Globally Rational

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Which comes first in a country: the immigrants or the economic success?

It’s like the chicken-and-egg paradox. If there was no promise of success, then immigrants wouldn’t come; meanwhile, if there were no immigrants, there wouldn’t be enough people to succeed (in cosmopolitan countries like the US). Of course, there are exceptions to the rule… China has enough residents to be successful without immigration and Qatar is a great example of a country that had money before they had immigrants (although the immigrants were clearly necessary to continue the success). But it’s hard to make any unbiased conclusions without at least looking at some data:

• The countries with the highest ratio of immigrants include Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Nobody denies that these countries have economies that are highly dependent on their immigrant class of laborers and intellectuals.
• The countries with the lowest ratio of immigrants are Vietnam, Indonesia, Iraq, Guyana, and Afghanistan. Need I say more?
• Australia is the only country with a population of over 20 million as well as an immigrant ratio of over 15% (the ratio is 19.93%). As I’ve mentioned before, Australia is a great place to be.
• The US has the highest overall population of immigrants (38.4 million, or 12.8% of the population). Anybody who lives in the US can tell you that most of these immigrants are part of the older generation, so they are more of a cause for the US’s success than the result. Also, it is common knowledge that the US’s immigration boom happened around the turn of the 20th Century (plus or minus 50 years).
• India and China both currently have immigrant ratios below 0.6%… they don’t need immigrants to be successful, since they already have plenty of people.

Of course, to make any real conclusions, we’d have to thoroughly analyze historical immigration data and compare it with per-capita GDP data. I think my little investigation, however, might suggest that such a study would not be unfounded. Opening the borders has always led to a positive effect overall, and I think that countries should seriously considering doing so. It will cost more money to have a larger pool of residency/naturalization applications, but I think that this might pay for itself with the increased revenue.

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This is the third article in my View From Above series. Click here to see the first two: the first one covers Kuwait, London, New York, and Boston; the second one covers Missouri and Indiana.

Off in the distance, I see the lights emanating from Pittsburgh. Compared with the rest of the areas along the route of my flight, which left from Kansas City, Pittsburgh’s vicinity seems to be much more than a simple set of suburbs. The image of the working-class Pennsylvanian (or Ohioan), which has been increasingly burned into my head as I follow the 2008 election, is completely justified by this sight. There are lights far outside of the actual city, suggesting that there is no dearth of small factory-centered areas here.

My previous image of Pennsylvania consisted of a largely semi-urban forested (produced by the state’s name, which translates to “Penn’s Forest”) with a highly-educated economic hub in Philadelphia and a highly-industrialized working-class environment in Pittsburgh. While this impression was only affirmed by my few trips across the Pennsylvania turnpike, it seems that a view from above dispels my theory.

I am currently flying over what seems like an urban area, but there is no heavily-concentrated set of downtown lights. My best guess is that this is another of the many industrial areas west of Philadelphia. It bears a striking resemblance to most of the suburbs near my home of St. Louis, but there is no city in the middle like what I’m used to seeing. This must be another area whose economy is supported by the working-class Americans who, as Hillary and Obama never forget to mention, form the backbone of this country.

The farther east I travel, the more brightness I see along the highways. The patches of black, which were the norm in Missouri, are nearly nonexistent now and there seems to be a gradient of the luminosity along the roads. I will never again picture Pennsylvania as “Penn’s Forest”… now, it is the link between the highly-developed East Coast and the mostly rural Midwest.

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This is the second post in my View From Above series. Click here to see the first, which covers Kuwait, London, New York, and Boston.

As I write this, I’m flying over central Indiana as part of my trip from Kansas City to Baltimore. Out of one corner of my window, I can see that we are about to fly over the very upscale and academic town of Bloomington. Out of the other corner, I can see the metropolis of Indianapolis, about 60 miles off to the north. Most of the land seems barren in the dark, but there is a trail of light going south along the highway that leads from Indianapolis to Bloomington. There are also a couple of other highways that carve a similar trail going south from Indiana’s capital, one that probably heads towards Evansville and another whose destination is likely Louisville.

As I approached Indianapolis from the east, I mostly just saw a sea of light in the distance. We were entering the twilight hours here in the Midwest, so I wasn’t actually sure if the source of the luminosity was a city or just the reflection from a huge patch of maize. I was more interested in crossing the Wabash and looking at my former hometown of Terre Haute, which was very recognizable thanks to its unique pattern of urbanization; there is a path of light leading from the main city to each set of outskirts in the South, East, and West, where a single major road seems to be the only hint of civilization.

Bloomington reminds me thoroughly of Columbia, Missouri, where I currently spend most of my time. The city is built around the Indiana University campus, which is full of classical architecture and a road system that, unlike any non-academic area, is simple because not every building needs to be beside a street. IU is obviously the type of school where most of the students spend a significant portion of their time on campus, unlike commuter universities like the local University of Missouri – St. Louis.

Between the small patches of light that I saw through Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, it is no surprise that most of the land was covered with farms. I noticed the most interesting part, however, after darkness struck: there are no lights in those areas. During my countless trips between Columbia and St. Louis, I have seen no lack of rural areas, but I never noticed (until now) that the lights in those areas are always off. Looking back, I can now remember a trip to an area about half an hour outside of Columbia where, after we turned off our headlights, the moonlight was the only way for us to see outside. The resources there are untapped; the land is empty. I’ll visit it again in 20 years to see how commercialized it will have undoubtedly become.

