Immigration—Europe’s economic salvation, or its economic death?

How many times have I figuratively torn my hair out on being confronted with or reminded of the two following totally contradictory assertions? (1) the truism, repeatedly endlessly by every first-, second-, and third-rate journalist and not just his brother but his entire extended family plus Patrick Buchanan and Mark Steyn, that Europe MUST have vast waves of Muslim and African immigrants because given white Europe’s low birthrate the European economy would collapse without immigrants taking jobs not taken by non-born white Europeans; and (2) the equally ubiquitously repeated statement that Europe’s Muslim and African populations live in vast ghettos of state subsidized housing on life-long welfare? If the immigrants are unemployed and unemployable and living on state handouts, how are they keeping Europe’s economy afloat? Aren’t they doing the exact opposite, namely, dragging down the economy through the costs they impose?

A further related question, which I’ve never seen discussed, has been, how could the countries of Europe afford to maintain entire immigrant populations on life-long welfare?

I have NEVER seen anyone deal with these obvious contradictions and absurdities.

But now Bruce Bawer (a homosexual bigot against Christian conservatives, but leave that aside for the moment), writing in City Journal, finally points to the obvious. On the subject of Europe’s growing dysfunction, he writes (emphases added by me):

These two factors—immigration and the economy—are intimately connected. For while some immigrant groups in Europe, such as Hindus and East Asians, enjoy relatively low unemployment rates and healthy incomes, the largest immigrant group, Muslims, has become such a burden that governments have made extensive cutbacks in public services in order to keep up with welfare payments—closing clinics and emergency rooms, reducing staff in hospitals, cutting police and military spending, eliminating course offerings at public universities, and so on. According to a report issued last year by the think tank Contribuables Associes, immigration reduces France’s economic growth by two-thirds. In 2002, economist Lars Jansson estimated that immigration cost Swedish taxpayers about $27 billion annually and that fully 74 percent of immigrant-group members in Sweden lived off the taxpayers. And in 2006, the Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise warned that Norway’s petroleum fund—which contains the massive profits from North Sea oil that have made the nation rich—could wind up drained to cover outlays to immigrants. (This in a country whose roads, as a report last year indicated, are in worse shape than Albania’s.)

The last few decades in Europe have made three things crystal-clear. First, social-democratic welfare systems work best, to the extent they do work, in ethnically and culturally homogeneous (and preferably small) nations whose citizens, viewing one another as members of an extended family, are loath to exploit government provisions for the needy. Second, the best way to destroy such welfare systems is to take in large numbers of immigrants from poor, oppressive, and corruption-ridden societies, whose rule of the road is to grab everything you can get your hands on. And third, the system will be wiped out even faster if many of those immigrants are fundamentalist Muslims who view bankrupting the West as a contribution to jihad. [Wham! Bang! Shazam!] Add to all this the growing power of an unelected European Union bureaucracy that has encouraged Muslim immigration and taken steps to punish criticism of it—criminalizing “incitement of racism, xenophobia, or hatred against a racial, ethnic, or religious group” in 2007, for example—and you can start to understand why Western Europeans who prize their freedoms are resisting the so-called leadership of their see-no-evil elites.

- end of initial entry -

April 24

VDC writes

Regarding your most recent post entitled, “IMMIGRATION—EUROPE’S ECONOMIC SAVIOR, OR ITS ECONOMIC DEATH?”, I was curious to know when and where Pat Buchanan has argued that Europe “MUST” have hordes of Muslim and other third world immigrants come into its countries. If I’m not mistaken, he has described this massive immigration as suicide for the West and has even written a book lamenting this most unfortunate development.

If you could be so kind as to point me to where Mr. Buchanan has made such statements, or note it on your website it would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you for all the great work you do on your site. Providence will surely reward your labor!

LA replies:

Another reader has asked me the same. Have I misremembered Death of the West? Didn’t he say that low European birthrates necessitated reliance on non-European immigrants?

Andrew W. writes:

A similar thing is happening in the United States. Blacks and Hispanics receive more in benefits from the government than they pay in taxes each year, which means that whites are effectively subsidizing these groups. So, as the country becomes increasingly less white in the coming years, the government will be forced to make a drastic increase in the tax burden on whites or a drastic cut in the amount of government services available. In light of this, and given the massive debt this government already carries, is there any doubt that it will ultimately collapse?

By the way, that was a remarkably frank assessment of the problems of non-white immigration in general and Muslim immigration in particular from Bawer. The paragraphs you quoted would not have been out of place at American Renassaince.

Richard H. writes:

I believe you’re wrong on Pat Buchanan repeating the lie that Europe needs third world immigration (I believe you’re wrong on Steyn too, but I’m not as sure). In fact, one of his most famous books is The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization.

LA replies:

But he says that because of low birth rates Europe must have Muslim immigrants to take the jobs that there aren’t enough Europeans for.

Richard H. replies:

Do you have a direct quote of him saying that? I read everything he publishes and can’t remember that.

LA replies:

But isn’t that a central theme of Death of the West? I don’t understand why you’re surprised. He keeps saying that low European birthrate necessitates third world immigration. Or am I imagining things?

Richard H. replies:

One of his consistent themes is the need to limit/stop immigration. If he accepts the establishment consensus that Western economies will suffer if they stopped immigration (I’m not sure he does, it’s been a while since I’ve read the book) he considers it a necessary price to pay to fight off multi-culturalism and all the inherent problems of diversity.

Maybe your original point was simply that he accepts the establishment position that immigrants are good for the economy and that was the extent of the point you were making in your last post. If that’s the case, you may be right, although I don’t remember him ever explicitly saying it.

LA replies:

My memory is different. I have the book and could look it up.

My memory is that he was very pessimistic, not calling for solutions, but almost bathing in the delicious sensations of predicting the death of the West resulting from low birth rate. I was critical of the book for this reason.

He wasn’t saying that Europe must stop immigration even though that will harm the economy. He was saying that low birth rates make third-world immigration inevitable, and therefore low birth rate spells the death of Europe both because of the reduced native population in itself and because it necessitates third-world immigration.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 24, 2009 01:55 AM | Send