Distraction Politics

Distraction (Source: here)

Immigration has consistently been the star of Distraction Politics in Western economies for nearly twenty years. The obsession with immigration has been extremely costly, resulting in neglect of reforms that would actually make a real difference to the lives of ordinary voters. After more than two decades of barking up the wrong immigration tree, it is high time to direct the policy focus away from immigration and back towards the underlying economic issues that really matter to quality of life.

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The main political impact of the Global Financial Crisis was to undermine the credibility of mainstream politicians in favour of populists, especially on the Far-Right of the political spectrum. The rise to power of Far-Right populism has had discernible effects on the quality of politics and economics in the Western world; politics has become more nationalistic and economic policy has become more myopic.

Rather than try to recover their lost credibility by facing up to the West's difficult underlying structural problems, mainstream politicians have instead opted to emulate the Far-Right by scapegoating vulnerable groups. The scapegoat of choice has been - almost uniformly across the whole of the Western World - immigrants.

The vast majority of immigrants are harmless people, who, like everyone else, want to work hard and improve their lives. Yet, politicians have turned on them for three reasons in particular:

1.     Immigrants are a weak and vulnerable group without political representation, which means they are unable to defend themselves when attacked. Over the past decade and a half, politicians have dramatically raised the bar for entering, let alone taking obtaining legal residence in rich countries. Once inside, many are locked up and barred from working. Deportations have also surged, often leading to tragic outcomes. Some Western economies are now calling for dismantling protections for refugees put in place at the end of World War.

2.     Immigrants come from unfamiliar cultures, which makes them suspicious in the eyes of many locals. Immigrants are generally knowledgeable about the West due to the global reach of Western culture, but Westerners often know next to nothing about immigrant cultures. This information asymmetry is ruthlessly exploited by Western politicians to label undocumented immigrants as criminals. It is testament to the effectiveness of such Far-Right misinformation that even mainstream politicains now vilify immigrants along such lines, to the point where one can reasonably draw parallels between how Jews were treated in early stages of Nazi rule in Germany and how immigrants are treated in the West today.

3.     Scapegoating of immigrants dovetails well with another carefully-designed deception – attributable to Donald Trump – that Western economic malaise is due to foul play by emerging nations, notably China. The labelling of emerging economies as ‘cheaters’ and ‘the enemy’ has helped to sell the xenophobic message about immigrants at home. Yet, anyone with a modicum of economic education will recognise that the West controls the vast majority of global economic power and that China, while growing in economic importance, continues to be remarkably un-Western in terms of its imperialist ambitions.

The truth is that the West’s economic challenges owe nothing to immigration and everything to major domestic policy failings. I could go on and on, but let me just list the three most common homegrown domestic policy failings that have fueled relative decline in the West: ineffective investment policies undermining productivity growth; poor regulation leading to the emergence of grotesquely rich economic elites; erosion of essential public services contributing to rising inequality, which in turn fuels populism and economic underperformance alike.

After nearly two decades of thus ignoring fundamentals on the alter of scapegoating immigrants, Western economies now face not only these deepening economic woes, but also profound moral ones. We have dehumanised immigrants. We are presented on a daily basis with ever crueller propsals for how to hound immigrants. We are told we must unwind hard-won democratic and human rights, just to be able to be even ‘tougher’ on foreigners, even to the point that our own rights and freedoms are threatened.

I believe our generation will be remembered for its broad-based acceptance of grossly inhumane schemes against immigrants. Future generations will look back on this time, upon us, and feel the same disgust that we feel for Hitler’s persecution of jews, the Ottoman purge of the Armenians, Apartheid South Africa, Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians in Gaza, and the discrimination against black people in the United States prior to the civil rights movement.

Still, I am too jaded to believe that appealing to our common humanity will achieve anything whatsoever in terms of ending the travesty that is our current immigration policies. Anti-immigrant attitudes have assumed such cult-like acceptance in most Western societies today that most of us actually think is it absolutely fine to treat these people like animals.

Which leads me to think instead that if we genuinely want more humane immigration policies then we must appeal to our selfishness instead, by drawing attention to the enormous opportunity cost of our governments’ obsession with immigration.

Western governments have abandoned core duties in their obsession with immigration. Can you remember the last time a Western government implemented a policy – any policy – that was not directly or indirectly aimed at deterring immigration? When was the last time your government implemented a pension reform? When was the last time your government meaningfully addressed inequality? When is the last time your government launched root-and-branch overhaul of infrastructure? When was the last time your government did anything other than tamper at the edges of education and health? As a European, I struggle to recall the last time I heard a European politician admit that we need more European integration to effectively stand up to Russia. And, come to think of it, when was the last time we had talk of democratic reform to ensure politicians deliver what they promise? 

Our governments are guilty of gross neglect on account of their obsession with ganging up on immigrants. The most important function of government is to manage our institutions effectively and efficiently and to make sure policies adapt to the constantly changing needs of the real economy. But our politicians today are doing none of that! The great immigration distraction has enabled them to relegate their key responsibilities to the back-burner. As time passes, the neglect of these fundamental and increasingly pressing problems will have a devastating impact on our economies, our societies.

Instead, what our politicians are doing is falling over themselves trying to launch one hare-brained anti-immigrant scheme after another in a mad race to get ahead in the cruelty-stakes. It is as crazy as it is pathetic; today’s politics has become all about who can be biggest asshole and very little else.

We need to wake up and demand more of our politicians. We need to understand that when our politicians spend all their time being assholes they are neglecting the jobs we elected them to perform. When they are terrorising immigrants, they are not stopping the public debt from sky-rocketing, not preventing the unfolding environment disaster, not doing anything to halt inequality. When they harrass refugees, they are not improving our schools or health care, not protecting us from Russian drones and American trade wars, not being vigilant about financial risks such as the AI bubble.

Of course, the biggest irony of all that our economies desperately need immigration to prevent prosperity from collapsing. As I explain here, Europe alone requires more than 40 million immigrants over the next 15 years to replace the workers we lose to population ageing and declining birth rates. In other words, directly contrary to current political rhetoric immigration is actually an important part of the solution to our economic problems.

For now, though, most of us are still too blind, too prejudiced, too ignorant, too hoodwinked, too xenophobic, and too racist – take your pick – to see it. And our politicians are taking advantage to do...well....nothing.

Except, of course, rounding up immigrants, like ICE is doing in the US, or extending the time it takes for immigrants to become citizens, like the UK is doing. And all the other lunatic anti-immigration ideas that are being bandied about in Western capitals. None of them will help us. Their only purpose is to distract us from the real fundamental problems that our politicians are too cowardly to face.

We must demand better! Stop wasting your vote on parties than run on anti-immigration platforms, because they are only taking you for a ride. Onto the weak and vulnerable, they will deliver only pain and onto you they will deliver only neglect of the issues that really matter.

The End