Farage, ‘improper’ English and his inimical proposal

Attacking people who “cannot speak English properly” with suggestions of unemployment is just the tip of the iceberg of inimical and inhumane anti-foreign and anti-immigrant policies that threaten to lead Britain into socioeconomic retrogression. Farage also claims that “middle management” would be his target in making cuts in the NHS and, though this aspect is justified and welcome, the fact that it’s accompanied by the aforementioned divisive rhetoric reveals the discriminatory sentiment and true roots of his policy suggestions. Of course, this proposal would only affect the NHS but the danger is that when such sentiments are formally empowered in elections, it will inevitably lead to similar regulations being extended to other spheres and, therefore, also inhibit the private sector’s ability to recruit talented individuals. The Entrepreneurs Network released a report showing how we are already failing international graduate students and, therefore, British businesses: “Although nearly half, 42%, of international students intend to start up their own business following graduation, only 33% of these students, or 14% of the total, want to do so in the UK” – current immigration policy is already unfavourable toward beneficial, legal migration.

Mukand (2012) found that “the globalization of labour could dwarf those from foreign aid or even the liberalization of trade and capital flows. For example, a decision by developed countries to liberalize immigration restrictions by a mere 3% could result in an estimated output gain of more than $150 billion”; simply put, the proposed policy road UKIP is signalling with its anti-immigrant, anti-multicultural and xenophobic rhetoric is poor Economics that will, undoubtedly, make Britain poorer.

The attraction for many Europeans to come here, instead of elsewhere, is to learn English; the best way to learn a foreign language is to speak it and live where it is spoken. A major reason why India has been particularly successful in exporting services is the workforce’s inherent, multilingual capabilities. The only way Britain will be able to compete effectively, develop and exporting more is to have more multilingual people and this will inevitably require native speakers of foreign languages. A hostile environment toward bilingual and multilingual peoples will exacerbate the pre-existing shortage in both the private and public sector (the military, for example, is facing a particularly acute shortage). Furthermore, if people are discouraged from coming to Britain in the first place, it will significantly diminish our cultural capital.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of thinking that the upcoming UK elections are only really relevant for Britain. Just because our economy and our armed forces make up a far smaller proportion of world output and military strength than they did previously does not change the fact that this election’s outcome will have profound, global implications. The whole world is watching closely, as was the case with Scotland’s independence referendum.

Though both Britain and the USA are doing comparatively well (growth, unemployment and all that), Britain has the added attraction of having a welfare state that Europeans (amongst others) love and, therefore, this means that many look here. The increase in migration (both perceived and actual) reflects Britain having fared better (probably also contributed to it having done better) and, thus, people the world over look to British public policy; hence, as the voting public, we have essentially been called upon to be global leaders and good leaders lead by example.

Farage has carefully exploited anti-foreigner rhetoric and UKIP is our (albeit more civilised and less extremist) version of the extremist parties that have gained popularity during these hard times. When we vote anti-foreign, it will encourage those who look to us to reciprocate. Subsequently, trade restrictions and currency wars will intensify alongside a myriad of other protectionist policies and international hostilities (all of which happened in the run-up to WWII).  We need to think carefully about the examples we set and the rhetoric we reward and, what's equally as important, the rhetoric we keep quiet about.

Abolishing marriage law with a smooth transition

There are several reasons for abolishing marriage law and preventing the government from regulating caring or amorous relationships (of which there are many, besides marriage) but to do this such that the transition is smooth for those affected by it is an important consideration. Many feminists, for example, emphasise marriage’s historical role in discriminating against women, other cultures, religions, ethnic minorities, homosexuals, non-dyadic relationships etc. and that, for this reason, the entire institution should be abolished. My presumption here is not that the institution itself needs to be abolished but that the laws surrounding it do. Brake (2012) wrote that marriage law is usually (though not always) sufficient for ‘amatonormativity’ – the “disproportionate focus on marital and amorous love relationships as special sites of value, and the assumption that romantic love is a universal goal” which also discriminates against other forms of caring relationships such as friendships, urban tribes, adult care networks, quirkyalones etc. She proposes ‘minimizing marriage’ in such a way that caring relationships are still rewarded by the government but that people have to ‘opt in’ to marriage’s legal rights instead of obtaining them by default. Chambers (2013), on the other hand, suggests having ‘piecemeal’ regulation where people can ‘opt out’ of certain rights they obtained (by default) through marriage.

Brake rightly flags up “transitional problems”; transition management will determine public receptivity with respect to announced liberalisations. In dealing with these problems, amalgamating both Chambers and Brake’s ideas may be fruitful. Suppose a legislative body passes a law on date X stating that all existing regulation with respect to marriage (now defined purely by individual preferences and private contracts between consenting individuals, if at all) will be annulled for those who get married at or after a certain future date, Y (the difference (Y–X) being the ‘grace period’).

