Supply and demand is precisely the correct frame. We can't do anything about supply in the short term. So we need to concentrate on demand. What drives demand? Perception that they'll have a better life in Europe. What drives that? It isn't only that the quality of life is higher, but also that they know they'll be given access to social services, welfare, free housing, and all the rest. Not only that, but they know that any friction with the natives can be solved via incantation of the magic formula, "you're racist".
So, the answer is quite simple, really. Sink the boats with all aboard when they're found in the open seas. Those who get through are immediately deported. Those who have gotten through are also deported. Treat them badly. No free housing. No welfare. No support of any kind. Nothing but intolerance and abuse. Make sure they understand that they will not be welcome, that to the contrary, they will be greeted with nothing but hostility.
The problem is ultimately not the migrants, it's the white people who shriek when the r-word is spoken. As long as white people continue to react in this fashion, the problem will continue. China, Japan, and South Korea are also close to impoverished regions with large youth bulges, yet none of them are grappling with a migrant crisis.
Indeed. But sinking the boats will never be done, as it would be seen as 'killing people', as if all the other measures didn't lead to deaths as well, and a lot more misery.
Our politicians' position on the trolley problem is clear: they'll let it run over five people rather than pull a lever and only kill one. And that without even realizing the one is leading the trolley.
Not quite. Their position is: they will let the trolley run over five white people, if it saves even one African life. Or fifty white people for that matter.
In the short run, mercy to the third world will save more lives. It's not even close.
In the long run optimization for efficiency will save more lives. Those with weak genetic potential must die.
This is a difficult problem. If efficiency alone was enough to escape Malthus, Rome or any other empire would have done it. But instead civil wars and slavery consumed them. Efficiency is too personal without a coordinating mechanism.
In NW Europe there was an equilibrium that combined Christianity with emergent physical realities to make productivity itself (rather than looting and domination) the optimal fertility solution for nearly a millennia.
It's difficult to explain how expanding ones zone of empathy to include the other 90% of society via Christianity is different than including a continent of completely alien people. Enfranchising the middle classes of Europe was a dominant strategy for centuries, it just couldn't be expanded to the entire world.
Under our current Prime Minister, who's always had a far-right label attached despite being pretty milktoast on most issues, we've had more illegal migrants coming to our contry than under previous, supposedly more left-leaning governments.
Giorgia Meloni's rightism is all talk, and indeed part of her talk is about attacking individual migrants traffickers. Another part, which is the saddest, is about legalizing a huge chunk of the migrants we can't avoid having, so she can show figures to her electorate pretending to have solved the problem.
I'm curious Andrea; were there any red flags prior to the election that Meloni was not at all what she appeared to be? I'm wondering if her flip really was as dramatic as it seems across the ocean, or if it's just that the American right projected what they hoped would be true here at home, to a foreign election without doing any real research.
Did Italians, in highly political circles already suspect this was coming or did it shock them too?
Normally, when something like this happens in the US the red flags are there beforehand.
Some red flags that our anti-migration right as a whole was incompetent at best were raised in 2018, when Meloni's rival and ally Matteo Salvini was Vice Premier and Minister of Internal Affairs under a previous government.
His reform abolished a kind of special protection that migrants could request when they didn't satisfy the requirements for political asylum and it acted retroactively despite claims to the contrary, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people already in the country to be cut out from the legal possibility they were hoping for in order to establish themselves. Not wrong in principle: you're supposed to ask permission for entry before entering, not after you made your way through anyway; but it's not like all those people were expelled after the reform, nor it was implemented any stricter border control for future arrivals.
As for Meloni herself, her own declaration during the election campaign that she would follow the line dictated by the EU on the military support of Ukraine, no questions asked, made the writing on the wall that her sovereignist talk was just a façade clear to some and not to others. But even within the first group, which I was a part of, such an egregious mishandling of the migrant crisis caught many by surprise. Not that we were expecting much to be done, by any mean.
The most charitable interpretation of her conduct is that she's bound to restrain herself, as in terms of absolute numbers she only has about 20% of the total electorate on her side and if she acted accordingly to what she promised it would lead to social chaos, given that leftists nowadays have much more leeway for violent manifestations than rightists. I don't know if I agree with this interpretation, but it has a point.
