August 02, 2003

9 arguments against mass immigration

ANTHONY BROWNE, perhaps the leading critic of mass immigration in the UK today, has another great piece on the subject in this week's Spectator. He lists each of his nine arguments before spelling them out in turn. They are worth remembering:

1. Mass immigration hugely exacerbates the housing crisis.

2. Britain is already overcrowded: it is one of the most densely populated islands in the world; twice as densely populated as France and eight times as densely populated as America - and increasing population density damages quality of life.

3. Mass immigration - as opposed to limited immigration of skilled workers to meet shortages - damages the employment prospects of those already here, particularly the unskilled.

4. Imposing mass immigration on a society that doesn't want it damages relations between the communities that are already here ... [which] forces voters into the hands of extremist parties such as the British National party.

5. Mass immigration increases inequality in society by increasing the wealth of those who employ immigrants (who tend already to be rich) and reducing that of those who compete with them (who tend to be poor).

6. Mass immigration is no solution to an ageing society, because immigrants grow old at just the same pace as non-immigrants. One of the country's top pension experts, Professor David Miles, said that trying to solve the pension crisis by importing more people is "madness".

7. Mass migration of unskilled workers promotes low-skilled, low-wage industries and reduces economic productivity.

8. Much if not most of the supposedly temporary migration - such as student visas, holiday working visas and seasonal agricultural workers - is permanent.

9. White flight is ghettoising Britain's cities and fragmenting communities.

Do read the whole article to see the reasons these statements are true and the depth of the problem.

Posted by Peter Cuthbertson | 12:32 AM | Permanent Link | Comments (58)

Comments

Two of the major problems with effective immigration control is that Labour does not want it ( They see it as a mechanism to water down Englishness which as we all know is evil and racist ) and the Conservative Party seems too scared of being called racist if they raise it.

Posted by: Ross at August 2, 2003 12:38 AM

It's mostly ignorant, deniable racism, quite frankly.

To take one point, about pensions, it's just wrong. The whole point about immigrants is there average age tends to be younger. A younger average age society has less of a pensions problem than an older one. If say the birth rate in this country doubled, then the pensions problem would at a stroke be reduced, even though babies -- would you credit it? - grow old at the same rate as adults.

Posted by: Matthew at August 2, 2003 09:06 AM

In response to Matthew (a Lib Dem I think - no surprise there) who raises the old catcall of 'racism'. When will this immigration end? What is the upper limit? 100,000 per year? Half a million? What is it? If you accept controls, then should it be 'first come, first served' or based on a set of criteria, for instance, language, culture, skills, that are in the national interest? I would be interested to know.

Posted by: kev at August 2, 2003 09:43 AM

Matthew misses the phrase "mass immigration" and reads "any immigration". I doubt very much that opposing mass immigration is racist of itself, because for one thing so much current immigration is of caucasians (Yugoslavia etc.). As for de-Anglifying the country, why we can't exchange the tidy, polite, hard-working and gracious Hindu immigrants I grew up among for the witless skinheads who haunt my high street on a Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday I don't know. I can imagine them changing their ways if they had to scratch a living out of the soil in countries where it is too hot to dig most of the time.
The point about pensions, Matthew, is that the benefit of having more young people is indeed that they pay the pensions of the old - but ask who pays theirs in thirty and forty years' time? We would need to keep the numbers coming in increasing all the time to sustain things. (By the way, I used to work in the pensions industry, so I know whereof I speak). Were pensions truly based on investments, and not on the State ponzi scheme, this would not be a problem. But they aren't, and it is, and it's going to be your generation and mine, Matthew, who will end up having to deal with it.

Posted by: James Hamilton at August 2, 2003 11:05 AM

The point is that if it puts off the pensions 'crisis' for 30-40 years, then that's quite effective. The country will be probably twice or three times as rich then, so with average incomes £50,000-£80,000 any pensions 'crisis' becomes much more manageable.

Your bit about State ponzi vs proper investments suggests to me you don't understand pensions. 'Fully-funded' pensions, so beloved by the right, are essentially a myth. One can only pre-fund pensions to the extent you can store the goods and services you will wish to consume when you are of pensionable age, i.e. housing and perhaps tinned food. Otherwise pensionsers, who don't work, are living off the output of workers, who do. As Samuelson put it, the day after Robinson Crusoe retired, he died.

There is an important political (possibly the most important in the UK) debate to be had about pensions, but people should't pretend that any of the problems facing the country's pension system would be solved by a scheme 'truly based on investments'.

Posted by: Matthew at August 2, 2003 12:07 PM

"but people should't pretend that any of the problems facing the country's pension system would be solved by a scheme 'truly based on investments'."

Matthew, I think you got some major nerve telling James that he knows nothing about pensions.

I suspect you regard it as a political issue because you are incapable of grasping the economic issue.

Posted by: David Carr at August 2, 2003 02:22 PM

Interesting stuff David.

The problem I had with James's analysis is that he said, "Were pensions truly based on investments, and not on the State ponzi scheme, this would not be a problem".

Yet this is demonstratably untrue. In any society the sum of all pensioners imcome, PN (where P average pension and N is number of pensioners) is equal to the proportion the working population (W) pay of their income in Savings and Taxation (so S+T) times their average income (let's call that Y) so PN = (S+T)WY, where the left hand side is total pensioner income, the right hand side total savings and taxation of the working population.

