IMMIGRATION AND HYPERPOWERS
A few weeks ago, I made a passionate case in favor of more progressive immigration policy (heck, I used a Boston Legal clip and everything). My argument -- and many like it -- seems to be a loser with the American public. And it depresses me a little to think that this is the one area where many conservatives and liberals appear to be united. I mean, you know it's bad when all the pundits are saying John McCain can't be president because Republicans "will never forgive him" for his position on immigration. It's one thing to say that we strongly disagree with the man, but the phrase "never forgive" makes me a little sad.
Well, not one to go down without a fight, I want to approach this from a different angle ... Last weekend, I was watching C-SPAN, and Amy Chua was talking about her new book "Day of Empire." In said tome, Ms. Chua dissects the six countries throughout history that she believes qualify as "hyperpowers."Simply speaking, they are the only peoples whom, at some point in time, had complete economic and military dominance over the entire "known" world. So, for example, the Aztecs don't count, because they only controlled a certain region. And the Soviet Union doesn't count because, although a super power, they had to share that status with us.
At first glance, this might seem like another boring analysis of history that we've heard a million times before. I mean, who doesn't know that the Romans were a big deal? But, here's the thing ... after all her exhaustive research on this topic, Amy Chua discovered an interesting pattern: The one thing that all these hyperpowers have in common is ... wait for it ... tolerance. That's right, believe it or not, tolerance might be the key to greatness. "How is this so," you might ask? The answer is twofold. Firstly, these countries prospered by taking the best that all the "assimilated" people had to offer and incorporating it into their own society (e.g. science and technology skills). Secondly, once someone was integrated into the society, they actually felt a connection to it. In the case of Rome, for example, people all over the world felt like Romans rather than simply the peons of a conquering force. Now, it is worth mentioning that many of these hyperpowers were certainly not saints when looking through 21st century glasses. The point, however, is that they were relatively tolerant compared to the general standards of the day.
Okay, so here's the converse argument ... All these societies eventually failed when they became more intolerant. At the end of the day, every single one of them decided to close in and become more xenophobic. This, she argues, was their undoing. As you might have already inferred, the U.S. is the current (and potentially last) of these hyperpowers. And in her interview, Ms. Chua expresses concern that we might be sliding as well. Her worry stems from the following three trends:
1) An increasingly pro-Christian stance
2) Anti-gay rights
3) Anti-immigration sentiment
As I watch my country increasingly blame immigration for everything from bad health care to Jamie Lynn Spears, I can't help but think we might be on our way out the door. When we start pre-emptively attacking nations and scapegoating a certain segment of the population for our economic woes, I think we should ask ourselves if this is the country we want to be.
Labels: amy chua, hyperpowers, illegal immigration
posted by Trekking Left @ 12:59 PM
37 comments
37 Comments:
The PTB is only too happy to have the "little people" blame one another for their woes. The real problem is that the planet can't sustain so many people living as they do today. Deterioration and degradation in all systems will become an increasingly difficult to deal with. Immigration is a good scapegoat, but the problem is that the real world is closing in on the American delusion. All some people will understand is that things are changing for the worse, they do not care why, they only know that they don't like it. This will surely cause serious problems in the future.
I will not tolerate the US becoming another Tijuana garbage dump. Sorry.
Heck, the Christian right accepts all races into its churches. The test for membership is simply rebirth.
You're not distinguishing legal and illegal immigration. Being opposed to illegal immigration does not imply opposition to legal immigration. The right loves to parade model legal immigrants.
You just made the opposite case. Our current wave of illegal immigration has no desire to assimilate, and has very little to offer other than cheap labor. It's the Civil War era south all over again, just substitute broccoli for the cotton...
Well, I have to disagree a bit too -- while the past few years we've seen a lot of anti-illegal immigration feelings being aired, I think a) it's people in the middle or near the bottom hurting from the falling economy and looking for a scapegoat, and b) politicians using that as a tool to win them over.
