Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 6:30AM | in Governance Making the world one country
Essequibo, GuyanaThings are getting ugly in the UK right now. Job losses are having the predictable effect of fueling anti-immigrant sentiment:
The government should tighten rules on admitting highly skilled economic migrants from outside the European Union so they do not take jobs that could go instead to British graduates, immigration minister Phil Woolas said.
Woolas's proposal comes as the use of European workers at a refinery has prompted strikes at energy plants across the country by Britons fearing job losses. Trade unions asked the government on Tuesday to tighten the law on the use of foreign workers. (Reuters)
As Aristotle observed -- and many others since -- democracy can produce unenlightened policies. People protest vociferously against tangible, short-term job losses, even when it is in the collective long-term interest to keep borders porous.
Governments of advanced economies realized long ago that taking monetary policy away from politicians is good for everyone -- there's often political pressure to print money when it's in everyone's long-term interest to control inflation -- and independent central banks were created. I wonder if the same should be done with immigration policy. Imagine if our governments created independent immigration commissions that regulated migrant flows, taking this policy area away from short-sighted nationalists and opportunistic politicians.
After all, the world is one country and mankind its citizens.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009 at 6:30AM | in Governance 
Reader Comments (4)
A brilliant idea, I think. But what about the predictable cry of 'this is the thin end of the wedge'? When do we delegate energy policy to an independent commission? What about security and defence? And how are these commissioners appointed? How is their independence guaranteed?
Democracy can produce unenlightened policies. What compatibility is there between democracy as practised and a genuine system of consultation? How would genuine consultation - Baha'i consultation - be structured to enfranchise populations of millions?
S.
Thanks, Saleem.
What I'm suggesting is that migration may be an area of technical policy (unlike the others you identified) that often gets confused as social policy. It's discussed as a social/political issue when in fact it's an economic one at heart. This confusion leads to political manipulation that can disadvantage everyone in the long term.
To be honest, I don't think Baha'i consultation can be structured to enfranchise populations of millions. Democracy requires elections to delegate authority, and I can't imagine that dramatically changing unless the scale of humanity drops perilously.
Do you have ideas?
I can understand the anxieties of the workers at the oil refinery in Lincolnshire, but they very probably lack the wider conceptual and moral framework that Baha'is claim that would make sense of what is happening.
One blog I read suggested that the media have misreported the motives behind the wildcat strikes, representing them as racits. Fuller reporting, the blog suggested, would have revealed that the real motive is concern about the undercutting of wages by foreign workers, who, because of the UK government's regulations, can be employed here at lower rates that UK citizens.
Mind you, there's an element of doublethink in all of this. Many British people benefit from being able to move freely to work in other EU states. So the argument must sure cut both ways.
As to Baha'i consultations and elections. Yes, authority must be delegated by election, but those elected really need to familarize themselves with the conditions and views of the people. Isn't the Nineteen Day Feast a proto-neighbourhood level meeting at which there can be an exchange of views and proposals between a population and its local government?
Thanks for your thoughts, Barney.
I wasn't suggesting that there are racial motivations behind the strikes (although I'm sure they're not far beneath the surface). Rather, when people start losing their jobs they immediately feel a sense of entitlement that they 'deserve' them more than the 'foreigner'. I'm posing the question of why? In the US, a member of governmenet wrote Bill Gates asking that the 5000 layoffs announced by Microsoft only be applied to foreign workers. I think this kind of flippant nationalism, expressed at the highest levels of government, is morally abhorrent and short-sighted from an economics standpoint.
I don't know anything about regulations keeping foreign workers to lower wages, but that would surprise me.
Re: consultation. You're absolutely right about the use of consultation to enforce accountability. But consultation to 'enfranchise' people, as Saleem suggested, is probably impractical. Better, I think, to simply locate decision-making at the lowest possible level so those who are affected by the outcomes can participate in the process.