For most of its history, America was the "Alternative Europe"..."Alternative Europe" was a winning strategy for us. But that strategy is mostly played out...The United States still needs people...But we're not going to get our new people from Europe...
East Asia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia together have over half the world's population, but Asians make up only 5% of the United States. If our ethnic makeup was a portfolio of stocks, we would be severely underweight Asia.
Asia is important not just because it is huge, but because it is growing rapidly...Geopolitics, too, will be centered on Asia...
Adding diversity to our melting pot will speed up America's inevitable and necessary transition from a "nation of all European races" to a "nation of all races." The sooner that happens - the sooner people realize that America's multi-racialization is a done deal - the quicker our political debate can shed its current ethnic overtones and go back to being about the issues...
But we need to act now, because the window of opportunity for large-scale Asian immigration will not stay open for much longer...We probably have only two more decades in which to transplant large numbers of Asians to our shores. (This is in contrast to Africa, whose high fertility levels will make sure it remains a plentiful source of immigrants for at least another century.)...
This, then, is the "Alternative Asia Plan." America began as a nation of Europeans and Africans; it is now a nation of Europeans, Africans, and Latin Americans. It must become a nation of Asians as well.Basically, the reasons for immediate large-scale targeting of Asian immigration is three-fold:
1. Immigration from Europe and Latin america has trickled off, while immigration from Africa will be available essentially indefinitely; the window for Asian immigration is short, and is now.
2. Strong ties with Asia are important for geopolitics.
3. Asian immigration will make our cultural and racial mix more representative of the globe.
20 or 30 years from now, expect to see me writing about the "Alternate Africa Plan"...
Noah, I really like your support for more immigration. Plus you give a very good argument for the sceptics: it's in their interests too.
ReplyDeleteHave you thought about how this plan of yours would sound in Compton or Monongahela or Tupelo? "We're going to bring in lots of educated foreigners to take the good jobs instead of trying to build your human capital. But don't worry, it will be good for you." Your plan is just one giant fuck you to anyone who hasn't had a chance in this country, be they in coal country or the Rio Grande valley or the inner city somewhere.
ReplyDelete3. Asian immigration will make our cultural and racial mix more representative of the globe.
Why does America's cultural mix need to be more representative? Are other countries under this obligation? Will you be running articles in China about how it needs to import Bangladeshis, and in Nigeria about how it needs to import Brazilians? No, you won't, because they'd think it was a stupid idea. And perhaps you haven't noticed this, but there's an ethnic mix in this country already, and it has produced its own distinct culture that is widely admired around the world. It doesn't need some idiotic social-engineering plan to improve it.
the sooner people realize that America's multi-racialization is a done deal - the quicker our political debate can shed its current ethnic overtones and go back to being about the issues
What a cop-out. Instead of trying to persuade people of better ideas, you just want to drown them demographically. That's not only lazy, it confirms their fears.
If our ethnic makeup was a portfolio of stocks, we would be severely underweight Asia.
That's idiotic. Has Norway's extremely unbalanced "ethnic portfolio" made it a horrible place to live? What about Japan, which is just about the most ethnically homogeneous on the planet? Is it a good thing that Tibet's "ethnic portfolio" is becoming "evenly weighted?" No, no and no. There's no reason for any country to have a "evenly weighted ethnic portfolio" other than it would satisfy some ridiculous standard in your head.
The United States still needs people -- to start new companies, to keep our pension systems funded, and to keep our domestic market large in order to attract investment.
Utter nonsense. Rich developed countries like the US should be net exporters of capital, not attracting it. And even if the US population stopped growing today, it would be the third most populous for decades to come, so there is zero reason to worry about the size of its domestic market. Besides, having a small domestic market certainly hasn't kept Finland or New Zealand poor.
America's birth rate is not as low as Europe, but we still need immigrants to ensure a healthily expanding labor pool.
