deep and emphatic desire to see one’s cultural legacy and community preserved. Independents are likely to be less racist than either Democrats or Republicans, for the simple reason that if we don’t want to belong to the groupishness of political parties, why would we care what race someone is?
This is not to say that racism does not exist on the Right, but it exists where it belongs- on the extreme fringe. Public intellectual Steven Pinker has looked at the research on racism in America and concluded that between roughly 5 and 10% of Americans still hold racist views. Pew Research on views on interracial marriage show that if one looks solely at the Left and the Right, then two-thirds of American racists vote Republican and one-third vote Democrat. Encouragingly, two-thirds are over 65.
So how to explain Trump? Historian Niall Ferguson gave a talk at Google Zeitgeist around six months before Trump was elected. He examined the history of populism in America and concluded two main points. First, that populism always arose when the rate of foreign-born citizens reached the crucial threshold of 14% and, more importantly, it was always triggered by an economic downturn which introduced economic scarcity into the equation. It should be noted that most Americans still support legal migration, but for many, the perception probably exist, quite rightly, that migrant illegal workers causes economic hardship for blue collar workers, both in terms of wage dilution and reduced labour participation.
Economic analyses from the UK has looked at the issue from the point of the economic spectrum and found that migration of all types economically benefits people in the top 20% of the income spectrum at the expense of the 20% at the bottom of the working age population. The Migration Observatory, a group affiliated with Oxford University is generally quite favourable towards migration, but they have at least been honest enough to compile a list of studies which show that at a rate of 14% foreign-born citizenship, the bottom 20% of the working population suffers around an 8% reduction in wages, whilst it reduces labour population for the host population as a whole by around 2%.
This may not seem like much but one has remember these figures are net, and it is highly likely that both women and people further up the economic spectrum gain whilst blue collar working men and trade professionals lose disproportionately. Most illegal foreign workers are men of working age, and although they are often well-credentialed in their country of origin they almost always displace or compete for jobs usually performed by those further down the economic spectrum.
If you are a blue collar men in America, regardless of whether you are white, African American or Latino, then it highly likely that you face a 1 in 10 chance that your job was displaced by an illegal worker, and if you do work, your income has probably taken a 20% hit in real-terms, over the decades. Recent migrants, both legal and illegal, competing in these sectors are the most likely to be economically harmed by further migration.
Here’s the thing- the searing truth is that it is political partisanship which is the jet fuel of populism. The supporters of both parties see the other as an existential threat. For the Democrats, illegal migration represents salvation, the chance to forever eliminate the political chances of the opposition through demographics. For Republicans, more migrants means America turning socialist, the perpetuation and pre-eminence into everyday life of the largest and most intrusive government in human history.
It shows in this research performed on Trump Support. It shows that hostility is growing towards traditional Democrat supporting groups not because of animus or racism, but because of politics. Although conservatives lack the institutional support and resources to perform similar research on changing attitudes towards conservatives, rural voters and white blue collar workers, the rhetoric coming out of the universities sees conservatives as racist for no other reason than voting Republican.
At the hub of the matter, is the subject of ingroup and the potential for outgroup hostility. Although those lucky enough to be born in the West (and into economically privileged circumstances to well-educated parents) have no ingroup to speak of, everybody else in the world does, as do the roughly 70% to 80% of people born into less fortunate circumstances than cosmopolitan liberals. The cosmopolitans wrongly believe that it simply a matter of education or experience, that others can simply learn to be like them, when it is the intellectual equivalent of expecting an elephant to fly.
There is a solution. It’s called cultural homogeneity and America used to have it with its melting pot, patriotism, belief in American exceptionalism, love of country, flag and anthem, pledge of allegiance, American apple pie and all the ties that bound. But in trying to deconstruct those ties of nationality which hold the centre together, in celebrating a more strident form of multiculturalism which baulks no concession to American values or social mores, tolerates foreign languages spoken in public and denigrates American culture and history, liberals have been dismantling the very thing which kept outgroup hostility at bay, which allows most Americans to draw a bigger conceptual circle of who belongs, and ultimately stops all the less economically privileged groups from killing each other. Little wonder then that America is descending rapidly towards dystopia.