There has always been anti-immigrant backlash here, whether legal or illegal, every time a new wave of people come here -- whether it be Irish, Italians, Germans or Chinese. Eventually we get over it. If you step back and look at the past century, I think the country as a whole has become incredibly MORE tolerant.
Yes, we have become more tolerant over the last century, but the question is whether or not we are starting a downward trend. I hope we're not, but there are bad signs ...
1) I think the huge number of states that passed laws against gay marriage is a bad sign.
2) I think Mike Huckabee winning in Iowa with an admission that he doesn't believe in evolution (and the statement that America is a Christian nation) is a bad sign.
3) I think the fact that Hillary Clinton's run for president was almost derailed because she expressed sympathy for Patacki's plan to give drivers licenses to illegal immigrants is a bad sign.
4) I think the fact that the majority of Americans are so strongly opposed to ANY plan that gives illegal immigrants a path to citizenzhip, no matter no long or difficult it may be, is a bad sign.
This stuff worries me.
History shows that immigrants leave their old countries behind to search for better opportunities in a new one. They have always been people with the dreams, the energy and the courage to leave behind a stagnant status quo for an unknown future. I say we should welcome these people.
The writer is correct to point out major changes looming for our world as we know it but misses the major cause which is overpopulation pure and simple. Just in my lifetime our planet has leaped from 2 billion to over 6 billion and still growing. Our species has long ago outgrown all available resources. In one way or another,each of our societal problems come back to this.
"Our current wave of illegal immigration has no desire to assimilate"
Anonymous, on what do you base this assumption? The enormous protest marches last year seem to suggest otherwise.
By the way, I'm not suggesting that illegal immigration should be allowed or even tolerated -- it's extremely unfair to the people who take the time and effort to get here legally. But I do think that blaming people for doing whatever it takes to make their lives better is picking the wrong target.
If our government was willing to strictly enforce existing employment laws, and raise the minimum wage to the point where those jobs were worth doing, there would no longer be a reason to cross the border.
Keep in mind that there's companies large and small who profit enormously from the status quo.
Two people have suggested that population growth and declining resources is ultimately the bigger problem for America's future.
I haven't put as much thought into this as some, but my gut tells me that America's insatiable appetite to consume the worlds' resources is unsustainable. But Americans always want more and bigger ... not less.
So, I don't know what can be done about that on a nation-wide scale?
To address TL's last comment:
The jump in population may indeed be dangerous with respect to the resources we use.
But what resources are they? These resources that we seem to be using up are those that support our current industrial/information economy.
The basic resources we need, mostly for food production and food transport, aren't consuming resources as fast as the other activities and habits.
Land lies fallow with no food growing, and sure we ought to go on the '100 Mile Diet', but how much of our basic resources are being consumed?
My point is that though we may be using certain resources, these resources are specific not to population but to economy. If we were to change our habits (as opposed to sacrificing), what resources would be scarce, and would it matter?
I could survive without electronics that use so much copper. When we start running out of food, or land on which to grow it, there's a point to be made.
Malthus wasn't so wrong, but he wasn't so right either.
To Average Man's last comment:
One of the principle arguments against illegal immigration is that such immigration depresses wages, and that Americans will do the same jobs, just not at those wages.
Well, that's the market, isn't it?
What bothers me is that folks who vote on the basis of 'free markets' are the same folks who oppose increasing the minimum wage, who oppose unions that negotiate higher wages.
And these are the folks who oppose illegal immigration on the grounds that wages are suppressed.
Seems to me they can't have it both ways, and these are not simply two thoughts to hold at the same time.
To raise minimum wages, to adjust prevailing wages, to support unions that demand higher wages... would all lead to higher wages which, as their logic goes, would lead to Americans choosing those jobs.
But they don't want any of these things.
So you say that the market has decided it wants cheaper labor.
And they say it hurts American workers.