So if the law is passed in 2015, and 2020 is the specified year that people who are married in or after are not subject to any government regulation whatsoever, then there is a ‘grace period’ of 5 years. For those people who married during or before 2015, we could apply Chambers’ proposal of letting them keep their default rights (so as not to impose change which they might not want) but giving them the option of ‘opting out’ of certain rights. For those who get married during the ‘grace period’, Brake’s ‘opting in’ option can be applied so engaged individuals’ lives don’t become complicated and their plans aren’t frustrated by policy changes. In this way, it would be a gradual, eased-in movement toward a purer, unadulterated freedom with respect to personal relationships.

Maybe gamergate is winning

Loyal readers will remember I wrote a think piece arguing that gamergate—the loose grouping of internet gamers seen by its critics as misogynistic and by its advocates as a campaign for ethics in gaming journalism—would lose its battle against the social justice warriors (SJWs) who largely run the media, particularly games journalism. This might still be true, but a piece from Ed West at the Spectator makes me much less sure of my argument. Ed points out that gamergate—where the gamer masses are using letter-writing campaigns to get advertisers to drop support for websites like Gawker—is only the latest in a string of social justice setbacks include the Lord Freud 'scandal' and the bid to get David Cameron to wear a feminist t-shirt.

What has happened to social justice warriors recently? Every campaign seems to fail, the latest being a cack-handed attempt to police Twitter in order to win the Gamergate saga (turn to p194 for details). Gamergate is one of those things that a couple of years ago would have been resolved quickly, going into the narrative as part of the great struggle against the ‘isms’. Instead it goes on and on, and SJWs seem to be losing the battle.

He reckons that the ongoing decline of traditional news sources is giving the SJWs less of a grip on the organs of opinion-formation, democratising opinion across the internet. I'm not so sure, indeed I think the internet is rather a boon to the more virulent strains of modern social justice talk. What's more, if we really are seeing a turning point in the culture war, the small changes in internet access over the past couple of years aren't going to be able to explain it.

But I do think he has a good point about the changes of the past 20 years:

Compare the situation today with that of 20 years ago, during the greatest social justice warrior victory of all, the controversy over The Bell Curve – a big event in American and by default British cultural life. While the scientific community said one thing about Charley Murray and Richard Herrnstein’s book on intelligence, the political-media elite said another, and the public followed the latter’s lead. If The Bell Curve was published today it would be much harder for the modern-day Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith to attack it.

The Bell Curve ‘war’ was an important issue in itself – as an opportunity to counter America’s growing inequality was lost. But it was also significant because it confirmed the idea that anyone who came to a controversial conclusion (in this case supposedly ‘racist’) could be ostracised, name-called and in the current parlance ‘shown the door’. That sort of ideologically-justified bullying is a key tactic of the social justice warrior movement, but when exposed as such can work against them. The nice left, after all, don’t like to be seen siding with self-appointed policemen of debate.

I recommend reading the whole thing.

Why do people oppose immigration?

My Buzzfeed post on immigration generated a bit of traffic yesterday and a bit of disagreement, too. The most common objection to our approach to immigration is that it's one-dimensional—OK, we might be right about the economics, but c'mon, who really cares? It's culture that matters. This point was made to me a few times yesterday and there's definitely something to it. My first response is that I think people underestimate the public's ignorance of the economics, and hence the public's fears about immigration. This poll by Ipsos MORI (I love those guys) asked opponents of immigration what they were worried about—as you can see, their concerns are overwhelmingly about job losses and the like:

The top five concerns are all basically to do with economics, with the highest-ranking cultural/social concern getting a measly 4%.

Obviously this isn't the whole story. People might be lying to avoid seeming "racist", for example. But in other polls people seem less reserved—last year 27% of young people surveyed said that they don't trust Muslims. Less than 73% of the population say they'd be quite or totally comfortable with someone of another race becoming Prime Minister, and less than 71% say they'd be quite or totally comfortable with their child marrying someone of a different race. So the 'embarrassment effect' of seeming a bit racist can't be that strong, and clearly the ceiling is higher than 4%.

I reckon it's more likely that people have a bunch of concerns, of which the economic ones seem more salient. Once they've mentioned them, they don't need to add the cultural concerns to the pile. Either that, or we just believe people in the absence of evidence to the contrary.

That's why I think it's legitimate to focus on the economics of immigration, even if we concede that the cultural questions are important (and tougher for open borders advocates to answer). Persuading some people that their economic fears are misguided should move the average opinion in the direction of looser controls on the borders.

If we could put the economic arguments to bed we might be able to have a more productive discussion about immigration. If culture's your problem, then let's talk about that, but remember that the controls we put on immigrants to protect British culture come with a price tag. Maybe we'd decide that more immigration was culturally manageable if we ditched ideas like multiculturalism and fostered stronger social norms that pressurised immigrants into assimilating into their new country's culture. I don't know. (Let's leave aside my libertarian dislike of using the state to try to shape national culture.)

The point, for me, is this: the economics of immigration does matter a lot to people. Immigration is not either/or—we can take steps towards more open borders without having totally open borders. At the margin, then, persuading people about the economics of immigration should move us in the direction of more open borders. And that, in my view, makes the world a better place.