The tragedy is there is a solution, one which our Antipodean cousins in Australia have embraced and proved to work. It is possible to run rates of foreign-born citizenship far in excess of those which are causing such tension in America and Europe. Their ‘populate or perish’ policy has been hugely successful. The key, weirdly, was labour unions. Whilst the Unions understood that Australia needed to grow to avert a future outcome which saw something similar to the threat they faced in WWII, they were also able to insist that the inward migration didn’t displace or compete with Australian labour- its blue collar workers and trade professionals.
Each year the Australian Government publishes a list of skilled and degree qualifies occupations which the country desperately needs. Here is an example. Believe it or not, even if a country sends 50% of their kids to university, there will always be huge skills and qualifications shortages for the simple reasons that their are plenty of courses kids don’t want to study and some for which only a relatively small percentage of the population possesses the aptitude.
This approach defuses the economic scarcity which has triggered populism in Europe and America. On the cultural side, the fact that market dominant migration tends to choose housing which selects on the basis of socio-economics, and are far less likely to self-segregate into poorer culturally homogenous ghettos also helps, because it means existing communities are not displaced. It also aids greatly with integration.
There was a way to avoid the dire straits which America now finds itself in, and it would not have necessarily involved the solution more conventional politicians in the past used to avert populism- which back then was always involved drawing immigration to a close for a generation.
To be fair, the stereotypes work both ways. Many amongst the woke see the ideology as an empathy building tool. They have been fed an unrelenting stream of highly unrepresentative videos of police shootings via social media and believe these shootings are commonplace. In 2019, a range of people across the political spectrum were asked to estimate the total number of police shootings of unarmed Black men. Of those who identified as very liberal just over 22% estimated 10,000 or above. The actual figure was just over ten. So it is little wonder they believe that drastic action is called for.
It is also worth noting that less migration filling jobs in the blue collar and trade professional will inevitably raise social and socio-economic outcomes for America’s hardest hit economic classes. There is a fallacy that as more come in to perform jobs in the real economy, those already here will naturally move up. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The lack of a substantial tax base and the net drain the low skilled represent, in terms of taxes paid vs. government services consumed, means fewer resources spent per child in vital areas like education. Add the economic hardship introduced by lower wages and less labour participation, and it easy to see how further stretched public schools and communities more likely to be blighted by lower rates of fatherhood will cause outcomes in which childhood development is less optimal than it could be.
By contrast, market dominant migrants are generally net contributors to the tax base, meaning more money per child for public schools. Paired with the tighter labour markets which give roofers and factory workers more negotiating power, this means stronger communities more able to lift the next generation up towards better paid occupations and higher educational standards.
Like the author, I don’t see a way out of this mess. Although Biden may seem somewhat conventional and mainstream, some of his rhetoric towards populism is incendiary and inflammatory, and the cultural policy agenda he is conceding by stealth to the far Left is truly appalling. Teachers openly talking about teaching the next generation of white killer cops, and the Maoist Struggle Sessions so disarmingly and disingenuously labelled CRT, worming their way into every branch of government, the military and public schools.
We have to understand that populism is inevitable paired with the economic scarcity caused by the recessions which are natural feature of the economic cycle. There is no way to defuse it, to educate our way out of it, or find some mainstream solution which diffuses the underlying tension which inevitably arise from ingroup within a population. The Left are hardly going to agree to a return to a more culturally homogeneous form of multiculturalism, which reinstates all the social mores and common ground of the melting pot.
The only real hope is that America abandons it myopic belief in taking the poor, tired, huddled masses and switches to an Australian-style points system for recruiting migrants which doesn’t harm America’s most vulnerable and precariously situated workers. But the Democrats are unlikely to want to do this for the simple reason that market dominant migrants tends to be evenly split in voting terms, whilst lower skilled migration votes overwhelmingly for the Left. Hell, they don’t even want to accept Cubans when the regime is firing on crowds 1.