Well, what do they want? Either they are going to force higher wages through minimum wages, unions and the like, or they are going to force higher wages by trying to boot illegal immigrants. Or they can go laissez faire and let the market set wages-- just as it's been doing.
It just seems too much of a contradiction, no?
The US imports almost 1.5 million barrels per day of oil from Mexico. If we had, say twenty years ago, decided to show Mexico how to build a modern society, instead of jetting across the country in our Gulfstreams, do you still think illegal immigration would be a big problem? American's own greed is coming home to roost, IMO.
eight santa barbara - I totally agree. The whole "free markets will fix everything" argument sounds nice, but the people who love it never seem to obey it.
Another good example of this is reconstruction in Iraq. If free markets were truly in play there, then Iraqis would be rebuilding Iraq instead of Halliburtan and Titan.
Edgar - Good point. The solution to immigration from Mexico is to help them forge a country they don't want to leave.
Hillary supported Elliot Spitzer's idea of Driver's Licenses for illegals. NOT Pataki's.
I think the Republican right *welcomes* **legal** immigrants. They love to parade immigrant success stories, and quite often, folks that have success as recent immigrants are quite conservative, simply because most other countries have much more conservative societies than ours.
I've known Guatemalan immigrant families who clean houses but send their daughters back to convent schools in Guatemala to avoid the Britney Spear-ization of teen girlhood here in the US.
You must address the fact that it is *illegal*, not *legal* immigration that is the hot button issue. For the little guy who owns a small business and who must deal with a lot of red tape, cutting illegals a break seems really unfair.
Sure, some small businesses thrive via exploitation of illegals... construction, gardening, and restaurants come to mind. But those still are a minority of all small business.
As for gay marriage, few societies in world history have sanctioned it. That cannot be part of your argument about Hyperpowers... historically we're on fresh ground there.
Nice to see that California now allows Prop. 13 home property tax assessments to now be passed to a gay partner, however. As of 1/1/2008. Just goes to show that gays are the same mindless tax morons as the reactionary right.
Back up TL. Reconstruction in Iraq IS a free market enterprise. The reason that the Halliburtons of the world get the contracts is not cronyism; it's that there are such a few number of companies that are ABLE to do the job. If you could name me five corporate entities, Iraqi or otherwise, that have the means to fulfill the contracts that are out there, but lost out to Halliburton or Titan or whoever, then you might be able to sway me. I just don't think they exist.
And to Edgars point which TL addressed I ask this: is it our job to "help them forge a country they wouldn't want to leave?" because i thought you guys weren't of the opinion that the US is the world police. if you think it is our job to help mexico forge a country that its citizens wouldnt want to leave, then what is our role in the middle east?
McC, I'm pretty sure he meant helping them economically, not militarily. There ARE other ways to interact with countries besides dropping bombs on them, believe it or not. :)
For example, NAFTA is killing Mexico's corn industry, due to the fact we can sell our surplus crop there for cheaper than they can grow it. Yet another reason their people have been coming here in greater numbers the last decade.
Yes but I mean economically or militarily or any other way. is it our job, or our duty, or our obligation to do such a thing? and if it is, i ask again, whats our role overseas?
MCC, Are you purposely misconstruing my point? Are you beating up on the old straw man? My point is that if the North American Vacuum Cleaners (that's US) weren't so busy sucking up all of Mexico's oil so that we can live a life of wanton waste, they might be better off. Face it MCC, the U.S. is not the world's policeman, we install dictators, we prop up oppression. The maggots that run this country have victimized every third world country there is. It is a curse to any country to have oil, because in come the vacuum cleaners with some shiny beads, and the people always end up worse off than before. Study Iraq, Nigeria, Ecuador, Sudan, Mexico. We steal, we plunder, we don't help anyone, except other thieving allies.
Edgar,
Not that its a good thing, but installing dictators, etc does, indeed, help keep things nice and calm.
At least in the short term.