Why? The point of economic growth isn't growth, it's to make people's lives better. A tighter labor pool would allow Americans to better bargain with American employers. That's why immigration from Mexico has been so poorly policed for the past four decades (by focusing on deportation, not punishment for the businesses who hired illegal aliens.) It kept Americans, primarily black Americans, from having any kind of leverage in the market for unskilled labor.
In the 20th Century, we stabilized Asia through overwhelming military force, but this is no longer possible or desirable; instead, many believe, the U.S. should be an "offshore balancer," helping to mediate disputes and organize coalitions of Asian nations to keep the peace.
Maybe the Asians should figure out amongst themselves how to keep the peace. Unless you think Asians are too stupid to do it on their own?
You really should be embarrassed by your column, but I don't think you have enough sense for that.
"We're going to bring in lots of educated foreigners to take the good jobs instead of trying to build your human capital. But don't worry, it will be good for you."
Delete"Instead of"? First of all, I don't understand how doing one means you can't do the other. Why does immigration hurt education? I just don't understand.
Second of all, I don't think there's a fixed amount of "good jobs". That just doesn't make sense. Hasn't the number of good jobs grown and grown throughout our history?
Why does America's cultural mix need to be more representative? Are other countries under this obligation?
Well, that's a good question. Maybe it doesn't. But I feel like America is different from nation-states that define themselves by ethnicity - Korea for ethnic Koreans, Sweden for ethnic Swedes, and so on. America, I think, defines itself by culture, shared values, and institutions. That makes us a very different kind of country, and it's hard to be the kind of country we are - it takes a lot of work to get over the idea that America is defined by race. That's why I want to make America as multiracial as possible - I think it will get rid of any notion that "American" means a certain ethnicity, a notion that I think is holding us back.
Utter nonsense. Rich developed countries like the US should be net exporters of capital, not attracting it.
Net is different than gross...
Besides, having a small domestic market certainly hasn't kept Finland or New Zealand poor.
That is true...
A tighter labor pool would allow Americans to better bargain with American employers.
Maybe. But, frankly, we've got a lot of inequality in this country, and I favor high-skilled immigration, to increase the relative scarcity of low-skilled workers, thus improving their bargaining power. As you point out, we've been doing the opposite in recent decades, which may have contributed to inequality.
Maybe the Asians should figure out amongst themselves how to keep the peace. Unless you think Asians are too stupid to do it on their own?
I don't think it's a matter of stupidity or lack thereof...
You really should be embarrassed by your column, but I don't think you have enough sense for that.
Oh, whatever.
Anonymous made some reasonably good points in a really, really dickish way.
DeletePersonally, i think the American tradition is to be open to immigration from whoever wants to come so long as they pay their own way. I'd open the floodgates to the world but stipulate that if they want to claim welfare they have to have worked and paid into the system for maybe 10 years.
"Utter nonsense. Rich developed countries like the US should be net exporters of capital, not attracting it.
DeleteNet is different than gross..."
I agree that this is a good point made in a not so good way. I think it deserves a better answer than Noah provides (another blog post maybe?). I think the assumption is that gross and net labour movements will be roughly the same. What's different about capital?
Oh, my point is that it's always good for every country to attract investment (as long as that investment is not wasteful). Net exporters of capital are no exception. The more investment you attract, the more money you'll have to invest elsewhere. See?
DeleteAnother way of saying this is that the amount of capital in the world is not fixed. A net capital exporter may have a capital stock that is increasing over time - in fact, it always or almost always should!
“A degree from a good university used to guarantee a spot at least at a top 10 company, but that was when a college degree actually meant something,” Kim, 25, said on Aug. 28, as she walked to a Chinese lesson she’s taking to boost her chance of joining one of the nation’s most prestigious employers. “I studied hard and did everything right, but there are too many of us who did.”
DeleteWith almost three out of four high school students going to college in an effort to get a top-paying job in one of the leading industrial groups, known as chaebols, South Korea is being flooded with more college graduates than it needs. Its 30 biggest companies hired 260,000 of them last year, leaving another 60,000 to swell the youth unemployment rate to 6.4 percent in August, more than twice the national average.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-09-11/skip-college-is-top-advice-for-world-beating-south-koreans-jobs.html
"Besides, having a small domestic market certainly hasn't kept Finland or New Zealand poor."
