Politics

Ongemakkelijke waarheden over migratie

Nov 22, 2017 Robert Skidelsky

LONDEN – De sociologie, antropologie en geschiedenis hebben veel invloed op het debat over immigratie. Het lijkt erop dat de Homo economicus, die louter voor zijn brood leeft, plaats heeft gemaakt voor iemand voor wie het gevoel “ergens bij horen” minstens zo belangrijk is als eten.

Dit leidt tot twijfel over de vraag of vijandigheid tegenover massa-immigratie simpelweg een protest is tegen banenverlies, lage lonen en toenemende ongelijkheid. De economie heeft beslist een rol gespeeld in de opkomst van de identiteitspolitiek, maar de crisis rondom identiteit zal niet louter door economische hervormingen kunnen worden opgelost. Economisch welzijn is niet hetzelfde als sociaal welzijn.

Maar laten we niettemin eens beginnen met de economie, waarbij we Groot-Brittannië – dat nu bezig is de EU te verlaten – als voorbeeld kunnen gebruiken. Tussen 1991 en 2013 was daar sprake van een netto-instroom van 4,9 miljoen buitenlandse migranten.

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Robert Skidelsky

Writing for PS since 2003
210 Commentaries

Robert Skidelsky, a member of the British House of Lords and Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at Warwick University, was a non-executive director of the private Russian oil company PJSC Russneft from 2016 to 2021. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999. He is the author of The Machine Age: An Idea, a History, a Warning (Allen Lane, 2023).

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0 Comments on this paragraph, 146 Comments on this article

Janos Nagy Jun 24, 2018

Liberal economists has no clue how the economy functions in the so called capitalist economic system based on profits.
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Janos Nagy Jun 24, 2018

Only problem that in globalization profits were globalized and not reinvested in the economic jurisdiction where it was originally made.
The bigger problem that as any economists should know that profits is equals debt.
Only when profits are reinvested in the economic jurisdiction it was made will erase the debt it created originally.
If you need any proof just look at the debt level increases in governments balance sheets.
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Cary Fraser Jun 24, 2018

The world's population balance has shifted and the inevitable populations flows will reshape the ethnic composition of all societies - as has already begun to occur.

After 1492, the "West" expanded and the demographic collapse in the Americas that occurred thereafter ushered in the modern world to which all societies are heir. The population movements that began in the 19th and 20th centuries with the improvements in transportation technologies, the development of military technologies such as machine guns, and increasing levels of migration to meet the needs of new imperial systems led to massive resettlement, displacement, and disappearance of populations across the world.

A similar process is underway in the 21st century and its consequences are likely to replicate the human experience that follows upon the emergence of new centers of power in the international order.
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MARCO TEAMNEURS Jan 1, 2018

Enlarging views is interesting.

I do not see the point, for example, among many examples, of people which are being born in UK from "pure" Anglo-Saxon can not live in UK just because his wife and his biological daughter can not have visa to live in UK.

This is only one of many concrete examples that come from the great message of [Politicians who fail to “control the borders” do not deserve their people’s trust.]

In case you are wonder what if the example I shared is real consult the book [Human Currents: Overlook Aspects of Migration]. The person I am referring wrote the conclusion of the book.

https://goo.gl/2KkJhW
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Robert REYNOLDS Dec 31, 2017

Robert, when someone, especially someone with an economics background, talks to me about “standard economic theory” I respond with a comment along the lines of “I would rather be spoken to by a follower of some theory which has a little more credibility, for example, a member of the Aetherian Society (this is a group led by George King who is a London cabbie who is in direct contact with extra-terrestrial voices) or perhaps say, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Robert, I am also an environmentalist who is strongly in favor of preserving most species of life here on Earth. However, there is one species that should be subjected to the most brutal and immediate form of extermination. I am of course talking about the pathological disease called Homo economicus.

My final comment Robert is that I used to be worried about letting large numbers of immigrants into my country who have religious views which are incompatible with a secular society and who also practice other social mores which are incompatible with the social mores which now obtain in my country. And Robert, that was before I read Douglas Murray’s excellent book, "The Strange Death of Europe Immigration, Identity, Islam". Now, I am thoroughly convinced of the absolute madness of this policy of rampant immigration. Robert, no matter what sort of spin the economists put on it, oil and water simply do not mix.
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Stephen Gwynne Dec 31, 2017

There is not only the social and economic dimensions to immigration policy but also the environmental and in particular the quality and quantity of green infrastructure.

The UK has 60million acres. 42m is agricultural, 12m is natural, 6m is grey infrastructure. In the UK, there are presently 19m families.

On average different estimates suggest that each family would need at least 5 acres to survive in order to grow food, store food, rear animals and grow fodder for animals, store equipment, have a house, a garage, a workshop, an orchard, a woodland for timber and fuel, space for composting, water harvesting and purification, human waste and purification and finally land to provide essential ecosystem services such as pollination and wildlife habitats to supply these services.

The point being that this land is what a family needs in order to function whether this land is close to where they live or whether it is dispersed, as is common in 'modern' societies, and therefore worked indirectly through the division of labour. Incidentally, more land would be needed in less fertile areas.

So 19m families require at least 95m acres in order to provide adequate green infrastructure for the nation . Therefore the current shortfall (or ecological deficit) in land requirements means that the UK is presently impoverished in terms of food security, ecosystem services and green infrastructure in general. As such a national ecological crisis is in the making if even more green infrastructure is turned into yet more grey infrastructure as a result of EU Treaties and irresponsible non-European immigration policy.

Therefore, fundamentally, green infrastructure policy is where the balance between nationalism and internationalism lies since national self-reliance and resilience is an important governmental responsibility.

If the internationalist position is taken then national food security and the national provision of essential ecosystem services will have to be outsourced abroad which places the UK in a very vulnerable position geopolitically. If a nationalist position is taken then population control is essential in order that the population remains within the UK's ecological carrying capacity. At present we are not within the UK's ecological carrying capacity and I'd actually argue that Brexit is an intuitive reflection of our current ecological indebtedness and the current inability of UK ecosystems to support our current population levels which in turn encourages Britain to appropriate and capture foreign resources through its foreign policy and its global trading relationships.
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Harriet Baber Dec 31, 2017

From the US…I question the suggestion that (all? most? many?) immigrants ‘make no effort to join [the community]’. Hereabouts, it’s the community that excludes them. Conservatives then justify exclusion on the grounds that they refuse to assimilate. Meanwhile liberal advocates of ‘diversity’, who fetishize ethnicity, argue that they <i>shouldn’t</i> assimilate. Around the turn of the 20th century the US absorbed mass immigration and assimilated immigrants by an aggressive program of ‘Americanization’. Nowadays the idea that immigrants should be ‘Americanized’, and that they might even <i>want</i> to be Americanized is taboo.
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James White Dec 20, 2017

The “claim that immigrants take jobs from local workers and push down their wages...may be exaggerated, but it is not always false.”

It IS always false: immigrants never take jobs from local workers, they are GIVEN jobs by local employers. That is a very important distinction in my view.
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Darren X Nov 29, 2017

“it is the task of a realistic liberalism to strive for a definition of community that is wide enough to include people from many different backgrounds, without being so wide as to become meaningless.” - Goodhart.

I don't know what this would mean. Some different backgrounds are OK, but others are not? We still have to define some ethnic groups and religions, in their entirety, as "outside the tent"? (obviously, I'm not talking about welcoming violent Islamist terrorists with open arms... all due security measures should be put in place to prevent such acts, just as any sane country would prevent white guys from shooting up music festivals).

Either you believe in individual rights or you don't. I'm not seeing the "middle ground" that Goodhart is calling for us to find.
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Thaomas H Nov 27, 2017

I have no complaint with the idea that immigration could be "too fast" in relation to the ability of immigrants and the receiving country to adjust. I am not aware, however, of any politicians in the US or UK who advocate unlimited immigration, so the argument seems like a straw man. What is the evidence that immigration from the rest of the EU has been or into the US in recent years has been "too fast?"
- Steve Hurst Nov 28, 2017
  
  There is plenty to suggest there have been issues in the UK which have been exacerbated by lousy government policy, I suggest you read up on it. Those issues have then been levered by activists
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Henk Crop Nov 27, 2017

This article has focused on the economic aspects of immigration.
I think it should be completed by a discussion on the actual status of immigration, in Europe (EU).
Many EU countries have unemployed people and economic aspects of employing immigrants are less of an issue.
These immigrants are either in the process of requesting asylum or have been rejected and are illegal. The EU has complex and misleading immigation procedures by which they admit refugees and give them equal rights and benefits of an EU citizen.
This is all very hypocretic.
The EU is simply not able to admit all the current refugees in the world.
The UNHCR has 65 million registered refugees/displaced persons, 3/4 from the ME.
Which EU member state is going to accept some of these millions ?
Germany had to stop the immigration in 2015 at only 1 million.
In the mean time they keep registering and giving false hope to thousands of hopeful immigrants.
This is all being done on immigration laws dating from 1951, which do not apply any numbers.
The rejected immigrants are hardly deported, only 36 % were returned in 2016.
Given the population explosion in the world and the many Moslim conflicts makes that the EU has an unsustainable immigration policy.

The author correctly states that leaders who do not protect their borders cannot be trusted.
Given the many million of immigrants already living in Western Europe, it is unavoidable that the leaders of the EU member states have to place a maximum on the number of refugees each of them is willing to accept. Since culture is so important for successful integration requirements on background have to be considered.
In this respect it is also difficult to understand why muslim immigrants which have a culture so different from Europe are admitted to the EU, where they have trouble integrating. While they have a choice of 56 moslim countries to go to.
For Europe to survive as viable society with its 2000 years old culture limits on immigration have to be set.
( see also Douglas Murray, the strange death of Europe, 2017 )
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Ramon Puig de la Bellacasa Nov 27, 2017

"People will always favor their own families and communities".
This assumption departs from an immovable and homogeneous conception of "community", when in real world the so called communities are porous and permanently in evolution and, most of all, a nation is not a community but a set of many of them. Maybe "a community" is not wide enough, but a set of so many communities, a population like the UK of 70 million persons doesn't need a "definition of community". This is an empty wish against social psychology and against history, and an retrograde effort to go back to the ancient communitarianisms which have been letal in the history of Europe. The common society of a nation is the society of rights and obligations democratically agreed by its citizens.