You will not that this identity says nothing about pensions being 'truly based on investments', indeed it can be seen that pensioner income has nothing to do with their saving level during their lifetime.

Posted by: Matthew at August 2, 2003 04:06 PM

Where is the ignorant racism in the article, Matt? Typical left-wing nitwit, cries racism without offering any proof. One can have a difference of opinions regarding pensions without it being racism.

Posted by: Bernie at August 2, 2003 05:42 PM

Oh the bit about pensions was just wrong, not racist.

For that, turn to this paragraph for a start, "In London as a whole, white Britons account for just 60 per cent of the population, and for fewer than half the population in six London boroughs"

Quite clearly Browne considers this undesirable (just 60%!), with the implicit message 'non-white people aren't nice neighbours'.

Posted by: Matthew at August 2, 2003 06:11 PM

I should have made clear this was in a paragraph headed 'white flight'.

Posted by: Matthew at August 2, 2003 06:49 PM

And if you read the whole paragraph describing the problem of how "white flight" is ghettoising Britain's communities, you will see why he brought that up. His point is not that they are bad neighbours - it is that racial integration at present levels of immigration is not happening. People are instead living in racially divided ghettos. How is it racist to be concerned about that?

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 2, 2003 06:50 PM

Can we please excise 'racism' from our vocabulary. It is as risible as Victorians being paranoid about private parts, and is a deliberate self-blinding to the realities of the world.

It is not just about nice white people suppressing their in-built uppityness, but a neutral recognition that people compete for power, and that they do so most successfully in cooperation with people like themselves. This is not about cricket but about the survival of people like ourselves (whoever we may be) and the things that we identify with.

Posted by: michael at August 2, 2003 08:19 PM

At the risk of being shockingly dull, can I come back on pensions?
Originally, the National Insurance scheme was intended to be precisely that - an insurance scheme. Which means that during your working life, you would make payments into it that would be invested on your behalf, and the returns on that investment would be used to pay for your pension at the end of your career. Now: private pension companies, one of which I worked for, still operate on this principle. That's why some pension funds experience loss of value in the event of a stock market downturn, and it's why people in their early twenties should start a pension as soon as they can, to take advantage of compound interest on the investments. (This is in short - the Motley Fool writers would put it better).
However, it's now the case and has been for a long time, that the State Pension is funded entirely from taxation. So it matters now how many people are paying tax in the workforce, in comparison to spending tax in the form of pensions and benefits. The ability of the working population to pay the required amount each year is of course influenced by how much is paid out in pensions and benefits, which is why state pensions are linked to inflation and not the rise in earnings. Governments have to keep earnings substantially ahead of payouts. We have so far done a great deal better in this respect than the main European economies, some of whom are facing real difficulties in the short term when it comes to finding the money to fund the pensions they have promised their citizens. There, they made no effort at all to incorporate an investment element into pensions - they were and are entirely taxation-funded.
So, why not bring in lots of young and ambitious people from around the world, and pay for our pensions from their earnings?
1) Immigration at present is imposing a cost on the state, not increasing the tax take. It's extremely rough coming into the UK - it's disorientating, you're made to feel unwelcome, and you need state help in the form of housing and benefits. There have been immigration successes - the Ugandan Asians, the Hindu communities in the UK are two - but none for quite a while. The amount of unskilled labour called for in the UK economy has been declining for many years. Thus we are not importing productive taxpayers, but benefit recipients(And the various asylum schemes don't exactly help, preventing people from working, which I think misguided and against all that's best in the human spirit)
2) The clock started ticking on the retirement of the current immigration wave ten years ago. Matt's 30-40 years are 20 years at most, and on a sliding scale upwards. That's easily within the prime earning years of current school leavers. When they should be investing in their own futures, they'll be paying for the upkeep of the state pension system.
3) There will be a lot of retired voters in the near future, and they will be using their increasing political weight to improve conditions for themselves. This in itself is already pushing the cost of state care for the retired up - take the Minimum Income Guarantee, and Scotland's state funding of care home fees. This trend is set to continue. Personally, I can't see how even a skilled, productive workforce is going to cope with it, let alone the one we actually have and are developing.
Bet no one's read this far!

Posted by: James Hamilton at August 3, 2003 09:28 AM

As the son of immigrants,I think the main issue is not whether immigrants should enter the country but what immigration Britain should allow.

The system australia has, where immigration is allowed based on the skills a person has; thus ensuring that immigrants have the skills base to be employed & thus contribute to the economy seems a fair one.

As a corollory I would not abject to a system where no immigrant would be allowed benefits for a perios (say 3 years) after entering the country.

As far as lack of integration goes then I suggest that this is a self correcting issue. The first generation of any immigration wave tends to stay in a geographically contained area. Their children who grow up in the country from birth are more integrated etc, etc. No immigration group will ever give up their cultural identity and become more integrated with time.

Peter, as an aside, As someone who is considering voting coservative for the first time at the next election these sort of reflexive immigration is always bad comments are far more likely to drive me into the arms of Labour than any of their policies.

Posted by: Raj at August 3, 2003 09:48 AM

Sorry, that should read will become more integrated with time.

Posted by: Raj at August 3, 2003 09:49 AM

I agree with Raj. The problem with our immigration policy is that it is seen as an extension of the welfare state. i.e. we welcome those deemed to be in need of our largesse but turn away people who 'greedy, unworthy' people who want to exploit economic opportunities. This should be precisely the other way around.

