The doctrine of multiculturalism is increasingly facing pressure from populist protest movements across Europe. PEGIDA in Germany and the groups associated with the National Front in France — both buttressed by popular books decrying the ideology (“Germany Abolishes Itself” and “The French Suicide”) — are finding support not just from the lower classes who are most directly threatened by mass immigration, but by the middle classes as well. In the United Kingdom, UKIP plays this political role, but with a stronger tinge of being against the European Union.
In Europe, the concerns are mostly about the displacement of native European culture by foreign cultures, mostly Islamic.
From the perspective of opponents of multiculturalism, it would seem like democracy is doing its job, despite solid opposition from highly educated elites.
Or, rather, democratic correction is appearing to begin to fix the political problems caused by the enactment of mass immigration policies of the 1960s. In Europe, those new laws followed enormous ethnic cleansing operations in many countries, most notably in Poland of ethnic Germans, which left many countries with nearly unprecedented levels of ethnic homogeneity.
Unlike at any other time in history with the exception of perhaps the Roman period, these countries began importing enormous numbers of people from Africa, Asia, and the wider Muslim world. The economic argument behind this, particularly in West Germany, was to provide social welfare systems with more funding, to correct for projections of shortfalls in government finance.
The mass immigration wave has failed to render these poorly-conceived-of social welfare programs healthy. One of the long-term consequences of enormous social welfare states is a precipitous drop in fertility — especially fertility among the most productive workers who pay the most in to the welfare state.
The problem which is most acute in Europe is that the traditional national cultures have decayed, along with the older religions practiced by the people in Europe. The religion of the modern Western state is progressive internationalism. The leadership classes of these states are fervent believers in their religion. Mere opposition to another religion is not itself a religion or a strong opposition culture.
The notion of multiculturalism is similar to Communist internationalism, derives from the same roots, and was promoted by academics from within the Marxist framework.
Europeans, like Americans, will not be able to get what they want. The Great Society in America and the various welfare states of Europe are not financially sustainable. They have perverse economic effects, not to mention being actively deleterious to the institution of the family. There is an intimate connection between the drive for more immigration and the state’s need to at least plausibly pretend to be keeping their national finances in order.
Popular movements are unable to speak the truth about these connections. Politicians know that the only way that they can be elected is to promise the impossible: on the right (to a limited extent), promises to reform immigration systems, and on the left, to open the floodgates even further. Bureaucrats operating in the background know that the situation is dire, but those who speak to the public about how dire the problem really is (like Jason Richwine) wind up losing their careers for speaking to the public about it at too loud a tone.
Multiculturalism is more than a state policy emanating from an academic cult. The beliefs promoted by that academic cult were also useful to states facing a looming financial crisis in the 1960s which struck even more catastrophically in the 1970s. These financial crises threatened the fiscal ‘glue’ of these nation-states — the social welfare programs that give citizens ‘skin in the game’ to help the system continue.
In West Germany, the state under Adenauer began importing guest-workers to resolve its perceived labor shortages. The consequences were not entirely foreseen, and steps were taken to attempt to stem the flow rather early on, to little avail. Similar fiscal justifications have been made in other Western states, and similar problems have appeared in enforcing bureaucratic-immigration-regulation.
Part of the core problem is that democratic governments are not unified fronts. In the US, members of the Democratic party gain in power when they shirk immigration enforcement duties. This is even a matter of official municipal policy in places like New York City. Republicans, many of whose supporters oppose mass immigration, do not gain electoral strength from indiscriminate immigration in the same way. The parties often act to subvert one another.
And after the Johnson administration, it’s been core to the Democratic strategy in the US — Johnson dropped southerners and the working class, while picking up racial minorities and immigrants as permanent supporters of his party. That was a conscious political calculation that has reaped enormous returns for his party, as he had plotted to achieve.
When he was seeking the mayoral election in 2001, Michael Bloomberg said in a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations that the US risked “national suicide” — if it didn’t lower standards for immigration in the guise of technocratic reform. This rhetoric of self-destruction tends to be used by both sides of the immigration debate.