"Economic and political liberals are bedfellows in championing unrestricted immigration".
This seems to me a gratuitous and hyperbolic assumption to make it easier to refute all in one the supposed positions of political opponents, trying to demonstrate how simplistic they are. Sorry if it looks to me like an old rhetorical easy trick to package all liberals and, at the end, justify the same arguments of the brexit campaigners!
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dante crisante Nov 27, 2017

The argument in this 'standard economic theory' is based on the assumption that increased profits leads to more investments and hence increasing the demand for labor.

Unfortunately this does not take into account the demand side. As households are hit by increased cost of living thanks to the user-pay concept so dear to Neo-Liberal economists, and their net disposable income fall, the demand fewer and fewer goods. As their demand drop, the additional profit are NOT re-invested in productive endeavours (why would you want to make more and better widgets if nobody has money to buy them?) and hence the profits go into making wealthy investors richer and not in new investments.

The argument is flawed because it fails to consider why firms invest. They do so for 2 primary reasons: (a) to replace worn out, or failing machinery, equipment, or buildings (capital consumption), and (b) to purchase new machinery, equipment, or buildings in order to increase productive capacity. This will reduce long-term costs, increase competitiveness, and raise profits. But the second reason is intrinsically linked to demand.

To show how flawed the 'standard economic theory' argument is one needs to look at the current situation in most capitalist countries. They all share the following dilemma: firms are making record profits, wages are not raising, interest rates are low and there is ample spare labour willing to work. So why aren't profits re-invested in new ventures? Why aren't firms borrowing at such low interest rates to launch into new markets?

The answer is simple: consumers disposable incomes have been falling and with it the demand. Economies like China are in a different category as their push is export, export and more export ... but they will soon come to the realisation that their workforce is aging and they haven't got sufficient new people to sustain such a large and expanding aging population that have been told that they will be looked after.

I smell trouble!!
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About Face Nov 27, 2017

Firstly, the photo image of Muslims in prayer that follows this headline is in poor taste. Getting that out of the way, this problem of uncontrolled immigration anywhere in developed economies has taken hold as a real everyday social economic problem.
Economics + Politics drives the societies which we live in. One can't do without the other. The term racists has been too loosely employed by liberals and extremists furthering their agendas. To recognise racial differences, arising from the evolution of what some term "layers of social maps" , is hardly racists. Its a preference set that some could argue, as non trade barriers, a prejudice towards entry.
Refocusing on the economics aspects of the arguments proffered by Prof Skidelsky and Robert Rowthorn's findings cited in this article, their conclusions stands in stark view of what is happening today after decades of immigration. The economic benefits to the many at lower segments of society are worst, whilst aggregated statistics show marginal improvements in nominal terms - unreal. Labour and capital investment no longer bears the correlation that it once was - more capital investments = less jobs creation, is the new correlation, trickle down economics from investments is discredited.
Overall, this article is no longer an inconvenient truth, but an awoken realty. The politicians cannot take cover from the refuge of comfort that assimilation is key - it is not. It requires more than just lip service to the citizens, some whom are 2nd generation migrants calling out for immigration control.
- jagjeet sinha Nov 27, 2017
  
  Indeed, the picture sums up the obfuscation is the Experts indulgence.
  The European Union conundrum that caused Brexit - No Transfer Union.
  Without Transfers, Migration to Britain/Germany was the only option.
  Uncontrolled Migration resulted in the 5 million increase in 15 years.
  Brexit became inevitable - in the absence of Controlled Migration.
  The Commonwealth Preferences Area had Controlled Migration.
  So, despite 250 years of Empire - Migration was never Free.
  
  Europe moreover does not have One Language - that facilitates.
  China with One Mandarin - enables Unlimited Migration within.
  America with One English - enables Unlimited Migration within.
  Australia with One English - enables Unlimited Migration within.
  Without One Language - Transfer Union can ensure Inclusiveness.
  So that the need for Migration across languages is diluted.
  Depopulation disadvantages are mitigated - with Transfers.
  But without Transfers and without One Language - Disaster looms.
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Jane O'Sullivan Nov 27, 2017

The main economic arguments are not about wages (although these are significant - there's a correlation between increase in inequality and population growth rate). Missing is any mention of the massive cost of expanding infrastructure and housing (see https://www.researchgate.net/publication/227372109_The_burden_of_durable_asset_acquisition_in_growing_populations ), the fact that property speculation draws investment away from productive efforts, while simultaneously increasing the proportion of household income used on economic rents (actual rent, mortgage interest, tolls and congestion fees etc) meaning less spent on consumption that employs other people. Shrinking real wages with rising "rents" means rising inequality, unemployment, blow-outs in welfare and public service provision and a downward spiral all round. The fact that technology improvement might take the edge off this doesn't mean things wouldn't have been a whole lot better without the population growth.
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Peter Schaeffer Nov 27, 2017

The (mostly) unstated Elephant in the Room is housing. Immigration increases total population and make housing dramatically less affordable. This is probably true everywhere (including the USA) but critically so in the UK. The UK is a highly development adverse society. More people means less housing for each person. This is just a brutal fact. To be blunt, each immigrant means less housing for each native. You can't wiggle your way around this. In the U.S. this is called "Killing the American Dream". I don't know if the UK has a comparable phrase. However, the UK facts are worse.
- Andrew (Andy) Crow Nov 27, 2017
  
  Assuming of course that government ignores the problem and doesn't seek to take advantage of the multiplier effect of new infrastructure development in housing and other material and services social provision. Refusal to accommodate the new population exacerbates, even creates, the dilution of available resources and subsequent social unrest caused by the economic pressures.
  Clearly expansion of population through immigration can't continue indefinitely , but we manage to turn an advantage into a catastrophe in the making by pretending it isn't happening.
  We also manage to conspire to generate much of the problem in the first place by bombing people out of their homes and impoverishing them where they live. People for the most part don't freely choose to leave their native land without there being good reasons for the upheaval and dislocation that entails.
  As so often happens we look at the symptom of immigration as being the problem rather than address the cause which is the pressure on people to emigrate.
  - Peter Schaeffer Nov 27, 2017
    
    "Clearly expansion of population through immigration can't continue indefinitely , but we manage to turn an advantage into a catastrophe in the making by pretending it isn't happening." Welcome to the UK (and I don't even live there).
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joel bernard Nov 26, 2017

I have great respect for the provocative opinions of Robert Skidelsky. Without having read the Rowthorn paper, I think economic arguments for and against immigration ought to be considered dispassionately. But I strongly disagree with his apparent endorsement of David Goodhart's notion that this era's "imagined community" deserves any more or less respect than the last era's "imagined community." In this view, immigration restriction becomes another version of NIMBYism: My Ancestors Were Here First. Baron Skidelsky's own origins are not-so-distantly Eastern European, as are some of my own. And whether or not the notion of private property is defensible, I think that the notion of "private commonwealth" is suspect. The economic effects of immigration on wage labor--if they exist--are a far fairer rationale for restriction than ancestry.
- Jane O'Sullivan Nov 27, 2017
  
  Joel, your reasons for wanting more open borders also need to be analysed dispassionately. The tiny fraction of the world's disadvantaged who can migrate without completely upsetting the apple-cart in developed countries does little if anything to address overall deprivation in the world, while doing a lot to undermine the means and motivations for international aid and mutually-beneficial trade. Why would you elevate the rights of migrants above the rights of everyone else?
  - joel bernard Nov 27, 2017
    
    Jane, Thanks for the response. Remittances from immigrants are far larger than foreign aid:
    
    Global Total U.S. foreign aid (2016), $41.9 billion; Immigrant remittances from U.S. to Latin America and the Carribean (alone): $69 billion (2016).
    https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/02/10/514172676/mexicans-in-the-u-s-are-sending-home-more-money-than-ever
    
    I don't understand your last sentence. I'm not arguing for completely open borders, but for the same rights for migrants in this era as in recent post-1965 era. However, I do think it is fair to tie the number of immigrants to the unemployment rates of skilled and unskilled labor in the receiving country.
    - Jane O'Sullivan Nov 27, 2017
      
      If you don't believe in open borders, then you do believe in people being turned down, despite being clearly needy and worthy. But the truth is that receiving countries simply don't have capacity - physical, economic or social - to receive all who would migrate if they could. Gallup poll estimated nearly 700 million want to permanently migrate right now, and twice as many want temporary work. This demand can't be satisfied. This is the crux of the issue: it is not a moral issue between isolationism or open borders, it is a quantitative issue of where the line is drawn. The right of migrants to be treated equally is readily met if their numbers are modest. It is progressively more problematic as their numbers impact on the receiving community. Categorical claims that immigration benefits the receiving community simply don't deal with issues of scale.
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    - Jane O'Sullivan Nov 27, 2017
      
      Thanks Joel. Do remember that remittances are the same as imports, in terms of their impact on the economy from which they are sent. If they're not counted that way in balance-of-trade measures, then it's a negative impact of immigration that is being overlooked. It contributes to the austerity which, among other things, reduces international aid. And various studies are starting to show that remittances increase inequality in the communities that receive them, so all is not rosy on that side of the fence either.
      - joel bernard Nov 27, 2017
        
        Jane, This is a bit confusing. Money is just the medium of payment for exports or imports. Remittances are payment for exports of labor from the donating country. Foreign aid is a "gift" that usually buys American goods to be sent to the receiving country. Neither has anything to do with austerity, per se. Since remittances are wages sent home to the families of poor immigrants who are otherwise un- or underemployed, how do they "increase" inequality? Do you mean in regard to similarly situated families who have nothing? Or that providing basic subsistence to some is unfair to the starving?
        
        We do agree that the issue is one of scale. My disagreement with Skidelsky's post was his non-economic argument that the rights of self-defined "imagined communities" are paramount.
        
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      - Andrew (Andy) Crow Nov 27, 2017
        
        It certainly isn't rosy. Remittances as you say are a 'negative export' and the refusal to allow families to join migrant workers is counterproductive in addressing this. The effect, then of economic advantage to the family left at home increases the pressure to join the bandwagon as others see a viable economic strategy and wish to emulate that success. What this does to family cohesion and the effect it has on the, now fatherless, children may take along time to pan out and is likely to be under researched. ("Not our problem, Gov.")
        
