Liberal values: empirical evidence

Ordinarily, I'm in favour of philosophical reflection. Without it, ideas such as fairness, freeddom and democracy risk becoming empty politicians' cliches. However, I fear the philosophical debate between Norm and Paul about value pluralism is not going to be fruitful.

Paul says:

There are other worldviews, which do not depend on the primacy of the individual, which are potentially as valid.

Norm replies:

If other views not depending on the primacy of the individual may be as valid as liberal values and a belief in human rights, then a community which every now and then drops some of its members into a large meat grinder is fine.

This doesn't get us far. Can I try a different line? Rather than use philosophy, why not appeal to facts about people's preferences instead? If liberal values are better than other ones, we'd expect to see people migrate to countries with such values. If they are not, we'd expect no such pattern.

The World Bank has data on this. They show that, with one exception which we'll come to, people tend to migrate from states with poor human rights records to states with better ones. In 2010 there were 993,729 Cubans living in the US, but only 522 Americans living in Cuba. There were 66,612 Iraqis living in the UK, but only 947 Brits living in Iraq. And so on.

Generally speaking, countries with poor human rights records have more emigrants than immigrants. For Cuba, the ratio is 79.9 to one. For China, 12.2 to one, for North Korea 8.1 to one, for Iraq 18.6 to one. Countries with liberal values, however, have more immigrants than emigrants. For the US, the ratio is 17.7 to one, for Sweden 4.1 to one, for Australia 12.5, for France 3.8.And so on.

These ratios understate people's preferences for liberal values, for three reasons. One is the home bias; people prefer to stay at home, and only up sticks if things are much better elsewhere. Another is that liberal nations give people opportunities to emigrate, partly because they educate them better, thus making them attractive to potential hosts; partly because in Europe liberal nations are close to each other, thus facilitating migration; and partly because liberal nations permit migration in a way that, say, North Korea does not. And thirdly, of course, there are immigration controls in most western countries. If all nations were to open their borders, would Cubans migrate to the US, or Americans to Cuba?

You might object here that people don't migrate towards countries with liberal values but towards rich ones. Evidence for this is that the main exception to my pattern is that oil-rich Arab nations have high net immigration.

But I'm not sure how much weight this objection has. It is surely no accident that rich countries tend overwhelmingly to have either liberal values or oil wealth - because these are pretty much the only ways of becoming rich*.

With the exception of economic migration to oil-rich states, then, the figures show a clear fact. People of all cultures seem to prefer to live under liberal values than not.

Of course, this preference might be wrong. Maybe people are deluded in preferring liberal values. Maybe they regret migrating. Unless you can produce strong evidence for this, however, there is a more natural inference. It is that whilst we might not be able to prove philosophically that liberal values are superior, there seems to be intercultural subjective agreement that they are.

* China is NOT an exception to this. Its GDP per head is only around $8400, a quarter of the UK's.

Comments

[BenSix]

"It is that whilst we might not be able to prove philosophically that liberal values are superior, there seems to be intercultural subjective agreement that they are."

I think this overstates how rational people are in making their decisions. People move to countries that have profited from liberalism but that does not mean that they appreciate that their better features are consequences of liberalism. See, for example, Islamists who enjoy the benefits of free expression in holding forth on how apostates and blasphemers should be executed.

[Anonymous]

Few people want to move to a country where it is unpleasant to live.

So as Authoritarianism and Austerity increasingly take hold in the UK, we should see migration to the UK increasingly fall.

Gives a new meaning to Moody's recent downgrade to AA status doesn't it?

[BenSix]

"...because these are pretty much the only ways of becoming rich..."

Apologies for the multiple comments - which always feels like the online equivalent of the person who will say something, wait for you to begin responding and then launch into another thought - but Singapore is surely evidence that market-based countries can grow rich while remaining authoritarian.

[oakchair]

It is usually people with conservative/individual based ideologies who oppose environmental regulations and other measures to reduce climate change/pollution. Those people are effectively throwing millions into "meat grinders" therefor I find Norms response highly ironic.

[FromArseToElbow]

Human rights must have taken a nosedive in Ireland in the last few years.

[ricketson]

You say "liberalism leads to wealth", but the opposite is also true -- wealth leads to liberalism. For instance, the English colonies in North America were wealthy even before the revolution. The USA prospered despite slavery and Jim Crow, and only abolished those institutions as it got more wealthy. Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan all became pretty wealthy under authoritarian regimes.

Another issue is that having stable, liberal institutions is not necessarily the same as liberal values of the population. For instance, I doubt that many people migrated to Nazi-occupied France.

Similarly, each of these countries has a history. The values of your countrymen may not be as relevant as the history of being invaded and pillaged by outsiders --- which is another big difference between the countries that people migrate between.

[Chris]

Liberalism is a reactionary 19th century ideology. We need socialist values. The only reason people don't migrate to countries with those values is that there aren't any yet.

[Metatone]

Part of the problem in the Paul/Norm discussion is that Norm immediately leaps to (or gropes for) an extreme example and/or universal moral principle.

Reality is that our societies of laws often value the collective over the individual, which suggests it's all about a balance - and that you could have other equally valid balance points, none of which are illuminated by Norm's leap to an unbalanced example.

[Churm Rincewind]

"...people don't migrate towards countries with liberal values but towards rich ones..."

Yes, that's what the evidence tells us.

"...the figures show a clear fact. People of all cultures seem to prefer to live under liberal values than not.."

No, the evidence tells us that people of all cultures seem to prefer to live in rich countries - no more and no less.

[john b]

The popularity of the US and Singapore as destinations for European migrants, despite the fact that both countries are far less liberal than any western European nation, has to sit alongside the Gulf countries as evidence supporting the "rich" over "liberal" hypothesis.

[Keith]

Our fondness for supporting Religious Dictatorships like Saudi Arabia might cast doubt on our Liberal values as well. Arms dealer in chief Cameron finds no problem selling weapons to loonies if the customer can pay lots.

Many of the people who would like to come to the UK or stay as they are persecuted in their native country are not let in or expelled. Also undermining our Liberal cred.

It is not possible to disentangle the reasons for migration; one is the globalisation of the economy. Foreign travel and the Internet increase the likelihood of migration and settlement and people marrying citizens of other countries. It is the sun that attracts Brits to Spain not the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and its admirable provisions for the Parliamentary system and Devolution of state power.

Nigel Farage has a German wife. How he got them to let him enter Germany I do not know. He sounds like the sort of character to be kept out of the Heimat. But thats modern society for you. Every one having sex and getting married with Krouts. But don't tell the UKIP voters they may start to get suspicious about Farage.