Policing has nothing to do with making sure things are nice within a country. Only with making sure the countries are in line and not disrupting things so much.
That's kinda been our fault. We just don't want people (were each person is a country or actor on the world stage) acting out of line. We don't necessarily care what they do at home, as long as they act right when they go in public.
It's a really f'ed up way of looking at it, but it is a realistic perspective.
On the other hand, if we were to play the world's parents, then we'd be expanding aid (motherly figure in the traditional sense) and punishing militarily those countries who aren't learning how to be good in their own right (fatherly figure in the traditional sense).
But this would have to be consistent and active. No picking the easy military fights only (you know, the whole being a good parent has nothing to do with being your friend thing). And we might have to reward a dictator for moving things in the right direction.
That's quite expensive. It might mean $100 billion a year or more in foreign aid. It might mean a dozen military incursions at once.
Or we could try other things ;)
Anon @ 8:38am,
Yes, indeed, we here a lot about the illegal versus legal debate.
So, what if we militarized the border, created comprehensive policy and put the illegals on a legal path?
It's not like the demand for their labor cares whether they are legal or illegal. Would folks really care if we had 20 million legals as opposed to illegals? Would they suddenly make more money, have no children and be bale to pay for health insurance simply because they have papers?
Or would they continue to have less than enough income leading to low income tax receipts, continue to have their kids 'overburden our schools, and continue to go to the emergency room as the ONLY means of health care?
I think the latter would be more true than the former. Papers wouldn't change anything.
And unless we're willing to get into choosing where we want immigrants to come from (going back to racist quotas of a century ago), the 10-20 million people in this country who are foreign born are still going to want to come here.
On the gay marriage thing:
I was able to watch an interview with Amy Chua from UC Berkeley's YouTube page. Here's the url:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QenLlFx4cCQ
She doesn't seem to mean specific examples of intolerance are one cause of decline.
I understand that it is her belief that intolerance, perhaps that which is relevant to a specific time or region, is a general concept.
In our specific case, opposition to gay marriage specifically and to homosexuality in general is our cause for concern.
Look to gays being expelled from the military even though gay men and women comprise a number of valuable translators and linguists that are needed in Iraq.
Folks critical of gay adoption help ensure that kids grow up without parents, even though any gay couple could be responsible and raise those kids to be 'contributing and upstanding' members of society.
With private enterprise, corporations are learning but there's a long way to go. Policies may create codified equality, and this is a good thing. But there remains independence among branches and divisions of corporations, and corporations are moving toward flat models. Policies with corporate can do nothing to change a homophobic manager of some bureaucratic or geographic subdivision of the company. And employees still leave because of latent homophobia-- and part of the brain trust, institutional knowledge, and skills leave with them. That hurts the individual company, and the overall economy.
So yeah, that's what I think they meant when citing opposition to gay marriage and our own intolerance as being related to Amy Chua's research.
i wasnt purposely misconstruing anything edgar, just posing the question for conversations sake.
So we're sucking up oil from all over the world. Are the Saudis worse off for it? The UAE? Not being snide, just doing the back and forth.
8SB, to take your point a step further...
The problem with the US' military and economic interactions with other countries since becoming a superpower is that they have little or nothing to do with safety, security or democracy for the people living there, but are instead to basically make things "nice" and "not disruptive" for US companies to do big business.
You can look back 100 or more years, and see that, once we ran out of room on this continent, the military actions we took in the Phillipines, Cuba, Hawaii and South America were all to secure natural resources and/or open markets to American goods. Despite the fact that they were promoted as "spreading democracy", in reality it often meant helping to overthrow democratically elected governments and install dictatorships. ("People's History of the United States" and "Lies My Teacher Told Me" are my sources)
Were we to reverse that attitude, and actually interact with countries in a fair way economically, and respect their choices politically, the world's attitude towards the US would probably change immensely. But that would mean changing big business' stronghold on our government, and I think we all know how tough that will be.