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Richard McGahey Nov 26, 2017

Skidelsky says, in authoritative voice "It seems to me that anyone who thinks about such matters is bound to agree with Goodhart that citizenship, for most people, is something they are born into." Sounds like old Little England, mixed with genteel superiority about who thinks well (in this case, only people who agree with the author). The USA, flawed as we are in many ways, was built and thrives on people who were not "born into" it. My maternal grandparents were Serbian immigrants with no English, my grandmother was sent here at age 17, they raised four kids all of whom went to college. Millions of Americans have the same story--parents or grandparents who were far from "born into" US citizenship and who became productive US citizens.
- P. Kamath Nov 28, 2017
  
  Richard: in my view, you are right to a great extent as long as they have exhibited qualities of drive, acquired-training, flexibility to practice "American values" and preferably male ! etc. It has occured in the lives of immigrants from not so white countries like India, China Vietnam etc......
  But, I don't understand why a such a welcome and understanding hasn't been extended to coloured citizens whose parents and ancestors who lived in USA as long as the Republic had been in existence. Baffling and just a thought.
  
  Anyway, congratulations for your thoughts.
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cody.valdes Nov 26, 2017

Bravo sir
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Ian Goldin Nov 26, 2017

The idea that these are inconvenient truths is conveniently not based on evidence, which is why academics who specialise in migration are not known to support the generalisations and assertions of this article. Many of the places in advanced economies with the highest share of migrants are not only the most dynamic but also the least protectionist. The overwhelming majority of Londoners, where over 30% of the citizens are migrant, did not vote for Brexit, and the dynamic cities in the US with high migrant populations were less likely to vote for Trump. It is also the case that many of the cities voted as the best places to live in polls have a high shares of migrants - Toronto has been voted the best place to live in successive Economist polls and migrants are over 50% of its population. Controls over immigration are necessary, but there are no simple thresholds and the tiniest shares - well under 1% of migrants - can be associated with zenophobia, while in others with over 90%, as is the case in Dubai, this is not evident. And this can change over time. What is required are clear fact-based arguments which give informed citizens the right to choose their preferences. The fact that places in the UK with very small shares of migrants (like Wales and Cornwall) voted for Brexit while those with higher shares voted for Remain is indicative of the need for arguments around immigrants to be informed by more light and less heat.
- Steve Hurst Nov 26, 2017
  
  Ian, most areas that voted for Brexit have economic problems and employment problems. There is plenty of the evidence you request. It is no accident that the regions that voted Brexit also have to be given regional subsidy (basically from the London and South East regions). Personally I'm dubious Brexit will be the golden glow some think. In particular it was notable that pre referendum Cameron did not message that the City would be hit which like it or not is a very important revenue stream. I suggest that was done deliberately because of the hatred by many of the City that followed the bailout. It defies all logic to damage 60% of your exports and to claim mileage remote locations are the export answer. The correlation between consumer satisfaction and GE results means the current government will get booted out at the next GE, deservedly because Brexit is their Rosemary's Baby. The UK then awaits the rising from the dead of the Labour Party. Migrants are a minor issue compare with that and the Brexiteers are distraction burglars. The locations you quote are happy with migrants are economically active. It couldn't be more basic.
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- Peter Schaeffer Nov 26, 2017
  
  Rotherham had/has more than its share of immigrants. How did "diversity" work out for the people of Rotherham? They voted 2:1 for Brexit. My question is why anyone (in Rotherham) voted Remain.
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- Peter Schaeffer Nov 26, 2017
  
  In the U.S. (where I live), California is ground zero for immigration. What are the consequences? California has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. Almost the worst schools (as they say in California, "Thank God for Mississippi"). Very high inequality. Unaffordable housing. Gridlock. Water shortages. Rock bottom wages. Large scale out-migration. The list of woes is long and dismal. On the bright side, California is boundlessly arrogant and definitely voted for Hillary.
  
  I have occasionally made these points to folks in California. The response always amounts to Stanford and Zuckerberg. Marie Antoinette was a bit more succinct with "Let Them Eat Cake".
  - joel bernard Nov 26, 2017
    
    Which is your concern: "ground zero for immigration" (by them) or "large-scale out-migration" (by us)?
    
    Get your political prejudices in a consistent row before you opine:
    
    https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-05-10/california-leads-u-s-economy-away-from-trump
    
    (And I'm not from California)
    - Peter Schaeffer Nov 27, 2017
      
      Joel Bernard, Sorry but I deal in facts, not left-wing fantasies. Take a look at “California NAEP Results”. California schools are rock-bottom. The only state California consistently betters is Mississippi (“Thank God for Mississippi”). See also “California's decade of gains on this test just ended”. California is the welfare capital of America (34% of welfare recipients, 12% of U.S. population). See “Is California the welfare capital?” for the details. Of course, California does have the highest poverty rate in the nation (according to the U.S. census). For another source, see “California Or Texas, Which State Has A Lower Poverty Rate?”. The numbers are easy. The poverty rate in California is 20.4%. Texas 14.7%.
      
      As for inequality, let’s just say that California shouldn’t talk about it. From 2009 to 2012, the top 1% (in California) saw their incomes grow by 49.6%. The other 99% (in California) saw their incomes decline by -3%. Overall, California is consistently, the 5th or 6th least equal state in the nation. See “List of U.S. states by Gini coefficient” and “The Increasingly Unequal States of America”.
      
      Of course, California makes up for high inequality with low incomes. See “New State-Level Price Data Shows Smaller State Real Income Differences”. California actually ranks below Mississippi in real income per person (but at least the schools are better than Mississippi).
      
      California compensates for low incomes with unaffordable housing. California ranks 49th in nation (in this case it is “Thank God for Hawaii”). Mississippi ranks 13th in housing affordability
      
      The link you provided was about short-term economic growth. Alas, the gods of short-term growth are fickle. See “Texas Booms (+3.9%) as California Flatlines (0.1%); Mining, Manufacturing Drive Growth”. The long-term (over decades) data favors Texas over California. From 1997 to 2016, the economy of Texas grew by 83.6%. California by 71.3%. The even longer-term data also favors Texas. From 1970 to present per-capita income rose by 12.28 in Texas versus 11.35 in California. Of course, that overstates California’s poor performance. Inflation was considerably higher in California versus Texas over the period in question.
      
      Your link did serve one useful purpose. The “Let Them Eat Cake” mentality is alive and well on the left-coast. No mention of education. No mention of poverty. No mention of unaffordable housing. No mention of inequality. No mention of low incomes for working people. Fake growth statistics are more than enough for the arrogant and the complacent.
      
      Finally, let me quote from a well-known liberal, John Judis (in “End State: Is California Finished?”).
      
      “At the gathering, held in a plush conference room, one of the experts projected tables and graphs comparing various states. It was there that I had my own "AHA!" moment. The states with thriving educational systems were generally northern, predominately white, and with relatively few immigrants: the New England states, North Dakota, and Minnesota. That bore out the late Senator Patrick Moynihan's quip that the strongest factor in predicting SAT scores was proximity to the Canadian border. The states grouped with California on the lower end of the bar graph were Deep South states like Mississippi and Alabama with a legacy of racism and with a relative absence of new-economy jobs; states like West Virginia that have relatively few jobs for college grads; and states like Nevada, New Mexico, and Hawaii that have huge numbers of non-English-speaking, downscale immigrants whose children are entering the schools. California clearly falls into the last group, suggesting that California's poor performance since the 1960s may not have been due to an influx of bad teachers, or the rise of teachers' unions, but to the growth of the state's immigrant population after the 1965 federal legislation on immigration opened the gates.”
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Tom W Nov 26, 2017

A thoughtful and reflective person not hobbled by partisanship or blinded by commitment to a narrow ideology will already understand the points made in this piece. It is "obvious" to an impartial observer.

Also, it is clear that there are dimensions of difference to be considered - how 'different' are the home culture, beliefs, and habits of the new immigrants compared to the communities where they settle? The larger the total difference, the larger the stress and costs (not just conventional economic costs) incurred by the native community.

This has nothing at all to do with some "-ism" or "-phobia".
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Petros Diveris Nov 26, 2017

"Most people prefer to live with their own kind" - exactly what is our own kind here in Britain professor Skidelsky? Are we two of the same kind? Disraeli, Gordon Brown, Labi Siffre, HM the Queen of England, Farage, Churchill, Gina Miller, Ignatius Sancho, Admiral Sir George Michael Zambellas, Engels, George Michael, the Saatchis, Tracey Emin, are they of the same kind?
- Tom W Nov 26, 2017
  
  Strip away the surface differences and you will find many similarities that are quite "British". Also, there exists among many citizens a common, if vague, "ideal" or set of norms even if each individual exhibits behaviors that differ from it.
  
  Furthermore, you compare individuals across a long time period. In doing so, you reinforce Skidelsky's argument - the subject of change, specifically the rate of change, is at the center of Skidelsky's discussion. You also cite extreme outliers for your examples, which weakens your point.
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Patrice Ayme Nov 26, 2017

A civilization is a system of thought, and a system of mood. In other words, a system of mind. Importing massively individuals who have been forged with a deliberately hostile system of mind they cling to, is counterproductive for the host country.
That should not be too hard to understand.

Careful reading of the first, and most basic texts of Islam, in particular, show a deliberate intent to destroy Greco-Roman and Zoroastrian civilization, ans, more generally the spirit of the rule of law of these two empires. First time in 1,000 years that raids inside the Fertile Crescent were possible, said Muhammad.

Law is local, but plutocracy is global. This means that importation, and, in general, movement of capital itself, is outside of the rule of law. In other words plutocracy is free to grow. Worldwide.

