Ross Douthat has a good column titled The Permanent Migration Crisis. The subject of the New York Times article is on what has been dubbed the “migration crisis.” He observes that mass migration is mainly moving from Africa to Western Europe and Latin America to the United States. His intelligent analysis examines the interesting problems this massive wave of migration is creating for both the political Left and Right. I believe his analysis is largely accurate. In zeroing in on the cause of the crisis, Douthat observes:
Civil wars and climate change will play their part, but the most important shifts are, first, the way the internet and smartphones have made it easier to make your way around the world, and second, the population imbalance between a rich, rapidly-aging West and a poorer, younger Global South, a deeply unstable equilibrium drawing economic migrants north.
All of this is a bigger problem for Europe than the United States — European aging is more advanced, Africa’s population will boom for decades (in 50 years there may be five Africans for every European) while Latin America’s birthrates have declined.
Granted, there is no easy fix in the short to mid term. But does it have to be permanent? No. Note that the migration moves from “poorer” to “rich” regions. The migration is primarily driven by desperation of people escaping intolerable living conditions in their home countries. But do the poor regions have to be poor? What is the reason why the rich nations are rich? Certainly, people in rich countries are no better, smarter, or harder working than those in poor regions. What’s holding back the poor? What’s facilitating the economic growth of the rich? Douthat identifies the problem, but doesn’t address the causes.
I posted this comment, slightly edited for grammatical correctness:
What seems always to be missing from analysis of the migration crisis is recognition of the fact that people are moving from places dominated by authoritarianism and with minimal fossil fuel use to places with substantial Capitalistic freedom powered by extensive fossil fuels use. That's the elephant in the room. Freedom of migration is a good thing. But the migration CRISIS is purely political. Fundamentally, what the countries from which mass migration originates need is more Capitalism—i.e. individual liberty, including property rights and the freedom to use fossil fuels, rule of law, limited democratic governance, etc.—so they can prosper and better protect themselves from domestic violence, tyranny, and the ever-present climate dangers.
Related Reading:
Pope Francis: Prosperity, Liberty, and Climate Change are the Common Enemy
At Climate Summit, America takes Lead on Energy Realism and Prosperity
CLIMATE VULNERABILITY AND THE INDISPENSABLE VALUE OF INDUSTRIAL CAPITALISM—Kieth H. Lockitch
The Capitalist Manifesto by Andrew Bernstein
Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less by Alex Epstein
Mexico Feels Pressure of Relentless Migration From South America by James Fredrick for The New York Times 9/21 23
1 comment:
The migration crisis doesn't have to be permanent, but it will be. The authoritarians in the south ain't gonna 'low no capitalism down there, EVER, but the people will keep having kids like mink and will keep sending then north. That's what the authoritarians in the south AND in the north want.
Multiply uneducated (or indoctrinated) poor and send hordes of 'em all over the world wherever there's capitalism. It'll destroy whatever capitalism there still is anywhere, to give the authoritarians everywhere free reign like those in the south.
Technology, headed by digitalus (as I call it), with AI as the final touch, will keep limitless billions in food, clothing and lodging (all of it of some sort) and happily pacified, and mindless, epigenetically, by a heavily concentrated cultural environmental process, if not actually genetically.
We should put nothing past the anus faces, into whos' hands an untoward worldwide populace has put physical power. I put nothing past them. So, whaddowe do 'bout it? Educate? Is there still time for that? If not, then what? Acceptance? If not, then, what?
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