Matthew,

A pension is just an institutionalised means of saving up enough money to enable someone to live without having to go out to work every day. If a retired person is not to rely on their own savings and investments then the only alternative is to pay them from money taken from other working taxpayers thus rendering that latter group less able to save for their own retirement. Hence they need more state help when they retire and so on. This policy only works for so long and only works at all provided the ratio of productive workers to retirees remains relatively high (about 4 to 1 is the minimum). But it becomes unsustainable if that ratio declines or in circumctances where retirees enjoy greater longevity (i.e. they need supporting for longer).

State pension shemes are just a chain-letter fraud and if anyone except the government was operating them they would be in prison. Matthew, I urge to think outside the 'tax box'.

Posted by: David Carr at August 3, 2003 05:04 PM

David, you clearly just don't get the point. The ratio of workers to pensioners is crucial, but is exactly the same whether you have a 'fully-funded' pension scheme or a PAYG scheme. At a risk of terrible simplification, the income of pensioners is essentially decided in any scheme by the working age population, regardless of how many investments the pensioners have squirreled away.

James -- I don't really disagree with anything you said, except pension schemes survive because they have to survive, and I think PAYG is the best system as it matches inputs and outputs most closely (i.e from current income). As for my 30-40 years -- I was only responding to you who said it first?

Posted by: Matthew at August 3, 2003 07:59 PM

No Matthew, it is you that does not get the point. The level of pensions is only dependent upon the working age population if said pension is being funded out the taxes being paid by that working population.

The better alternative is to remove the state from the savings business and allow people to save and invest for their own retirement.

I don't wish to appear rude, Matthew, but you appear to be intellectually incapable of even conceiving of a non-state welfare solution, let alone presenting any plausible arguments against it.

Posted by: David Carr at August 3, 2003 11:26 PM

Matthew, are you saving for your retirement? If not, do you plan to?

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 4, 2003 12:41 AM

Yes Raj is right,

It is the quality of our immigration that is of prime importance. New people coming into the country is a good thing if it addresses skill shortages, helps broaden us etc. We do not have to let people in who do not have skills and will hence become a problem in terms of welfare payments and social ghettoisation. The other way to ttackle the real challenges immigration critics remind us of is to ensure newcomers feel an obligation to integrate. The emphasis on multiculturalism sometimes encourages people to ghettoise. Why do we bend over backwards to print all govt information in umpteen languages. It is difficult coming to a new country, yes, but if you choose to do so you need to make an effort to learn our language and customs.

We need not be frightened of immigration if managed sensibly. Raj i am a Conservative, not all Conservatives are anti-immigration by any means. It was a Conservative Govt that welcomed refugees in from Uganda and Vietnam. It has been Conservatives who have upheld the integrity of the immigration system by putting more emphasis on skills.

Posted by: Matthew R at August 4, 2003 01:20 AM

Matthew writes " At a risk of terrible simplification, the income of pensioners is essentially decided in any scheme by the working age population, regardless of how many investments the pensioners have squirreled away"

This is sheer economic illiteracy, and could not be more untrue. It's not a political debate, it's a question of numbers and mathematics. The income of any pensioner is entirely dependent on how many assets are set aside to generate current income. If worker X has set aside assets himself during his working life, he has no need for anyone else's money. If worker X has no such savings, or insufficient savings to generate adequate interest income, he must consume someone else's current income. In short, my friend, read up on something called the 'miracle of compounded interest'. One appreciates your earnestness, but you are dead wrong.

Posted by: Ursuletul mare at August 4, 2003 05:57 AM

This thread is really quite mind-bogglingly frustrating.

Money is only useful to the extent that it purchases goods and services.

The higher the percentage of the population that aren't producing goods and services, the lower per capita economic output (= income) - ceteris paribus, obviously.

The argument of PAYG versus funded pensions concerns how this diminished pot gets distributed. It doesn't do anything about the size of the pot.

Posted by: john b at August 4, 2003 12:06 PM

Matthew, I commend your understanding, your lucidity, and your patience. Do you have your own blog? Do you commonly write for someone else's?

Mr. Carr, I fear, is hypnotized by the money-fetish, when he should be looking at the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

And I am positively delighted to ready you are a Conservative.

Point 6 really was the most interesting one, wasn't it?

Posted by: marcus tullius cicero at August 4, 2003 12:37 PM

I feel there's not much point in continuing this debate, only to say that David Carr's comment,

'No Matthew, it is you that does not get the point. The level of pensions is only dependent upon the working age population if said pension is being funded out the taxes being paid by that working population'

is one of the most breathtakingly wrong comments I have ever read. The only way in which it might be true is if the country has large overseas assets (i.e. it runs continual current accound surpluses) and thus pensioners can draw income off the working age populations of other countries.

Otherwise are you really saying David that if everyone of in the working age population suddently died, UK pensioners who weren't dependent on government spending would see no loss of income?

Ha ha ha ha ha.

Posted by: Matthew at August 4, 2003 12:58 PM

Matthew,

What I find breathtaking is (I regret to have to reiterate)your failure to grasp the implications of self-provision. It doesn't take the sudden mass extinction of the working population to render tax funded pensions unsustainable. It merely takes an unfavourable ratio. However, levels of self-provision need not be affected in the same way partly because lower tax burdens on on even a smaller workforce nonetheless allow that workforce to be more productive thus raising the general level of prosperity and hence bolster the value of savings and investments.