Example: a painting was sold for 480 million dollars. We The People don't know who bought it, and how the capital to buy it, moved. It could be the Mafia for all we know, laundering blood money. Or a pawn of Putin. And art is not taxed, enabling a worldwide tax free, secret transfer of properties.
- Petros Diveris Nov 26, 2017
  
  I think you are confusing nation states to culture and civilisation. Also, you seem to think that both culture and civilisation are static, rather than the result of interaction. For instance, where and how was yours developed? In vitro in Warrington?
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Andrés Galia Nov 26, 2017

Es posible que el estudio al que hace referencia la nota sea correcta, pero creo que aceptar inmigrantes de zonas devastadas por las guerras (que han fogoneado las grandes potencias) en función de los "beneficios" económicos me parece sencillamente nauseabundo. Si los habitantes que viven tranquilos en determinados países se sienten molestos porque ven perturbada su tranquilidad por lo que pasa en otros países, lo primero que deberían averiguar es si la tranquilidad de la que ellos gozan no fue a costa de la sozobra que crearon sus políticos en otros países.

I feel nauseated that one could accept migrants based on a positive economic impact. It is too bad that some people feel upset about other people disturbing their life styles, but perhaps they should think if the life style they enjoy has not been built by making others people's life miserable, somewhere else, by the politicians of their own countries. What certain European countries have done in Africa and the Middle East and in Asia is a good example of what I mean. And let's not talk about the Americans...
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Peter Ellis Nov 26, 2017

Suffice it to say that this article makes my blood boil. Skidelsky is playing the game that is popular in town at present and his arguments ignore history and any deeper thinking. If any Brit thinks that he belongs to a pure race - think again. We are composed of layers of history and the movement of peoples. Take the Welsh Valleys that voted strongly for Brexit - the vast majority are descended from a huge inflow of people to the infant coal industry from Ireland and other parts of the UK; and yet the Valley people will think that they are more Welsh than those living in Welsh-speaking areas such as Carmarthenshire and they voted for Brexit. Why? The problems stem from the British government and not the EU. The failure to rejuvenate the Valleys' economy post-coal was due to UK policies, not the EU's; and the irony is that more EU money came into Wales than almost any other part of the UK. The endless binary division that Skidelsky is perpetuating is intellectually hollow and seems to be our way of approaching everything today. The workers in our local abattoir (one of the largest in Wales) are mainly Poles or East Europeans. Would local people do the work? Not on your life.

I am one of Mays 'citizens of nowhere'. Why do I say that? Because I was in the Navy and have lived in each country in the UK - I am not part of a rooted community - indeed by ancestors come from different places including abroad. Am I loyal to the UK? Yes. Am I disturbed by the insular nationalism that now engulfs us? Yes again. People like Goodheart are shallow thinkers; people who go with the flow or do not know enough. The UK faces tough times, just as does the rest of the world. Better that its government stayed in the EU and looked outwards to see how it could help those areas of the world that are in such difficulty that the peoples there have no option but to move. And, finally, just remember that many once were dominated by the British Empire.
- Jane O'Sullivan Nov 27, 2017
  
  While some legacies of colonialism are still hurting, the overwhelming reason for emigrations (including conflict) is the pressure of rapid population growth. Not to acknowledge this (and address it), and not to recognise that the receiving countries are similarly vulnerable, is to embrace mutually-assured destruction.
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- Peter Schaeffer Nov 26, 2017
  
  In the U.S. (where I live), California is ground zero for immigration. What are the consequences? California has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. Almost the worst schools (as they say in California, "Thank God for Mississippi"). Very high inequality. Unaffordable housing. Gridlock. Water shortages. Rock bottom wages. Large scale out-migration. The list of woes is long and dismal. On the bright side, California is boundlessly arrogant and definitely voted for Hillary.
  
  I have occasionally made these points to folks in California. The response always amounts to Stanford and Zuckerberg. Marie Antoinette was a bit more succinct with "Let Them Eat Cake".
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- Steve Hurst Nov 26, 2017
  
  This is nonsense, everyone in the UK is an immigrant by definition since the land mass was unoccupied and ice extended down to the current M4. The current population is a mix of genetics but the genes of Charlemagne are wide spread, as are traces of Neanderthal. There is no genetic purity. The issue is not that immigrants can come to the UK but how many and on what basis which is a reasonable issue. The British Empire is nothing to do with it, anymore than the Roman Empire.
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- Edward Laxton Nov 26, 2017
  
  Pure straw man argument. Nowhere does Skidelsky suggest he (or other opponents of unlimited immigration) believe that he "belongs to a pure race" or that Britain is not made up "layers of history and the movement of peoples".
  
  Nor is he arguing about the wisdom of leaving the EU. Nor is he arguing there aren't people who are "not part of a rooted community... but loyal to the UK".
  
  Try dealing with his argument:
  - the economic costs and benefits of immigration are over-stated.
  - the social costs and benefits of immigration exhibit diminishing marginal returns, eventually the costs (essentially, loss of solidarity) exceed the benefits (diversity of ideas)
  - ergo, immigration needs to be controlled.
  - Tom W Nov 26, 2017
    
    Indeed, Laxton. As you show, it's not just a single strawman, it's a strawman army!
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Subhash Garg Nov 26, 2017

This article tries very very hard to attribute immigrant-phobia to economics. In fact, it is rooted in prejudice leading to fear. In the US, the flood of visibly foreign immigrants since 1965 has stoked this fear. That's why Trump's open bigotry and ignorant but firm hate led him to the White House. And that, not economic rationalizations, is the real inconvenient truth.
- Peter Schaeffer Nov 26, 2017
  
  In the U.S. (where I live), California is ground zero for immigration. What are the consequences? California has the highest poverty rate in the U.S. Almost the worst schools (as they say in California, "Thank God for Mississippi"). Very high inequality. Unaffordable housing. Gridlock. Water shortages. Rock bottom wages. Large scale out-migration. The list of woes is long and dismal. On the bright side, California is boundlessly arrogant and definitely voted for Hillary.
  
  I have occasionally made these points to folks in California. The response always amounts to Stanford and Zuckerberg. Marie Antoinette was a bit more succinct with "Let Them Eat Cake".
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Robert Coleman Nov 26, 2017

"Liberals’ anxiety not to appear racist hides these truths from them."

Am I to infer then, that the author is not a liberal, and doesn't mind appearing racist? Bearing in mind that what "appears to be racist" invariably IS RACIST in some measure, could it not be that liberals have taken a close look at racism and personally rejected it? Hence, liberals don't want to appear to be something that they are not, and would never want to be?

It is true that many people seem to prefer to remain in their native communities. But it is also true that people will migrate when necessary and some, like myself, do so because it is my nature.

I would not draw too many conclusions about populism from migration alone. Immoral control and hoarding of wealth by 'native' members at the top of 'native' communities probably has as much to do with it, if not more. After all, it is they that pay for the adverts showing queues of desperate immigrants to frighten "the natives." We are all just being manipulated by the author and his ilk.
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Tom Thibaud Nov 26, 2017

Imagine: an economist acknowledging that people actually care about some things that have nothing to do with economic utility.

One correction: "identity politics" actually refers to the the promotion of policies aimed at and complaints voiced by members of racial, ethnic and sexual sub-groups. Most often, the identity politics cudgel is wielded against those who do not belong to aggrieved minorities.

A simple way to get beyond identity politics is to start emphasizing the idea and the vocabulary of citizenship. Citizens are not economic agents. They are the fundamental unit of a democratic republic. They have rights and responsibilities, both of which are grounded in and expressed through rule of law. These rights always come before any obligations, perceived or actual, toward non-citizens and foreigners.

There is no latin counterpart to "homo economicus." The word is simply, "citizen." Let's start using it, and start appreciating its profound significance for a democracy.
- Andrew (Andy) Crow Nov 27, 2017
  
  'Homo Economicus' is merely a fancy term for 'economic migrant'.
  
  Since when was it disreputable to seek a better life for oneself and family? If Homo Sapiens were not an economic migrant we would all be living in the Great Rift Valley still if the anthropologists are correct as to our origins. And there wouldn't be very many of us.
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Larry Stevens Nov 25, 2017

This argument makes sense only if you leave out monetary policy. With an on the ball monetary authority, the reduction in labor costs (and inflation) will trigger the authority to adopt a more aggressive policy. Full employment (and solid wages) can thereby be maintained.
- Phil Cartier Nov 26, 2017
  
  Unfortunately, monetary authorities are rarely "on the ball" and often make mistakes, or promote bad policy or, since money is not an exact science, they don't know when to shift polices.
  
  Monetary policy does not work like clockwork and is often used for purposes other than just managing the money supply.
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Frank Pecarich Nov 25, 2017

“The laws of biology are the fundamental lessons of history. We are subject to the processes and trials of evolution, to the struggle for existence and the survival of the fittest to survive. Cooperation is real and it expands as technologies evolve, but mostly because it is a form of competition. We cooperate within our group, family, community, and nation in order to make our group more powerful.

Over the course of history, human behavior has changed, but not human nature. No matter who is in power, the rewards gradually accrue to the most clever and talented individuals. Ideas are the strongest things of all in history because they can be passed down and change the behavior of future generations—even a gun was originally an idea.” -- The Lessons of History by Will and Ariel Durant.
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Olivier Lebel Nov 25, 2017

This is pure economics (more on that later).
However, why do we usually make all this noise on Universal Declaration of Human Rights?
"Article 1: All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights
Article 13.2: Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country."
This is pure utopia. the opposite is shown everyday, either under "political" arguments or "economical" arguments.
Do we still agree on the very basics of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights?

On the economics, it is proven that legal migrants have a positive economic contribution, since they are paying taxes, and consuming much less. When they get to be pensioned, or when their children are in the education system, they are not different from other citizens. I cannot see the opposite argument.

My dream is a world without discrimination, of any kind, including the absence of obstacle to migration.
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Prashant Kotak Nov 24, 2017

What is salutary about this piece by Robert Skidelsky is not so much what it is saying (which is ephemeral), but the shift in narratives and tone it presages, emanating from what might be classed as representative "conventional" academic and political thinking - a precursor to the absolute chaos of the coming two decades as a result of the tech-driven malestorm that is now underway.