In the more contemporary crisis, elites are out of sane options, leaving only insane behavior that can only delay popular revolt and national bankruptcies. “Kick the can down the road” is the common way of describing the pragmatic cowardice used by states since the crisis of the late 2000s.
In Europe, the false promise made by politicians riding these popular movements is that their welfare states can be maintained, whether or not they reduce the pace of mass immigration or expel them in large numbers.
The welfare programs bind the citizens to the state. But the citizens are no longer bound nearly so tightly to one another. Instinctively, the people feel this, but without something to replace that bond to the state, the void waits beneath them, and so comes the desperate need to look away from it, to focus on anything but that. They grasp at any replacement that they can find, because inducing people to cooperate is the central problem that politics and law attempts to resolve.
These are essentially separate but related issues. Getting rid of hostile, incompatible cultures will probably make these countries more governable, but they will not cure the gaping holes in Ponzi welfare schemes either in the short or long runs. America is no exception to this process — its situation is arguably more dangerous, owing to its position at the hub of an unsustainable international system of arbitrary digit-finance and free-floating paper currency.
Because of these links between the issues, it would be an enormous challenge for political leaders to retract multiculturalism without also retracting many of the defining institutions of the modern nation-state, which has become less ‘nation’ and more ‘administrative region of an accounting-empire operated from New York, Washington D.C., Brussels, and London.’
This is especially acute for populist leaders who may bumble their way into leadership positions in various countries. If you were trying to find a fall-guy or fall-gal for the collapse of Ponzi welfare, you would use one of these characters, so that you could knock them aside once the public adulation turned to rage.
In neither Europe nor America are there national statesmen comparable to Charles de Gaulle, much less that of the caliber of statesmen from before obliteration of the ancient regimes. It is not popular or even really possible to tell citizens the straight truth of the devaluation of their very citizenship. Nonetheless, it is better, in the long run, to inform everyone who will listen that the crisis is more complex and severe than it seems on the surface of it.
Promising that the rollback of global-multiculturalism will, itself, resolve the crisis of the nation-state, is setting up for a future political catastrophe. It is better to argue that it is necessary, but not even close to sufficient.
“Because of these links between the issues, it would be an enormous challenge for political leaders to retract multiculturalism without also retracting many of the defining institutions of the modern nation-state”
Exactly.
PEGIDA, NF, UKIP, none of which can/will cross this bridge. Even Farage speaks high-mindedly about revitalizing “our” NHS.
Success in purging multiculturalism would trigger an irreversable descent into egalitarian utopianism as the blame for total social collapse would inevitably land square at the feet of the reactionary elements.
What now then?
Farage clearly understands the issues. He has instead elected to say what he needs to in order to lead his party into power. Without the lies, his coalition would fall apart.
This is my concern for both Europe and the US.
Victory for European New Right parties will create space on the right to bring up these issues. It’s taken herculean efforts just to move the Overton Window where UKIP and the National Front are taken seriously. Electoral success will give the window a needed rightward push, as will the guaranteed bad behavior of the welfare colonists.
I am a bit disturbed by the defeatism in this comment. I would really like to see more ideas and positivity, more Euro-Optimism if you will, and less giving in. There is a better way to discuss these things, which is constructive and creates possibilities and does not simply shut down. If you truly believe that multiculturalism is a horrific and destructive force, then you will try to speak in a way which acts towards its eventual and permanent dismissal, and to act toward this all times and at any chance however small.
Optomism, ok….I think there is a very straightforward, actionable tactic that many reading/posting to this blog could employ.
“Optomism”……umm, that’s Middle English BTW.
Eldrick, reversing immigration policies doesnt shake society, or trigger egalitarian utopianism. That sounds like a liberal’s dream and hope.
Valkea – Not directly, no. The author incidentally, agreed with my comment.