Also, with people being able to invest as they please, overseas opportunities do, indeed, play an important role as part of any investment portfolio. Unless, that is, people are prevented from trading overseas by a protectionist government.

Marcus Cicero,

'Hypnotised', you say? Well, funny thing, but there was me thinking that pensions were a financial issue.

However, if you insist then let me say that the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services should be left entirely to the free market. Consider the matter duly looked at. Happy now?

Posted by: David Carr at August 4, 2003 05:20 PM

No..that's not an answer David.

Let's see what you said again

"The level of pensions is only dependent upon the working age population if said pension is being funded out the taxes being paid by that working population"

So put another way the level of pensions is not dependent on the working age population if they aren't funded out of taxation.

So as I said, you believe that if all the working age population died it wouldn't affect the level of pensions of those in fully-funded pension schemes?

Posted by: Matthew at August 4, 2003 06:06 PM

State mandated PAYG pension schemes are ponzi schemes, no more, no less. They only work as long as you can find enough new suckers to get money from. Why is there all this fear over allowing workers to fund their own retirement by keeping their own money?

Posted by: ursuletul mare at August 4, 2003 06:20 PM

You didn't bother to read the previous 26 posts, did you? Probably not even the one you wrote.

Posted by: Matthew at August 4, 2003 09:30 PM

The point is that we can let young productive immigrants in (ie only ones whose skills we need), not allow them to go on welfare, and ensure that they are contributing to priviate pensions. (I would force everyone to have private pensions scheme). That way they can help the UK in the transition out of PAYG, while not being a burden on the next generation.

Posted by: Matthew R at August 4, 2003 09:40 PM

"So as I said, you believe that if all the working age population died it wouldn't affect the level of pensions of those in fully-funded pension schemes?"

Matthew, if some well-aimed catastrophe wiped out a nation's entire working population (presumably in a stroke) then the entire question of pensions becomes a complete irrelevance. There are no 'pensioners', just a lot of elderly people and small children.

And, as a matter of fact, if those former pensioners had all or a majority of their investments outside that disaster-struck jurisdiction, then the answer is 'no' it wouldn't affect their pension level.

Was that surreal scenario supposed to establish a case for tax-funded pensions? If so, how?

And please explain why you think that self-provision is inferior to or less preferable than state provision?

And please answer Peter's question above.

Posted by: David Carr at August 5, 2003 12:31 AM

Ok David, so we are getting somewhere.

When you said "The level of pensions is only dependent upon the working age population if said pension is being funded out the taxes being paid by that working population"

what you actually meant, was that if there was no working population there would be no pensioners. This souunds ridiculous insofar as one views 'pensioners' as equivalent to 'retired people'. However of course it's not ridiculous if you view pensioners (more correctly) as 'those who receive pensions', because what you mean is there would be no 'pensioners' because there would be no 'pensions'. Which is exactly my point - at last!

You then say, "if those former pensioners had all or a majority of their investments outside that disaster-struck jurisdiction, then the answer is 'no' it wouldn't affect their pension level." which again is what I said. However you will note that as Britain is not running a surplus on its current account this is not the situation that exists today.

The reason for my example is simply to show that tax-funded as opposed to privately-invested pensions both suffer -- equally -- from the same demographic problems. It is doubtful the working age population will disappear at a stroke, but the whole point of the debate is that it is shrinking relative to the old population, and thus -- very slowly and with no ability to get there -- tending towards zero.

Are state pensions better than self-provision? If you mean PAYG state pensions, then they have many advantages -- the transactions costs are far lower, you're paying current dollars from current dollars, there's no need for a safety-net (which you would still need with 'self-provision') the inter-generational transactions are open and explicit and so on. Of course you can have state fully-funded pensions, which have various pros and cons as well. In comparing them with self-provision, as there are no examples of a country with a self-provision based pensions system in the developed world it's rather hard.

In answer to Peter's question, yes of course I am saving for my retirement. I never said that one can't increase one's pension arrangements as a share of all pensioner income, the difficulty is affecting the absolute level. To take a simplified example, Mr A who retires on his savings of 100,000 shares in Marconi will have a higher pension that Mr B will only purchased 50,000. That both will have next to nothing to live on probably wasn't foreseen in 1999.

Almost certainly the best pension arrangement (and I am sure one of the reasons behind high house prices) is to own your own home, as this is a consumption good that can be stored. Then I would probably recommend assets in reasonably secure overseas countries with a high birth rate mixed with some government long-dated bonds. Certainly such a mix would have prevented a lot of the crisis of the last few years.


Posted by: Matthew at August 5, 2003 09:56 AM

"because what you mean is there would be no 'pensioners' because there would be no 'pensions'. Which is exactly my point - at last!"

Then it was pointless. An absurd analogy that did nothing to further the argument.

"However you will note that as Britain is not running a surplus on its current account this is not the situation that exists today."

Well, what I am trying to do is to challenge ideas such a 'Britain's current account' an inately collectivist notion. However, if you mean that we do not have lots of people with a range of investments abroad then, yes, I agree. That could change in a savings/investment free market.

"In comparing them with self-provision, as there are no examples of a country with a self-provision based pensions system in the developed world it's rather hard."

Sorry, the old classic argument against trying something different. 'It's not been done before'. Maybe not but that doesn't mean it should not be done or won't be done.

Your admiration for PAYG systems is misplaced. It is still a chain-letter con and I think I have already explained why this is a bad idea. Tax, Matthew, is and always will be a zero-sum game.

