Multiculturalism: A Danger

As our nation endures yet another spell of emotional turmoil regarding immigration the role of immigrants and others who are “different” from what we think of as mainstream is also in question. The two issues are closely linked and the one involving “different” calls into play the concept of “multiculturalism”, a consideration of which follows

We are not born with either a culture or language, but the capacity to develop both. Each human infant enters life with a set of basic needs. These include nutrition, affection, health, a place in some sort of social structure, a sense of identify and place, and an accepted set of “rules of the game”, that is, how is one expected to behave to be accepted in the group. None of these needs is culture specific, but generic to the human condition.

The embryo is indifferent as to which language group or culture it is born into.
After birth, however, the process of acculturation begins and the individual acquires an identity, a language system and knowledge of a specific set of “rules of the game”. Having gone through this process, most individuals develop a vested interest in defending the acquired status and its related sense of identity. A major outward manifestation of acculturation is language, basically a system of applying labels to defined elements of experience, of things, of forces and concepts. Each language tends to apply the labels differently and transference with precision from one set of views of the universe to another is difficult.

Immigration challenges the acculturation process because in the changed environment the new generation starts to play by a different set of rules and a different language, a process many parents find threatening of their own sense of identity and orderly behavior. The shift from the previous culture to the new can be messy and engender resistance.

A great advantage for modern political states in seeking their place in the world is the capacity to blend disparate cultural groups into a reasonably congenial whole. America has been remarkably successful in this process: the melting pot works, but at various times in history there have been doubts. Nineteenth century German and Irish immigration raised serious concerns as did the influx in later decades of immigrants from Italy and Eastern Europe. Despite these concerns the Republic survived! It should be admitted, however, that the process in this century was aided by low immigration levels from 1922 until after World War II owing to restrictive immigration laws and the pernicious effects of the Great Depression.

Now confronting substantial inflows of immigrants these concerns are again rampant. Focus has been on Hispanic immigrants but the flow is far more widespread, including African, South Asian, Middle Eastern, Chinese and Vietnamese. The press reports twelve million people living in America without proper documentation. But of a population of 300 million, this is only 4 percent. Not an insurmountable number. But, as in earlier times, fear has arisen that the country’s ability to assimilate is inadequate to cope with the sheer number of newly arriving immigrants.

Despite its current concerns, America has been far more adept at assimilation than European or Asian societies. The rule of thumb seems to be that three generations converts a foreign immigrant into a typical American. In today’s world, however, there are many political entities that are not truly “nation states”. It would appear imperative for a modern, technically and economically advanced state or those that aspire to this status, to have the benefit of a reasonably unified civil society filling its politically defined boundaries. Failure to achieve this is acutely apparent in countries like Iraq and Afghanistan, not to speak of the former Kingdom of the South Slavs. Another relevant example is whether the thousands of Kurds, Azeris, Arabs and Baluchis who find themselves in Iran feel at one with Iranian culture and the Farsi language.

Returning to the United States, recognition of differences in cultural backgrounds enriches our society. One would not want to see differing traditional foods, holiday celebrations and taste in music and literature disappear. Nor do we want to see freedom of religion weakened. But to do well within our society, all American residents need to master English, accept the norms of civil behavior and play pretty much by the same, established set of rules. A multiculturalism resulting in autonomous enclaves of people marching to the beat of a different drummer is not helpful, either to the country or to the members of the enclave.

A prime example is Santa Ana, county seat of Orange County, California, in which Hispanics (mostly Mexican) now are 79% of the city’s population. Daily life can and is carried out for most residents within the “Chicano” culture and entirely in the Spanish language. There is a catch, however, in that lack of English language capacity imposes an economic ceiling, confining those without English to low skilled and low paying jobs. To break out of this trap and to enter into the broader America of higher skilled and professional employment one needs to communicate in the national language, English. Santa Ana has begun a program to teach English to help its interested Spanish speaking residents surpass this economic barrier.

There are two issues at play, then. One is whether the current rate of immigration, both legal and illegal, is beyond what the country can reasonably assimilate and the other is a tendency by some to reject acculturation into the whole in favor of preserving separate cultural entities, whether of behavior, language or acceptance of U.S. “rules of the game”.

The danger that I see for the first issue is not how we assimilate the twelve million already here, I think we can handle that in time, especially since many of these people have been here for some years and have already begun the process, but what do we do with the next twelve million? At some point the inflow has to be controlled!

