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November 11, 2005

Richard Posner: Too Much Welfare Attracts Malcontent Immigrants

The New Editor digs up what seems a pretty prescient prediction of probable precognitive prognotistication:

Because the U.S. does not have a generous safety net--because it is still a nation in which the risk of economic failure is significant--it tends to attract immigrants who have values conducive to upward economic mobility, including a willingness to conform to the customs and attitudes of their new country. And because the U.S. does not have employment laws that discourage new hiring or restrict labor mobility (geographical or occupational), immigrants can compete for jobs on terms of substantial equality with the existing population. Given the highly competitive character of the U.S. economy, in contrast to the economies of Europe, employers cannot afford to discriminate against able workers merely because they are foreign and perhaps do not yet have a good command of English. By the second generation, most immigrant families are fully assimilated, whatever their religious beliefs or ethnic origins.
...

Advocates of the European model point to the pockets of poverty in the United States, but may not realize that poverty cannot be abolished without recourse to measures that produce the social pathologies that we observe in Europe. Social mobility implies the opportunity to fail. If society protects jobs, the employment opportunities of ambitious newcomers are reduced and they may end up at the embittered margin of society. Thus, it is not poverty that breeds extremism; it is social policies intended in part to eradicate poverty that do so, by obstructing exit from minority subcultures. If Muslims in European societies do not feel a part of those societies because public policy does not enable them to compete for the jobs held by non-Muslims--if instead, excluded from identifying with the culture of the nation in which they reside they perforce identify with the worldwide Muslim culture--some of them are bound to adopt the extremist views that are common in that culture. The resulting danger to Europe and to the world is not offset by long vacations.

Practically a premonition.

Read it all.

posted by Ace at 07:22 PM

Comments

"Social mobility implies the opportunity to fail."

Exactly! That's why we demand social justice!

Posted by: LarryLion on November 11, 2005 08:29 PM

Posner has been speaking truth to power for my entire adult life. I remember first reading his stuff back when I was in law school. He regularly posts on the Becker-Posner Blog. This blog is well worth a periodic visit.

Posted by: Michael on November 11, 2005 08:32 PM

Awesone Alliteration, Ace!

Posted by: erik on November 11, 2005 08:49 PM

But, but, it's just so UNFAIR and MEAN-SPIRITED!

Posted by: Moonbat_One on November 11, 2005 09:21 PM

because it is still a nation in which the risk of economic failure is significant

I would change "risk" to "costs". If you get a high school diploma, avoid having children until married, don't get married until you're at least 21 and are willing to work full-time, the risk of economic failure is very low. For each of those guidlines you violate, you increase the risk, and our limited safety net for such people means the costs are higher than they are in Europe. Not everyone in the US get's rich, obviously, but if you are responsible and willing to work, success is almost inevitable, no matter your race or religion.

Of course our poor still have several televisions, 200 cable channels and their biggest health problem is obesity, so it can't be all that bad in the US can it?

Posted by: Patrick H on November 11, 2005 09:43 PM

Posner is pulling his punches.

Of *course* the issue is whether "Muslims identify with the culture of the nation in which they reside" But it's Pollyannaish to believe that the reason they don't is because that western society has adopted rules or a culture of it's own guaranteeing that separation.

The problem is that their culture will always be separate. Separate in Britain. Separate in France. Separate in Belgium. They will be separate, as they are currently, in every Western society.

And if the U.S. isn't feeling it yet, it ain't cause our system somehow melts/melds them in better. No. It's only cause the numbers ain't there yet. In France, they're getting there.

Yeah, France will survive this latest burp. For now. But will it survive when it reaches 30% muslim? 40%. The simple fact is that their culture is beyond assimilation by ours. Cell phones and cable TV how no signs of convincing them women aren't chattle. Whose culture will assimilate whose?

Posted by: Cutty on November 11, 2005 09:56 PM

I think that Adam Smith might have been on to something!

