The Political Externalities of Immigration: Two Graphs to Ponder

Henry,

What is the population of Mexico + Central America + South America? 500 Million?

What is the population of India? China? Africa?

I had an intuitive sense of this a little while back… I figured one of the fastest ways to dismantle (or at least dislodge) the welfare state would be to allow more immigrants. This would likely increase the stress on the system and thus give rise to objections that wouldn’t otherwise be raised. Glad to see some numbers suggesting my intuition might have some backing!

I don’t see how the argument about racial diversity being made in the article can easily be grafted onto the immigration template.

1. The article takes pains to note that “ethnolinguistic fractionalization” was not statistically significant by itself.

2. So what’s the “race” of all the hispanics coming here? Well, it’s often unclear… lots are of Amerind stock, but you’ve also got a good sized sample of Bernie O’Higgins thrown in as well (this is noted in the high racial fractionalization components for several south american countries with high immigration to the US.

3. Suppose the next big wave of immigration is from, say, Greece?

The welfare state doesn’t make open borders impossible. It’s open borders that makes the eventual abolition of the welfare state imaginable.

I think the cure would be worse than the disease.

Some questions:

Why no India or China on the top chart?

And why 2 Brazils?

Your next book should be titled “Selfish reasons to support more immigration.”

Is it just me or is Wisconsin absent from that second graph?

Steve Sailer, if you’re reading this, do you find that interesting?

“we may end up with a relatively racially homogenous society – majority Hispanic.”

“Hispanic” is not a nationality. Salvadorans, Mexicans, Guatemalans, Colombians, etc., view each other as fairly distinct.

As others have noted, there are plenty of people in Asia and Africa who would like to come to the US.

Every 50 years or so the US goes through the same anti-immigrant cycle. Previous immigrant groups are scared of the new immigrants. First it was the so-called “drunk, listless, Catholic Irish”. Then the “evils flowing from the Germans”. Then the “dull, lazy Eastern Europeans”. Then the “criminal Italians”.

And of course, it has always been the “dangerous, shifty-eyed hoards of Asians” who “threaten the very life of the Republic” starting with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, to the Gentlemen’s Agreement with Japan in 1907, and the Asian Exclusion Act of 1924.

During every wave of immigration, there has been great fear that the immigrants would change the political system of the US.

Even many of our Founding Fathers were immigration-phobes. Benjamin Franklin claimed that “those who come hither are generally of the most ignorant stupid sort of their own nation.”

Thomas Jefferson wrote: “Foreigners will bring with them the principles of the government they have imbibed in their youth, or if able to throw them off, it will be in exchange of an unbounded licentiousness, passing, as is usual, from one extreme to another. It would be a miracle were they to stop precisely at the point of temperate liberty.”

Well, THEY WERE ALL WRONG. Not only has the US always been able to accommodate huge numbers of immigrants while remaining a very classically liberal country, for the most part, the countries the immigrants came from all became more classically liberal as well.

Yes, we had periods where more people spoke foreign languages in Brooklyn than English. We had Yiddish radio, Norwegian street signs in the mid-West, and now we have Spanish-language television. But all children brought up in the US during their language-learning years has generally learned English, and it will continue to be the language of economic and political freedom, as long as we are willing to extend an opening to those who want to take the risk to move to this shining city on a hill.

This is quite the finding, I’m glad that there is some empirical evidence that people of Bryan’s persuasion towards immigration (such as myself) can quote. An important phenomenon such as this one should be popularized much more often; we need to get more libertarians on the open borders bandwagon. Also as Bryan mentioned, this is a great dilemma for social democrats/egalitarians. We should call it the Egalitarians’ Dilemma. Anyone else agree, or should we not call it anything?

You should read these blog post from recent US Ph.D graduate, of Swedish and Kurdish decent. He writes on the blog Super-Economy and he completely refutes the arguments by Alesina and Glaeser in the post “Ethnic Diversity and the Size of Government”

He has also state what he calls the “Sanandji Principle”, you can pick have 2 out of 3 but not have all 3:

1. Limited Government
2. Open Borders
3. Democracy

In the post “Open borders and the Welfare State” he states the views of classical liberals and libertarians Hayek, Friedman and Nozick on the issue of open borders:

“Friedrich Hayek thus wrote ”a recognition of collective ownership of the resources of the country which is not compatible with the idea of an open society”. The minimum standard of living that Hayek believed the state should guarantee even its poorest citizens ”necessitates certain limitations on the free movement across frontiers”.

Milton Friedman also recognized this, and stated ”You cannot simultaneously have free immigration and a welfare state”.

Late in his life, Robert Nozick become skeptical about open borders, saying (in an interview with a libertarian Swedish journal no less!):”Why do we not have completely free immigration everywhere? One reason is the welfare state””

[broken link fixed–Econlib Ed.]

The second graph uses a narrow measure of welfare benefits. Throw in subsidies for housing, food, medical care, education, and the picture might look a lot different. Also, a correction for average (or median) income probably would push the line closer to level. How robust is the fit, anyway? It looks like there’s a negative relationship mainly on the strength of 7 states (from NC to MS).

What the second graph really shows, as far as I can tell is that historically “white,” non-Southern, and more-prosperous states are willing to hand out more in AFDC than historically “less white,” Southern, and less-prosperous states. This says something about the states, but nothing about the likely effect of immigration on welfare spending.

Then California should have the lowest welfare of all, right?

The flaw in your theory is when whites get outvoted.

California is turning into a third world hell hole because the Mexican underclass moved out of Mexico to California for better welfare.

Bryan is right, it will lead to the dismantling of the welfare state…in Canada, Europe and Australia, as whites flee the country. Or there will still be welfare in the new majority white nations of New England and Greater Idaho, funded by selling arms to the various ethnic armies that make up the greater part of EthnicKlashistan.

Mr. Econotarian, what race/ethnicity is ILLEGAL? And why on earth should Americans embrace people of any race/ethnicity who do not respect us or our laws? Yeah, you’re libertarian, but government does provide services other than welfare and THAT depends on the cooperation of the members of society. If someone makes their first act here breaking the law, and they’re rewarded for it, why on earth would they think they have to follow ANY laws? Moreover, as for “diversity” doing away with welfare, it may well do that–and with the nation itself. My grandparents, Arab Christians, left Lebanon because that country became so diverse it fell apart.