Why's social cohesion good?

What's so good about social cohesion? I ask because I'm pretty clear that there's case for free migration in both freedom and efficiency (in the Kaldor-Hicks sense). One argument against it is that it diminishes social cohesion.
But should we worry about this? In one sense, no. Cohesion is inconsistent with at least three values:
1. Liberty. It's none of my business what tastes my neighbours have in music, food, language or religion. All I can reasonably expect is that they leave me to live in peace, quiet and freedom.
2. Meritocracy. In a meritocratic society, both rich and poor will comprise various races and ethnicities, as long as talent is roughly equally distributed among ethnic groups. This means both rich and poor areas will be ethnically diverse - there'll be no social cohesion.
3. Global justice. This says that all humans have equal rights. So anyone has a right to live next to me (if they can afford it). This too rules out social cohesion.
Points 1 and 3 have led me to undervalue social cohesion; others would emphasize point 2 more. 
But there is something to be said for it. Social cohesion helps promote both redistribution and trust, and ethnic diversity seems to weaken both. Is it a coincidence that ethnically homogenous societies, such as Nordic countries or Japan have greater equality and lower crime than diverse societies?
However, I suspect that the desire for social cohesion isn't based merely upon such consequentialism - if it were, we'd see more opponents of income redistribution call for free migration.
Instead, most of us have some instinctive desire to live among people like ourselves. We see this in the way the "blogosophere" has become fragmented, with "left" and "right" bloggers rarely linking to each other. We see it in people's tastes in books and newspapers; they buy those that bolster their prejudices. And I suspect that even the sort of people who most celebrate diversity stay in their own social and intellectual ghettos; you rarely see Guardianistas socialize with crusty old army types.
I too have this instinct; replace "southern" with "Leicester" and Johnny Cash sums it up.
Pretty much my only worldly ambition is to move back to Leicestershire. For me, there's something enormously comforting about being call "mi duck", even (especially?) by a man in a turban.
The question is: should such visceral instincts really guide policy-making?

Comments

[Mark Wadsworth]

In answer to your last question, "Yes".

The urge e.g. to have children is just as primitive, and I see no problem with the State subsidising this via child benefit or free education or healthcare (vouchers would be better, btu that's another topic). The desire for protection of physical safety or private property could also be seen as primitive, that doesn't stop law-n-order being A Good Thing.

Social Cohesion is A Good Thing on a very simplistic level, you can't argue that it is good in any higher terms, either you want it or you don't. And I do, by the way.

[Rob Spear]

> Should visceral instincts really guide policy making?

You might as well ask "Why is wealth good?" The desire for more and better stuff is as visceral as social cohesion.

>Pretty much my only worldly ambition is to move back to Leicestershire

What is stopping you? Surely you could find some sort of work there. London is a hellhole, I agree. Personally, I have decided never to work in a large multicultural city again - to hell with the cash, people are happier and more self confident in smaller, more homogenous places.

> the desire for social cohesion isn't based merely upon such consequentialism - if it were, we'd see more opponents of income redistribution call for free migration.

Doesn't necessarily follow. Perhaps those who believe that "social cohesion" is a powerful motivating force, and those who oppose income redistribution, have a better model of human motivations than those who don't.

> I suspect that even the sort of people who most celebrate diversity stay in their own social and intellectual ghettos

Diversity is better served by ghettoisation than by mixing different people up together. Big multicultural cities like London, New York, Los Angeles are, in my experience, more similar to each other than places like Finland and Japan.

[Bob B]

"What's so good about social cohesion?"

A low crime rate?

A notable experience during my first visit to Japan in the early 1980s was the number of Japanese who remarked to me then that Japan had a "homogeneous society". Whatever else, on that score not much has changed since:

"Education minister Bummei Ibuki said Sunday [25 February] that Japan is an 'extremely homogenous' country, a comment that could invite criticism like in past cases of government leaders making similar statements.

"In 1986, then Prime Minister Yasuhiro Nakasone described Japan as a 'homogenous race' nation and faced strong criticism mainly from Ainu indigenous people [and uproar when he made a similar claim during a visit to the US in the late 1980s after he had stepped down as Japan's PM].

"Speaking at a convention of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party's chapter in Nagasaki Prefecture, Ibuki said, 'Japan has been historically governed by the Yamato (Japanese) race. Japan is an extremely homogenous country.'"
http://asia.news.yahoo.com/070225/kyodo/d8ngodro0.html

It was the case that income distribution in Japan was more equally distributed compared with most other affluent economies but that has changed since I was last there by reports. In its 2006 Survey of Japan, the OECD comments:

"the Gini coefficient measure has risen significantly since the mid 1980s from well below to slightly above the OECD average and the rate of relative poverty in Japan is now one of the highest in the OECD area."
http://www.oecd.org/document/38/0,2340,en_2649_201185_37130854_1_1_1_1,00.html

Perhaps the points worth noting here are that Japan evidently retains a low crime rate by comparison with other affluent countries and that - significantly - its spectacular GDP growth rates of the 1950s through to early 1970s were achieved despite a comparatively low inequality of income distribution in those times.