If you liked this newsletter (or enjoy Substack more broadly), please consider sharing with friends and family. Heterodox voices like mine find it far more difficult to gain prominence in the cultural or political domain, for the simple reason that we are never the loudest voices- on both sides of the political spectrum there are those who use negative engagement and anger economics to gain popularity and viewership.
Although a cosmopolitan liberal by natural inclination, after Brexit in the UK (and then Trump) I have spent the last five years researching the reasons why there is such a disconnect between establishment elites and ordinary people. In the process, I made many conservative and libertarian friends, and have to admit that I was previously woefully ignorant about the driving forces which characterise the more socially conservative. And all because I happened to read Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind at just about the right time to consider Brexit in a different light.
So if you liked this essay, consider sharing it with a friend, a partner or a family member. If you are a social media luddite like me, try asking them to type Substack and The Omega Inflection and/or Geary Johansen on their mobile phone or computer. Ironically, the main reason why I was able to spot certain weird and disconcerting cultural trends sooner than most is also a major impediment to promoting my work- I have always loathed social media, and because I was not exposed to the same osmosis as many, I was quicker to notice a strange set of priors beginning to pervade the media and cultural space.
Unfortunately, the type of social media footprint which is only really useful if you want to check whether family members have arrived safely when travelling abroad, isn’t ideal if you are an aspiring writer. Most successful writers make extensive use of social media, even though many of them loathe it.
The situation has become deeply partisan because Democrats have become fully bent on destruction of the American value proposition. They openly hate it and don’t care that we finally get their agenda. They have always hated the Constitution. They feel ultimate victory within reach, hence the effort to completely undermine election integrity. We may have one more chance to slow the decline.
It's mostly that they want a simple first past the post democracy, so that they can try all their programs out. They don't understand that when 51% gives a party more power to change things, areas like education in particular suffer. My mother is a retired schoolteacher in the UK. The number of times I saw a newly elected government change things for changes sake, spending a shitload of money on bureaucracy, just so they could tell the voters that education was their main priority was pretty much par for the course.
And it's not just education. There are ample reasons why in most areas you want a government constrained from doing much, unless there is a clear majority of 70% or 80% of people who want the change.
You mean it's hard to have an American country if people don't think themselves all Americans first and foremost? Who knew?
How do you solve issues among a diverse people (think about religion)? Do you force them to reject all of it? For them to have faith in only one of them? Or do you accept liberty and equal protection works, that people will never agree on anything and so forcing one view on all is sure to create conflict?
There has to be a unifying sense of civic pride in the nation. The belief that whatever historical flaws it possesses, the trend is upward. One of the things I used to love about Americans, was their boundless sense of optimism. I could explain exactly what happened, but it is easier to describe by way of illustration- now that China has mostly developed they too are shedding jobs offshore- making Africa China's China_ but unlike America they are only offshoring the low value labour, keeping the mid to high value manufacturing for themselves.
All it took was the displacement of America's professional managerial class with a proliferation of legal and accountancy types, who cared less for their country or their businesses than the ledger of detached numbers. Paper samurai with little conception of the way businesses in the real world operate, most of their former companies are now bankrupt, as is the American Dream.
It is recoverable. Americans possess a strength not found in the old world other than in a few of the North or Western states, but it will be a long hard slog back up the hill and will require the reification of the American mythos from first principles.
I hope your faith/belief comes true, but "long hard slog" isn't what many Americans would ever dream of now, and most Americans would never do anything that's hard or risky or self-motivated (unless it gives great pleasure!). America looks to China and Europe and see solutions to the problems of individual liberty and equality under the law with more "scientific" central planning.
The China thing is a false impression. There are plenty of things to criticise China over, but the size of their government relative to their population or tax levels are not the problem. They tax about 24% of national wealth generated, much less than the 40% which America does, or the 50% which is common for most of the other advanced economies. Crucially, 80% of this amount is devolved out to the regions and is mainly used for the purposes of economic development.
WHO and the rest looked to China for how to solve a Covid crisis with lockdowns, border closings and other mandates, and a bit with forced vaccinations and "passports" for attending social life.