There are in fact *no answers* (at least none I have come across that are remotely coherent) to either mass migration or mass unemployment that will be the result of large-scale automation that has begun to unfold. The huge people flows of globalisation have a cost that the liberal intellengensia in the west will have no option but to acknowledge once it starts to hit them personally, which it will be soon enough. So western intellengensia will react, first by wriggling around on their principles, before bowing to the inevitable and pulling up the drawbridges. The rich north will have the means to do this, but not so much the poor south, so those huge people flows will simply transfer to poor-on-poor migration across the globe - huge unheeded flows already happening across porus borders between Bangladesh and India for example

Populations across the globe will react by flip-flopping between lurches to progressively bizzare varieties of "the left" and "the right", as social and political models created in the wake of the industralisation beging to die and become increasingly pointless - existing left-right debates are going to soon seem about as relevent as debates about how may angels can dance on the head of a pin.

We stand on edge of a startlingly fast global ramp in sociatal disruption, where, a least in the first instance current models of social and political thinking are replaced, by brutal, "devil take the hindmost", downright Darwinian narratives.
- Frank Pecarich Nov 25, 2017
  
  “Relatively homogeneous societies invest more in public goods, indicating a higher level of public altruism. Case studies of the United States, Africa and South-East Asia find that multi-ethnic societies are less charitable and less able to cooperate to develop public infrastructure including healthcare, education and schooling. A recent multi-city study of municipal spending on public goods in the United States found that ethnically or racially diverse cities spend a smaller portion of their budgets and less per capita on public services than do the more homogenous cities.
  
  This might seem simple, as if ethnic identity can be reduced to counting genes. That is not how the human mind works. Suffice it that descent is what defines and motivates kinship systems. Members of an ethnic group believe that they share common ancestors, as well as sharing culture. This perceived kinship, expressed in folkloric metaphors such as “shared blood”, explains why ethnic motivation can be so strong. Knowledge of genetics might now, in principle, substitute for folklore but has not been necessary for thousands of years. By and large, beliefs about ancestry are accurate, so that folkloric beliefs about ethnicity generally correspond to genetic identity. This contradicts the sociological theory that ethnicity and race are socially constructed with no role for biology. – Frank Salter “On Genetic Interests: Family, Ethnicity, and Humanity in an Age of Mass Migration
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- Paul Friesen Nov 24, 2017
  
  You might be right. It could happen that way. But it does not have to.
  
  Can we not at least imagine a future in which all work is done by artificially intelligent machines, and nobody has to work at all, except at whatever hobby they might like. Money is still in use. Governments set prices for the things the artificial intelligence produces, based on the environmental cost. They re-distribute that money equally to everybody in the world, so that everybody gets an equal share and the environmental burden of excessive consumption does not become too high. There is no need to work, so there is no need for inequality to incentivize work.
  
  We cannot do this yet because we do not yet have the technology. But it is getting closer and closer and already, much of the work that is being done is actually unnecessary. We cannot implement it in full, but we should be beginning to implement it.
  - Prashant Kotak Nov 26, 2017
    
    Apologies for the lenght of this reply, but it's a complex topic. Tech optimists offer panaceas that even I can pick apart, so let me preface what I'm saying by stating that I don't want to be right, so if you can offer *coherent* counters to the points I make below, I will very happy indeed...
    
    As an (old) programmer, my default stance was one of tech-optimism for decades - but I have been dragged kicking and screaming into the pessimist camp in the last few years, for the simple reason that for most pan-out scenarios, I cannot find anyone who can offer optimistic answers that hang together.
    
    Over the last few years, the "standard" answers of the tech optimists to the impending automation-driven unemployment tsunami mostly fall into these catagories:
    - Universal Basic Income
    - Taxing "Robots" (software and automation)
    - Taxing the Tech Giants
    
    I will try and illustate why *none* of these are realistic.
    
    UBI doesn't work - and it's not just because of the surface reasons of affordability. Don't get me wrong, I would love UBI to be feasible - without that hundreds of millions of poor in Africa and countries like India are heading for catastrophe in as little as a decade. The basic problem is that the tax-take of governments is going to drop like a stone as automation starts to kick in. People who are not working don't generate tax for governments to gather and redistribute. For UBI to work, governments would ultimately have to take over the means of production of goods and services as automation starts to swallow profession after profession - and you can only do that if you have ownership and control of the tech - without that governments can distribute diddly-squat. And the problem with that is, only a few dozen leviathan tech corps (mostly in the US, a handful in Asia and Europe) own that high-end tech. And they ain't going to just hand it over, not even to the US government, much less governments in Europe and elsewhere. The only way for any nation to get there is to innovate that same tech that the tech giants have created, and own the IP for. But you now face the problem posed by asking why only a handful of countries in the world have rocket science or nukes: it's the same reason why most countries are going to find UBI unfeasible. Implementing something like Driverless is more complex than launching rockets. If all this tech was so easy, then there would already be a hell of a lot more competitors to Alphabet, MSTF, FB, and all the countries in the world would already have nukes and rocket science - but it isn't and they don't.
    
    Taxing robots - and the immediate problem you face is detecting which work was done by humans and which by software, in order to tax them differently. Software is not even locatable in one place; you're not even going to be able to pin down what it does or know where it is (in the clouds mate, cirrus, stratus, that type of thing, or even running on satellites to avoid jurisdiction restrcitions), to come even close to taxing the work it does. You can tax the final transaction, but that leaves the problem intact - it doesn't generate the money you need to feed the people who's jobs were displaced by the software. To give just one illustration of what I'm talking about, what do you propose governments do with adaptive AI like IBM Watson? Tax every copy like a person, tax deducted at source every month? And IBM Watson learns as it goes along, so if it does the work of one person today, it might be doing the work of a hundred in a years time - how do you even measure, let alone tax all that? More fundamentally, in extremis, all that is required to create world-altering code is a single person with a laptop - witness Bitcoin. How do you control any of that?. Come to that, how would you tax the creators of Bitcoin?
    
    Taxing the Tech Giants - These entities are already rather like the East-India Company - almost nation states (but without the geography) masquerading in the shell of corporations. Pretty much the last point at which they can be bought under regulatory control is *now*, and only the US can do that - if it doesn't, the EU certainly can't. Anyone under the illusion that governments or regulatory bodies will be able to control the tech leviathans, needs to just to consider the recent EU "fine" on Google and ask the question: what happens when we eventually have a face-off, and Google or any one of the tech giants tells the EU or any other government: no, we are not paying your fine, do your worst. What would the EU do - shut down all Google servers in Europe? And replace them with what? Or ban Word and Excel across the continent, because Microsoft refuse to open it's tech for inspection? It becomes obvious that soon (~5 years) governments won't be able to compel the tech giants to do anything, including challenge the mechanisms they employ to avoid paying tax, they will be that entrenched and that far ahead.
    
    There is one more suggestion people occasionally throw my way in debate - A Global Unitary Authority, effectively a single global government. I can see that something like this might emerge after a couple of decades of chaos, but I would bet my bottom dollar such a thing would be authoritarian. A dystopia beckons.
    - Paul Friesen Nov 27, 2017
      
      You are right that income taxes cannot fund a basic income. But sales taxes could. Value added taxes are a proven method. But the real basis for taxation should be environmental cost. As technology progresses, such taxes need to increase until, when no work is required, the taxes are just 100% of the cost everyone pays for everything. And all of that is just distributed back as a basic income.
      - Prashant Kotak Nov 28, 2017
        
        "..But sales taxes could. Value added taxes are a proven method.."
        
        I can, sadly, puncture that one as well, although the mechanisms used are technical, abstruse, not in plain sight. I don't know if you follow Fintec developments globally, but a side-effect of the headline threat that Fintec poses to Banking is that aspects of the software are capable of bypassing taxation by systems of "layered barter". Peer-to-peer technologies, especially, do this. In the normal course of events, where company A buys from company B and company B buys from company A, there is an exchange of invoices, and an insertion point for taxation. But aspects of Fintech that are a bit like a quick exchange of goods by a couple of cars in a car boot sale, government is none the wiser and the exchequer cheated out of tax. (If you are not from the UK, a car boot sale is a quaint downmarket version of ebay we have in the UK, but outdoors and without the tech).
        
        The distasteful reality is that tech in general and especially the tech leviathans are running rings round national lawmakers globally who are behaving like rabbits caught in the headlights, posing a direct threat to social models.
        
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    - Steve Hurst Nov 26, 2017
      
      Prashant, yup thats about it, AI and robots are owned, they are the synthetic equivalent of slaves and the idea is to replace human labour. The rewards for this may be spread but more likely held by the owners. Taxation of ownership will be next to impossible because how do you determine the boundary for tax and tax exempt (are you going to pay a tax to use your AI enabled laptop or your AI enhanced ride-on lawn mower) and corporate taxation is on profit and we have already seen how that is problematic with multinationals with a nomadic account.Once on place the revenue model will be the cloud type of model holding consumers hostage to repeat fees for something they have already paid for, with supply being licence based so ownership is always held by the corporation. The issue of human migration is dwarfed by the potential immigration of AI
      - Andrew (Andy) Crow Nov 27, 2017
        
        I suspect the solution will have to come from asset taxation. Since the only 'pure' asset is land that has to be the starting point for an effective system of taxation. Land cannot be exported to tax havens.
        It will not be simple matter to evaluate (price) land, but in essence the land belongs to the nation state that is thus defined and therefore belongs by right to the government of that state on behalf of the resident population. The resident population, and any foreign 'owners' therefore need to pay a rent/tax for the use of that part of the land which they have a temporary exclusive access to.
        
        I don't think the concept difficult to grasp. And it seems to make a great deal of sense. A person (or legal entity such as a company) which holds a piece of the national real estate therefore pays for it. If they choose not to utilise that asset they still pay (as paying property tax on an empty property) according to its accepted value.
        There will undoubtedly be some perverse incentives created but fewer I suspect than are created by current taxation policies almost all of which could be dispensed with.
        
        Why for heaven's sake would one tax a social good such as useful employment. (Only because it was once easy to do - it isn't any longer, either easy or straightforward) Rather let us tax the social evils.
        Property is theft (causing dis-utility to the rest of society) so is a social evil in a sense to be paid for by those who would claim exclusive access.
        