Since you clearly accept the benefits of at least partial self-provision (and the 'safety-net' argument is merely a demand for nationalised charity not state pensions per se) it does make me wonder why your responded to my calls to logically extend this principle with such hostility.

Posted by: David Carr at August 5, 2003 07:47 PM

Others may be interested in my comments on this rather idiotic piece.

I'm amused by the drivel people are talking about pensions. Let's go back to the identity which Matthew posted earlier:

PN = (S + T)WY

This says that the amount of money being paid out now in pensions is the sum of the amount being paid in tax towards PAYG schemes plus the amount being saved by current workers. This is a simple statement of "conservation of money": the money paid out to pensioners must come from somewhere, and that somewhere is the payments made by current workers. Since it is only the sum of tax and savings -- S + T -- which appears, the choice between savings-based and PAYG schemes is completely irrelevant to the question of how pensions are funded.

See, e.g., discussion of this issue in an IMF paper, Reforming Pensions: Myths, Truths, and Policy Choices:

"Under either outcome, pensioners do not get the real pension they expect. Funded pensions face similar problems to PAYG schemes, and for exactly the same reason -- a shortage of output. The only difference is that with funding the process is less transparent and, for that reason, is perhaps preferable to politicians, who prefer bad news be seen to arise through market outcomes rather than political decision."

"... The conclusion to which this leads is threefold. (1) In the face of demographic problems the key variable is output; (2) Policy should consider the entire menu of policies which promote output growth directly; (3) From a macroeconomic perspective the choice between PAYG and funding is secondary."

There are other issues -- notably, there is an argument that forcing people to save money towards pensions will increase the overall savings ration, rather than simply substituting from other savings -- but these are of only secondary relevance. The key issue is the ratio of working to nonworking population. The argument that allowing immigrants of working age to join the workforce will not help this situation is the purest nonsense, as you can see by imagining replacing "immigrants" with "children" in the argument.

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 5, 2003 10:19 PM

Indeed Chris, but you have to get past the David Carr's of this world who bleat 'private good, public bad' without any understanding of what they are saying.

Posted by: Matthew at August 5, 2003 11:27 PM

It's funny that people with the worst arguments are so often the rudest. Stanley Kurtz suggested it was because they are scared of a response, so they are as rude as they can be because they know how much less likely it makes a reply.

I scanned your piece, and I think your response to Browne's comments on the reputed solution to an aging population says all I need to know.

The other claim, that introducing immigrants to the population ``because they grow old at the same pace as non-immigrants'' is breathtakingly stupid. Imagine replacing `immigrants' with `children'

Why should children help and immigrants not if they age at the same rate? Because children start at age zero. While immigrants are on average at an age where their presence will not help the pensions crisis, only delay it. Adding immigrants therefore doesn't help - it just adds to the layer who need pensions. Then you need to bring in more immigrants, and more again in a generation, then more again. The only long term solution to an aging population is to get your birthrates back to replacement rates. You can't go on importing people for ever - eventually the rest of the world will run out of people willing to come here. Then the pyramid scheme topples right down.

The distinction between immigrants and children seemed so obvious to me that I thought it went without saying. No doubt Anthony Browne thought the same when he wrote the article. Perhaps it is you who should have given it all more thought.

I think that after reading that a journalist is "breathtakingly stupid" just because he sees the obvious while you don't, I don't need to read much more. 'Morons' indeed.

I almost wonder if this man read my recent post on liberals who make no effort to understand conservative arguments, and then deem all right-wing views to be about hate and the like, and tried to produce the best post he could proving me right.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 5, 2003 11:30 PM

Okay, I said I didn't need to read it after #6, but I have done so now anyway. I think the best thing I can say is that you should delete your post and rewrite it, taking into account the explanation I wrote for you above of some of the bits you found confusing, and AFTER ACTUALLY READING Browne's column, which it is clear you have not done. The text in the quote box was all his - the claims he makes. The arguments in their favour are in the full column and you'd perhaps have understood many of them if you had bothered to read them.

In the existing piece, besides a flood of immature insults, I can see only one serious point - that overcrowding doesn't cut GDP per head. Up to a point, this is common sense - more people to earn money and more people to spread it among. So you'd expect the average per head to be unaffected. But the leap from 'GDP per head is the same' to 'quality of life is the same' is a million miles too far for me. There are a thousand ways to diminish someone's quality of life without cutting their income. Browne lists some of them done by mass immigration if you would bother to read his piece.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 5, 2003 11:54 PM

"[Children help the situation and immigrants don't] Because children start at age zero."

No. In fact, children are of less help than adult immigrants, because they spend the first eighteen or sixteen or whatever years of their lives not working, whereas economic migrants are hardly going to move to a country where there's a sixteen-year wait before they can get a job (and, incidentally, start contributing to pensions).

Is this really that hard? Let's go through the maths again. We have two populations: N pensioners, and W working-age people. To this add C children. Assume that their presence doesn't affect tax or savings revenue (in reality it decreases both).

The relevant parameter is N / W. When this ratio is large we have trouble funding pensions. When it is small we do not. Note that C does not appear in this expression, so the number of children is not relevant.

Now we need to ask what happens over time. Four things: (1) children grow into adults; (2) adults grow into pensioners; (3) pensioners die; (4) immigrants are added to the working-age population.