One thing we have seen play out is that official tolerance only works within defined parameters. In religion, it only works when the large majority are united in a judeo Christian tradition. In politics, the large majority must agree on the basic premise of a constitutional Republican form of constrained government. Once a minority takes advantage of the good will of the majority, game over. The end game is “one man, one vote,” one more time.
As a 4th Gen CA Native, one would have to be a blind fool or a partisan to not see the radical changes and shift that has happened in my home state during my 50 year life. Immigration from our porous border has made our State unrecognizable, which has not led to an average of 5,000 CA middle class residents flee the state each month! There are no solutions except draconian measures of complete lockdown of our southern border, but we all know this will not happen. So...before the wife and I take our eternal "dirt naps", we too must vacate our home state and live out our days with folks closer to our "tribe". Great essay Geary! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your kind comment. I gather Colorado is highly incensed with the influx of citizens from other parts of the country. I would try Texas, but check the weather maps for the best parts of the States in terms of average temperatures and the ideal local scene.
It never ceases to amaze me how little preparation people put into life changing decisions relating to homes. My first job out of Uni was in retail banking- believe it or not, people put more work into choosing a new car than they do in shopping for the right finance, which can often make tens of thousands of dollars worth of difference over the course of a mortgage. And it's true of virtually every aspect of the homebuying process- good research endows the better prepared with a distinct comparative advantage...
Another solid article. Wish I had some people to share with but they are all ADD so any article this length is a no go! It would be awesome to have some sort of merit system for immigration but you know that will never happen here. Trump was labeled a racist for even bringing it up and as long as the press is in bed with the left to rile up the masses--anyone who promotes it is toast. I really am not one to go to the extreme but the only way we will ever get this country back is through a civil war. That is not hyperbole. In two years we will take back the house and senate and in 2024 Trump will get reelected. Fraud will not win out the day next time. If anyone thinks the riots of 2020 were bad and they were--wait for a 2024. In the mean time, we have our inner cities decimated with crime. Murder in broad daylight isn't a shock to anyone. Thugs commit burglary with no consequence. Police are retiring in droves and will only get worse. Our institutions that are suppose to protect us, don't. The FBI, CIA and Justice Departments are corrupt to the core spending more time on a NASCAR hoax than election integrity. Politicians openly defy subpoenas with no consequence. Our schools at every level are killing education to where Oregon won't even require math and English and CRT is pushed. I could go on and on. I have always been hopeful but without a free and fair press we are screwed. I hope I am wrong, but I don't thank so. So we are diligently preparing for the worst hoping for the best.
I appreciate your perspective, I long for the day when people could agree to disagree without a label being thrown. I didn't agree with much of Christopher Hitchens back in the day but he was so worth the time to get his perspective. Now I have substack, something that reminds me of the better days. I take no pleasure in my grammar especially since my dad was a English grammar teacher for 30 years in high school and I did not take him!
The policing situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The Left is partially right about policies like violence interrupters and community resourcing, but what they fail to understand is that these approaches only tend to have an effect when paired with proactive policing, or the much loathed Broken Windows approach- that was what the Scotland public health approach proved conclusively. Plus, it really needs to be focused on youth crime, because it is far easier to reform the young.
It's going to take at least 15 years to recover to former homicide rates.
As always a very thoughtful approach. Yes! Let's bring back "stop and frisk" coupled with community resourcing/outreach. This approach would be highly popular, so it would be fought at every turn by the race hustlers.
If one looks at a standard profile of immigrants one does tend to find they are prepared to work harder for less money. This of course is going to impact easily replaceable native workers. However, immigrants also take the jobs native workers are reluctant to. Thus they don't wholly replace native workers when they do take jobs. These unpopular jobs do need to be filled. Here in Japan they don't want immigrants but have several sectors which are short staffed (particularly in care homes for example). They are forced to take immigrants but the problem is care workers are none too keen to work in Japan given the very high barriers to entry and hostile bureaucracy. I merely mention all this to indicate the situation is not a one size fits all and an Australian points system isn't necessarily the panacea it seems.
Of course there are exceptions- seasonal agriculture, care workers and many service jobs, etc. It wouldn't be a problem if there was a complete ban in certain sectors- construction, manufacturing, lorry driving- all the jobs which blue collar male workers depend upon for employment. That being said Australia has a thriving economy and they seem to somehow negotiate these issues.
