The politics of abstraction

“Migrants will be turned back to France” cheers the Daily Express – alongside a picture celebrating Emma Raducanu who is herself a migrant, the Canadian-born daughter of Chinese and Romanian parents.

Of course, an Express front page should normally be beneath our notice. This one, however, is significant as I suspect it embodies a widespread phenomenon in mainstream politics – the prioritizing of abstractions over real people.

The Express’s doublethink has happened because, for much of the right, “migrants” are not real people such as Ms Raducanu, or the parents of most of the England team which did so well in the summer’s Euros, or the perfectly nice people you meet at work and in shops. They are instead an abstraction, a phantom invoking a vague sense of the nation (another abstraction) losing control of its borders. This is why hostility to immigration has often been stronger in areas with fewer migrants rather than in cities with many of them. And it is why Priti Patel is threatening to turn back boats carrying migrants. So what if they drown? It’s not as if they are real people.

It’s not just in attitudes to immigration that we see this abstraction. The same has happened with Brexit. This was never about improving the living standards of real people but rather an appeal to abstractions such as national sovereignty and taking back control*.

This isn’t to say that the prioritizing of abstraction over ground truth is confined to the right. It’s not. In all its reports on the state of the public finances the BBC has not, as far as I know, ever interviewed a real person who has described convincingly how high government borrowing has worsened their own personal life. Fretting about the public finances is elevating an abstraction over the real lives of real people as it means devaluing the truth that austerity probably caused thousands of deaths.

Centrists are guilty of the same thing in another way. The ground truth is that the financial crisis taught us that capitalism is more unstable and less capable of generating growth in real wages than New Labour believed. This should have led to a rethinking of how to best achieve stability and rising living standards. But it didn’t. All the political centre has to offer is abstract waffle about electability. Hence (for example) Sir Keir Starmer’s inability to answer the simple question of how to pay for increased public spending on health and social care.

Older readers will detect a puzzle here. Back in the 90s New Labour spoke a lot about evidence-based policy-making. A generation later, however, what we have is abstraction-based policy-making. The story of how one gave way to the other needs to be told – and it will be one with no heroes but many villains.

* You might object here that in causing shortages of lorry drivers and hospitality workers Brexit is driving up wages. But this is true only of a minority of workers. And the price rises that are the counterpart of their pay rises mean cuts in real incomes for others – which is inevitable if higher pay isn’t accompanied by higher productivity. Sure enough, the ONS reports that real wages have actually fallen so far this year.

Comments

[Ralph Musgrave]

Express readers are much smarter than Chris Dillow. They’ve worked out that a never ending flow of Muslims and Africans to the UK will end up turning the UK into an Afro-Islamic state. And if the latter outcome is so wonderful, how come zero percent of the Dillows of this world choose to migrate to the Islamic part of Nigeria and help themselves to instant Nirvana?

[Tony Holmes]

So why do Express readers (or at least some of them) vote for a Government which permits substantial legal immigration from countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh ?

[begob]

However, the Poles who crowd the recruitment centres for gig workers are concrete. Not so many gigs down the local lawn tennis club.

The worker's refusal to reverse the polarity, by elevating his discontent to the abstract of solidarity, seems the only attitude amenable to change.

[Paulc156]

@Tony Holmes
...because contrary to Ralph Musgrave's claim, Express readers really are as thick as sh1t.

[Almar]

If the real wages of some workers, many (most?)of whom are currently poorly paid, are going to increase then the real wages of others must fall; unless there is an increase in total output. The rise in average prices is merely part of the mechanism that achieves this re-distribution. It is not a separate disadvatage, unless one wants the money wages of the other workers to actually fall. Typically the latter would involve major unemployment.

[For simplicity, I am ignoring possible trade and government budget changes.]

Almar.

[Ralph Musgrave]

Tony Holmes wants to know why some Express readers vote for the Tories who as he rightly said, are as about as pro-mass immigration as Labour. Well, who else do they vote for? Lib Dems are no different to Labour or Tories here. Some Express readers vote Tory because the Tories are ever so slightly less pro-mass immigration that Labour: witness Priti Patel.

[Alvaro Inglese]

Was going to get a bit annoyed there, but then realised that "a never ending flow of Muslims and Africans" was a very clever satire, providing an example of the sort of abstractions that Chris refers to. Touche Ralph, touche.

[rsm]

Isn't the theory that inflation is naturally the equal and opposite result of wage increases just an abstraction from reality, where irrational expectations obtain?

《I think that the price level and rate of inflation are literally indeterminate. They are whatever people think they will be. They are determined by expectations, but expectations follow no rational rules. If people believe that certain changes in the money stock will cause changes in the rate of inflation, that may well happen, because their expectations will be built into their long term contracts.》- Fischer Black, Noise

Why can't central banks sell inflation swaps as needed to control market inflation expectations? Why can't central banks pay inflation + 2% as interest on individual deposit accounts, to encourage individual savings if inflation rises unwantedly?