DeleteMight not be the best comparison. NZ is poorer (or less rich) than, say, Australia, Germany, UK and just about everywhere in Western Europe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita
All those other countries have larger domestic markets (save Ireland which is about the same- Belgium is about double the size and and Netherlands about 4x). Further, they all have large markets nearby. Correlation is not causation, but it looks arguable that NZ might be richer with either more people or closer proximity to more people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population
I think the first Anonymous really gives away his game with this quote:
DeleteWhat a cop-out. Instead of trying to persuade people of better ideas, you just want to drown them demographically. That's not only lazy, it confirms their fears.
Drown who demographically? The answer is pretty clear - white nativists, the "sons of the soil" who think America is for whites. Yep, I want to drown those people demographically, absolutely, no question. But it won't be necessary, because as the weight of immigrants piles up, nativists will be naturally persuaded through human contact with people of many races. It happened in the 1800s with English-Americans acclimating to German and Irish immigrants. It happened in the early 1900s with Anglo-Americans acclimating to Polish, Italian, Czech, Greek, and Russian immigrants. And it will happen now with Mexican immigrants and Asian immigrants, and tomorrow it will happen with African immigrants. It's the way America progresses, in every era. And it will happen whether people pay attention to my column or not. So get on board or go hide under the bed, it's your choice.
In regards to education, think about all the jobs in an economy. The reality is, probably no more than 30% need more than a good high school education.
DeleteTherefore, the education system isn't designed to ensure that everyone succeeds. You need a majority of the people to actually fail so that they will blame themselves for their "shitty" job (a job the economy still needs done) because they should have tried harder in school. And on top of that you tell them that there are good jobs available, just not enough qualified people to fill the positions. Yet, are there empty spots in universities that would have provided people with the education needed to fill these positions?
P.S. I am the "anonymous" above who posted the information regarding Korean students (10:57 a.m.).
Noah Smith:
Delete"Maybe. But, frankly, we've got a lot of inequality in this country, and I favor high-skilled immigration, to increase the relative scarcity of low-skilled workers, thus improving their bargaining power. As you point out, we've been doing the opposite in recent decades, which may have contributed to inequality."
But by far the main source of income inequality in the US is not from the heterogeneity of labor income, but from capital income, which has increased as a share of disposable personal income and become increasingly concentrated in the last 30 years or so. Decreasing labor's bargaining power by increasing the rate of immigration will almost certainly exacerbate what is in fact the main source of income inequality in this country.
But by far the main source of income inequality in the US is not from the heterogeneity of labor income, but from capital income
DeleteNot really true, that's been a substantial contributing factor, but less than half.
Decreasing labor's bargaining power by increasing the rate of immigration will almost certainly exacerbate what is in fact the main source of income inequality in this country.
High-skilled immigration increases the bargaining power of low-skilled and semi-skilled labor. Think very carefully about that.
Original anonymous does seem like a pretty big dick but I am not sure I buy into your "this is a white guy nativist" counter point. Compton is a latino majority city formerly known for being a major source of black poverty. So I think he is talking about the Latinos and Blacks in America who cant catch up.
DeleteAs an aside, Noah if South Korea cant find employment for all its college graduates and America cant either [lets compare unemployment of BA holders from the 07-08-09-10-11 cohorts vs. unemployment of BA holders vs High School holders in total before we start trotting out the ole "go to college young man" meme] then what would all these extra Asians do here?
And what kind of Asians do you want? While some Asians are high achieving some other ones are not particularly [Filipino/Vietnamese/Hmong achievements vs. Chinese/Koreans in terms of American immigrants, the North-Asians win, big.]
Finally, when America was open to European immigration it was a different world. Most of that world was enslaved under colonialism and later various totaltarianisms so the labor portions of those economies never competed directly against the American workers. But now the world is flat, supply chains are efficient, and Steve Jobbs would rather have slaves in China build his iphone at a moments notice than let loose of that 30% margin
Anyway, I guess its a lot easier to want all the benefits of globalism when you are your ivory tower of tenure, forever secure against the winds of change. If you and Cowen are these huge free marketers why dont ya'll quit your day jobs, open up a "Lessons by the hour" shop and see how the free market treats ya?