You cannot pay people to stay home and expect them to step into the labor force. Many of these jobs are entry level and meant to teach a person how to work, prepare them for advancement. Learning to work requires an ethic, too often lacking. Rome showed the danger of uncontrolled borders and a fat citizenry.
It's difficult to control borders when every state including your own is expationist to the nth degree as in the case of Rome. Just to confim I understand your post correctly - are you saying that native expectations are too high and that some do not possess a work ethic?
I’m not certain if you mean “expansionist” but if so I don’t know exactly how you mean that. In our case, we do like lots of goodies at low prices and as long as Pedro is will to do our lawn work at less than the neighbor boy will do it, the neighbor boy is out of work. Pretty soon the neighbor boy figures that work is a losing proposition and he’d rather play video games and live off dad. As to native expectations, I suspect you refer to the tendency of too many Americans to expect a position rather than a job. My point is that this behavior has been trained over time by over generous welfare entitlements as well as the downplay of the dignity of work, including labor. There will always be a laboring class in any civilization. The question is who will the laborers be and what will be their status. Broadly speaking, American laborers were accepted as part of the community but, more importantly, had the opportunity to attempt to move out of the laboring class and establish themselves as tradesmen, craftsmen or businessmen. Mobility was a real potential. By denigrating work, we have sentenced millions of Americans to eternal dependency and ensure the need for an ever increasing flow of low skill migrants to “do the work that Americans won’t do.” This is not sustainable.
Expansionism referenced your comment about Rome. Rather than a 'uncontrolled borders and a fat citizenry' one had an environment where expationist groups competed with each other for bigger and bigger slices of the pie. For a long time Rome was the most successful (in fact, eventually too successful) but was superceeded and dismembered by other expationist groups. It was not an example of a state brought down by immigration.
The points you make about immigrants are good ones. However, if we look at responsibility whose is it? The local who doesn't want to compete with the immigrant because the money is too low, the immigrant who accepts a lower wage because they want to get on or the employer who is happy to pay less for the same or a better level of service. What would be your solution to this situation - a guaranteed minimum wage, top up benefits?
You are correct that the citizens grew fat and lazy as a result of their phenomenal success and wealth. Among other ills created by this luxury, they declined to defend their borders. Rome had created an empire based on immigration and assimilation. They welcomed people from conquered nations into Rome, they could even purchase citizenship. The key to Rome’s success was ensuring that the newcomers were not allowed to settle together, they had to spread out, adopt the language and customs of Romans. This created one of the most diverse societies in the ancient world but also ensured a common language and culture. When Rome ceased to defend its borders and grew too weak to enforce this assimilation invading Germanic tribes swarmed over the borders and settled in the Po River valley. Eventually they became strong enough to overthrow Rome. Although Rome successfully drove them out, Rome’s decline was sealed. It never regained its former power and reach. Culture matters and no country can long survive with competing cultures.
Government’s role is to secure the borders, not set wage rates. A sustainable immigration policy would allow those workers entry who can contribute without detriment to our own citizens. Absent cheap, and often illegal, labor the wage rates would be used to secure the labor required and when wage rates exceeded the market ability to pay innovation would solve the problem as it always did.
Responsibility is a useful concept and should be studied, but not before the border is secured and the invasion staunched.
To clear up a misunderstanding, I wasn't saying that Roman citizenry were complacent and lazy. Here I was quoting your initial post. Rome failed to defend it's borders because it couldn't. It relied on its wealth extracted from its empire and its standing army. The latter is what made the difference in the expantionist phase of the empire. It worked well but eventually hit the inevitable barrier all empires hit. The empire was too big for the size of army it needed. Simply put they couldn't pay for it all. The legions were spread too thin and with other expantionist groups able to concentrate force the empire was doomed. The Roman method of fighting had dominated the region but was outmanoeuvred by more innovative tactics. However, Rome chose to go down the path of a standing army to gain dominance. Communications should also be factored in to the situation. The Roman empire was big and it took time for news to filter back to the centre. Recalling or transferring legions was a slow process and any response was likewise delayed. Eventually Rome was forced to split into an Eastern and Western empire to deal with its challenges. The peripheries (like Britain) were cut loose - they just cost too much. However, this was all because of the expantionist environment not immigration. The model was to take and for a long time Rome was the best at this. One does not see a similar situation in the US. People may want a share of the pie but they don't want the whole pie as they did in past times. This of course throws up its own unique challenges but doesn't equate to the imperial experience.