A lot of good comments here. A few responses ...
Anonymous (8:38 AM) - You, and others, have pointed out that I did not make a distinction between legal and illegal immigrants. That's true, because I was sort of talking in generalities. So, let me be specific and say that I and Ms. Chua (I think) are primarily talking about the attitude towards illegal immigrants. I think giving illegal immigrants a path towards citizenship is the "tolerant" thing to do. There are many good reasons to have concerns about illegal immigration, and I'm not trying to belittle those. However, I'm sure all the "hyperpowers" felt they also had good reasons to become more xenophobic. The point of the book is that the tolerant approach is better for your country's long term success.
McC - You say the "reason that the Halliburtons of the world get the contracts is not cronyism; it's that there are such a few number of companies that are ABLE to do the job." ... That statement is straight out of the Bush spin machine and simply not true. I'll give you one example: you know those concrete "Bremmer walls" that protect the green zone? Well, there were several Iraqi concrete companies that could have done that job for much less than us. But we didn't even let them in the race. Plus, if you watch the documentary "Iraq for Sale," you would see that these U.S. companies were woefully unprepared to do this job. And how would we even know if other companies would be better? I mean, that's what "no-bid contracts" mean. Bush, by the way, did the same thing in New Orleans. Are you saying that only Halliburton could reconstruct New Orleans? The point is that Iraqis rebuilding Iraq and New Orleans companies rebuilding that state creates jobs for the local economy.
And Edgar is right about Mexico. If you read the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman," you will see that the U.S. has a long history of doing this type of thing to poor countries. It may not be our "duty, or our obligation" to assist Mexico, but it's definitely in our best economic interest to do so ... ergo, illegal immigration.
I get that "straight out of the Bush spin machine" kind of thing a lot. Limbaugh's talking points, copy from Hannity, RNC talking points... I never get credit for making ANYTHING up. in all honesty, whenever i comment (or even post to my own blog for that matter) i rarely do any research. i mean, 99% of the time im talking right off the top of my head. so when i get that "MCC regurgitates Ann Coulters column" type of thing it cracks me up. im the freaking jack kerouac of the blogosphere, total stream of consciousness. thats not to say that some of the RNC talking points or even some savage-isms get through by osmosis, but honestly, im no parrot.
so to counter your point TL, yes maybe there was a company in Iraq that could have built those walls for cheaper than, say, Halliburton. But you're missing my point. My point was that there are very few companies like Halliburton that can take on a reconstruction job like they face in Iraq all by itself. These contracts are huge and extremely complex (and undoubtedly full of $1000 toilet seats, but i digress). It's like this: you wanna buy a new ford, but you dont want to pay $15 grand. do you take the time to have the dealer strip off the more expensive parts and replace them with cheaper parts by another manufacturer? do you have him take the thousand dollar eagle tires and replace them with economy tires? do you uninstall the 8 speaker system and put in a tape deck? no. you buy the new car as it is, and you drive it off the lot. it may cost a little more, but its more convenient that way.
not the best analogy, but like i said, stream of consciousness... so thats where im coming from. not alot of companies can do all that a halliburton can do. a halliburton is like 50 companies in one, and that is why they get these types of contracts (caveat: i THINK thats how it works).
Hello again MCC,
You sed:
So we're sucking up oil from all over the world. Are the Saudis worse off for it? The UAE? Not being snide, just doing the back and forth.
They had an unbelievable amount of oil. Epic, gargantuan, words fail. Are they worse off for it? Check back with me in another twenty years, when they are scraping the bottom of the barrel. The answer should be clear, they, as a nation, are getting / got very little for their great oil wealth. The poor, even less. A few weapons, a protection racket, that's about it. They have a saying in the KSA:
My father rode a camel, I drive a car, my son rides in a jet plane, his son will ride a camel.
Time will tell.