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    - P. Kamath Nov 26, 2017
      
      Prashant: your analysis," .....these catagories:
      - Universal Basic Income
      - Taxing "Robots" (software and automation)
      - Taxing the Tech Giants
      I will try and illustate why *none* of these are realistic.." was really good and accurate!
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- Henk Crop Nov 24, 2017
  
  Prashant. In the past year the world's population grew by 82,6 million. That is equivalent to the total population of say Germany.
  Of this growth 79,5 million was in the developing countries.
  ( The globalist, november 10, 2017 )
  I think this growth will be one of the biggest challenges the world faces.
  The wealthy countries will never be able to offer such numbers of people a house and a job in their country, at a cost of Euro 100,000 per immigrant.
  I see no other solutions than that the developing countries assume responsibility for their own future. They should address their high fertility rates, ranging from 4,7 to 7,7 per woman. Only 2,1 is needed for a sustainable population. And built viable societies and economies.
  - Andrew (Andy) Crow Nov 27, 2017
    
    The solution to expanding populations is not mysterious. And it is not Malthusian War, Famine and Disease. The massive destruction of populations by those agents during the 20th century barely dented population growth.
    
    The solution as demonstrated repeatedly all around the globe is to increase the wealth and security of populations. Wealthy individuals and wealthy nations pretend they don't know this because it suits their narrative to pretend that their confiscation of wealth is deserved and virtuous reward.
    
    Well it isn't. It's the product of what are crimes against humanity - the product of greed and corruption. The hoarding of the world's resources for prodigious personal advantage at the expense of their fellow human, and animal, creatures.
    
    Follow the money. The money always leads to the crime and thence to the criminals.
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  - P. Kamath Nov 27, 2017
    
    Henk: You are right here? The population bomb has iexploded long time ago and it is a myth to believe that it could be contained by migration. It is too late.
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Henk Crop Nov 23, 2017

In the Netherlands over the past 40 years we recieved immigrants from many non-western countries, large numbers came from Surinam, Marokko and Turkey. Today they are with 2 million on a population of 17 million. Over this period of time it has cost 200.000 billion euro's, that is 100.000 euro per immigrant. It is about 1/3 of our GDP in 2016.
This calculation included all costs and also the benefits the immigrants added to the economy. Some individual immigrants did well but overall it was not a great success.
Also the integration in the Dutch society was no success. Even the immigrant-hugging politicians had to finally admit that. The people from Surinam ( in the past a Dutch colony ) did best. They spoke the language and had a matching culture.
Language, education and especially culture are key factors.
The immigrants with a moslim background had most difficulty integrating, and some do not want that at all. Many with a Turkisch background call, after 40 years, mr. Erdogan their leader.
So instead of a multi-cultural society we are developing a multi-tribal society with less cohesion.
As the Balkan has shown this can last for centuries. Why did we need that ?
I agree with last sentence of mr. Skidelsky: Politicians who fail to "control the borders" do not deserve their people's trust.
- Tom W Nov 26, 2017
  
  Comparing a cumulative 40 year measure with a single year measure is distorting. Your figure should be divided by 40, which equals 2.500 euro per immigrant, as a rough average, for each year during the past four decades. Given that the immigrants have been about 10% of the population, we can say (using your numbers) that the cost was roughly 280 euro per non-immigrant citizen per year for each of the past 40 years.
  - Henk Crop Nov 27, 2017
    
    Tom. I have added the GDP just to show that the 200.000 billion Euro's is much money for a small economy.
    Nevertheless it is a huge amount of money. It proves that immigration is not profitable, but can be very costly. Also there was never a solid plan or political discussion about spending this money. They could have spent it much more productively by investing it in developing countries. Although the majority of the people were and are opposed to unlimited immigration the political elite just let it happen, up to today.
    - Tom W Dec 30, 2017
      
      I did not suggest that the more meaningful figure I provided, derived from your original figures, of 280 euro/citizen/year was small. To me that is a substantial amount. For example, if the average citizen household is four people, then that is about 1,000 euro/household/year for decades. That is meaningful.
      
      Jane O'Sullivan's comment about "maths in a twist" does not warrant response.
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  - Jane O'Sullivan Nov 27, 2017
    
    Someone's got their maths in a twist, and it's not Henk.
    I don't know if the costs he reports go beyond welfare + settlement services - income taxes, but without going there (which Rowthorn does for the UK), I calculated equipping an extra person (migrant or child of migrant) cost 165000 UK pounds, or over 1000 pounds per year per existing resident, at recent population growth rates. https://www.populationmatters.org/documents/cost_population_growth.pdf
    - Henk Crop Nov 27, 2017
      
      Jane. I have based my figures on studies addressing the question of the investment that has been made to transform the Netherlands into a society with non-western cultures.
      The assumption was made that after 40 years the immigrant population was more or less integrated. The population included the immigrants but also their children born in the Netherlands.
      All costs were included: housing, education, social security, health, pensions, integration programs, extra-crime.
      All benefits to the economy. Some came as temporary laborers, but stayed and brought their family.
      The accurate figure was 216,000 billion Euro's. Recently I hear higher figures.
      Most important is that financial figures are introduced in the immigration discussion which seems to have no limits for the host country.
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- jagjeet sinha Nov 23, 2017
  
  ONE LANGUAGE IS THE RIGHT TEMPLATE
  The Four freedoms enshrined in EU includes Freedom of Capital and Labour.
  The Brexit Vote wanted to democratically demand changes that restrain.
  In the British Commonwealth Preferences Area - Free Migration was absent.
  Controlled Migration that positively harnessed - so Britain managed it best.
  And as you pointed in your comments, Language assimilation always wins.
  The Anglosphere was how One Language overcame Religion and Race.
  European Migration to Britain under EU Rules - Europe permits 20 languages.
  Britain eschewed The Commonwealth Preferences Area - for Europe in 1973.
  And now faces Brexit that Controlled Migration could have prevented.
  Assimilation based on Language - seems the right template.
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Paul Friesen Nov 23, 2017

We look back on those who practised slavery in the past with disgust. But those who did so had all kinds of good arguments about why it was essential and how disruptive its end would be.

Today, we have similar arguments about why ending discrimination based on country of birth would be bad, horrible, and disruptive. This is one of the last grounds for discrimination that is still deemed acceptable, and which many governments actually enforce. Future generations will look back on the barriers we put up to migration as we look back on slavery.
- Tom W Dec 30, 2017
  
  Slavery is a strawman in this context.
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- Frank Pecarich Nov 25, 2017
  
  Slavery can be traced back to the earliest records, such as the Code of Hammurabi (c. 1760 BC), which refers to it as an established institution. Slavery is rare among hunter-gatherer populations, as it is developed as a system of social stratification. Slavery was known in civilizations as old as Sumer, as well as in almost every other ancient civilization, including Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, the Akkadian Empire, Assyria, Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, the Islamic Caliphate and Sultanate, and the pre-Columbian civilizations of the Americas. Such institutions were a mixture of debt-slavery, punishment for crime, the enslavement of prisoners of war, child abandonment, and the birth of slave children to slaves. The Byzantine-Ottoman wars and the Ottoman wars in Europe resulted in the taking of large numbers of Christian slaves. Slavery became common within the British Isles during the Middle Ages. Britain played a prominent role in the Atlantic slave trade, especially after 1600. Slavery was a legal institution in all of the 13 American colonies and Canada.
  
  Prof. Robert Davis points out that “the widespread European experience of slavery gives the lie to another favorite leftist hobby horse: that the enslavement of blacks was a crucial step in establishing European notions of race and racial hierarchy. Not so; for centuries, Europeans lived in fear of the lash themselves, and a great many watched redemption parades of freed slaves, all of whom were white. Slavery was a fate more easily imagined for themselves than for distant Africans.
  
  With enough effort, it is possible to imagine Europeans as preoccupied with slavery as blacks. If Europeans nursed grievances about galley slaves the way blacks do about field hands, European politics would certainly be different. There would be no groveling apologies for the Crusades, little Muslim immigration to Europe, minarets would not be going up all over Europe, and Turkey would not be dreaming of joining the European Union. The past cannot be undone, and brooding can be taken to excess, but those who forget also pay a high price.” -- Robert C. Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800, Macmillan, 2003
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- Paul Friesen Nov 23, 2017
  
  People in rich countries today often think they have a right to all the wealth around them, which comes from all the industry there. That industry is not there because the people of those countries are cleverer or more hard working than others. It is there due to industrial clustering. Poor countries are just those that got left out when the clusters formed.
  
  So for people in rich countries to try to keep everybody else out, and keep all the industrial jobs for themselves, is selfishness of the highest order. The desperation of those trying to overcome the barriers is simply evidence of the horrible conditions this selfishness has created.
  - Phil Cartier Nov 26, 2017
    
    Paul, actually the industry is in the more developed countries because that is what the people there did. Development first requires a rule of law(as Gregg Underheim points out below) so that people know what they develop and produce won't be stolen by the government or other thieves. Many parts of the world are still under-developed because when the British, Spanish, and Portuguese left local strong men took over and plundered the economy. Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe is a notoriously good example.
    
    There has to be a culture that supports industrious, hard-working people. It has to support private property in some form. It has to recognize that many rights adhere to people as individuals, not as bands, groups, or tribes or other "identities". It has to have honor- my word is my bond. People have to be responsible for that they do.
    
    The government has to be limited in its powers and ultimately controlled by and responsible to the people.
    
    History shows a lot more.
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  - Phil Cartier Nov 26, 2017
    
    Paul, actually the industry is in the more developed countries because that is what the people there did. Development first requires a rule of law(as Gregg Underheim points out below) so that people know what they develop and produce won't be stolen by the government or other thieves. Many parts of the world are still under-developed because when the British, Spanish, and Portuguese left local strong men took over and plundered the economy. Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe is a notoriously good example.
    
    There has to be a culture that supports industrious, hard-working people. It has to support private property in some form. It has to recognize that many rights adhere to people as individuals, not as bands, groups, or tribes or other "identities". It has to have honor- my word is my bond. People have to be responsible for that they do.
    
    The government has to be limited in its powers and ultimately controlled by and responsible to the people.
    