The situation has become deeply partisan because Democrats have become fully bent on destruction of the American value proposition. They openly hate it and don’t care that we finally get their agenda. They have always hated the Constitution. They feel ultimate victory within reach, hence the effort to completely undermine election integrity. We may have one more chance to slow the decline.
It's mostly that they want a simple first past the post democracy, so that they can try all their programs out. They don't understand that when 51% gives a party more power to change things, areas like education in particular suffer. My mother is a retired schoolteacher in the UK. The number of times I saw a newly elected government change things for changes sake, spending a shitload of money on bureaucracy, just so they could tell the voters that education was their main priority was pretty much par for the course.
And it's not just education. There are ample reasons why in most areas you want a government constrained from doing much, unless there is a clear majority of 70% or 80% of people who want the change.
To quote a former President: In this present situation, government is not the solution…, to much of anything.
You mean it's hard to have an American country if people don't think themselves all Americans first and foremost? Who knew?
How do you solve issues among a diverse people (think about religion)? Do you force them to reject all of it? For them to have faith in only one of them? Or do you accept liberty and equal protection works, that people will never agree on anything and so forcing one view on all is sure to create conflict?
There has to be a unifying sense of civic pride in the nation. The belief that whatever historical flaws it possesses, the trend is upward. One of the things I used to love about Americans, was their boundless sense of optimism. I could explain exactly what happened, but it is easier to describe by way of illustration- now that China has mostly developed they too are shedding jobs offshore- making Africa China's China_ but unlike America they are only offshoring the low value labour, keeping the mid to high value manufacturing for themselves.
All it took was the displacement of America's professional managerial class with a proliferation of legal and accountancy types, who cared less for their country or their businesses than the ledger of detached numbers. Paper samurai with little conception of the way businesses in the real world operate, most of their former companies are now bankrupt, as is the American Dream.
It is recoverable. Americans possess a strength not found in the old world other than in a few of the North or Western states, but it will be a long hard slog back up the hill and will require the reification of the American mythos from first principles.
I hope your faith/belief comes true, but "long hard slog" isn't what many Americans would ever dream of now, and most Americans would never do anything that's hard or risky or self-motivated (unless it gives great pleasure!). America looks to China and Europe and see solutions to the problems of individual liberty and equality under the law with more "scientific" central planning.
The China thing is a false impression. There are plenty of things to criticise China over, but the size of their government relative to their population or tax levels are not the problem. They tax about 24% of national wealth generated, much less than the 40% which America does, or the 50% which is common for most of the other advanced economies. Crucially, 80% of this amount is devolved out to the regions and is mainly used for the purposes of economic development.
WHO and the rest looked to China for how to solve a Covid crisis with lockdowns, border closings and other mandates, and a bit with forced vaccinations and "passports" for attending social life.
other than the ledger(typo)
One thing we have seen play out is that official tolerance only works within defined parameters. In religion, it only works when the large majority are united in a judeo Christian tradition. In politics, the large majority must agree on the basic premise of a constitutional Republican form of constrained government. Once a minority takes advantage of the good will of the majority, game over. The end game is “one man, one vote,” one more time.
As a 4th Gen CA Native, one would have to be a blind fool or a partisan to not see the radical changes and shift that has happened in my home state during my 50 year life. Immigration from our porous border has made our State unrecognizable, which has not led to an average of 5,000 CA middle class residents flee the state each month! There are no solutions except draconian measures of complete lockdown of our southern border, but we all know this will not happen. So...before the wife and I take our eternal "dirt naps", we too must vacate our home state and live out our days with folks closer to our "tribe". Great essay Geary! Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for your kind comment. I gather Colorado is highly incensed with the influx of citizens from other parts of the country. I would try Texas, but check the weather maps for the best parts of the States in terms of average temperatures and the ideal local scene.