Original anonymous does seem like a pretty big dick but I am not sure I buy into your "this is a white guy nativist" counter point. Compton is a latino majority city formerly known for being a major source of black poverty. So I think he is talking about the Latinos and Blacks in America who cant catch up.
DeleteOh yeah, that guy really knows/cares about Compton. Riiiiight. Who do you think he was talking about when he mentioned being "drowned demographically"?
what would all these extra Asians do here?
In the 1800s we had a huge wave of German and Irish immigrants. At the time they came, unemployment was not zero. So what did they all do here?
And what kind of Asians do you want?
Any that we can get...
Anyway, I guess its a lot easier to want all the benefits of globalism when you are your ivory tower of tenure, forever secure against the winds of change.
I don't have tenure. I just started working a month ago!
If you and Cowen are these huge free marketers why dont ya'll quit your day jobs, open up a "Lessons by the hour" shop and see how the free market treats ya?
First of all, didn't Cowen just do exactly that?
Second of all, I'd be fine working in the private sector. I am not at all worried about my ability to make a lot more money there than I do in academia.
But of course I realize that unemployment sucks. I am not being insensitive to that. I just don't think immigration increases unemployment. I just don't think it's true.
[But by far the main source of income inequality in the US is not from the heterogeneity of labor income, but from capital income]
Delete"Not really true, that's been a substantial contributing factor, but less than half."
If you have something to support that claim I'd love to see it.
[Decreasing labor's bargaining power by increasing the rate of immigration will almost certainly exacerbate what is in fact the main source of income inequality in this country.]
"High-skilled immigration increases the bargaining power of low-skilled and semi-skilled labor. Think very carefully about that."
I was thinking in terms of the labor factor share of income under conditions of less than full employment. I agree with you in terms of the relative distribution of income but I'm still not convinced hetereogeneity of labor income is responsible for much of the increase in inequality in the US.
Check out this report from the Economic Policy Institute:
Deletehttp://www.epi.org/publication/ib330-productivity-vs-compensation/
Also see this study by the Cleveland Fed:
Deletehttp://www.clevelandfed.org/research/Commentary/2012/2012-13.cfm
I'd forgotten about Mishels' decomposition. And the Cleveland Fed study is very interesting. Thanks.
DeleteBut also...what I think is an even more important point is that labor's declining share of income was probably not due to immigration. I suspect that offshoring was a MUCH bigger culprit. But offshoring is just "factor price equalization"...I will do another post about this...
DeleteThere's far more to this story than just globalization of course. (In fact I think there is far too much attention paid to supply side factors in general.)
DeleteDisinflation during the eighties and the nineties was accompanied by a significant rise in the profit share of national income in most OECD countries or, equivalently, by a reduction in the labor share. This suggests that changes in the rate of inflation are non-neutral with respect to the distribution of factor income. The consequences of disinflation upon inequality thus may largely be the indirect result of the effects of disinflation upon factor shares. The mechanism by which this comes about is fairly simple. Disinflation is correlated to rising unemployment rates, rising unemployment rates lead to lower labor bargaining power, and lower labor bargaining power is correlated with higher markups. Furthermore, lower inflation rates create lower price dispersion leading to less competition among producers to limit markups. This hypothesis was tested with a panel of 15 OECD countries over the period from 1960 to 2000 and a robust positive relationship between disinflation and the labor factor share of income was obtained:
http://pareto.uab.es/wp/2000/46000.pdf
Thus, while immigration may not be a prime culprit, in an economy subject to disinflation, immigration could have exacerbated its negative effect on the labor factor share of income by decreasing labor's overall bargaining power.
Oh gosh, I have another guy arguing in the comment thread in another post that inflation lowers workers' bargaining power (and hence labor's share of income).