    History shows a lot more.
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  - Gregg Underheim Nov 25, 2017
    
    I would like to respectfully disagree. Industrial clusters started in places where the rule of law guaranteed the government would not confiscate the business. It is not luck or lack of it that determined where opportunity existed. It was governmental stability and safety.
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  - Steve Hurst Nov 23, 2017
    
    Paul, manufacturing, ie industrial jobs, are fleeing the developed World. Just to name three countries the UK, Italy and France the figures are online. That is why Macron has a problem, he will have to cut the pubic sector he has no choice. It is why Austerity is a European fashion. Germany is active as a manufacturing base but that is because it gets to use a currency lower than a New DMk would be because the euro is held down by the Med Club. There are 500 Million in Europe, how many do you think should move to Europe, the same again? How is that remotely possible. The population of one African country Nigeria, is due to be bigger than the US within 3 decades.
    - Paul Friesen Nov 23, 2017
      
      The only fair alternative is to provide enough transfers of money to poor countries to allow them a decent standard of living. This is done in some places. In Canada, we provide large transfers to some of our provinces, which lack industry, and which would probably be very poor if they were separate countries without such transfers and without the right to migrate. I am sure this is not only in Canada. It costs much less than you might think, because it allows those provinces to develop decent economies. The people there don't just sit around. They work at something, and the transfers just provide the lubricant to allow that.
      
      The current situation is the source of huge amounts of conflict and terrorism. Treat people as we treat the people in poor countries, and what do you expect?
      
      Allowing transfers or migration or a combination of both to put some equality in the world might be uncomfortable for some, but the current situation is just evil. That is the real "inconvenient truth about migration".
      - Steve Hurst Nov 23, 2017
        
        Paul what you are describing is a transfer union which is a standard feature of common currency areas with differing economic activity regions. It happens internally with Germany, with Spain, with the UK, with the USA. It is the reason the Eurozone is in trouble because such a automatic transfer is not present. In its absence only debt generation occurs or depopulation. There is not enough money in Europe to provide a transfer to the developing economies and the downside of globalisation which is a wealth transfer is what is causing problems in the developed economies. Further if you raise the wealth of developing economies in Africa for instance all that will hap[en is migration will increase because there will be more money to fund migration but no lessening of the desire to migrate. Nothing you have put forward reduces the problem. To provide a industrial infrastructure in Africa is estimated to require an investment of 75% of Africa's GDP. China has only industrialised on the East Coast, about 20% of the country and has had very significant FDI.
        
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- Steve Hurst Nov 23, 2017
  
  I don't know how you can conflate the idea of ownership of a person as goods an chattel with regulation of movement for economic reasons. Asylum rights are enshrined in international law and have nothing to do with economic migration. The free-to-enter-anywhere mentality is one of the things which has created a backlash and created a humanitarian disaster which is still continuing. That backlash is one of the things destablising Europe. The current build up of economic migrants in Libya unable to move into Europe is resulting in slavery and people are for sale for 400USD. Thats a direct result of your type of thinking
  - Steve Hurst Nov 27, 2017
    
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Enrique Fleischmann Nov 23, 2017

1. Market Capitalism is about free flow of Commodities, Capital, Knowledge/Technology and Labor. Restriction of any of the above ( in that case, labor) means that the free market model is not applied as it should be. If so, why to have restrictions on labor and not, for example on capital? or Commodities ( I wonder what Current Account nations like Japan or Germany , or countries that benefit from tech edge like USA would say about such ideas).
2. Capitalism is a global system not a national one. Therefore a partial, national based analysis on the benefits and costs is flawed and conceptually incoherent with the nature of the economic system. Such limited focus is similar to asking Louis 16 on the benefits and costs of the French Revolution...A genuine analysis should measure benefits and costs on the whole system Economic North and South alike.
- Aghassi Mkrtchyan Nov 26, 2017
  
  Japanese don’t let migrants to come in. Is there a market economy in japan ?
  - Enrique Fleischmann Nov 27, 2017
    
    No. Japan, as any economy that makes use of the monopoly of the State to forbid the free flow of the most important production factor is not a full market economy. Call it regulated, mixed, or whatever, but it cannot be, by definition a full market economy.
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- Steve Hurst Nov 23, 2017
  
  Enrique, All markets are regulated, there is no such thing as a free market. What has happened is globalism has opened up an infinite supply of labour suppressing wages (via supply and demand) particularly in developed economies. People have mobility restrictions and capital does not, capital can therefore move easily and people cannot. Capital also then invests in emerging economies not in the weakened developed economy as previously reducing productivity and slowing developed economies. Its a very simple model. In response to the inability to move and real wage decline people democratically demand a restriction is placed on mechanism - which incidentally also extends to demanding capital does not engage in tax evasion another aspect of capital mobility
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- Yoshimichi Moriyama Nov 23, 2017
  
  Mr. Fleischman,
  Exclusive concentration of only economic benefit and nothing else does not lead to formation or presevation of good society, though the concept or idea of a good society is various from person to person or from people to people. Herein comes political modulation. Such modulation as is considered necessary can be done politically or by political power. A democratic, political system requires absolutitst political power such as only an absolutitist monarch once had. For instance the Japanese Diet passed a bill which raised a consumptin tax from 5 to 8 percent. It was not a unanimous passage, but once passed it bound every Japanese legally no matter how strongly opposed some Japanese might have been. Americans or Islams living in Japan have their basic human or religious rights restricted, for another instance; An American who deems possession of a gun part of his/her basic human rights is not allowed to have one and an Islam is allowed to have only one wife, though of course he can live with his wives. Cultural homogeniety is one precondition.
  
  I will call a political unit that has an absolutetly binding power a state, at the moment. States are connected in capitalism which is global today, as you say. But a state sometime has different desires or interests to promote or preserve, and it should naturally have somewhat different trade or economic policy though it should always keep in mind that trade or non-trade for an article has different benefit or cost gained or lost.
  
  I agree there is no reason why restriction should not be imposed on captial. The Asian economic crisis of 1997, for instance, could have been averted if Thailand had imposed tight restriction on buying or selling bahts and dollars. Thai peasants who lived in remote places, remote not only in the geographical sense but also in the sense of the economic national life, were severely hit and they had to send their daughters to pleasure quarters of Bangkok. Free is a witching word these days. Poison is poisonous even if called free poison; movement of capital can be dangerous even if called free movement of captial.
  - Enrique Fleischmann Nov 27, 2017
    
    Fully agree that any economic system reflects a political will which means that the power of the State is behind to impose norms and rules. Be it restrictions (or lack of them) on the free flow of Capital, Labor or Commodities, by the end of the day you will meet the State and politics.
    
    Thus restrictions on Labor (and not other factors) is also a political decision that serves partial interests so cannot be measured in systematic terms. The interesting question is not how Labor flows affects certain group, but why the debate is non systematic and focused only on Labor: For example a systematic approach would try to compare the effects of restrictions on labor vs. restrictions on taxes ( i.e. Tax Heavens).
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- stephan Edwards Nov 23, 2017
  
  In other the interests of Labor should be sacrificed to interests of capitol. Your conclusion is that Labor everywhere should work for the common denominator irregardless of cost living and realities. 10 to a room and 2 dollars is how it should work ? Labor and capitol are not and never have been able to negotiate on an even basis what you are calling for is the effective reestablishment of serfdom Mr. Fleischman! Out of curiosity how long do you believe it will be before Labor comes after Capitol with pitchforks, Guillotines and Mass execution in mind?
  - Steve Hurst Nov 23, 2017
    
    Stephan, Return on capital as a part of the economy has steadily increased over decades and concurrently return on Labour has steadily decreased over decades and the process unhindered continues until the consumer base is so damaged it can no longer function as a revenue stream for capital. At that point Capital then issues debt to the consumer base to allow consumption to continue. That is in process via national debt grown and personal debt growth. Its a one way road and can only end in gridlock. Thats why there is no way back for US public debt. Its also why as soon as there is any sign of interest rates moving up it abruptly stops because there is a saturation point in debt servicing and the triumvirate of interest rates, inflation rate, and wage growth are connected. Because real wage growth is negative higher interest rates cannot be serviced, or can only be serviced via a haircut. What some economists thought was a long term model and try to keep applying appears to be in fact a model of a transition from agriculture to manufacturing to service sector. The main way to destroy debt is inflation but it is resistant to being invoked due to negative real wage growth.
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Yoshimichi Moriyama Nov 23, 2017

Capitalism needed cosmopolitan attire like globalization to cover up its greed and present itself in amicability.
This is the history of a billionare John's family, his grandfather or First John, his father or Second John and himself or Third John . Cosmopolitan internationalism runs deep and dense in their blood. First John lived in feudalism; he fought it to extricate himself from social restrictions for freer eonomic activities. Second John lived in an absolutist monarchy and fought it for the same purpose or freedom. Third John is fighting the national boundary because he can have better chances for making more billions of dollars beyond the national limits. Of the three, Third John is dangerous because he is destroying a nation-state, which may well sound strange, though. Something like a nation-state is essential as the ultimate political organization to set limits on our greed and introduce or preserve social order, to change or decide the course of economic development, to impose taxes on the 1 percent or as is done in some countries on the 99 percent and transfer them to the 99 or the 1 percent.

Globalization has done a lot in making the wealthy wealthier, elevating the poor from poverty but also in making the poor still poorer, sending many who had been living fairly contented to live in urban slums and making their lives hard and giving rise to and enlarging child labor in many parts of the world. "many of the economics students I went to school with seemed to have more self-centered view on human nature, Eamon Aghdast's comment on PS, Ricardo Hausmann, The Moral Identity of Homo Economicus."

Expansion in trade may be a good thing in itself, but it should be done considering a variety of local circumstances. People living in a Himalayan high land, for instance, live by feeding lean yaks on a lean land; their agricultural and dairy farming has no competitiveness in the international market; so they should be protected by dint of that fact.
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Joshua Soffer Nov 22, 2017

“People will always favor their own families and communities,” Goodhart argues.
Seems to me that how people define family and community is not a universal given, but a function of cultural evolution. I suspect that the more educated and and cosmopolitan a society is, the more likely are its residents to extend the notion of family and community to immigrants of diverse backgrounds. And the more likely they are to perceive immigration as contributing to the creativity of the urban environment, regardless of the difficulty of measuring this in strictly quantitative economic terms.
- Tom Thibaud Nov 26, 2017
  
  Family refers to the people with whom one shares a home, and all the memories, desires, struggles, tears, laughter, prayers, and promises that were created inside that home.
  