The whole point is that multiculturalism cannot be reversed in a vaccum, the house must be rebuilt at the same time lest in crumble.
I do agree on the comment citizens arent bound to a nation, a national culture, etc. Multiculturalism has seen us identify as global as opposed national citizens. Neo liberalism in this has taken hold the idea the individual is more important than the collective. So that what do i need to do to climb the social ladder as opposed what can we do to enable this company to move forward or how can i help my workers as opposed to how can i get richer as an individual employer, how can i save money etc. Multiculturalism is about freeing the individual to be less constrained by the collective nation.
Jeff Connaughton; The Payoff: Why Wall Street Always Wins:
“For more than 2 decades, Connaughton spent time in Washington as part of the Permanent Class, both within government and as a lobbyist. Tying himself to Senator (and now Vice President) Joe Biden, he used that relationship to make millions as a lobbyist. While technically a Democrat, as a lobbyist Connaughton was indifferent to the politics of his clients. “The rest of the country may be divided into red and blue, but DC is green, and cheerfully so.”
When Biden became Vice President, his senate seat was filled by Ted Kaufman, who immediately declared that he wasn’t going to seek a 2nd term. “I later learned from reporters that Wall Street was frustrated that they couldn’t find a way to harness Ted, because he wasn’t running for re-election” said Connaughton, brought on board as Kaufman’s Chief of Staff. Both Kaufman and Connaughton vowed that they’d spend their two years “fighting for accountability for the financial crisis…to ensure there would never be another one.”
Yet after 2 years, Connaughton admits failure and predicts another crisis: “There have been no high-profile prosecutions…the stock market has become even more dominated by computer-driven trading, too-big-to-fail banks continue to act lawlessly…and regulatory reforms are being written with the help of Wall Street lawyers.” Why is this? How did the biggest financial catastrophe in more than 60 years change nothing?
Simple self-interest: “Party cohesion and the desire to make a munificent living go a long way to enforce silence and conformity”, says Connaughton. Politicians don’t represent the voters, they represent themselves. The simple fact is that of all a politician’s constituents, corporate interests are best able to guarantee a payoff: Money now, to stay in power, and money later, with a career as a lobbyist or other special interest. Few are willing to “burn every bridge…set flame to the ship that would take me back there,” as Connaughton has done.”
… And that is largely how the immigration issue is settled in Washington too.
Actually, the sub prime crisis was driven in a political calculation by politicians, especially compassionate conservative George Bush, to close the “housing gap.”
Karl Rove believed that it would transform Hispanics into a permanent Republican constituency. The American conservatives were quite taken with him at the time for his work in getting so many Rs in office.
As I understand it we are well on our way closing the “education gap” in similar fashion.
Too bad nobody wants to close the “venereal disease gap.”
IA, that is where the mess started, but big banks participated fully, lobbied for relief from restrictions, had excess money which they wanted to lend without proper standards, used corrupted processes to produce false ratings from rating agencies to be used in their marketing, sold knowingly mortgage backed trash securities to investors as good securities, invested money in ‘gambling’, which gave them money when their trash securities failed, were fully involved in the “too-big-to-fail” corruption and extortion arrangements, etc.
“They also present data which suggests that financial firms that lobbied the government most aggressively also had the riskiest lending practices, and lobbied for relief from regulations that were limiting their ability to take greater risks.”
http://ssrn.com/abstract=1924831
So if you see that a man initiates a robbing of a store, and then several others join the robbing eagerly, I assume you hold those others responsible too.
Valkea, thanks for the link. If banks committed fraud as you suggest why aren’t there any convictions? You must have evidence, but apparently there is none. Also, they gloss over the increase in collapsing originator standards as the reason for the explosion in subprime loans. Pretty big caveat.
“The focused analysis in this Article is not meant to deny the importance of other contributing causes . . .”