[Ralph Musgrave]

Chris Dillow makes the daft claim that Tabloids and their readers refer to “abstractions” about immigrants, rather than always referring to immigrants as PEOPLE. Unfortunately he totally fails to show that abstractions are not of relevance.

To illustrate, I referred to the constant flow of Muslims and Africans to the UK, and Alvaro Inglese (above) criticises that for being an example of the abstractions to which Chris refers. Chris would presumably have claimed in the 1930s that members of Hitler's Nazi Party or Germans in general were all “people” and thus thatcriticising Nazism was out of order: a patently absurd argument.

So, while Alvaro Inglese (above) goes along with Chris's daft argument and thus thinks my abstractions are invalid, they unfortunately ARE valid. Apart of Nazism, another example of “abstractions” having a disastrous effect is the effect that Islam is having in Africa at the moment, as Tony Blair makes clear.

Conclusion: the people who are “thick as shit” (to use Paul156's delightful phrase) are Guardian readers, while the people with brians are tabloid readers.

[Scurra]

Oh what a shame that Ralph Musgrave just proved to be a racist rather than an astute satirist. I am now imagining someone standing on the beach in 1066 complaining about the steady flow of Normans and how they will destroy Anglo-Saxon culture.

[Dr Zoltan Jorovic]

Here's a math question for Mr Musgrave. About 1800 babies are born every day in the UK. That's 657,000 per year. Immigration from non-EU countries to UK is under 300,000. How long would it take for this "never-ending flow" to turn the UK into an Afro-Islamic state, even assuming all these non-EU migrants were African / Islamic?

Interestingly sub-saharan Africa is about 67% Christian.

[jim]

I get the feeling there is a dislike of the Starmer version of Labour here in favour of some sort of proper socialism. At the same time revealing that capitalism is not delivering. A three sided triangle.

Capitalism works OK but only where it can find a profit. Certain structural problems with the UK limit the physical and economic areas where capitalism will operate. Government may try to extend those areas but the effort may be thwarted by conflicts - land use, vested interests, lack of historical investment.

The Starmer version of socialism seems to promise more of the same, perhaps with different conflicts. But so far the offering is unclear and the capability of Starmer's team even less clear.

Then some version of proper socialism. Which might work, or at least work better in those areas where capitalism currently chooses not to operate at all or currently operates in an exploitative manner. But this version of socialism has no figurehead nor any coherent political party.

The snag is that capitalism seems to be running out of steam here in the UK. I suspect we have a well paid well functioning elite but not much else. Worse, we are hedged about by constraints - an energy policy that offends basic science, a transport policy that offends reality, no housing policy, no education policy and no idea how to employ people apart from cutting hair, making coffee and tarting up houses. Capitalists may choose to take their money elsewhere.

[Dipper]

This virtue signalling on illegal immigration is just ridiculous.

To be clear, a belief that turning up in a boat in the channel, cleaning to be a refugee without any supporting evidence, and then being allowed entrance to the UK including residence, access to the assets of the state through welfare, education, housing, healthcare, is completely equivalent to a belief in unlimited open immigration.

So why don't all those sneering at the Express just come out and say it That you believe in unlimited open immigration and full access to the state?

[Ralph Musgrave]

Scurra, I know this will be heart-breaking news for you, but there's not actually anything necessarily wrong with racism if you're using the word as per Oxford Dictionary. That definition is basically the idea that some races are better than others.

Now there are professional psychologists who claim (rightly or wrongly) that some races have higher I.Q.s than others. Presumably you think those psychologists should be punished for (shock horror) investigating the real world and coming to an un-PC conclusion.

As for your suggestion that it would be wrong for anyone in 1066 to complain about the incoming Normans destroying Britain's Anglo-Saxon culture, that's hilarious: the destruction of Anglo-Saxon society is pretty much what Normans did, or at least they drastically changed it. Most of the existing A-S elite had their property confiscated and grabbed by Normans. And French replaced old English as the language of the elite for the next two hundred years.

Zoltan Jorovic, Your suggestion that it would take a long time for the UK to be Islamised as a result of Muslim immigration is naïve. The UK is ALREADY being Islamised in that any number of concessions have been made to Islam despite Muslims making up only 5% or so of the population. For example we have the Archbishop of Canterbury speaking up for Sharia Law and saying it is compatible with UK law. Criticising Islam, i.e. “Islamophobia” is now almost a crime: it can be classified as “hate speech”. A teacher in Batley had to go into hiding after showing his pupils a cartoon featuring Mohammed. I could go on.

[rsm]

What if instead of spending $2 trillion on war in Afghanistan, western governments just gave each Afghani a basic income through their phones? Coupled with uncensored internet, would outcomes be better?

