“US” AND “THE OTHERS”: CONNECTIVITY AND MIGRATIONS
THE CONFRONTATION WITH OUR INNER BEING IN THE MOST CHALLENGING PROBLEM OF OUR TIME
THE CHALLENGE
The late British historian Arnold Toynbee described the rise and fall of civilizations as the overcoming of challenges that succeed each other until one of them breaks their back and sets them in the process of decline and fall.
He defined growth in terms of the origin of the challenges civilizations confront, which goes from the outside to the inside of societies. In the initial stages, societies confront and overcome challenges from their outside—wars and trade with neighbors, for example. As these challenges are overcome, new challenges arise from within—how to deal with each other without an external threat. That is, they arise from confrontations with their inner being.
In his words,
<We conclude that a given series of responses to successive challenges is to be interpreted as a manifestation of growth if, as the series proceeds, the action tends to shift from the field of an external environment physical or human to the for intérieur of the growing personality of civilization. In so far as this grows and continues to grow, it has to reckon less and less with challenges delivered by external forces and demanding responses on an outer battlefield, and more and more with challenges that are presented from itself to itself in an inner arena.[1]>
These inner challenges have led all the previous civilizations to collapse.
Western civilization is incubating many problems that may lead to its collapse. The most challenging of these seems to be the inner confrontation caused by the encounter with what Toynbee calls “the external proletariat.” He thought that a civilization's progress causes the emergence of two proletariats, the people left behind in this process. One of these is inside it—the poor amid riches—and the other one outside it—the underdeveloped societies outside. In what appears to be a reversal of what Toynbee said about growth going from external challenges to internal ones, the West seems to have resolved the problem of the internal proletariat in the twentieth century. While there is still poverty inside the West, Western societies eliminated the threat that communism presented in terms of internal revolutions. Yet, the problem of the external proletariat has not been resolved, and it is coming to being, in a twisted way, as the result of technological advances.
This problem is brought about by converting an external proletariat into an internal one. People who used to be the “others” are suddenly becoming part of “us” through the internet and immigration.
The 'others’ are not mere visitors to our civilization but catalysts for an internal challenge. They are in the process of becoming integral parts of our societies, thereby posing a unique and profound challenge. Their presence is not limited to physical migrations but extends to the virtual world through the Internet and the material world through goods and services produced in distant places. This transformative process is turning our current places of residence into the virtual global village we once envisioned and into vast physical metropolises, surpassing their previous status as provincial villages and countries.
This exposes our innards to strangers from the point of view of both the incumbent residents and the immigrants. We all feel a sense of risk that we might not integrate into a new society, which nobody knows how it will be. The number of immigrants is making it clear that we are seeing not the absorption of a few additional people inside existing societies but the formation of new ones with the confluence of different cultures. This is a significant challenge even for solid, well-established cultures such as that which characterizes the West. It is even more critical because Western society is going through a crisis of its own.
Just as teenagers confront themselves when facing the broader world outside their families, all societies face themselves in the mirror of the ‘others.' It is a common misconception that conflicts arise because the ‘ones’ and the ‘others’ want different things. In reality, conflict arises because everyone desires the same thing. The difference lies in the methods they choose to attain it. Understanding shared desires can be a starting point for fostering understanding and cooperation in the face of cultural integration challenges. This realization can instill a sense of hope and optimism. Common ground can be built upon. Yet, the differences in the means may be radical in many cases. All want to live by their values. Yet, for many, their values include imposing their beliefs and customs on others, while others are happy with an understanding based on giving to each their own.
The confrontation has two dimensions. It is very personal and massive, depending on how you see it. Quite frequently, it starts at the personal level and then evolves into a massive one. You observe what is happening in your block, neighborhood, and city, and then you stop seeing individuals and begin to see categories of people. You see the two simultaneously but do not refer to the same individual. You know the person who comes to fix your appliances as an individual, a person with unique features, and you allow for differences they may have with the concept you have developed of the nationality or culture they are supposed to belong to. This personal dimension of the confrontation can evoke a sense of empathy and understanding. Very frequently, you may get along with the person who comes to your home (you would not accept their coming if you didn’t) but not take the immigration of their category of people, and with good reasons in both cases. Overall, the preference of the nationals in developed countries is to reject the massive quantities of immigrants they are getting today. This societal dimension of the confrontation can highlight the complexity and challenges involved, making the people feel the gravity of the situation.
CAN THE PROBLEM BE AVOIDED?
The problem is complicated to avoid for technological, economic, and political reasons working on the side of the migrants and the nationals already in place. Technologically, connectivity tends to unify the world electronically in all dimensions of life.
Economically, there are forces pulling immigrants from the inside of developed countries and others pushing them from their places of origin, all operating within significant demographic global changes. Without obstacles, the difference in incomes between developed and developing countries will firmly push people to emigrate to the former, a push reinforced by the political instability and violence prevalent in the latter. On the other side, there is a strong pull from the inside of the developed countries: the demographic changes of the last several decades. Recent studies show that in the previous 60 years, the fertility rate (births by woman) in high-income and upper-middle-income countries fell to figures well below 2.1 children by women, which is needed to maintain the population unchanged. While this rate also fell in the poorer countries, it remained substantially higher than 2.1, especially in the least developed countries (4.0).[2] When the fertility rate is below 2.1, the population will shortly begin to fall as well, causing a series of adverse effects, such as the decline of the ratio of the young to old populations and, ultimately, the reduction of GDP if the decrease in population is not compensated by increased productivity. Thus, a demographic force also attracts immigrants from more affluent countries. However, many developed countries’ populations reject this.
