From the Prime Minister in a recent press interview -
"This country was built on migration, whether it was the first people who came out in canoes or my forebears, who came out to the goldrush in Cromwell.
We have had waves of migrations, which have helped to grow and develop New Zealand."
Considering just how many politicians use this argument to justify pro-immigration policies it might be worth considering if there is actually a country in the world that wasn't built on immigration.
Maybe one or two countries in Eastern Africa like Keyna (or wherever modern humans first originated), but even that's doubtful. Those who inhabit Kenya today may well be immigrants from other parts of Africa.
Hence, the total meaningless of saying a country is built on immigrants.
Of course the "built on immigrants" argument is not used to remind us about the obvious, but to imply that ongoing immigration will make a country richer and existing citizens better off.
However, just because a country is built on immigration doesn't automatically mean its likely to get better with further immigration. For example, Argentina was an affluent country until the 1930s, but despite on-going immigration, it never managed to recapture its high income status. A good argument could be made that Argentina should have stayed small and not diluted its agricultural wealth by increasing its population and half-heartedly attempting to became an industrial economy.
People were making the same argument in New Zealand a hundred years ago, and who's to say they weren't right - in 1900 New Zealand was the richest country in the world per capita, now its near the bottom of the developed world. Those of us who have arrived since then may be better off for it, but some of those who were already here were/are probably worse off for our arrival.
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3 comments:
What makes the phrase "nation of immigrants" and similar phrases so annoying is the way that a person whose ancestors have been here for generations is considered exactly the same as the recent refugee from Burkino Faso. There is a huge difference between settlers and their descendants and the next Achmed-come-lately. The settlers built up the country, thinking of the future and their children. The immigrant is someone who has arrived at an already functional society hoping to take advantage of what others have built.
Mild Colonial Boy,
I humbly suggest you distinguish between the terms "immigrant" and "settler". We have settlers, not immigrants, in the US Southwest. It, on a host of measures (academic performance, poverty rate, educational attainment, illegitimacy rate, Machismo culture, etc), is being transformed into something increasingly resembling Mexico, not the US Southwest of even a generation ago.
Unchecked immigration advocates overlook the value of having a cultural identity with a shared set of values. Most non-white countries understand this & aren't rushing to open their borders to be culturally enriched:
"A wide-ranging "global attitudes" survey of more than 45,000 people in 47 countries released yesterday by the Pew Research Center finds assorted populations are warm to the benefits of global trade. But they're cool — downright chilly in some cases — toward the toll it could exact on their national identities.
Should each country guard their innate culture and lifestyle? The answer was a rousing "yes" — again in 46 out of 47 of the countries. In the U.S., 62 percent said we should protect our way of life. Those sentiments were more pronounced among Republicans (71 percent) than Democrats (60 percent).
The number was just more than half in Britain, France and Germany, but 90 percent in Egypt, Indonesia and India.
Perils of immigration concerned people in 44 out of the 47 countries, where the majority of respondents said immigration should be more restricted in their homelands.
Only Japanese, South Koreans and Palestinians were comfortable with their immigration policies. Three-quarters of the American respondents wanted more restrictions; similar findings were revealed in Spain, Britain and Russia."
Interestingly, the Japanese are happy with their immigration policies, which are very strict. Demographically, 98% of the population are Japanese.
http://washingtontimes.com/news/2007/oct/05/immigration-loss-of-culture-worry-nations/
Even the highly touted benefits of diversity in the workplace aren't backed by evidence:
"The multibillion-dollar diversity industry is thriving in corporate America. But before you spend another dime on your diversity program, carefully consider this conclusion reached by Thomas A. Kochan, one of the most respected human resources management scholars in the country: "The diversity industry is built on sand," he declares. "The business case rhetoric for diversity is simply naïve and overdone. There are no strong positive or negative effects of gender or racial diversity on business performance."
http://www.workforce.com/section/11/feature/23/42/49/
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