As to the cultural enclaves I think as a nation we need to revisit and probably eliminate bi-lingual education, ballots in foreign languages and other elements catering to those outside the mainstream. The major drive behind much of this is the large Hispanic element among recent immigrants, but where is the justice in catering to Spanish speakers and ignoring speakers of Hindi, Tamil, Tagalog, Vietnamese, Hmong, Arabic, Portuguese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Korean and a variety of African languages? The solution is not a tower of Babel, but a push to join the mainstream. It’s interesting to note that bi-lingual education is largely limited to Hispanics, but children of Japanese and Chinese background, and other groups as well, send their children outside of regular school hours to special Chinese or Japanese language schools, without taxpayer funding. It doesn’t seem a fair system.

The US market will supply the demand for foreign language media or ethnic foods and it will cater to consumer cultural differences as long as there is money to be made. That’s what free markets do. But I see no national interest served by using public funds to entrench cultural disparity. Both the needs of our individual residents and the country are best served by programs than enhance assimilation through improved education, health and English language ability. Since we can’t or shouldn’t choose individual groups over others, the best government approach is one of neutrality. Provide the social and education services needed by all without catering to the perceived special needs of individual groups.

Economics 101

There are some basic economic principles taught in elementary economics, among them the concept that at an equilibrium price supply and demand will be equal. In this simple model if supply contracts while demand remains the same, the price will rise until there is a new equilibrium. In real life it doesn't always work that way as changes in either supply or demand don't result in equivalent price changes. The economic principle is of price elasticity. If consumers continue to buy the same amount of a commodity at a higher price, the price is said to be inelastic. A case in point is gasoline: a price increase this year in the range of 35% appears to have reduced demand by around 3.5%, a reduction but clearly an example of price inelasticity.

Politicians seem not ever to have taken Economics 101. The Maryland legislature earlier this year faced a substantial budget deficit. So one of the measures taken to address the issue was to raise the tax on a pack of cigarettes to $2.00. Now they discover that cigarette sales in the State have fallen 25% compared to last year and that their assumption of physical sales volume remaining the same despite the sharp increase in price was, to put it mildly, flawed. If one assumed that the sales decline meant a reduction in smoking you could at least assign a health benefit to the measure. What is more likely, however, is that smokers are buying their cigarettes out of state: the neighboring Commonwealth of Virginia imposes only a 30 cent tax per pack. So now the Maryland politicians are calling for policing the border to make sure that no one has bought more than 3 packs out of state. In New York City where very high cigarette taxes were also imposed, it is estimated that 75% of the cigarettes consumed come from outside the city. High cigarette taxes in some jurisdictions within a common market, e.g. the United States, in which other members impose much lower taxes is a blatant invitation to smuggling and political jawboning won't stop the illicit flow of goods.

A similar disregard of the economic laws produced the "gray market" many of us have taken advantage of. Manufacturers, especially of pharmaceuticals and goods for personal consumption devised a strategy of differential pricing. One, high, price for the US market and other, usually lower prices, for foreign markets, like Europe. But the entrepreneurial spirit lives and selected merchants discovered the price differential for many items was large enough to allow purchase in Europe followed by shipment to and resale in the US at prices undercutting the manufacturer's list prices but still profitable. The manufacturers screamed and demanded the US government deny imports from "unauthorized" dealers. Now with online purchasing prevalent it's extremely hard to maintain differential pricing.

People in general are not "economic men" making their decisions based on carefully calculated economic principles, but governments, corporations and people discover eventually that you can ignore economics but only to a degree and for a limited time before the consequences catch up. Today there is an electric power shortage in China: electric prices are kept below economic rates by the government to keep costs low for consumers, but coal prices go up and electric power companies even in China are reluctant to buy more coal just to lose money selling electricity. Future economic growth is threatened. What's a government to do? Let electricity prices rise? Subsidize the power companies? How does misallocation of resources encourage investment in power generation?

And so it goes - populism versus the insights of all those dead economists.

CNG

Now that I've proposed that the country switch fuel for cars and trucks from gasoline to natural gas, I see others furthering this concept. The Washington Post on August 5 carried a full page ad for Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) sponsored by two trade associations. The pitch is the same: CNG costs only half as much as gasoline in gallon equivalents and that the US has large supplies of domestically produced gas. Neither presidential candidate has mentioned this issue and neither has produced any really useful ideas on energy. Pelois-Reid are still battling against lifting the ban on off-shore drilling despited majority public support for the measure. I suspect Congress favors it as well so to avoid the issue the leadership just avoids any legislation in the field.