In general, we are a population of extremely disaffected voters. Affluence on the last election was only 64%, with many voting for Meloni just to stick it to those in charge before her for how they handled Covid. The general consensus between the left and the right is that it doesn't really matter, since all the relevant decisions are taken by the EU for us; only difference being that the left is happy with the arrangement and the right is not, but still wouldn't risk pissing the EU off too much.
Interesting piece this...particularly emphasising the demand and supply dimension and the comparison with 'The War on Drugs'. As a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist I would say that you could leave out the first 5 words of your final sentence: "Until our politicians understand this, there’s no hope of solving the crisis."
I have every sympathy with the situation faced by Greece, Italy and Spain but with regards to Britain, I take the opportunity to get something off my chest about its useless media coverage.....There is a BIG difference: the people smugglers in the Mediterranean are bringing people direct from dire N African states whereas in the English Channel they are bringing them from a first world country - France. This huge distinction never gets pointed out in the pusillanimous UK MSM coverage.
Well spoken. Just the end is as naive: Rest assured, our politicians (all of them) are smart enough to know and understand this - and did years ago. They just hope for this fairy tale of "evil smugglers" to work for a considerable part of the population, at least for a while. It does work for my mom (80+). - Oh, and I do not see even a hint of a "solution" in the piece. So, what epiphany should miraculously come to our poor politicians when they finally smarten up to the level of our dear author? - Thanks for the population-graphic Europe-Africa - usu. one only sees those country-wise.
At this point the far-right might want to consider a general policy of promised legal retaliation in the event it takes power against all senior figures who were on our side, but not really. The cheapening of valuable causes by cowardly rhetoric ('it's not the migrants, it's smugglers!') , sends un unmistakable signal that the west has already fallen and is worse for morale than anything the left says or does.
'Friends' like this are worse than enemies. We should just start assuming bad faith, and make it clear that no distinction will be made between this kind of rhetoric and total opposition. In fact it's worse, for the same reason that in warfare enemy soldiers get POW camps, while traitors get shot.
Let's face it, the solution to this looks a lot like colonialism. Take over and protect a benighted and lawless part of Africa, protect it, and export these migrants back to it. It might sound "far right" but if nothing is done about the current situation, far right will soon be the new centre left.
This is basically it. Of course then the press will then be wall to wall coverage of how terrible life is in that colony, compared to back home. You'd think this could never work, but from what I can tell even a high percentage of White South Africans are now convinced that the incompetence of Black south Africans resulted from the legacy of apartheid. These people literally live in Africa, and somehow they can't make the connection between 'blacks in every other African state are also incompetent' to 'maybe it's a black problem not a white one'.
The War on Drugs analogy is apt. It also sounds like Europe’s southern border is facing the same scenario as the US southern border. Both require a mix of border and workplace enforcement, immigration reform, and something to address demand-side factors. I’m not optimistic about the ability of Western governments to strike an effective and politically feasible policy mix.
A whole lot of can-kicking by the Centre-Right/Left across Europe on this issue, which is in-line with what their Boomer voters want. It's no surprise then that most populist right parties in Sweden, France and (East) Germany are heavily skewed towards younger demographics of support.
One can only hope that in 10-15 years the damage is still reversible. I'm inclined to think it will be, but how lamentable is it that we have to wait for things to get far worse before they can even get slightly better.
Yes, these people are rational actors. Which, if you want to reverse the process, make solutions straightforward: by removing their right to entitlements (asylum, work, social support, eventual citizenship).
The UN is behind these migration efforts worldwide. It's happening because most of the nations these immigrants are going to already agreed to take them in. They just lie about it to keep their citizens in the dark.
The boats need to be shot down. Full stop. Otherwise we will be shackled by our own morality and inundated by those who lack our intelligence and will exploit our kindness. Raspail vindicated
There is logic to hitting supply, it increases costs and this should reduce quantity supplied. Probably it doesn't increase quantity supplied very much because firstly it isn't increasing costs very much, and secondly the demand is likely quite price inelastic.
For the UK specific example the real issue seems to be why the UK is so much more attractive than France for so many. Some of this is likely down to specific agglomeration effects of particular groups but part of it must be that so many of the asylum requests are granted.
A nitpick on the final point, to quote So well: there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
Supply and demand is precisely the correct frame. We can't do anything about supply in the short term. So we need to concentrate on demand. What drives demand? Perception that they'll have a better life in Europe. What drives that? It isn't only that the quality of life is higher, but also that they know they'll be given access to social services, welfare, free housing, and all the rest. Not only that, but they know that any friction with the natives can be solved via incantation of the magic formula, "you're racist".