This trend will most likely continue until the end of this century. According to recent projections, the world’s population will tend to diminish at the end of the century. This decline will occur in richer countries while the poorest and most violent regions, North Africa, the Middle East, and Sub-Saharan Africa, will keep growing. So, the world will shift towards a poorer and less educated global population in the next eighty years. The pressure to emigrate to developed countries will increase. The global shift toward poorer and less educated populations will be concentrated in developed countries. The problem will not be diminished. It will increase.[3]
THE NEED FOR A MORE PRAGMATIC AND THOROUGH APPROACH
The rejection of the current immigration rates has become the most important political issue in developed countries. While there are many other problems—the threats coming from Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran, climate change, the new isolationism in the United States, and the rise of trade protection, among others—immigration has been the only one that has caused a drastic political change all over the West. Throughout continental Europe, governments have shifted to the right with the mandate of reducing or stopping the wave of immigration. This has been the main reason behind the turn to the right. Significantly, the support for this shift among the young is higher than among the older. The young want to restore national identity and heritage.[4]
The mandate, however, only addresses one part of the problem: stop immigration to save the values on which their countries were created. It does not address the other part: how to deal with the economic and political effects of the population’s decline. National heritage and identity will suffer if the Western countries become smaller. This repeats the mistake that overtook the previous attitude toward the problem, which also focused only on allowing immigration without addressing the cultural problem now exploding. Worse still, just mentioning the possibility that immigration could have political consequences would attract accusations of fascism until the consequences exploded in the shape of Brexit and then the turn to the right of continental Europe and the United States in terms of restricting immigration.
In fact, the impact of immigration on the economy is rarely mentioned by the supporters of opening the borders to human flows. They express their support not in terms of sustaining production but instead by calling people who want to reduce immigration “extreme rightists.” The temperature of the discussion can be gauged from this piece, taken from The New Statesman:
<Across much of the developed world, panic is spreading about low birth rates, and self-identified “pro-natalists” are advocating for women to have more babies to halt population decline. If we don’t boost births, they argue, economies will suffer. Some claim that cultures will suffer too, which is why liberal immigration laws are rarely proposed by population Chicken Littles. At the same time, conservative states in the US are banning or tightly restricting abortion…
The aim is clear: force women to have babies, whether they want to or not. It is a modern version of what was made appallingly explicit in the Nazi era: an ideology that wants more reproduction from certain kinds of people, and leaders who understand that women must be subjugated in order to carry out that vision. >[5]
There are rare exceptions to this approach. Recently, British business groups and one of the Labor Party’s largest supporting unions warned Sir Keith Starmer, the party`s leader, that Britain needs foreign workers after he pledged to bring immigration numbers down. Gary Smith, the head of the GMB union, said, “We have to have migration in our economy. Clearly, people will expect that to be managed and done properly. What I am concerned about is getting into a divisive agenda around migration and immigration, something that is being exploited by the right to try and put fear into people. The truth is we need migrant workers in our economy.”[6] Recently, Donald Trump proposed to grant green cards to foreign graduates of US universities for the same reason.[7]
This is putting the subject's discussion on a more pragmatic dimension. Hopefully, this will become more common. The opponents of limitations to immigration must stop calling their opponents “fascists” and recognize the impact that immigration has on the values, culture, and development of their countries. At the same time, the supporters of immigration limitations must address the problems that a declining population would bring about. The problem is too real and grave not to be given the consideration it deserves.
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Manuel Hinds is a Fellow at Johns Hopkins University Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. He shared the Manhattan Institute's 2010 Hayek Prize and is the author of four books, the last one being In Defense of Liberal Democracy: What We Need to Do to Heal a Divided America. His website is manuelhinds.com
[1] Arnold Toynbee, A Study of History, Abridgement, 2 vols., by D. C. Somervell, Vol. 1 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1957), pp. 208.
[2] SOURCE: Our World in Data, United Nations.
[3] Source: Global fertility in 204 countries and territories, 1950–2021, with forecasts to 2100: a comprehensive demographic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021, The Lancet, Volume 403, Issue 10440, 5/29/2024. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00550-6/fulltext. The scenario shows estimates of the fertility rates adjusted by birth control in poor countries and pro-natality policies in the rich.
[4] Nicholas Vinocur and Victor Goury-Laffont, Europe’s ‘foreigners out!’ generation: Why young people vote far right, Politico, June 24, 2024, https://www.politico.eu/article/far-right-europe-young-voters-election-2024-foreigners-out-generation-france-germany/
[5] Jill Filipovic, “Pro-family” rhetoric and its fascist resonances, The New Statesman, 12 June 2024, https://www.newstatesman.com/comment/2024/06/pro-family-rhetoric-fascist-resonances-republican-party-trump
[6] Oliver Wright, Britain Needs foreign workers firms and union tell Keir Starmer, The Times, June 02, 2024. https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/britain-needs-foreign-workers-businesses-and-union-tell-sir-keir-starmer-llr09z7r8?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Best%20of%20Times%20-%20Monday%203rd%20June%202024&utm_term=audience_BEST_OF_TIMES
[7] Trump suggests granting permanent residence to foreign graduates of US universities, The Brussels Times, 22 June 2024, https://www.brusselstimes.com/world-all-news/1105555/trump-suggests-granting-permanent-residence-to-foreign-graduates-of-us-universities