Note that effects (1) and (2) are indistinguishable in the simple model. A more sophisticated model needs to take account of the fact that immigrants arrive at a variety of different ages.

At this point it is useful to run some models. Consider data from the National Statistics site; we have an initial population pyramid from http://www.national-statistics.gov.uk/census2001/pop2001/united_kingdom_ages.asp,
death rates from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=6878,
birth rates from http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=6893,
and migration rates from
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/DatasetType.asp?vlnk=6914.

I have written a simple population modelling program: http://ex-parrot.com/~chris/tmp/popmodel. This takes into account birth, death and migration rates, but assumes that they are nontimevarying though age-dependent.

We model the entire population pyramid and use it to compute the ratio of people of working age to people of pensionable age. As we know, this determines the level of pension provision that society can afford.

With no immigration, we find that the workers/pensioners ratio, which is presently about 4, drops rapidly, reaching about 2.7 35 years from now. Then it begins to rise, levelling off at about 3.2 after about 70 years. That drop from 4 to 2.7 corresponds to a drop in wealth available for pensions of about 30%.

At current rates of immigration (rates from 2000, the last year for which full figures are available), we find that the ratio drops by 25% to about 3.1 and settles at about 3.4. Doubling the immigration rate (keeping the ages of immigrants the same, though) means that the dip is to about 3.6, or about 12%. Tripling the immigration rate results in a relatively tiny dip about 5%.

(Graph of results.)

Do you still claim that immigration will not help the pensions situation? If so, explain your model.


(Notwithstanding your slightly snide comments, I did read the Browne piece. That's why I described it as a "rather thin rant". As for your other points, I note that you don't address the notion of PPP, but that's probably not surprising given the general level of innumeracy evident here.)

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 12:54 AM

Matthew,

I think you know full well that I most certainly do understand what I am saying and I am confident that you understand it as well. You just don't agree with it.

Posted by: David Carr at August 6, 2003 02:44 AM

I think you're arguing past me here. The point about children is they don't need to be drawn from the rest of the world - they aren't an external source, another layer on a pyramid scheme. The trouble with using immigration (well, economic trouble, anyway - obviously turning Britain into a black African country would have cultural impact, but we can ignore that for now) is that a generation later you need another, larger, lot of immigrants. Then the following generation another. It isn't a long term solution because the rest of the world does not have an inexhaustible supply of people willing to emigrate. Eventually they will run out of people. The only long term solution is to raise birthrates.

I thought I did address your point about GDP and purchasing power parity. Like I say, I don't think there are many people who would accept that national income per head is the only measure of quality of life worth counting.

The reason I doubted you read the Browne piece is you kept attributing bits of the article to me, in places whole sentences. Like the claim that I buttressed one of his arguments with a line of my own, when it was Browne's, as you'd know if you'd read him carefully.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 6, 2003 02:53 AM

A: Our Ponzi scheme is running short of funds. What shall we do?

B: Why don't we get more suckers to enter in at the bottom level.

A: But won't they realize that they are unlikely to get their money back.

B: Well, then we'll get even more new suckers.

A: When does it stop?

B: When people realize their is no free lunch. Or, when we run out of suckers.

Posted by: ursuletul mare at August 6, 2003 04:50 AM

Well, exactly. In the long term, all a country can do is lie back, think of the social security secretary and produce some 'suckers' of its own. Until we can manufacture pills to stop immigrants getting old, immigration doesn't solve that problem at all.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 6, 2003 05:05 AM

But self-provision pensions will, won't they David?!

Perhaps in Samizdata-dream-world.

Posted by: Matthew at August 6, 2003 09:13 AM

No! Absolutely not. As you can see from the model, we reach a steady state. We don't "run out of suckers".

Let's go through "ursuletel's" points one by one:

A: Our Ponzi [pension] scheme is running short of funds. What shall we do?

(Not quite. Will suffer a shortfall, if we don't do something.)

B: Why don't we get more suckers [children or immigrants] to enter in at the bottom level [really a variety of levels: look at the data]

A: But won't they realize that they are unlikely to get their money back.

(Well, they will get their money back, if they arrive or are born in sufficient numbers. If you don't believe this you must believe that a pensions crisis is inevitable, whatever funding scheme, immigration level or birth rate we have. Note that saying "get their money back" is misleading, since it is always the output of current workers which is paying for the pensions of current retirees.)

B: Well, then we'll get even more new suckers [children or immigrants].

(Correct. Obviously I expect, for instance, immigration and childbirth to continue indefinitely in this country, as they have for its whole history.)

A: When does it stop?

B: When people realize their is no free lunch. Or, when we run out of suckers [children or immigrants]

(Note that we are likely to reach a new steady state. "Ursuletul" hasn't explained what he means by a "free lunch" -- I suspect he doesn't really understand what he's saying, but some libertoonian has spoon-fed him the phrase so he's trotting it out in what seems like an appropriate context -- but the entire point of this argument is that there is no free lunch. Somebody has to pay for pensions, and that somebody is working-age people. Therefore, the ratio of working-age to retired people is critical to determining the level of pension provision which we can afford.)

Peter's comment shows that he hasn't addressed the PPP issue. PPP is a measure of "quality of life", because it is adjusted for local prices. Now, we can argue about better ways to measure that, but if you want to do that sensibly, you need some data.

As for the claim that "The only long term solution is to raise birthrates," well, that turns out not to be true. As you will see from the model with varying immigration rates, increasing the immigration rate will cause us to reach a new steady-state ratio of workers to pensioners. Adjusting the birth rate has the same effect, except that it doesn't help with the 35-year shortfall, since children take a while to grow up.