So, the answer is quite simple, really. Sink the boats with all aboard when they're found in the open seas. Those who get through are immediately deported. Those who have gotten through are also deported. Treat them badly. No free housing. No welfare. No support of any kind. Nothing but intolerance and abuse. Make sure they understand that they will not be welcome, that to the contrary, they will be greeted with nothing but hostility.
The problem is ultimately not the migrants, it's the white people who shriek when the r-word is spoken. As long as white people continue to react in this fashion, the problem will continue. China, Japan, and South Korea are also close to impoverished regions with large youth bulges, yet none of them are grappling with a migrant crisis.
Indeed. But sinking the boats will never be done, as it would be seen as 'killing people', as if all the other measures didn't lead to deaths as well, and a lot more misery.
Our politicians' position on the trolley problem is clear: they'll let it run over five people rather than pull a lever and only kill one. And that without even realizing the one is leading the trolley.
Not quite. Their position is: they will let the trolley run over five white people, if it saves even one African life. Or fifty white people for that matter.
In the short run, mercy to the third world will save more lives. It's not even close.
In the long run optimization for efficiency will save more lives. Those with weak genetic potential must die.
This is a difficult problem. If efficiency alone was enough to escape Malthus, Rome or any other empire would have done it. But instead civil wars and slavery consumed them. Efficiency is too personal without a coordinating mechanism.
In NW Europe there was an equilibrium that combined Christianity with emergent physical realities to make productivity itself (rather than looting and domination) the optimal fertility solution for nearly a millennia.
It's difficult to explain how expanding ones zone of empathy to include the other 90% of society via Christianity is different than including a continent of completely alien people. Enfranchising the middle classes of Europe was a dominant strategy for centuries, it just couldn't be expanded to the entire world.
Reading from Italy, and this really resonates.
Under our current Prime Minister, who's always had a far-right label attached despite being pretty milktoast on most issues, we've had more illegal migrants coming to our contry than under previous, supposedly more left-leaning governments.
Giorgia Meloni's rightism is all talk, and indeed part of her talk is about attacking individual migrants traffickers. Another part, which is the saddest, is about legalizing a huge chunk of the migrants we can't avoid having, so she can show figures to her electorate pretending to have solved the problem.
Basically both the mechanisms you have described.
I'm curious Andrea; were there any red flags prior to the election that Meloni was not at all what she appeared to be? I'm wondering if her flip really was as dramatic as it seems across the ocean, or if it's just that the American right projected what they hoped would be true here at home, to a foreign election without doing any real research.
Did Italians, in highly political circles already suspect this was coming or did it shock them too?
Normally, when something like this happens in the US the red flags are there beforehand.
Some red flags that our anti-migration right as a whole was incompetent at best were raised in 2018, when Meloni's rival and ally Matteo Salvini was Vice Premier and Minister of Internal Affairs under a previous government.
His reform abolished a kind of special protection that migrants could request when they didn't satisfy the requirements for political asylum and it acted retroactively despite claims to the contrary, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people already in the country to be cut out from the legal possibility they were hoping for in order to establish themselves. Not wrong in principle: you're supposed to ask permission for entry before entering, not after you made your way through anyway; but it's not like all those people were expelled after the reform, nor it was implemented any stricter border control for future arrivals.
As for Meloni herself, her own declaration during the election campaign that she would follow the line dictated by the EU on the military support of Ukraine, no questions asked, made the writing on the wall that her sovereignist talk was just a façade clear to some and not to others. But even within the first group, which I was a part of, such an egregious mishandling of the migrant crisis caught many by surprise. Not that we were expecting much to be done, by any mean.
The most charitable interpretation of her conduct is that she's bound to restrain herself, as in terms of absolute numbers she only has about 20% of the total electorate on her side and if she acted accordingly to what she promised it would lead to social chaos, given that leftists nowadays have much more leeway for violent manifestations than rightists. I don't know if I agree with this interpretation, but it has a point.
In general, we are a population of extremely disaffected voters. Affluence on the last election was only 64%, with many voting for Meloni just to stick it to those in charge before her for how they handled Covid. The general consensus between the left and the right is that it doesn't really matter, since all the relevant decisions are taken by the EU for us; only difference being that the left is happy with the arrangement and the right is not, but still wouldn't risk pissing the EU off too much.