It never ceases to amaze me how little preparation people put into life changing decisions relating to homes. My first job out of Uni was in retail banking- believe it or not, people put more work into choosing a new car than they do in shopping for the right finance, which can often make tens of thousands of dollars worth of difference over the course of a mortgage. And it's true of virtually every aspect of the homebuying process- good research endows the better prepared with a distinct comparative advantage...
Yes, most take whatever the dealer financing is, and rather than negotiate on price, they decide based on down and monthly payments.
Another solid article. Wish I had some people to share with but they are all ADD so any article this length is a no go! It would be awesome to have some sort of merit system for immigration but you know that will never happen here. Trump was labeled a racist for even bringing it up and as long as the press is in bed with the left to rile up the masses--anyone who promotes it is toast. I really am not one to go to the extreme but the only way we will ever get this country back is through a civil war. That is not hyperbole. In two years we will take back the house and senate and in 2024 Trump will get reelected. Fraud will not win out the day next time. If anyone thinks the riots of 2020 were bad and they were--wait for a 2024. In the mean time, we have our inner cities decimated with crime. Murder in broad daylight isn't a shock to anyone. Thugs commit burglary with no consequence. Police are retiring in droves and will only get worse. Our institutions that are suppose to protect us, don't. The FBI, CIA and Justice Departments are corrupt to the core spending more time on a NASCAR hoax than election integrity. Politicians openly defy subpoenas with no consequence. Our schools at every level are killing education to where Oregon won't even require math and English and CRT is pushed. I could go on and on. I have always been hopeful but without a free and fair press we are screwed. I hope I am wrong, but I don't thank so. So we are diligently preparing for the worst hoping for the best.
I appreciate your perspective, I long for the day when people could agree to disagree without a label being thrown. I didn't agree with much of Christopher Hitchens back in the day but he was so worth the time to get his perspective. Now I have substack, something that reminds me of the better days. I take no pleasure in my grammar especially since my dad was a English grammar teacher for 30 years in high school and I did not take him!
The policing situation is going to get a lot worse before it gets better. The Left is partially right about policies like violence interrupters and community resourcing, but what they fail to understand is that these approaches only tend to have an effect when paired with proactive policing, or the much loathed Broken Windows approach- that was what the Scotland public health approach proved conclusively. Plus, it really needs to be focused on youth crime, because it is far easier to reform the young.
It's going to take at least 15 years to recover to former homicide rates.
As always a very thoughtful approach. Yes! Let's bring back "stop and frisk" coupled with community resourcing/outreach. This approach would be highly popular, so it would be fought at every turn by the race hustlers.
How do we survive worse? I wish Scotland's income threshold was lower for Americans wanting to retire there.
If one looks at a standard profile of immigrants one does tend to find they are prepared to work harder for less money. This of course is going to impact easily replaceable native workers. However, immigrants also take the jobs native workers are reluctant to. Thus they don't wholly replace native workers when they do take jobs. These unpopular jobs do need to be filled. Here in Japan they don't want immigrants but have several sectors which are short staffed (particularly in care homes for example). They are forced to take immigrants but the problem is care workers are none too keen to work in Japan given the very high barriers to entry and hostile bureaucracy. I merely mention all this to indicate the situation is not a one size fits all and an Australian points system isn't necessarily the panacea it seems.
Of course there are exceptions- seasonal agriculture, care workers and many service jobs, etc. It wouldn't be a problem if there was a complete ban in certain sectors- construction, manufacturing, lorry driving- all the jobs which blue collar male workers depend upon for employment. That being said Australia has a thriving economy and they seem to somehow negotiate these issues.
You cannot pay people to stay home and expect them to step into the labor force. Many of these jobs are entry level and meant to teach a person how to work, prepare them for advancement. Learning to work requires an ethic, too often lacking. Rome showed the danger of uncontrolled borders and a fat citizenry.
It's difficult to control borders when every state including your own is expationist to the nth degree as in the case of Rome. Just to confim I understand your post correctly - are you saying that native expectations are too high and that some do not possess a work ethic?
