Thursday, August 06, 2020

Immigration and Rationing by Friction

I'm reading "The Strange Death of Europe" by Douglas Murray.  As you can  guess from the title it's anti-immigration but its European focus provides a bit of perspective on the US problem with immigration.

Some bits which have struck me so far:
  • he asserts something about people never assimilating, totally ignoring the American (Canadian, Australian, etc. ) experience which shows me that some groups do assimilate.  Not all.
  • when people are divided on the policy, as in Europe between human sympathy with boat people fleeing from the "Arabian spring" of 2011 and fear for the impact of the influx on their nation, it makes it impossible for government to do a job.  The result is decision making by friction, by the accumulation of individual choices.
  • from a 30,000 foot perspective, as long as there are differences in wealth, opportunity, and particularly stability among nations, there will be migration. 

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