“The assumption of continued increases in housing prices in the face of a likely housing bubble was itself a relaxation of underwriting standards.70”
Frankly, Government is so heavily involved these days that you’ll never get to the bottom of it. These report authors, academics, must know that any derogatory result could cause a Richwine effect, i.e., they’ll lose federal money or even their jobs. Because, racism. Ergo, they come up with a self-contradictory explanation that saves face.
IA, in your country international banks own the central government. The revolving door between Goldman Sachs, other big banks and the government and congress. The money flow from big banks to government officials and legislators. The bought and paid experts of the big banks, who consult and advice the government and legislators. The arranged prize jobs, overpriced lecturing and consulting jobs to government officials and legislators from big banks. Etc. So there are no convictions.
http://www.amazon.com/Predator-Nation-Corporate-Criminals-Corruption/dp/0307952568/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1425424553&sr=8-1&keywords=predator+nation
https://prof77.wordpress.com/politics/an-updated-list-of-goldman-sachs-ties-to-the-obama-government-including-elena-kagan/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/06/02/government-sachs-goldmans_n_210561.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yVheuRWVqYI
Etc.
My comment to IA had several links, so I assume it was grabbed by automatic spam filters of your site. So maybe the moderators can check the trash, and publish it.
Addition.
http://www.thenation.com/article/174151/reverse-revolving-door-how-corporate-insiders-are-rewarded-upon-leaving-firms-congres
IA, in this video Harvard educated ex-Wall Street insider Damon Vrabel explains in general way how the U.S liberal system functions. Complementing information to the previous comments:
Addition: Green in the above comment means of course the color of the dollar, not green politics.
Valkea, I appreciate your interest. But we’ve had corporations and rich people in the US for a long time. Well over 100 years. The subprime meltdown and other things like the coming education gap meltdown are quite different than anything in the past. You have to explain why in the 90s and 00s subprime exploded when it never did before.
IA, the the first change for the worse happened when the Federal Reserve was established in 1913:
http://mises.org/library/americas-money-machine-story-federal-reserve
From the end of the 1970’s banking has been generally deregulated. The banks influence on politicians gave them custom made laws and regulations. All kinds of new financial instruments and investment strategies were developed and used, and risky investments increased. Investment banks and other banks grew rapidly, thus their influence on politicians and politics heightened. Problems started to accumulate, bank and market failures became more likely and “too big to fail” -policies and/or promises created harmful incentives for the banks:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Death-Gentlemanly-Capitalism-Investment/dp/0141043393
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Greed-Merchants-Investment-Played/dp/0141017678/ref=pd_sim_b_3?ie=UTF8&refRID=1RX9TZ64ETSC7JB7PCSS
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Money-Power-Goldman-Sachs-World/dp/0241954061/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425433533&sr=1-1&keywords=goldman+sachs
http://www.amazon.co.uk/What-Happened-Goldman-Sachs-Organizational/dp/1422194191/ref=sr_1_7?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1425433652&sr=1-7&keywords=goldman+sachs
The first problem was Savings and loan crisis of 1980’s. S & L banks were initially mortgage lenders, but they bribed and influenced politicians, got favorable decisions, started to expand to other investments and started to use more aggressive loaning practices in mortgages:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_and_loan_crisis#Major_causes_according_to_United_States_League_of_Savings_Institutions
What can be done? End the Fed, order 100% reserve requirements and make the bank owners 100% responsible for all the losses with their personal wealth. This last regulation is in effect in Brazil. It has avoided banking related crises and it’s banks has been healthy and prosperous.
See this: http://www.isteve.blogspot.com/2013/10/video-bushs-first-attack-on-traditional.html
You don’t understand America.
IA,
I am aware of George Bush’s part in the equation, and it complements what I said. They are mutually reinforcing things, not mutually exclusive things.
Your spam filter moved my comment to trash. While you take it out of there, you could perhaps at the same time reduce the level of the filter, so that it allows several links at the same time?
For now, the default spam blocker doesn’t give that sort of control. I’ll investigate other options.
