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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   35217 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 26, 2023

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Frankly, I'm deeply pessimistic on the migration question. Yes, the overton window has moved to the right in the sense that it is now possible to harshly criticize mass migration in public now, but anything that would actually solve it is still completely politically impossible. What would be the bare minimum a serious program intending to stop Europe's demographic shift look like? Step 1 would obviously be to stop new arrivals, i.e a complete halt of non-EU migration, or at the very least African and Middle Eastern migration.

The issue here is that in Europe this is impossible to do on the national level anymore. Even if a far-right party can take power in any given European country, and even if they sincerely want to halt migration, there is an entire European judiciary that has decided that the right of muslims to come here en masse is a human right, but Europeans not having their cities being made unlivable by them and their progeny is not a human right. As such, any serious attempt to stop migration is stillborn. To actually solve the issue, you would need either a very throughout rework or abolition of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. But even admitting this out loud is still completely outside of the overton window. It is a political impossibility.

It is tragic, but the well-intended reaction to world war 2 will prove to be Western Europe's doom.

anything that would actually solve it is still completely politically impossible

Poland and other countries bordering with Belarus build wall there. (as in, actually build it and stopped uncontrolled migration, not like that Trump wall comedy)

anything that would actually solve it

Where does 'Marshall-Plan class program to bring the Third World Global South up to standard so that the inhabitants won't feel the need to move' fit in this?

That belongs in the same category as the "use technology from the Roswell crash site to end energy scarcity" or "Construct a fake airport out of sticks to summon great cargo from the land of the ancestors" approaches.

The Marshall Plan is absurdly overrated. Europe recovered from the Thirty Years War, the Napoleonic Wars and WW1 without any Marshall Plan just fine. It was European institutions and human capital that allowed the recovery. Things you can't create in the Global South with piles of money.

Observationally, nation building failed completely in Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan alone received something like 10x more money than Europe did on a per capita basis. All that money was set on fire and accomplished nothing.

Up to what standard? I had understood that residents of impoverished countries actually become more likely to emigrate as the countries become wealthier.

It seems pretty clear the idea is to improve them up to a near-western standard so the incentive to move isn't there.

I doubt it's the poverty that keeps Germans from moving to Bulgaria en-masse.

Right, if that's the idea, the proponent should do the budget math to figure out what it would cost to raise the entire rest of the world up to first-world standards, because it's obviously a fantasy even if you assume that wealth can be delivered via wire transfer irrespective of the human capital in the recipient country.

I'm all for it in theory. In practice, I look at the giant money pit that was Afghanistan, and worry that any such Marshall Plan would meet a similar fate.

The issue here is that in Europe this is impossible to do on the national level anymore.

Not true. Denmark's Social Democrats, of all people, pulled it off.

Talk about channeling Nixon going to China.

Have they though? I know the socdems there have been making a lot of noise about halting mass migration, but to which extent have the actually succeeded? Mind, I'm not trying to say you're wrong here, I'm genuinely curious. if this site is to be believed, the Denmark's net migration rate has barely budged since 2019, but net migration rate isn't the stat I'm interested in as it includes inter-EU migration.

If they've succeeded, what's been their secret sauce? How have they managed to get out of getting flooded with refugees without getting slapped down by some EU court? Is what they've been doing scalable to the rest of the EU, or are they basically just pushing the problem to other EU countries?

I've spent some time now looking for the data, and it's quite a lot harder to parse than I expected. There's undeniably been a huge drop in the asylum flow, but the effects of the 2019 socdem crackdown are obscured by the natural drop from the absurd mid-2010s highs, Covid, and now Ukraine. Although it's striking to me that even with Ukraine, the acceptance rates dropped from 85% in 2015 to 59% in 2022.

As for the secret sauce... my pet theory is that when the socdem's focus shifted leading up to 2019, they were uniquely positioned as having neither the ideology nor the monetary incentives (socdems are generally not liked in the circles that benefit from cheap labor) propping up the migration-friendly stance of their government.

Although it's striking to me that even with Ukraine, the acceptance rates dropped from 85% in 2015 to 59% in 2022.

Apparently most Ukrainians are not even applying for asylum: "as of 25 March 28 000 people have arrived from Ukraine and registered in Denmark. 2 000 of these have applied for asylum and are now accommodated in asylum centres". It seems like this is the result of a special law which grants them work, schooling and welfare rights without the need to gain citizenship through the asylum process.

Indeed, IIRC lots of euro countries declared that they would allow Ukrainians to move to their countries, no questions asked, and that they didn’t need to apply for asylum.

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