  It has become fashionable in the West to pretend that strangers - people who have never set foot inside one's home, and never will - are somehow part of one's family, but no one believes this. It's the kind of mindless blather that one expects from pitchmen and the people who write Hollywood trailer voice-overs.
  
  If it were just verbiage a la the old Coca-Cola adverts, with pretty multi-culti young people holding hands and warbling, "I'd like to teach the world to sing...", it would be harmless cant. But what has caused the populist backlash is the joining of this notion to a truly nasty reflex, the constant imputation of racist or xenophobic motives to anyone who dares to ask whether foreigners who do not share the citizenry's basic values should be allowed to elbow aside the citizenry and stake a claim to resources that properly belong to the families of said citizenry.
  
  A perfect example of the ruin this causes can be seen in the amazing collapse of California's public K-12 school system, which, thanks to a tidal wave of Mexican immigration (52% of California's K-12 students and continuing to climb), is now below Alabama and Mississippi, 49th in the US.
  
  Why should Mexico's cynical and inept elites be allowed to export poverty to the US? Whose families have first claim on California's school system and other public resources - America's, or Mexico's?
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Jose araujo Nov 22, 2017

I think its very hard to prove that immigration does not have a positive impact on native societies.

How can you prove that, immigration is triggered with the desire to live in a more prosperous country, so this two facts will always bee correlated.

I would also add that this analysis considers that the immigrant population is not an integral part of the country, which is wrong in so many ways, that its even hard to contemplate.

All and all its even worst than the populist view on immigration
- Steve Hurst Nov 22, 2017
  
  Jose I think the Native Americans would disagree that they benefited from migration, as would the Hawaiians, just to name two, there are others
  - Jose araujo Nov 27, 2017
    
    Yes, I can agree, but I think the Americans now are not just the native Americans... You don't have to think hard to come to the conclusion that the notion of borders is very irrational...
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- Jose araujo Nov 22, 2017
  
  The most important issue on immigration is not discussed, and the issue is what can a country that loses 15% or more of its active population regain prosperity.
  
  The immigration problem has to looked from the donor's country perspective, if not its just the other face of the coin of colonialist policies and doctrines.
  - Steve Hurst Nov 22, 2017
    
    Yep, eg figures for Bulgaria and Poland and S Italy show a pending problem
    - Jose araujo Nov 27, 2017
      
      Portugal lost 15% of its workforce in just 4 years....
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Mohammed Dore Nov 22, 2017

Lord Skidelsky is failing to realize that for Britain immigration is part of the costs of having had a British Empire for over 2.5 centuries; the benefits were access to cheap labour, raw materials and enormous profits that fuelled British capital accumulation. Britain has enjoyed the benefits; now the costs are coming in, in the form of unwanted immigration, many from poor and war torn countries. Skildelsky is a "public intellectual"; as such, while he can analyze the causes of populism, he also has a moral obligation to resist the ugly side of populism. Taking refuge in "economism" is not enough. While the Stalinists sought to build socialism in "one country," Robert wants liberalism in "one country." He can either be a ('scientistic') polite version of Enoch Powell, or as a public intellectual stand up for humanitarian values and declare support for leaders like Angela Merkel .
- Steve Hurst Nov 22, 2017
  
  Mohammed, Somewhere between the Japanese model which is to all intents and purposes no migration, and the No Borders model which is free movement there has to be a migration level. As soon as No Borders is denied you are left with a migration cut-off and with any cut-off you will find borderline (excuse the pun) cases that are rejected are unhappy. You will never escape that. In a democratic country the migration has to be at a level accepted by the majority. In a number of countries the media starts reporting negatively about migration at a low level, about 0.3% of the host population. Above that low threshold there are destablising effects which are actually adverse for new migrants (and multiculturalism for that matter) as shown by the election results in a number of countries. You might not like it and I can't say I want to see it but it's there and because it is so widespread in so many countries it can't be ignored.
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Bernhard Kopp Nov 22, 2017

Professor Hans Werner Sinn has analysed the effects of the Turkish immigration into Germany and found, that the original, up to 800,000 guest workers, did have a positiv effect, since their labor was needed at that time, but the chain migration from Turkey since the 1980s, and the reproduction rate, which brought the Turkish-decent community to over 3 million, turned the overall analysis highly negativ. And it is getting worse in the third generation. Sweden and Austria also have materially similar social studies and results. The welfare states are, on average, just too expensive. Large immigrant communities from different cultural and civilisation backgrounds are statistically, and in the long term, not able to contribute their fair share.
- Joshua Soffer Nov 22, 2017
  
  The massive waves of immigration to the U.S. between the late 1800's and the early 1900's seemed to lead to a happier conclusion from an economic standpoint. The social disruption was initially intense and led to a political backlash and shutting of of the immigration spigot, but the manufacturing-based economy was able to match corporate demand with labor supply. That seems to be the main difference with today's post-industrial economies
  - Steve Hurst Nov 23, 2017
    
    Yes 'Manifest Destiny' was so good wasn't it.
    - Richard McGahey Nov 26, 2017
      
      "manifest destiny" was not tied to in-migration to USA, especially wave from Europe. You can dislike the US, plenty there, but get your history straight.
      - Steve Hurst Nov 26, 2017
        
        Richard, Manifest Destiny was action taken against natives by migrant stock. Its no different than things that went on elsewhere, such as British migrant action against Australian natives. I dont see any great attempt by those migrants to assimilate into native culture. Incidentally in the time of the British Raj in India if a British officer went native, and some did, they usually end up being socially excluded no matter what their rank was. My history is straight
        
        P. Kamath Nov 29, 2017
        
        SH : A sincere curiosity of mine . You say," ...in the time of the British Raj in India if a British officer went native, and some did, they usually end up being socially excluded no matter what their rank was. My history is straight..."
        
        Would you like to throw in an example - one for the rich and powerful and the other for an ordinary chap. . Thanks.
        
        Steve Hurst Nov 29, 2017
        
        https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/dec/09/britishidentity.india
        
        PK There was a period when whilst not in favour inter racial relationships were not seen a big problem. I cannot remember the date when this changed but it moved to being very much frowned on and staff in some cases tried to conceal relationships and even marriage. Relationships were at all levels including right at the top of the British Raj. Social excommunication occurred. The British fascination with Indian culture even extended to Queen Victoria who had what appears to be a close friendship with an Indian servant which caused some outrage LOL
        
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul_Karim_(the_Munshi)
        
        Steve Hurst Nov 29, 2017
        
        The website has chopped the link at the top of the previous post
        should end > britishidentity.india
        
        Abdul Karim, the subject of the second link, which also has been chopped by the website is easy to find
        
        Going native which was clearly popular was seen as bad for discipline by the Raj
        
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    - Joshua Soffer Nov 23, 2017
      
      Manifest density was about spreading Anglo Saxon culture to the Western territories. Most of the immigrants to the U.S. during the late 19th and early 20th century were non Anglo Saxons and settled in the big cities.
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Steve Hurst Nov 22, 2017

A State is defined by its borders. Putting aside migration from outside the EU, free movement within the EU removes the definition of State because it removes borders. This would be fine if the State was then defined as the EU but to most citizens it is not.
- K. Bauer Nov 22, 2017
  
  A state is hardly only defined by its borders. The EU countries differ in Language, society, etc. What bounds them is their cultural background (Christianity, Humanism, etc.) and the common will to work together for the common good.
  Counter-Example: You will find a lot of people in Scottland who would say they are first scottish. Same can be sad for german federal states (not necassarily to that extend).
  - Steve Hurst Nov 22, 2017
    
    K B
    
    I'm not saying that a State is only defined by its borders, but that physically the State is defined by its borders. The issue with the EU is it is neither one thing nor the other and because of that the outcome will be a native attempt to recover identity which is to define the State and therefore the border. The reason Schengen has failed with migration is the borders were removed and redefined as the outer periphery who then in turn did not consider they owned them on behalf of all the Schengen States. Hence migrants landing were waved onwards North. Following that you have the pressure to formalise the process via Federalism which invokes a backlash to recover national identity and which will not go away.
    - K. Bauer Nov 23, 2017
      
      Its true that the Schengen system failed during the migrant crisis. The alternative is a dozen 'Jungles' (Calais) on the route north. At least in the current legislative environment (and still the public opinion in west Europe) - you are just out of options. The people are there.
      
      Besides that, the EU states are still separated by their borders (or lets say territory) regarding their politics, language, society, laws and security forces. Take a look at the German-Polish border and how different the politics, prices and mean wages are. The latter is even true between west and east Germany.
      Also life in Germany and the UK is quite different. Not nearly a much as for example to Syria of course but I don't think the societies changed that much because of the EU.
      The difference is that in the UK the popular perceived cultural threat at the moment is related to polish workers while in Germany its regarding the Turkish community and their integration. I guess thats one reason why the average UK media outlet (including BBC) does so much more EU-bashing than the German ones - even before Brexit. Even before the migrant crisis, germany had a higher immigrants-per-capita ratio then the UK but that wasn't that much discussed in the media because the turkish have been already there. It's a different blame-game. The AfD is only big because of the migrant crisis. Before, they were mainly known for being anti-EU and they were tiny.
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Peter Bild Nov 22, 2017

Prof. Skidelsky provides us with a banal conclusion but no criteria or guidance for governments in determining the limits of tolerance for change and adaptation. That tolerance will vary not only from country to country, but also depending on the circumstances, real or perceived, driving immigration (war, poverty, religious or other persecution). The tolerance will also vary according to the extent that immigrants differ in colour, religion or indeed social class from those whose tolerance is being tested beyond "its limits". I am finding the banality of Robert Skidelsky's conclusion pressed too far and igniting my hostility.
- Tom W Nov 26, 2017
  
  Skidelsky isn't presenting a book-length comprehensive case here. It's a fairly short article. Also, he cites "populism", which is a clear reference to recent election results across the West. You want some "guidance"? How about Donald Trump. That sure got my attention. As long as one avoids the very banal "deplorables" interpretation, the signal is quite clear.
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