Immigration Is a Belief System

The debate over immigration represents the cleavage of an ideological moment. A new orthodoxy of open vs. closed is emerging, a central division “moving from the legal-cultural and into the political and governmental. Openness is an identifying marker, associated with urbanism, globalisation and fluidity”[1]. Immigration is a major aspect of this dichotomy, clarifying what openness and closedness actively entail – the dissolution of sovereignty and national culture for the emergence of a new global community, where the divisions of borders and race are liquified. Fundamentally, immigration is a belief system, tethered to ideological commitments.

Myths betray the fact-based façade that supporters of immigration proffer. They are fundamental to economic growth and productivity; they are a necessity in an aging society; they bring cultural diversity; they commit less crime. Scratch beneath the surface and none of these claims hold up to scrutiny.

Policymakers, journalists, politicians and other opinion-makers in Britain have constantly held the line that immigration is necessary for economic growth. Without it, the economy would be much worse off. The first question would be, worse off compared to what? The growth years of the 1990s and 2000s were spectral, reliant on short-term investment boosts into various bubbles (stocks, housing, IPOs, etc.) and a vast expansion of credit instruments to facilitate simple and complex financial transactions. In Britain, a “privatised Keynesianism”[2] developed via private credit and new welfare mechanisms like tax credits, both of which stood to undergird an economy where real wages had been stagnant. Investment funnelled into higher property prices and phantom trading games. Alongside this, Blair’s increase in public investment became an exercise in creating a privatised state (public-private partnerships, consultancy arrangements, etc.) of inflated expenditure and illusory gains[3].

Remember, this is the good part of economic growth during the era of mass immigration. Post-2008, stagnation became de rigueur. Real wages have not recovered since the crash, while property prices have only increased and public investment has been patchy and haphazard. During the whole period in question, productivity has been minimal or stagnant and GDP per capita has seen consistent negative growth since the late 80s[4]. If this is an example of the felicitousness of immigration, I’d hate to see what a negative outcome looks like to these people.

Of course the answers will be rote – “it would be a lot worse without immigration”. Presumably, this country would have collapsed into a Mad Max hellhole considering the alternative has been a sleepwalk into stagnation and decline[5]. This is pure ideology. The evidence around productivity alone shows this. Bell and Johnson’s study on occupational downgrading demonstrates that migrants from EU accession countries (those who joined the EU in 2004 and were given free movement into countries that allowed it from that year) did not show significant occupational upgrading. “We show that these workers remain toward the bottom of the wage distribution as their time in the UK increases, with only marginally faster wage growth than natives”[6]. Seeing as EU accession migrants have higher contributory levels to public finances than non-EU migrants, immigration as a solution to productivity stagnation is a means of adding fuel to the fire rather than presenting a solution. Ek demonstrated in his work around Swedish immigration that there is a strong correlation between productivity levels and cultural values (specifically values pertaining to autonomy vs. routinisation)[7]. Where migrants come in with limited capacity for autonomy in their work patterns and organisational facets, they tend to have lower productivity than individuals with the capacity for autonomy. If there is a link between productivity and immigration, it favours a closed, selective approach.

A similar issue presents itself regarding an aging society. The typical narrative is that as a native population ages and their care costs increase in a situation where birth rates are below replacement level, immigrants are needed to prop up public receipts (e.g. pensions and healthcare). Apart from the issue that immigrants themselves age and that similar birth rate dynamics are playing out across the world (meaning the pull factors increase while push factors decrease, making immigration an increasingly scarce resource), there is varying evidence regarding their contributions to public receipts.

Oxford Economics’ report on the fiscal impact of immigration shows negligible fiscal contributions from non-EEA migrants. Their static analysis shows negative or minimal tax contributions – “NMS migrants made a smaller contribution in taxes, and made a larger claim on means -tested benefits such as tax credits, which are typical of a group that is, on average, younger and more likely to have children. Non-EEA migrants paid slightly less in taxes, compared with natives, and also required a greater slice of government expenditure, partly driven by a relatively large proportion of that population having children”[8]. OE caveats this by saying that population churn in the immigrant population would make them slight contributors over the long run.