I’m not certain if you mean “expansionist” but if so I don’t know exactly how you mean that. In our case, we do like lots of goodies at low prices and as long as Pedro is will to do our lawn work at less than the neighbor boy will do it, the neighbor boy is out of work. Pretty soon the neighbor boy figures that work is a losing proposition and he’d rather play video games and live off dad. As to native expectations, I suspect you refer to the tendency of too many Americans to expect a position rather than a job. My point is that this behavior has been trained over time by over generous welfare entitlements as well as the downplay of the dignity of work, including labor. There will always be a laboring class in any civilization. The question is who will the laborers be and what will be their status. Broadly speaking, American laborers were accepted as part of the community but, more importantly, had the opportunity to attempt to move out of the laboring class and establish themselves as tradesmen, craftsmen or businessmen. Mobility was a real potential. By denigrating work, we have sentenced millions of Americans to eternal dependency and ensure the need for an ever increasing flow of low skill migrants to “do the work that Americans won’t do.” This is not sustainable.
Expansionism referenced your comment about Rome. Rather than a 'uncontrolled borders and a fat citizenry' one had an environment where expationist groups competed with each other for bigger and bigger slices of the pie. For a long time Rome was the most successful (in fact, eventually too successful) but was superceeded and dismembered by other expationist groups. It was not an example of a state brought down by immigration.
The points you make about immigrants are good ones. However, if we look at responsibility whose is it? The local who doesn't want to compete with the immigrant because the money is too low, the immigrant who accepts a lower wage because they want to get on or the employer who is happy to pay less for the same or a better level of service. What would be your solution to this situation - a guaranteed minimum wage, top up benefits?
You are correct that the citizens grew fat and lazy as a result of their phenomenal success and wealth. Among other ills created by this luxury, they declined to defend their borders. Rome had created an empire based on immigration and assimilation. They welcomed people from conquered nations into Rome, they could even purchase citizenship. The key to Rome’s success was ensuring that the newcomers were not allowed to settle together, they had to spread out, adopt the language and customs of Romans. This created one of the most diverse societies in the ancient world but also ensured a common language and culture. When Rome ceased to defend its borders and grew too weak to enforce this assimilation invading Germanic tribes swarmed over the borders and settled in the Po River valley. Eventually they became strong enough to overthrow Rome. Although Rome successfully drove them out, Rome’s decline was sealed. It never regained its former power and reach. Culture matters and no country can long survive with competing cultures.
Government’s role is to secure the borders, not set wage rates. A sustainable immigration policy would allow those workers entry who can contribute without detriment to our own citizens. Absent cheap, and often illegal, labor the wage rates would be used to secure the labor required and when wage rates exceeded the market ability to pay innovation would solve the problem as it always did.
Responsibility is a useful concept and should be studied, but not before the border is secured and the invasion staunched.
To clear up a misunderstanding, I wasn't saying that Roman citizenry were complacent and lazy. Here I was quoting your initial post. Rome failed to defend it's borders because it couldn't. It relied on its wealth extracted from its empire and its standing army. The latter is what made the difference in the expantionist phase of the empire. It worked well but eventually hit the inevitable barrier all empires hit. The empire was too big for the size of army it needed. Simply put they couldn't pay for it all. The legions were spread too thin and with other expantionist groups able to concentrate force the empire was doomed. The Roman method of fighting had dominated the region but was outmanoeuvred by more innovative tactics. However, Rome chose to go down the path of a standing army to gain dominance. Communications should also be factored in to the situation. The Roman empire was big and it took time for news to filter back to the centre. Recalling or transferring legions was a slow process and any response was likewise delayed. Eventually Rome was forced to split into an Eastern and Western empire to deal with its challenges. The peripheries (like Britain) were cut loose - they just cost too much. However, this was all because of the expantionist environment not immigration. The model was to take and for a long time Rome was the best at this. One does not see a similar situation in the US. People may want a share of the pie but they don't want the whole pie as they did in past times. This of course throws up its own unique challenges but doesn't equate to the imperial experience.