DeleteCan you go find him and debate him, please? It's the "hard money and the gerontocracy" comment thread.
Immigration from Latin America has not tickled off because of lack of interested migrants. It's been reduced by 20-year long wait times for those who follow the rules and draconian laws targeting those who don't.
ReplyDeleteThere is some of this, as my column points out, but look at Mexico's per capita GDP. It's over %15,000! That's almost twice China. And Mexico's export industries and high-tech industries are booming, especially in the south part of the country away from the border. Yes, there have been anti-immigration measures in the U.S. - and these need to end! - but most of those were there in 2005, and Mexican immigration kept going strong. Lots of stories I'm reading say that the good Mexican economy is the biggest reason immigration from there has slowed.
DeleteMore immigration from Asia means more Asian doctors and lawyers in America; which means lower wages for American doctors and lawyers. Good luck trying to convince the protectionist policymakers in the US that lower wages for American doctors and lawyers is a good thing.
ReplyDeleteCheaper doctors would certainly help the long-term sustainability of Medicare and pensions.
DeletePS I forgot to say in post, thank you for the various posts on immigration and population density. Without really thinking about it, I had unconsciously assumed that wide open spaces were an advantage - one reason for greater US prosperity even. Now I see it's not so simple.
ReplyDeleteI live in the most crowded borough in the most crowded country in Europe apart from Andorra. (OK, I've cheated a bit by just including England, and not the rest of the UK.) 142.6 people per hectare. Something like 1 in 5 born outside the EU, and 1 in three outside England. So it's a topic of interest to me.
"the quicker our political debate can shed its current ethnic overtones and go back to being about the issues..."
ReplyDeleteI'm no historian, but I feel like even a casual reading of our history reveals its always been racialized, especially our political history.
I'm no historian, but I disagree with your casual reading...
DeleteIn those parts of the US where any sort of ethnic diversity did exist, US history has most certainly been racialized. Racial politics were strong in all slave-owning States, but also in those areas where white settlers and natives interacted for some time before the natives were removed or exterminated.
DeleteAny phrase that begins with "I'm no historian, but. . ." should be added to the list of phrases uttered atop Mount Stupid.
DeleteI'm no historian, but that sounds about right.
DeleteNoah - your paragraph in the Atlantic
ReplyDelete"For most of its history, America was the "Alternative Europe." Political and religious dissidents who were dissatisfied with the ruling regimes in their homelands, oppressed ethnic minorities, and poor people who couldn't get a good job -- all made their way to the United States. Here they found a place where their beliefs, their ethnicity, and their parents' socioeconomic status mattered far less than in the Old Country. America itself benefited greatly from the inflow, gaining a huge labor force, a constant supply of entrepreneurs and creative free thinkers, and a diverse ethnic makeup that helped us avoid the kind of brutal ethnic violence and fragmentation that plagued the European subcontinent"
How can you even make that statement as some rose colored Utopia? Many of those entrepreneurs were slave traders, and that "huge labor force" was captured Native Americans and sea sick African slaves that faced even worse levels of brutality then what was experienced but the European immigrants back home in order to fuel that economic prosperity that you are so pleased about. The things put in place to support the racist policies and justification of slavery still plague this country today. There are people still alive who remember segregated drinking fountains.
I can see your logic in making your statement of immigration and the benefits, but your opinion in the Atlantic was so irresponsible that it was not even funny. Immigration is a solution only to a narrow subset of problems, and it needs to be handled in such a way as people are treated with fairness and dignity to truly benefit the people AND the nation that hosts them. The last time Asians were brought in to work they were chased into the underground of San Francisco like rats to avoid angry mobs that viewed them as taking jobs, or were treated like cannon fodder with the Africans building the railroad, or imprisoned in internment camps during WW2.
Currently there is a strong lack of motivation politically to be accommodating especially when Asian countries and the US view each other as sources of competition and not cooperation. If you see the treatment of Mexicans (just this year) as any indication of how this country handles issues of immigration. They you would be more responsible in your writing and propose that this country clean up its own act before inviting guests over.