[Chris Williams]

If I was one of the 10% of the Finnish population who speaks Swedish as a first language, I'd begin to get a bit irate every time someone mentions Scandinavian homogenaity.

Chris, come back to Leicester - the sun's shining and the garden of the Old Horse is looking lovely.

[Maynard Handley]

"1. Liberty. It's none of my business what tastes my neighbours have in music, food, language or religion. All I can reasonably expect is that they leave me to live in peace, quiet and freedom."

This is, at the end of the day, why both libertarians and communists (along with assorted others) are such boring people.
The world is not populated by homo rationalis any more than it is populated by homo economicus or homo sharingensis. People are what they are, and a political or social theory based, not on what they are but on what they should be is worthless for any purpose except mental masturbation.

In the real world (and this is a criticism of all of humanity) the vast bulk of people are basically apathetic sheep, who will leave their neighbors alone until some demagogue presses their buttons, at which point their neighbors activities, sexual, religious, child-rearing-wise or other, become the most important thing in the world. This is simply a fact of life, and it is, again, an empirical fact that, although this unpleasantness is going to happen no matter what, its frequency, and the scope for riling up the great unwashed idiot masses, are substantially greater when different cultures live cheek-by-jowel.

It's very sad, and perhaps at the end of the day we are better off accepting two or three generations of unpleasantness till (perhaps) we reach a situation where people are not riled up in this way, but to deny it is ridiculous.
Even in my home town of LA, which certainly feels, on a normal day, like the most cosmpolitan place on earth, I also sense that it wouldn't take much for some nutcase to get 90% of the city up in arms against gays, Russians, Chinese, Mexicans, or whoever said nutcase happens to have in their sights.

[jameshigham]

Would you say social cohesion is a bi-product of a primitive society?

[jameshigham]

By the way, Chris, hope you don't mind me nicking your book cover.

[Bob B]

"People are what they are, and a political or social theory based, not on what they are but on what they should be is worthless for any purpose except mental masturbation."

Please remind me, how did they get from there to Magna Carta in 1215?

[Maynard Handley]

I'm sorrry, Bob, but how is the Magna Carta (or for that matter the US constitution) predicated on some theoretical ideal human that does not match actual humanity?

I am not saying that we should not strive to encourage people to behave better.
I am not saying that we should not try to create better social and political institutions.
I am saying that designing institutions based on a completely invalid model of humanity is as realistic as claiming that Bagdad would greet US "liberators" with flowers, and likely to end up as successful as that adventure.

[Bob B]

Maynard, The Magna Carta sought to impose on the ruling monarch limits on the continued exercise of royal prerogatives. In other words, it was opposed to the status quo and reflected a wish on the part of powerful barons at the time to establish instead a recognition of entitlements to due process in law in place of arbitrary rule by the monarchy. After its fashion it became something of a model inspiration for subsequent bills of rights but extended to citizens in general instead of just the feudal aristocracy.

As for the US Constitution, the drafting was hugely influenced by the analysis and prescriptions in John Locke's Second Treatise on Civil Government and Montesquieu's De l'esprit des lois:
http://www.constitution.org/jl/2ndtreat.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_of_the_Laws

In both cases, surely the intention was to establish different constitutional arrangements to that previously prevailing. Both documents were basically prescriptive and emphatically rejected established arrangements and practices.

[Thom]

While it's trendy to talk about multiculturalism and cohesion/diversity issues, I'd still say that most social problems occur where there are extremes of wealth and poverty in close proximity; this is certainly true of the most crime-ridden areas of the city I live in.

If more time was spent trying to address these imbalances rather than concentrating on relatively unimportant media-led 'diversity' issues, we might see a happier society.

[Chris Williams]

Chris - cancel my comment above (except for the bit about the Swedes). It's pissing it down in Leicester and the place is looking really miserable. Stick with London for the time being, even if everyone thinks you've got a speech impediment.

[Jon Heath]

I don't see why the "desire to live among people like ourselves" cannot be considered consequentialist. It looks like rule consequentialism to me, the rule being justified on the grounds that one is more likely to fall out with someone from a dissimilar background.

[Rob Spear]

Chris Williams: Fair enough about Finland, although it is still far less multicultural than London/NY/LA.

Regarding Leicester, it rains and looks miserable in London too, you know.

[Roger Thornhill]

I would say social problems increase when the State decides to fund/nurture dysfunction.

Cohesion is helped by less than rapid change, shared language or at least shared manners and frameworks. It is not helped if the newcommers are barbarians bearing chips the size of Holyrood.

[Marcin Tustin]

I'm not convinced that such a thing exists, or can be a good. In any case, the desire to have more social cohesion is the opposite of liberalism, which was the 19th century solution to disparate ethnic and faith groups living side-by-side.