Posted by: kbiel on November 11, 2005 10:18 PM

fantastic article.

Posted by: Village Idiot on November 11, 2005 10:53 PM

I have this sudden urge to watch 'Groundhog's Day' for some reason.

Posted by: Feisty on November 11, 2005 11:13 PM

I'll second Michael's kudos for Posner. When I was in law school even my liberal professors acknowledged the man as a genius. He's a law professor at the University of Chicago, arguably the best law school in the country. He's also a federal appeals court judge, writes one or two books a year and numerous law review articles and articles in magazines. And then he also travels all over the country giving speeches. The man is a machine.

If the world worked as it should, he would have been a Supreme Court justice 20 years ago. Unfortunately, his own voluminous writings have doomed him. He's this generation's Learned Hand, i.e., the most qualified person never to be on the Supreme Court.

Posted by: Huck on November 11, 2005 11:18 PM

Posner is God.

Posted by: SWLiP on November 12, 2005 12:49 AM

Able achievement at alliteration Ace. Are you at all aquaint academically about apt antimetabole.

Posted by: Speller on November 12, 2005 08:47 PM

re: Posner: double duh! Absolutely spot on.

to cutty: Your last comment is absolutely spot on, also. Great observation.

Posted by: Carlos on November 13, 2005 06:21 PM

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Top Headlines

TJM definitively ranks the films of Alfred Hitchcock

@KFILE 21m

Politico is reporting that multiple people have abruptly resigned from Eric Swalwell's gubernatorial campaign: "Members of senior leadership have departed the campaign, including Courtni Pugh, a strategic adviser who served as Swalwell's top liaison to organized labor groups."

So the campaign is collapsing due to the truth of the sexual harassment allegations.
That hissing sound you hear is the air going out of the Swalwell campaign. UPDATE: No it wasn't, it was just Swalwell one-cheek-sneaking out a fart on camera
Eric Swalwell more like Eric Farewell amirite
thanks to weft-cut loop.

This is the dumbest AI bullslop I've seen in a while: the CIA can use "quantum magnetometry" to track an individual man's heartbeat from twelve miles away
I wouldn't click on it, it's not interesting, it's just stupid clickslop. I just want to share my annoyance with you.

Oil prices plunge on bizarre realization that Eric Swalwell may actually be straight. A rapey molester, allegedly, but a straight one.

Artemis II Crew releases clearest images of the Far Side yet recorded

Classic Rock Mystery Click
This is super-obscure and I only barely remember it. Given that, I'll give you the hint that it's by the Red Rocker.
And I guess you think you've got it made
Oh, but then, you never were afraid
Of anything that you've left behind
Oh, but it's alright with me now
'Cause I'll get back up somehow
And with a little luck, yes, I'm bound to win
Now twenty people will tell me it's not obscure, it was huge in their hometown and played at their prom. That's how it usually goes. When I linked Donnie Iris's "Love is Like a Rock," everyone said they knew that one and that his other song (which I didn't know at all) Ah Leah! was huge in their area.

Sarah Longwell spotting

Tuq'r's makeover is 100!

Alfred Hitchcock learns to talk with TJM

Ryan Long goes to the No Kings rally to pick up young liberal hotties and is greatly disappointed in the quality of the mish
thanks to stevey

You know we "joke" about the GOPe just "conserving" leftist things?
David French just posted:

Populists ask what conservativism has ever conserved?
Well its about to conserve birthright citizenship!
Posted by: 18-1

I couldn't hate this queen of the cuck-chair more if it paid seven figures and came with a corner office.

TJM definitively ranks the films of John Boorman.

Kid punks CNN chump by speaking truth to retard

Podcast: CBD and Sefton talk birthright citizenship, the 14th Amendment and SCOTUS, no boots in Iran, Artemis II and refocusing NASA, the NBA's hatred of everything non-woke, and more!

In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.