Ethnic pluralism itself is not the problem -minorities cooperate with each other and self-arrange hierarchically all the time when properly motivated to do so. Rather, majoritarian democracy is creating the problem by blurring the organic boundaries between different groups, dissolving all natural authorities, and setting up all sorts of artificial political fault lines where they didn’t exist before. Renowned prog philosopher John N. Gray hinted at this in his Guardian column this morning:
“The Ottoman empire, during some of its history, was a haven of toleration for religious communities who were persecuted in Europe; but this pluralism did not extend to enabling individuals to move from one community to another, or to form new communities of choice, as would be required by a liberal ideal of personal autonomy. The Hapsburg empire was based on rejecting the liberal principle of national self-determination; but – possibly for that very reason – it was more protective of minorities than most of the states that succeeded it. Protecting universal values without honouring what are now seen as core liberal ideals, these archaic imperial regimes were more civilised than a great many states that exist today.”
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/03/what-scares-the-new-atheists
Looks to me like progs are toying with the idea of dictatorship.
The Ottomans also practiced ethnic skimming in their occupied territories. They brain-washed their captives at the Imperial academy and turned them into an effective fighting force (the janissaries). Their ‘pluralism’ was not the same as what progressives mean, although there are some echoes there.
John Gray is more contrarian than progressive.
And Farage and UKIP never set out to be anti-multicultural. But since being against political union with Poland is sufficient to get them labelled xenophobic bigots, they were left eventually without any reason not to state the obvious about immigration.
Well of course multiculturalism can be retracted. That’s not the question. The question is: What are you willing to do to see that it does get retracted?
You can’t reverse multiculturalism unless you end the welfare state; you can’t end the welfare state unless you restore patriarchy; you can’t restore patriarchy unless you end universal suffrage.
I think most people in this circle have seen this, but for those readers who haven’t, this map from Buzzfeed presents some interesting data on how the U.S. 2012 election would’ve played out in the absence of various stages of ever-increasing suffrage: http://www.buzzfeed.com/buzzfeedpolitics/what-the-2012-election-would-have-looked-like-with#.oe8LPPnqP
A rare situation in which an infographic actually communicates more information than a table or paragraph.
‘Or, rather, democratic correction is appearing to begin to fix the political problems caused by the enactment of mass immigration policies of the 1960s. In Europe, those new laws followed enormous ethnic cleansing operations in many countries, most notably in Poland of ethnic Germans, which left many countries with nearly unprecedented levels of ethnic homogeneity.’
The ‘enormous ethnic cleansing operations’ occurred in eastern europe (as in your example: Poland), but not western europe, yet eastern europe did not enact mass immigration policies, while western europe did.
I should have made the distinction in the article, and as you point out, it’s an important point.
Eastern Europe did shuffle people around under the Soviets, but not in a ‘mass immigration’ type of way, and for entirely different reasons.
Ireland. Cromwell. Protectorate.
France. 30 Years War. State Sovereignty.
Spain. Reconquista. Christendom.
Turkey. Armenian Genocide. Islam.
There’s a pattern to these things.
I think the subprime crisis is a really interesting example of the denial of race realism. In 1999 Congress asked Fannie Mae, a GSE, to survey credit risk by race, specifically blacks. They found that blacks were far more likely to not pay their bills than whites, even wealthy blacks.
So, what did the political class do with this information? They ramped up the effort to close the “housing gap.” Since blacks had poor credit ratings the lenders were in a bind. They made no-down-payment loans, low-income loans, poor-credit subprime stuff. The pressure to avoid being labeled as racist even extended to ratings agencies which simply stopped examining the loans but approved them nonetheless. Everyone took the least line of resistance to avoid career ending mistakes.
Millions of bad loans were made and they all deluded themselves with the idea of an ever upward price line. But, they forgot that blacks don’t pay their bills. This salient factor led to the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression. And we’re doing it again with a trillion dollar taxpayer funded student loan program.
For those of us with eyes to see, you really have to appreciate the insanity.