Possibly this is an inevitable consequence of the materialisation of law*, society, and the state. If so, this suggests that we're sliding some way down the road that leads to so much strife in society: the idea that the state is a prize to be controlled for the benefit of those who currently control it, without any idea of long-term stewardship and ownership, which at least helped, through competition between princes, to bring about the various advances in European society that made Europe so very advanced, even in a way that China was not (and more curiously Islamic societies were not in latter days).

* http://murthercity.blogspot.com/2007/05/materialisation-of-law.html

[Chris Williams]

C19th liberals quite liked autonomous economic man, but they were also keen on creating him when he didn't exist - check out Gladstone's views on criminals, for example.

[Sunny]

people are happier and more self confident in smaller, more homogenous places.

I don't know... most people I know in London say thats why they like the place - because of its diversity and vibrancy.

[Bob B]

"I don't know... most people I know in London say thats why they like the place - because of its diversity and vibrancy."

Absolutely. Some London features that are perhaps not widely appreciated in other places:

"[According to the 2001 Census] minority ethnic groups were more likely to live in England than in the other countries of the UK. In England, they made up 9 per cent of the total population compared with only 2 per cent in both Scotland and Wales and less than 1 per cent in Northern Ireland. The minority ethnic populations were concentrated in the large urban centres. Nearly half (45 per cent) of the total minority ethnic population lived in the London region, where they comprised 29 per cent of all residents."
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=263

According to the 2001 Census, 24.81% of London residents were born abroad.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/05/born_abroad/around_britain/html/overview.stm

"London is a major net contributor to the Exchequer: Our estimates suggest that London continues to be a substantial net contributor to UK public finances, by between £6 and £18 billion in 2003-04, despite the deterioration in public finances at a national level, with the mid-point of the range of estimates implying a net contribution of £12.1 billion."
Oxford Economic Forecasting: London's Place in the UK Economy 2005-6
http://www.oef.com/On-Line%20Services/ClientsTriallists/LPUK05FULL.pdf

"London has the highest rates of children, working adults and pensioners living in income poverty."
http://www.london.gov.uk/mayor/mayors_report/oct22_2003.jsp#case_2210

And average incomes in inner London are hugely affluent by European standards: "In 2002, GDP per capita, expressed in terms of purchasing power standards, in the EU25's 254 NUTS-2 Regions ranged from 32% of the EU25 average in the region of Lubelskie in Poland, to 315% of the average in Inner London in the United Kingdom."
Eurostat 25 January 2005

[Bob B]

[continued]

But Sarkozy did understand:

"[Sarkozy] holds Britain up as an example to be emulated: 'London has become the seventh largest French city,' he writes. 'It ceaselessly sucks in thousands of young French people - including my own daughter - who find it easier to succeed there than at home. How shameful is it that a young person wanting to get on is obliged to leave?'"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/03/04/do0407.xml

"More than 300,000 French people live in Britain, with South Kensington resembling a mini-Paris."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/02/17/nlondon17.xml

[dave heasman]

I always wonder about this : "Japan evidently retains a low crime rate by comparison with other affluent countries"

As I understand it, organised crime in Japan has been incorporated into the machinery of government - each large party has its own affiliated Yakuza clan; as long as rakeoffs remain at a reasonable level, this is tolerated as the Yakuza look after disorganised crime in their own special way. This also explains why whenever the official side of Japanese law enforcement is noticed in the West it's found extremely wanting.

[Bob B]

Hi Dave - Yes, that's fair comment IMO.

As I recall from a visit to Japan in 1984, news of a scandal broke in the news while I was there about a cozy standing arrangement between the police in Osaka - Japan's second largest city and an important commercial centre - and the local Yakuza. As reported, the police would ring up the Yakusa before raiding illicit gambling and vice clubs to give advance notice of the raid. The head of the national police college, who had previously been police chief in Osaka, "took responsibility" and hanged himself.

For all that, most foreign visitors to Tokyo and other large cities in Japan remark on how safe it feels to walk around late at night even in parts renown for clubs. However, in our own news in recent years we do know of two young British women who were murdered and there is the extraordinary case of Aum Shinri Kyo cult and the sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway in March 1995:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/dc_aumsh.htm

Another significant feature of Japan's politics, which is seldom rates mention in "the west", is that the current ruling Liberal Democratic Party has been in power almost continuously from the late 1950s to the present with only a short break for a few years in the early 1990s. Japan's politics is nevertheless subject to "democratic" pressures because of fierce rivalries between factions within the ruling party. There is a firmly embedded understanding that prime ministers will normally stay in office for only two years before stepping down unless there is a wide consensus between the factions that the incumbent should be permitted a longer stint - Koizumi, the previous prime minister, was permitted to stay on from 2001 through 2006 but then he had a strong popular appeal in the country at large and was good at winning elections:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junichiro_Koizumi

[Chris Bertram]

".... all humans have equal rights. So anyone has a right to live next to me (if they can afford it)."

Was there supposed to be an inference there?

[LAGoff]

Does anyone know the name of the phenomenon in Japanese society where they give a job to everyone?