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I’ve been asked questions like “where are you from?” many times. Every time, it’s clear to me that the inquisitor wants to know what country I was born in. I refuse to succumb; it’s not that I have any lack of respect for my background, but I just don’t understand why the person has to assume that I was born abroad. Usually, I respond with a simple “Here” if I’m in St. Louis at the time, “St. Louis” if I’m somewhere near St. Louis, or “Missouri” if I’m far away somewhere. The person is usually disappointed with the answer (since they just wanted to know whether to treat me like a terrorist or a tech support rep), so I’ll typically elaborate with “I was born in Pakistan” just for good measure.

Occasionally, the person probes deeper, as was the case today. I was asking for directions at the one of the Smithsonian museums in Washington DC, and the information representative asked me where I was from. This was one of the cases where I was happy to respond with “Missouri”, since she had only asked in response to my statement “there are no Ethiopian restaurants where I come from”. I really did mean Missouri when I said that, but she made sure to elaborate, “Where are you from originally?”

Personally, I have no qualms about saying that I’m from Pakistan, since I am, in fact, from Pakistan. On the other hand, I remember being in the car when a friend (whose parents happen to be Indian) was pulled over for speeding… when the officer asked him where he was from, he replied “India”. In fact, he has been to India two or three times in his life, and doesn’t even fluently speak any Indian languages. He was born and raised in Missouri, and he’s not the only such person who I have seen asked this question. Why do people assume that if you have brown skin, then you must be foreign? These few people are far more American than I am, and the issue bothers me a little bit… so I’m sure that they have to second-guess their answer too.

More than one out of every ten US residents was born in another country. Many of them are still white, so nobody ever asks them where they’re from. In my opinion, the only thing that justifies a question like “what country are you from?” is a person’s accent… my accent is as neutral and Midwestern as Dan Rather’s, so why do people automatically assume that I’m foreign?

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In the past 100 years, the US has established a reputation as one of the world’s best places to live. The best way to gauge this is by the fact that the US is the first choice for potential migrants in India, China, and all over the world. The obvious reason is that we have a strong economy… but so does Europe. So what differentiates the US?

Well, here are some factors that I believe are responsible for the rise of the US; please feel free to chime in if you can think of any others:

• Americans value economic freedom more than most European countries. Here, the rags-to-riches story is the American Dream.
• Despite the recent (especially post-9/11) restrictions, the US has established a reputation as a nation of immigrants whose diverse experiences come together to form a great nation. Individual European countries have a reputation for being more homogeneous.
• 100 years ago, the US was relatively neutral when it comes to international politics… this allowed us to have one of the world’s strongest militaries after Europe destroyed itself during the World Wars.
• Unlike crowded European countries, we have a lot of extra land lying around. The UK, for instance, has over 8 times the population density of the US.

I can only think of one other country that is following the same pattern. It may not be to the same extent, but I think that Australia will be the next big thing in world politics. At the moment, their population is too small to be considerable… but if they can get more people to show up, then they will become progressively more powerful:

• They value economic and personal freedom at least as much as we do.
• They still have a very friendly immigration policy, and it actually favors skilled migrants (from chemists to carpenters); as US immigration becomes more difficult, I think that more and more people will choose Australia as their destination. At the moment, 25% of people in Australia were born overseas.
• They are still relatively neutral with respect to military policy, partly thanks to their isolation. They probably won’t be able to get any real international power until their population is big enough to support a large military (that day is still at least 50-60 years away), but I think they’ll be able to do it.
• They have almost as much land lying around as the US. Although much of the land is unusable, they also have a much longer coastline than the US, even if you include Alaska/Hawaii… and most of it is usable and on the same landmass, unlike the other countries on the list that I linked.

They also have universal healthcare and a much more flexible society as a whole. I think Australia will be much more attractive for immigrants in the near future. Consider the following facts (and keep in mind that Australia has 1/15 the overall population of the US):

• Australia has 6 of the world’s top 50 universities. These universities are also much cheaper than their American counterparts, and they are attracting increasing numbers of qualified international students.
• Australia ranks #3, after Iceland and Norway, on the Human Development Index, which measures the world’s best overall places to live (the US is #12).
• Australia’s 5 major cities are all in the top 32 of Mercer’s list of the world’s best cities (and they all have a relatively low cost of living). The US only has two cities in that range (Honolulu at 27, San Francisco at 29), both of which are very expensive to live in.
• Australia ranks #4 on the Index of Economic Freedom (which measures economic opportunity in a country; this is the US’s strongest point), right behind Hong Kong, Singapore, and Ireland. The US is close behind at #5.
• Australia ranks #8 on the Democracy Index, which measures a country’s level of civil liberties; the US is #17.
• Australia ranks #28 on the Press Freedom Index, while the US is #48.

And I’m not taking these rankings out of context. Most quality-of-life studies put Australia near the top of the world. The only thing they need to do now is to have a big enough population so that they can amplify these effects. If their immigration policies take care of this issue, then they will be able to take unsuccessful Indians/Chinese and turn them into successful immigrants. If all goes well, we will end up with two world powers in science and economy… and in the process, they will make the world a much better place overall.

And that’s why I’m probably moving to Australia later this year.

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