However, the long run needs to be assessed in its totality to understand that cost. Immigration includes second and third generation populations born in their adoptive country. In the case of the UK, this would mean looking at the fiscal impacts of Black and Asian populations, many of whom arrived in the 1950s-70s. Black and mixed race families are the predominant claimants (on a percentage of families basis) for council tax reductions and housing benefits, as well as in child benefits alongside Asian families. Minority ethnic groups also are the largest recipients of child and working tax credits[9]. On Universal Credit specifically, Blacks as a percentage of the population are larger claimants than Whites (11% vs. 7%). Asians are at 8%. Going to more granular data, White British are at 6%, while Pakistanis are at 11%, Bangladeshis are at 15% and Gypsies are at 18%[10].

Minority ethnic groups, particularly Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Black and Asian Other groups, predominate in the lowest ends of the national income distribution[11]. Measures by household income show similar results[12]. Minority ethnic groups also have higher levels of economic inactivity than the native population[13], as well as higher unemployment rates[14].

Similar data pervades – “Denmark, like many Nordic countries, maintains a robust population register linked to a range of other data, and so can model rich data on the paths of natives and foreigners through Danish society. The finding here is dramatic — MENAPT (Middle East, North Africa, Pakistan, Turkey) immigrants are at no point in their lives net contributors to the Danish public finances”[15]. Immigration then has a much more direct link to the credit economy mentioned earlier in that they are fruits of the same thinking – ploughing more resources into one avenue and assuming that only positive outcomes can occur. More investment into property and housing means greater equity for homeowners and more available income to be spent, continuing the services-consumption churn. More immigrants means more people to fill jobs, which means greater services demand from increasing populations. Immigration is just an ersatz form of credit, forever paying off today and letting debt accumulate into the future.

That debt can be seen in the form of crime and diversity, the other great ideological pillars of immigration. In Texas, illegal immigrants are overrepresented for crimes such as sexual assault, murder and kidnapping[16]. In the UK, asylum seekers are overrepresented in relation to property crimes, causing significant increases in areas where they are prevalent[17]. “Present-day Sweden carries the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of gangland killings in Europe. It boasts the lowest average age of serious offenders, with children in their low teens being arrested for murder. Increasing segments of suburbs are officially classified as ‘especially vulnerable areas,’ where it is ‘hard, bordering on impossible’ for the police to operate. In layman’s terms, these are no-go zones, where local clans rule and where first responders will not enter without flak jackets and police escort”[18].

The question of diversity presents its own problems. Primarily, it’s undefinable and abstract. Diversity becomes a good for its own sake, with no explanation as to why it’s desirable. Usually, arguments circle around the idea that societies with diverse sets of ideas are more innovative. Market innovation can thrive when there is a diverse clientele/customer base upon which experimentation of marketing, product development or service delivery can be done. But as Ek showed, such cultural diversity comes with its own price – dichotomous incompatibility. If cultures are imported that can insulate themselves, and that hold values opposed to the adoptive country, what innovation is possible? It leads to disjuncture. In Sweden, “the consequence has been the emergence of neighborhoods where almost all residents are immigrants, where unemployment rates are very high and where the children of immigrants go to schools where no other children, often not even teachers, are proficient in Swedish”[19]. The Swedish government is even considering revoking residency permits on the basis of “‘shortcomings in lifestyles,’ including benefits fraud, debt, a dishonest livelihood, substance abuse, as well as association with criminal networks or violent and extremist groups ‘threatening basic Swedish values’”[20].

But none of this evidence or myth-breaking really matters because immigration is a reflection of ideology – an ideology of openness, tolerance and diversity. These are prized for their own sake, irrespective of their real-world consequences. Such an ideology holds “the other” as its main subject of experience. It is through the concerns of the other, the stranger, that society should focus its efforts. Thus Denmark’s efforts to restrict welfare to Danish citizens and particular residents is classified as “welfare chauvinism”. “The Danish strategy and success lie on a national-centric premise and non-solidarity strategy with the rest of the EU and Europe”[21]. In other words, national sovereignty is no longer applicable when it comes to national legislation and politics. The needs of one’s own people are superseded by the needs of others.

Ideology doesn’t dominate the discussion of immigration – it is the discussion. This is why in an article mainly criticising the poor argumentation of immigration’s proponents, the following passage can be written:

“Please do not think those on the other side of the immigration debate are better; they are equally, probably more, guilty of using cherry-picked studies, misleading statistics and arguments that do not withstand much scrutiny. There is an unfortunate tendency for discussions of migration policy to lionise or demonise migrants when they are only human. If, as I do, you think we can have a more liberal, open (though with limits), humane immigration policy, please be a bit less critical of the other side and more critical of yourselves”[22].