Well, TL, I could also argue that hyperpowers that don't enforce their own laws or that enforce them without a semblance of evenhandedness begin to decay.... like Caligula making his horse a counsul.
So if we lose the distinction between illegal and legal immigration, we might be headed for oblivion.
As for xenophobia, try being an illegal immigrant in European countries. My experience is that they are quite a bit stricter than us (although Spain had an interesting amnesty a few years ago... a relative of mine got nice Spanish citizenship!)
Well, TL, I could also argue that hyperpowers that don't enforce their own laws or that enforce them without a semblance of evenhandedness begin to decay.... like Caligula making his horse a counsul.
So if we lose the distinction between illegal and legal immigration, we might be headed for oblivion...
Anon, you really took me by surprise there. I had no idea that connection was what you were angling for. Of all the crimes bushco and the neo-cons have committed, I wouldn't even put the immigration thing in the top twenty. I hope you have insurance that will cover my whiplash.
Anonymous (9:59 PM) - I'm not saying we lose the distinction between legal and illegal immigration. I'm just suggesting that it might be in our best long term interest to find a way to be more open in regards to illegal immigrants instead of (as we're doing today) more closed.
Edgar, from the Bush perspective, Executive authority allows all the junk they've pulled off. Who nows, maybe even this Supreme Court might agree with them, and that is the rule of law.
TL, as for immigration, the deal is that.. how do you allow our millions of illegals to cut in front of all the legal applicants?
Loosening up might make pragmatic sense because we can't actually arrest and deport all the illegals here now. And life isn't fair... Blackwater gets a pass while Bill Clinton got impeached. But it is not hard to see why the little-guy Huckabee Republicans get steamed when they see illegals get a deal.
The Bush Republicans want immigration reform so they have no risk of losing their cheap labor.
Anon asked "how do you allow our millions of illegals to cut in front of all the legal applicants?"
You don't. All of the immigration reform plans that have been proposed have illegal immigrants "going to the back of the line."
Trekking Left says: Anon asked "how do you allow our millions of illegals to cut in front of all the legal applicants?"
You don't. All of the immigration reform plans that have been proposed have illegal immigrants "going to the back of the line."
Trekker Left - Fundamentaly false. You can not believe how hard it is to legally immigrate to the US. Or, just get to the US, jump through a couple of hoops when new immigration laws are passed, and voila you are a citizen.
I used to get worked up about this issue but some form of "amnesty" will happen in the next 2-3 years. Whether you're Right or Left the leaders of both sides want it to happen for various sundry reasons. And that in itself should be cause for concern.
Nonetheless, this will be a topic of disussion 2030 or so when the next generation of immigrants will be stretching our social services infastructure to the brink and forcing the low end wages downward. And we will comment that President O or C failed to address the underlying problems of illegal immigration in 2010...
TL.. I don't think so. Illegals did not have to face a lottery with the possibility of never re-entering in the plans.
Legal applicants do.
Yup, just checked the immigration reform bill proposed in 2007, and all illegals would have had to do was pay $2,000 and they'd be in. They'd just have to return to their home country sometime in 8 years after that and apply for a green card.
I know a few folks who got their Ph.D.'s here and have been through hell and upwards of $10,000 trying to legally get a green card, and some fail and go home. Not that they deserve special treatment; not at all.
The 2007 bill sent honest, responsible people like those Ph.D.'s a clear message: become an illegal and you will get what you want. Do it legally and you're screwed.
This is an issue of fairness and bias: for some reason, many people on the left treat law-abiding immigrants who follow the law unfairly and with great bias.
If there is prejudice here, it is among those who favor easy immigration for people who chose to break our laws and thus fundamentally disrespected our country.
Look, I know that most illegal immigrants just want a job and are not overtly kicking the US in the butt. I also know that lots of economic activity in the US depends on them, and that the illegals are terribly and unfairly exploited.
But that is not my preference, I prefer that everyone give a decent respect to our laws. If I have to pay more for food and meals... FINE.
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