It is also not true that we would keep needing "a generation later you need another, larger, lot of immigrants" -- the model reaches a new steady state with a constant immigration rate fixed at 2000 levels. Bear in mind that we are not talking about large numbers of people here, so that when we get to what may for all your protestations be the core of your real argument -- "obviously turning Britain into a black African country would have cultural impact" -- you need not worry about too many -- gasp! -- black people coming to Merrie Olde Englande.

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 09:17 AM

Chris,

You are right that immigration is really a cultural and racial matter. It is all very fine that Anthony Browne speaks of housing and pensions and that so much energy has ben invested in this thread on the latter issue. But blood and land are in our being. The "r" word is the right one to use and, of course, applies to all peoples in their own lands. Racism is a natural, positive and inevitable in-group/out-group response to strangers. All peoples, including most English (ie white) people, understand that perfectly clearly. Only the white urban middle-class - my class - confuses it with racial hatred. We sorely need to reflect on the nature of our own identity and allegiance.

Either that identity and allegiance is first and foremost to our kin or it is to greater humanity. That is the choice. Everything else, all talk of good and bad reasons for encouraging or discouraging immigration, is sophistry and hair-splitting.

Posted by: Guessedworker at August 6, 2003 12:29 PM

Of course immigration is a cultural matter. I wouldn't say it is a "racial" matter; that's only important for people who judge others by their race.

But it is also an economic matter. Most working-age people in this country expect to retire on a reasonable pension which will enable them to enjoy the last years of their lives. In order to achieve this, we need to admit and welcome economic migrants. Otherwise there will not be enough working-age people in this country to pay for the necessary pensions.

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 12:44 PM

Chris,

Immigration is racial. Race is not a social construct. Race is our lineage. You are hairsplitting to avoid this crushingly obvious but, for liberals, inconvenient fact of life.

The meaning of it is not that whites are good, blacks bad. The meaning of it is that white people can inject into public policy-making white group interests, whatever they may be. And it is conceivable that they may include profound restrictions on further immigration.

I am mindful that you support the contrary argument with the idea of judgementalism. Actually, knowledgeable people make many judgements according to race since populations possess innumerable heritable differences in their physical and intellectual properties. This is perfectly defensible. It is not defensible to judge individuals due to the wide variations from the average that exists among all populations.

Now stop being such an old prig. The truth won't bite.

Posted by: Guessedworker at August 6, 2003 01:03 PM

Is getting a decent pension a "white group interest"?

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 02:21 PM

Chris, I have nothing to add on the 9 arguments (Gnome admirably fisks each of your counter-arguments in turn, so I don't feel needed*), but I'd just say that to turn a cultural argument into a racial one is typical of your methods (I say that even though I'd never heard of you before yesterday). I wonder how you would manage in an immigration debate without that race card hanging out of your pocket.

BTW, to answer one misconception in your original column, I don't oppose immigration. I'll make a post later on the sort of immigration policy I favour.

* Although he again seems to consider working out what Browne meant to be beneath him with regard to #6. I, like you two, thought the initial claim was exceedingly odd. I asked how immigrants differed from children. The difference is I made the effort to think about what the difference in fact was, while you seem happier to think he is just an idiot.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 6, 2003 07:28 PM

For one who has amply demonstrated his utter ignorance about basic finance or even maths, you sure like to make personalized attacks on those who do. Now, say after me, "Ponzi scheme"

Posted by: Ursuletul mare at August 6, 2003 07:48 PM

"Although he again seems to consider working out what Browne meant to be beneath him with regard to #6. I, like you two, thought the initial claim was exceedingly odd. I asked how immigrants differed from children. The difference is I made the effort to think about what the difference in fact was, while you seem happier to think he is just an idiot."

Ahem. I have checked my assumptions by modelling them with the real data. I find that I was correct to start with.

You are sticking to your (rather, Browne's) assertion, and it is just as wrong as it was at the beginning. If you want to do something beyond argument by assertion, well, I've pointed you at the data. Put up or shut up.

As for "Ursuletul", well, I'm glad you enjoy your rôle in the peanut gallery. Perhaps you too would find that your arguments had more purchase if you based them on evidence rather than repeated assertion. No doubt if you had a useful response to my points above, you would have given it, rather than simply calling me "ignorant".

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 08:06 PM

Actually, fuck it, since the point of Peter's post above was to imply to readers of his web log that my comments had been rebutted by Anthony -- on the basis that they might be too lazy to actually read Anthony's piece -- I'll go through them one by one, summarising what he says. (I don't like doing this, and I ask Anthony's indulgence in my cutting-and-pasting what he's written, but dishonesty such as Peter's irks me extremely, and it's worth showing up when the opportunity arises. For the record, Anthony's piece is here; you should read it, especially since you may think I am misrepresenting what he says; I am only writing this here for those who will not do so.)

1. Mass immigration hugely exacerbates the housing crisis
Anthony feels that the significant issue in building new houses is social and environmental, not political; he agrees that the "crisis" could be solved by new housebuilding but thinks that I am brushing it aside.

2. Britain is already overcrowded
He, like me, does not feel that the country is significantly overcrowded. He doesn't like GDP in PPP terms as a measure of quality of life, but doesn't cite any other reason to suppose that quality of life and population density are inversely correlated. He concludes, "... large scale immigration would require developing some of our countryside to provide new housing, infrastructure and amenties. That is both true, and a factor to consider when setting immigration levels. But it's not a reason to automatically stop immigration."

