Brimelow On FT’s Wolf [Peter Brimelow] - 02/01/05The UK’s equivalent of the Wall Street Journal is the Financial Times, widely preferred amongst US investment professionals because of its wider international perspective, and more thoughtful news coverage. It is, however, fashionably leftish in political orientation, and is strongly disliked by British patriots because of its cheerleading for the “European Community” a.k.a. Britain being ruled by Brussels. Not a natural friend to VDARE.COM/National Question thinking. Which makes last Thursday’s article on immigration by leading FT columnist Martin Wolf even more remarkable. [Britain in search of an immigration policy. Martin Wolf, Financial Times, January 27 2004 – access requires subscription] Wolf has apparently read and understood the key immigration reform arguments. Commenting on the massive acceleration of immigration into the UK under the Blair Government, he says: “What is the right response? It is neither to refuse to debate immigration nor to indulge in populist campaigns…The best way to forestall a populist debate is to start a non-populist one instead….A policy of no controls seems inconceivable. It would be a recipe for a demographic, social, economic and political transformation…the composition of the population would alter profoundly. (This never seems to bother the WSJ Edit Pagers.) What American columnist would have the steel to state: “As with all policies, the starting point should be the welfare of the existing inhabitants of the country. This is not to suggest that the welfare of others counts for nothing…But the welfare of members of an existing community must come first.”? Wolf then vaults over 95% of all US Establishment Media coverage of the economics of immigration: “Businesses, for example, protest that without immigration they would suffer chronic labor shortages...The market response is higher wages and more training. Understandably, business does not want to pay these costs. But some residents will, inevitably, be losers if they import labour instead…The arguments that immigration benefits the exchequer or increases the size of the economy are also weak…immigrants capture the lion's share of the benefits of immigration, not the host community…Another bad argument is that immigration will halt the rise in the dependency ratio as the population ages. On the contrary, the ratio of people of working age to those in retirement will fall almost as fast with substantial immigration as with very little. Immigrants age too.” And Wolf accurately identifies what is clearly a key reason for immigration enthusiasm in the U.S. upper class as a whole: “But the arguments that there are large overall economic benefits to the existing population are questionable. Some will indeed benefit economically: those who want cheap servants, for example. But others will be harmed. [Emphasis added] How long will we have to wait to see a major U.S. editorial writer concede: “The case for immigration at such levels cannot be founded on the economic benefits to the existing population. To point this out is not racist. This epithet is merely moral blackmail. Bad economic arguments cannot be the basis for a good policy.”? Lately, the Financial Times has developed the habit of running American neocon columnists and WSJ alumna. But Martin Wolf apparently knows better than believe them. Congratulate him. |