Your comments about slavery are true, I just don't see what they have to do with immigration. Certainly part of what made the US attractive to immigrants at the time was the general success of the country that was partly built on slave labor, but I don't see how that affects what we should do now. I don't think anyone is arguing that the US' history is spotless and pure.
DeleteIf we are going to wait to have any immigration until all immigrants are accepted with open arms by every single person I don't think we're ever going to have any immigration.
The idea that allowing increased immigration from Asia would strengthen ties with Asia seems doubtful. The first generation - the one born in Asia - may feel an affinity for the land of their birth for about thirty years but the children born in the US will feel no particular affiliation or connection (at least that is my observation of the immigrant families I know, including my own).
ReplyDeleteProbably true on the individual or small scale level. But the more population you have from a particular region should help to foster closer economic and cultural ties and understanding, even if the people themselves don't feel a huge personal connection to their ancestors' countries. A couple hundred thousand people isn't going to make a huge difference, but it's not an accident that we have very tight cultural, political, and economic relationships with Europe and growing ones with latin america.
DeleteNoah, what gave you away, just as #1 anon(with his 'drown demographically') is your obsession with race.
ReplyDeleteThe reason why we should have Asian immigration isn't because it's Asian. That's a racist argument in a sense(although a benign one, I'll add) since your point is that immigration of a particular race is important for it's own sake.
I view your comment as no different in logic(but certainly in morality) than someone agitating for a white-only racial immigration hierarchy.
I am with you, however, on the need for high-skill immigration and we should target that instead of some sort of arbitrary racial stuff.
As it happens, only 12% of Mexicans immigrating here have a higher education background. More than 50 % of Asian immigrants have one, and over 70 % if you look at Indian immigrants.
So going for a higher educated immigrant workforce would necessarily skew the people coming to America from an Asian background.
Indeed, this has happened already for Canada and Australia quite a long while ago.
America needs high-skill workers but it shouldn't target a specific race for it's own sake, if that "race" is Asian or white(however loosely defined, since there is quite a lot of diversity within both terms) is really immaterial since to argue for either, you have to grasp for really smelly stuff, wheter that was the intention or not(as I believe in your case).
Too often you come across as a simplistic leftist, spouting claptrap slogans and going beserk whenever someone disagrees with you.
If you keep that up, you'll end up with a bunch of halfwitted yes men to affirm your every fart.
Maybe that's not what you want?
Too often you come across as a simplistic leftist, spouting claptrap slogans and going beserk whenever someone disagrees with you.
DeleteWhen have I gone berserk?
If you keep that up, you'll end up with a bunch of halfwitted yes men to affirm your every fart.
Maybe that's not what you want?
On the contrary, I appreciate aggro jerkfaces like you and hope you will continue to comment frequently. ;)
Also...how am I obsessed with race? I don't want to target Asia because they are racially superior or whanot (especially because Asia has many races!). I want to target Asia because:
Delete1. IMHO racial diversity is better for America, and Asians are our smallest minority as things now stand.
2. Asia is going to be overwhelmingly important geopolitically in the near future.
I think those are good reasons that have nothing to do with race. If I were racist in favor of Asians, who would I be racist against?
First, I have to deploy my concerntrolling skillz by opining that you disappoint me in the personal insult department.
DeleteYour "insult" reads as if it's from a self-aggrandized six year old.
What I meant when I wrote 'simplistic leftist' was your tendency to get stuck in sloganeering.
Which leads me into:
"Also...how am I obsessed with race?"
"If I were racist in favor of Asians, who would I be racist against?"
It rests on a racial view of the world.
We don't need high-skilled immigrants, no we need immigrants who are of Asian origin to preserve a racial balance(or to tilt the balance in a certain direction).
It rests on the notion that race is such an important feature that it overturns individual qualities.
It matters less if you're skilled than if you are part of a specific race.
That's obsession with race, when you view the world through such a starkly racial prism.
Your intentions are good, I don't think you're a racist in intention(as I've stated before), but your thinking is similar to a racist in the sense that race trumps so many other factors.
