Would Making Migrants Second-class Citizens Reduce Xenophobia among the Natives?
As an avid reader of the Economist magazine, I often admire the publication's willingness to take a more pragmatic approach to advance a progressive agenda that it cherishes. The "progressive pragmatism" the magazine shows is on full display when it comes to the issue of international migration. On one hand, the Economist is unabashedly pro-migration, arguing that a freer movement of workers would greatly boost productivity and wealth in destination countries. But on the other hand, the magazine concedes that hostility toward migrants is a reality in the same destination countries, and new practical thinking is needed to appease the anti-migration crowd.
The Economist's practical solution to promote international migration by reducing populist opposition to it among rich countries can be characterized as both realistic and cold-blooded. In essence, central to the idea put forth is the need for migrants to pay more for the privilege of being let into countries they are migrating into. In exchange for being able to enjoy greater freedoms, human rights, personal security, and of course, higher salaries and better standards of living, migrants should pay higher levels of taxes than the "native," with the extra taxes to be redirected by authorities to compensate "natives" of the inconveniences of living with migrants.
Broadly, there are two issues with the idea. One is something that the Economist itself has conceded. While many natives are indeed opposed to more unfettered migration because of a fear of having more competition in the labor market that they cannot win against, many others oppose migration out of purely cultural concerns. One can appease jobless natives by giving him the tax money paid by international migrants, but it is much more difficult to settle the natives' concerns of having their own cultural values threatened by foreigners who seem to be unable to simply let go of their own and take up those of the natives.
The Economist is overly dismissive of the cultural threat that it considers being a minor, short-term issue. Citing data on language use, for instance, the magazine argues that by the third, fourth, and fifth generations, migrant families become largely indistinguishable from native ones. However, the propensity for assimilation ignores more concrete factors that cannot be simply taken up. Skin colors cannot change and many religions, like Judaism and Hinduism, are ethnically based and not open to conversion. This reality makes so-called monoethnic states like Japan and religious homelands like Israel difficult for migrants to assimilate into.
But perhaps a bigger issue with the Economist's pragmatism is on the moral level. While the plan calls for temporary levying of higher taxes on and limiting access to social welfare programs by migrant families, it is perfectly conceivable of the visible difference between migrants and natives extending into other spheres of daily lives. After all, if a government undertaking the magazine's proposal is doing so based on the need to maximize benefits and minimize costs from taking in migrants, then civil society and the general mentality of society as a whole will see migrants as no more than money-making machines for the natives.
The result is that the cost-benefit analysis of migration becomes implemented throughout society at large in a way that migrants themselves have little choice but to accept. After all, the cost of a new human being living in a society is more than just access to social welfare systems. To minimize the cost of the migrant, s/he might be restricted from accessing all sorts of public and private goods, from congested roadways to highly sought-after concert tickets. The fortunate migrant may see him/herself criticized from cashing in on a winning lottery ticket to accessing rare services that only a few people are lucky enough to get.
And undertaking the cold-blooded cost-benefit analysis of the migrant ensures that the migrant stands out as someone less deserving, even after the temporary period of higher taxes and less welfare expires. Even if policies stop distinguishing the insider and the outsider after a couple of decades, the general public will be conditioned to remember the social division, long after the migrant is no longer considered one on tax forms. The former migrant status will earn a person less credibility when speaking against the host country or about individual natives, simply because the native audience feels the migrant is in no position to question the country that s/he is privileged to be in.
Without a doubt, the suggestion of the Economist is to make sure "native" voters will be more willing to support greater migration, through the greater distribution of the benefits of migration to left-behind natives. The diagnosis of economic reasons as central to anti-migrant sentiments is correct yet one-dimensional. But ignoring issues that money cannot fix, like unbridgeable markers of foreignness and public adherence to long-term social separation of migrants, the Economist's plan inadvertently encourages the rich world to think of immigrants that get as second class citizens who are privileged enough to earn less money and have fewer rights. The entrenching of such a mentality is highly damaging to multicultural, multiethnic states.
The Economist's practical solution to promote international migration by reducing populist opposition to it among rich countries can be characterized as both realistic and cold-blooded. In essence, central to the idea put forth is the need for migrants to pay more for the privilege of being let into countries they are migrating into. In exchange for being able to enjoy greater freedoms, human rights, personal security, and of course, higher salaries and better standards of living, migrants should pay higher levels of taxes than the "native," with the extra taxes to be redirected by authorities to compensate "natives" of the inconveniences of living with migrants.
Broadly, there are two issues with the idea. One is something that the Economist itself has conceded. While many natives are indeed opposed to more unfettered migration because of a fear of having more competition in the labor market that they cannot win against, many others oppose migration out of purely cultural concerns. One can appease jobless natives by giving him the tax money paid by international migrants, but it is much more difficult to settle the natives' concerns of having their own cultural values threatened by foreigners who seem to be unable to simply let go of their own and take up those of the natives.
The Economist is overly dismissive of the cultural threat that it considers being a minor, short-term issue. Citing data on language use, for instance, the magazine argues that by the third, fourth, and fifth generations, migrant families become largely indistinguishable from native ones. However, the propensity for assimilation ignores more concrete factors that cannot be simply taken up. Skin colors cannot change and many religions, like Judaism and Hinduism, are ethnically based and not open to conversion. This reality makes so-called monoethnic states like Japan and religious homelands like Israel difficult for migrants to assimilate into.
But perhaps a bigger issue with the Economist's pragmatism is on the moral level. While the plan calls for temporary levying of higher taxes on and limiting access to social welfare programs by migrant families, it is perfectly conceivable of the visible difference between migrants and natives extending into other spheres of daily lives. After all, if a government undertaking the magazine's proposal is doing so based on the need to maximize benefits and minimize costs from taking in migrants, then civil society and the general mentality of society as a whole will see migrants as no more than money-making machines for the natives.
The result is that the cost-benefit analysis of migration becomes implemented throughout society at large in a way that migrants themselves have little choice but to accept. After all, the cost of a new human being living in a society is more than just access to social welfare systems. To minimize the cost of the migrant, s/he might be restricted from accessing all sorts of public and private goods, from congested roadways to highly sought-after concert tickets. The fortunate migrant may see him/herself criticized from cashing in on a winning lottery ticket to accessing rare services that only a few people are lucky enough to get.
And undertaking the cold-blooded cost-benefit analysis of the migrant ensures that the migrant stands out as someone less deserving, even after the temporary period of higher taxes and less welfare expires. Even if policies stop distinguishing the insider and the outsider after a couple of decades, the general public will be conditioned to remember the social division, long after the migrant is no longer considered one on tax forms. The former migrant status will earn a person less credibility when speaking against the host country or about individual natives, simply because the native audience feels the migrant is in no position to question the country that s/he is privileged to be in.
Without a doubt, the suggestion of the Economist is to make sure "native" voters will be more willing to support greater migration, through the greater distribution of the benefits of migration to left-behind natives. The diagnosis of economic reasons as central to anti-migrant sentiments is correct yet one-dimensional. But ignoring issues that money cannot fix, like unbridgeable markers of foreignness and public adherence to long-term social separation of migrants, the Economist's plan inadvertently encourages the rich world to think of immigrants that get as second class citizens who are privileged enough to earn less money and have fewer rights. The entrenching of such a mentality is highly damaging to multicultural, multiethnic states.
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