Immigrants are only human, and from that we must all desire a liberal immigration policy (with limits). The “with limits” caveat belies the point that immigrants, no matter their background, their economic worth, their cultural values or their general utility, are to be treated humanely, which usually entails access to a vast array of benefits and infrastructure that they didn’t pay for and are unlikely to fiscally cover during their time. The modern ideological regime vastly overestimates the value of a human life when they are representative of “the other”.

Oxford Economics’ study demonstrates this in its assumptions underlying its conclusions. Native Britons are characterised as a fiscal drain due to their early education needs while immigrants are effectively a blank slate. Yet such a conclusion can only be drawn if the history of immigration is ignored. Immigrants are assumed to be pure individuals motivated by economic forces (glorified nomads moving from opportunity to opportunity), ignoring the cultural pull factors and the second generation effects of their children.

Considering the statistics laid out, the assessment by Oxford Economics that the long-term impact of immigrants is to be net contributors compared to the native population is untenable if the long-term trends of Caribbean and Asian migrants are to be judged. Their predominance in the lower income quintiles as well as the higher percentage of state support claimants per family suggests they hold a much weaker fiscal position in the long run. But as Oxford Economics pointed out in their report, it is about the contribution of the particular migrant, not the aggregate effect. The solution should entail a much stricter, particularistic immigration system with high income thresholds as well as income monitoring to see that migrants maintain a status as net contributors. But such a system would mean much greater immigration from high-income countries (EU Inner Six, USA, Canada, Japan) and a ratcheting of restrictions as you go down the income chain, becoming less liberal to entrants from middle income countries and minimal tolerance on those from low income countries. A system that would instantly be denounced as racist and/or fascist.

Never mind the legislative roadblocks to such a policy, the political will is completely lacking. Countries are told a consistent myth, but when that myth breaks down the bare truth of the ideology is revealed – immigrants are here (and more are coming) and there’s nothing you can do about it, so either shut up or accept social ostracism. “At this point, the Danish-centric approach might not be too big of a problem, as the current EU migration problem is relatively solvable. But this approach is not sustainable for Denmark nor the rest of the EU in the long run as the migration pressure on Europe will intensify with the rising threat of climate change and common EU solutions will be needed”[23]. Climate change makes immigration inevitable, and a common strategy is required. But this strategy cannot possibly mirror what Denmark have done (no explanation is given for this conclusion but it will boil down to an appeal to immigrants’ humanity).

Mass deportations and exclusions are entirely possible as a policy solution. Operation Wetback and the more recent deportations of Afghan migrants in Pakistan show this[24]. But these solutions require political will and a governing class interested in governing for the interests of its sovereign people, not in the interests of the other (with its ideological cover words like “international reputation” and “human rights legislation”). To deal with the mass movement of people, things now happen in the shadows where operations to stop migration waves occur in a secretive and brutal manner[25]. A governing class should make laws in the interests of its people, and currently they are. But those people are not the native classes of Britain, France, Germany or Sweden nor Whites in America. The ideology that underlies today’s immigration policies is one wholly disaffected with these classes.

[1] https://collapsepatchworks.com/2023/01/30/troubled-relations-defining-the-successor-ideology/

[2] https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1111/j.1467-856X.2009.00377.x

[3] David Craig & Richard Brooks, Plundering the Public Sector

[4] https://www.pimlicojournal.co.uk/p/five-myths-about-immigration-and

[5] https://collapsepatchworks.com/2022/11/30/sleepwalking-into-managed-decline/

[6] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/immigrant-downgrading-new-evidence-from-uk-panel-data/immigration-downgrading-new-evidence-from-uk-panel-data-accessible

[7] https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/726239

[8] https://www.oxfordeconomics.com/resource/the-fiscal-impact-of-immigration-on-the-uk/

[9] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/benefits/state-support/latest/

[10] https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-11-april-2024/universal-credit-statistics-29-april-2013-to-11-april-2024

[11] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/pay-and-income/income-distribution/latest/#by-ethnicity-after-housing-costs

[12] https://www.ethnicity-facts-figures.service.gov.uk/work-pay-and-benefits/pay-and-income/household-income/latest/#by-ethnicity