The whole notion of 'racial balancing' is so odious and smelly that any self-percevied progressive should back away from it.
As I've stated before, high-skill immigration is the way to go, and I'm with you on that one.
But I'd take race-blind high-skilled immigration, thank you. If the people who come are then 99% Asian or 1% Asian (or anything in-between) is really beside the point to me.
The promise of America has always been that no matter who you are and how you look, you can make it. That hasn't always been the case, but it is the ambition.
A central aspect of that is to value people on the basis of their individual characteristics, as in their own personal qualities.
The notion that one of those qualities should be the pigment of your skin, does reek of a racialist/racist outlook, no matter how "well intentioned".
First, I have to deploy my concerntrolling skillz by opining that you disappoint me in the personal insult department.
DeleteI'm sorry, sir. I'll try to do better next time, sir, I promise...
We don't need high-skilled immigrants, no we need immigrants who are of Asian origin to preserve a racial balance(or to tilt the balance in a certain direction).
But wait, did you read this earlier piece I wrote with Adam Ozimek?
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/give-us-your-geniuses-why-seeking-smart-immigrants-is-a-no-brainer/258451/
I'm all for high-skilled immigration, and no I don't care where it comes from.
But high-skilled immigrants are not the only immigrants. So I don't see high-skilled immigration as conflicting with my call for Asian immigration.
The whole notion of 'racial balancing' is so odious and smelly that any self-percevied progressive should back away from it.
Why do you think it's odious and smelly?
The promise of America has always been that no matter who you are and how you look, you can make it. That hasn't always been the case, but it is the ambition.
Well of course I agree with that. There's no race of people I'd ever want to keep out of America.
"Adding diversity to our melting pot will speed up America's inevitable and necessary transition from a "nation of all European races" to a "nation of all races." The sooner that happens - the sooner people realize that America's multi-racialization is a done deal - the quicker our political debate can shed its current ethnic overtones and go back to being about the issues..."
ReplyDeleteWhere do you get this high grade crack from and why don't you share it with the rest of the class?
(1) Immigration isn't an end in itself, and (2), if you reduce the homogeneity of the population then you're obviously going to increase the potential for conflict along ethnic lines, not reduce it.
Noah Smith - just another anti-white racist asshole.
ReplyDeleteKill Whitey!!!
DeleteI also liked the argument that America's really "diverse" population prevented any outbreak of European-style ethnic cleansing "funny business"--because the problems there all stemmed from too much ethnic homogeneity.
ReplyDelete"Drown who demographically? The answer is pretty clear - white nativists, the "sons of the soil" who think America is for whites. Yep, I want to drown those people demographically, absolutely, no question."
ReplyDeleteSomeone needs to drown you in a well.
Aw, is that all? A good race-baiting post like this failed to generate ONE comment involving ethnic differences in IQ, Richard Herrnstein quote or reference to the odors of rice and curry? Post-academic PC has killed the fun in American conversation.
ReplyDelete"Drown who demographically? The answer is pretty clear - white nativists, the "sons of the soil" who think America is for whites. Yep, I want to drown those people demographically, absolutely, no question."
ReplyDeleteNoah, I have a question: I think the clear implication of this is that if white Americans want to remain in the majority, then they are racists and deserve to lose their majority status. Fair summary?
Do you apply the same witches' trial logic to other nations who wish to retain their distinct and particular identities?
What about say, the Japanese, who seem to have pretty definite ideas about not wanting to be drowned demographically, or even lightly splashed demographically—surely this is no less racist than Americans wishing to remain American, and therefore, no less deserving of being swept under the tide? Perhaps they could be encouraged to drown themselves; or, if not, NATO could invade their racist asses, and hold their heads under the sea.
Aren't they getting kind of old anyway? They'll never have a dynamic economy without a decent amount of young North African migrants to run all those companies while they're in their dotage. If you look at it from a strictly economic point of view, we'd probably be doing them a favour. A Pareto improvement, in fact. There are certainly much worse reasons to go to war!