Mises on Immigration
Hat tip to Mr. Karaoke himself:
"Mises does recognize that peaceful cultural and political assimilation can take place 'if the immigrants come not all at once but little by little, so that the assimilation process among the early immigrants is already completed or at least already under way when the newcomers arrive.'"
Yup. Immigration, just like sex or food, is great... in the right amount.
What happens when the rate of immigration dwarfs the size of the native population?
Well, we have a great example close at hand...
"Mises does recognize that peaceful cultural and political assimilation can take place 'if the immigrants come not all at once but little by little, so that the assimilation process among the early immigrants is already completed or at least already under way when the newcomers arrive.'"
Yup. Immigration, just like sex or food, is great... in the right amount.
What happens when the rate of immigration dwarfs the size of the native population?
Well, we have a great example close at hand...
The body of Spotted Elk after the Battle of Wounded Knee.
Yeah, it's why I would be left clueless if I had to integrate to British culture.
ReplyDeleteAm I integrating to Jamaican British culture? Nigerian British culture? Pakistani British culture?
Mises has a point, but I'm not sure how comparable the case of American Indians is. In Central and South America, for example, the Western takeover occurred not because the native population was demographically overwhelmed by immigrants, but because they were conquered by the military forces of foreign powers. The situation in North America is a bit more complicated, but again it wasn't that immigrants joined native societies and then overwhelmed them numerically. Rather they set up their own societies under separate foreign governments and though a combination of superior technology and social organization and germs gradually drove out the native population.
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