3. Mass immigration damages the employment prospects of those already here, particularly the unskilled.
Anthony, like me, contends that immigrants fill jobs which natives won't do; and that immigrants are needed to fill these jobs. He adds that protectionism in the labour market is a Bad Thing because it will lead to job flight. Like me, his evidence is anecdotal, which is unsatisfactory but better than nothing.

4.Imposing mass immigration on a society that doesn't want it damages relations between the communities that are already here
He thinks this point is more important than I do, citing anti-immigration letters he receives from the public (presumably in the course of his job). Nevertheless, he says, "Perhaps Browne has a case here, perhaps not."

5. Mass immigration increases inequality in society
Anthony: 'As for the poor immigrations who people are getting rich off the back off, as Chris says "After all, immigrants -- who are, after all, choosing to come here -- know what they're getting themselves in for (or ought to). This is how the free market works. If people won't do significantly better by leaving their home and making a new life in a different country, they presumably won't do so."'

6. Mass immigration is no solution to an ageing society, because immigrants grow old at just the same pace as non-immigrants.
Anthony: "This has led to huge discussion on Peter's blog. Frankly though, as far as I'm concerned, it is so obviously false it hardly warrants discussion."

7. Mass migration of unskilled workers promotes low-skilled, low-wage industries and reduces economic productivity
Anthony: 'Chris rightly says "Will it `reduce economic productivity'? Well, that depends on what jobs the immigrants actually do. It's certainly not obvious from the claims above."'

8.Much if not most of the supposedly temporary migration -- such as student visas, holiday working visas and seasonal agricultural workers -- is permanent.
Anthony: "And? This is about the workings of our present system, and I think we can all agree that the present system has severe administrative and procedural problems. It is irrelevant to whether or not mass immigration is good or bad."

9. White flight is ghettoising Britain’s cities
Anthony disagrees with me here. He thinks that this is not about simple racism; rather, problems arise from the failure of some immigrant groups to integrate with wider society. But, he says, "it is natural for people to want to live in proximity to people of similar cultures and interests, and to want to preserve their cultural heritage - I think it's something we just have to live with."

So, in total, Anthony and I am in agreement on five of the nine points (3, 5, 6, 7, 8), clearly disagree on two (4, 9) and disagree partially on (1, 2). He hasn't convinced me on 4 or 9 yet, though given some more evidence he might well; it's obvious that I need to go and look again at those points. In any case, this is hardly the "fisking" Peter claims.

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 09:14 PM

Since Peter may edit this transcript, I've made a mirror: http://ex-parrot.com/~chris/tmp/article-004921-from-conservative-commentary.html

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 09:16 PM

'Fisking' is not what you seem to think it is. The word simply means a line-by-line (more or less) analysis. It does not require that the writer and author the subject column are in total disagreement. 'Dishonesty' indeed.

And I don't edit away debates as you seem to think, so while you are free to post your own words and quote others', I request that you not steal whole pages from this site and post them on yours, which is definitely against the law.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 6, 2003 11:01 PM

You imply fairly clearly that Anthony disagreed with my statements. As for mirroring your site, well, you may or may not edit the transcripts; I don't know. If you don't think that making a copy is fair dealing, I'll expect a letter from your solicitors.

Posted by: Chris Lightfoot at August 6, 2003 11:43 PM

Checking your page, I see detailed copyright notices all over. Your hypocrisy is astounding; shame on you. That one page I don't much care about, but the copyright notices I've added below will have to be heeded in future. If you steal any more of my content, I'll make sure your ISP takes it down for you.

Posted by: Peter Cuthbertson at August 7, 2003 04:25 AM

On the economic impact of immigration, surely the most important question is whether or not third world immigration will result in higher per-capita GNP in 20 or 30 years time than would otherwise be the case. If it does, it will help the pension problem; if it doesn't , it will make things worse.

Shouldn't we also differentiate between the two causes of an "ageing" population: increasing longevity and declining birthrates?The only way to stop the first resulting in a higher average age is to have a rapidly expanding population.It might be the case that an extra 5 million people could be accomodated in England without a decline in the quality of life,but what about an extra 20 million?

And surely getting birth-rates up must be preferable to mass immigration (largely of Muslims) even if only because it involves fewer cultural problems.

Posted by: martin at August 7, 2003 01:17 PM

Chris,

I think Martin makes an important opening point. May I direct to you "IQ And The Wealth of Nations" by Richard Lynn and Tatu Vanhanen?

On the pensions question in general I'm pretty sure that if you asked the English whether they desire third world immigration for the purpose of "securing a decent pension" you'd get a very dusty answer.

If you, however, WANT immigration, why not tell us the reason or reasons? All we know at the moment is that you don't accept too many of the standard objections to it.

Posted by: Guessedworker at August 7, 2003 04:17 PM

Heh. To my intense amusement, as well as trying to stop me posting to this page, Peter has deleted my last post-- despite his claim that "I don't edit away debates as you seem to think". For reference, a copy of this transcript from before he edited it is here.

I welcome immigration because economic migrants will enrich our society economically and culturally. In particular, sufficient inmigration will enable today's workers to retire on a decent pension.

Posted by: Chris at August 7, 2003 04:31 PM
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