Interesting piece this...particularly emphasising the demand and supply dimension and the comparison with 'The War on Drugs'. As a dyed-in-the-wool pessimist I would say that you could leave out the first 5 words of your final sentence: "Until our politicians understand this, there’s no hope of solving the crisis."
I have every sympathy with the situation faced by Greece, Italy and Spain but with regards to Britain, I take the opportunity to get something off my chest about its useless media coverage.....There is a BIG difference: the people smugglers in the Mediterranean are bringing people direct from dire N African states whereas in the English Channel they are bringing them from a first world country - France. This huge distinction never gets pointed out in the pusillanimous UK MSM coverage.
Well spoken. Just the end is as naive: Rest assured, our politicians (all of them) are smart enough to know and understand this - and did years ago. They just hope for this fairy tale of "evil smugglers" to work for a considerable part of the population, at least for a while. It does work for my mom (80+). - Oh, and I do not see even a hint of a "solution" in the piece. So, what epiphany should miraculously come to our poor politicians when they finally smarten up to the level of our dear author? - Thanks for the population-graphic Europe-Africa - usu. one only sees those country-wise.
At this point the far-right might want to consider a general policy of promised legal retaliation in the event it takes power against all senior figures who were on our side, but not really. The cheapening of valuable causes by cowardly rhetoric ('it's not the migrants, it's smugglers!') , sends un unmistakable signal that the west has already fallen and is worse for morale than anything the left says or does.
'Friends' like this are worse than enemies. We should just start assuming bad faith, and make it clear that no distinction will be made between this kind of rhetoric and total opposition. In fact it's worse, for the same reason that in warfare enemy soldiers get POW camps, while traitors get shot.
"The Camp of the Saints" Jean Raspail 1973 (that's 50 years ago for those arithmetically challenged).
Let's face it, the solution to this looks a lot like colonialism. Take over and protect a benighted and lawless part of Africa, protect it, and export these migrants back to it. It might sound "far right" but if nothing is done about the current situation, far right will soon be the new centre left.
This is basically it. Of course then the press will then be wall to wall coverage of how terrible life is in that colony, compared to back home. You'd think this could never work, but from what I can tell even a high percentage of White South Africans are now convinced that the incompetence of Black south Africans resulted from the legacy of apartheid. These people literally live in Africa, and somehow they can't make the connection between 'blacks in every other African state are also incompetent' to 'maybe it's a black problem not a white one'.
The War on Drugs analogy is apt. It also sounds like Europe’s southern border is facing the same scenario as the US southern border. Both require a mix of border and workplace enforcement, immigration reform, and something to address demand-side factors. I’m not optimistic about the ability of Western governments to strike an effective and politically feasible policy mix.
A woman prime minister and an influx of illegal immigrants. I wonder if there's a correlation there?
A whole lot of can-kicking by the Centre-Right/Left across Europe on this issue, which is in-line with what their Boomer voters want. It's no surprise then that most populist right parties in Sweden, France and (East) Germany are heavily skewed towards younger demographics of support.
One can only hope that in 10-15 years the damage is still reversible. I'm inclined to think it will be, but how lamentable is it that we have to wait for things to get far worse before they can even get slightly better.
Yes, these people are rational actors. Which, if you want to reverse the process, make solutions straightforward: by removing their right to entitlements (asylum, work, social support, eventual citizenship).
INCREASE THE BIRTHRATE IN EUROPE .
PERIOD
Why don't they go to Japan ?
The UN is behind these migration efforts worldwide. It's happening because most of the nations these immigrants are going to already agreed to take them in. They just lie about it to keep their citizens in the dark.
https://ogre.substack.com/p/the-great-distraction-or-reset-originally
The boats need to be shot down. Full stop. Otherwise we will be shackled by our own morality and inundated by those who lack our intelligence and will exploit our kindness. Raspail vindicated
There is logic to hitting supply, it increases costs and this should reduce quantity supplied. Probably it doesn't increase quantity supplied very much because firstly it isn't increasing costs very much, and secondly the demand is likely quite price inelastic.
For the UK specific example the real issue seems to be why the UK is so much more attractive than France for so many. Some of this is likely down to specific agglomeration effects of particular groups but part of it must be that so many of the asylum requests are granted.
A nitpick on the final point, to quote So well: there are no solutions, only trade-offs.