[Chris Purnell]

Heinrich Himmler had a similar *problem* with 'decent' Jews;

"It is one of those things that's easy to say: "The Jewish people will be extirpated" , says every Party comrade, "that's quite clear, it's in our programme: elimination of the Jews, extirpation ; that's what we're doing." And then they all come along, these 80 million good Germans, and every one of them has his decent Jew. Of course, it's quite clear that the others are pigs, but this one is one first-class Jew."

https://codoh.com/library/document/heinrich-himmlers-posen-speech-from-04101943/en/

[Dipper]

are you trying to make a point Chris Purnell? Are you suggesting that any attempt to identify immigrants we want as opposed to immigrants we don't want is basically Fascism so we should just let absolutely everyone in? If so, why can't you just say we should have absolutely no immigration controls and have unlimited immigration? What is so hard about stating that is your position?

[ltr]

The prejudice, the raw racism expressed and justified, the absence of shame, the lack of conscience, is truly terrifying. Thankfully the provoking writer is unknown to me, and I can avoid ever reading another line from such a person.

[ltr]

How could the Conservative government have allowed this? Why is Labour leadership not crying out? I just do not understand.

September 12, 2021

Coronavirus

United Kingdom

Cases ( 7,226,276)
Deaths ( 134,200)

Deaths per million ( 1,965)

China

Cases ( 95,199)
Deaths ( 4,636)

Deaths per million ( 3)

[Chris Purnell]

@Dipper *Unrestricted immigration*

Yes that is my position and I don't believe that Britain is such a magnetic attraction that 'everyone' would want to come here. Restrictions have only been in place since 1905 and there's no evidence that Britain was a worse place prior to 1905 because of it.

[ltr]

"THE POLITICS OF ABSTRACTION"

What this essay strongly suggests is that the Conservative government abstracted the casualties of the coronavirus epidemic and in so doing allowed for thousands and thousands of casualties with no qualms.

[ltr]

Chris Purnell:

Restrictions have only been in place since 1905 and there's no evidence that Britain was a worse place prior to 1905 because of it.

[ I would agree. Exclusion has never improved Britain as far as I can tell. ]

[ltr]

Back in the 90s New Labour spoke a lot about evidence-based policy-making. A generation later, however, what we have is abstraction-based policy-making. The story of how one gave way to the other needs to be told – and it will be one with no heroes but many villains.

[ A brilliant passage. ]

[Blissex]

that brexit has resulted in lower total immigration and worker shortages is a popular hallucination as the government hss reported a 0.5pc growth rate of population since 2016, thanks to booming net immigration of 300,000 per year pretty much the same level as in the previous peak year 2004.

[Blissex]

Before 1905 migration was far more expensive and risky so comparisons are disingenuos...

[ltr]

Working age population is assuredly a problem for the UK:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=GJUU

January 30, 2018

Age dependency ratio for United Kingdom and Ireland, * 2000-2020

* Older dependents to working age population

[Dipper]

@ Blissex - migrants coming now are not the same as migrants prior to Brexit, in that they don't have the same legal right of residency etc. So it's apples and oranges.

@ Chris Purnell. Well, that's at least a clear opinion. The history of recent migration has been of promises of how few people will go through this open door, and subsequently it turning out that many many times the official estimates turn up. And I fear that would be the same again, easily tens of millions, so I don't personally agree with your policy suggestion.

[MJW]

What interests me is the deliberate blurring of the lines between economic migration and asylum, nobody genuinely believes the people on dinghies are fleeing persecution in France, ergo their revealed migration preferences are socio-economic rather than based on safety. So, if we're accepting socio-economic preferences as legitimate for the migrant, why don't we accept them as legitimate for the receiving state? To be consistent, people arriving from safe countries should be treated equally with all other economic migrants? This doesn't prevent the UK from directly accepting refugees from genuinely unsafe location, but prevents dangerous abuse of the asylum system by criminals.

[Blissex]

«Age dependency ratio for United Kingdom and Ireland, * 2000-2020 * Older dependents to working age population»

Looking only at the old age dependency ratio is a standard tool of malicious propaganda, because what matters is the share of the population that is in work, which has has not changed that much.

When the percentage of oldies increases that is mostly because the percentage of children has been shrinking, and both oldies and children are dependents. Maternity wards and nurseries and schools are expensive too, not just old age care homes and hospitals and hospices.

[Blissex]

«migrants coming now are not the same as migrants prior to Brexit, in that they don't have the same legal right of residency etc. So it's apples and oranges.»

The current flood of 3rd world immigrants still compete with resident workers for jobs, and are much cheaper than the "greedy", "expensive" EU workers they have more than replaced.

Anyhow EU citizens never had a right of residence as such, except for 3 months while looking for a job, while many of the new 3rd world immigrants have permanent residence, and many have full political rights as Commonwealth citizens, which EU workers did not have.

[Blissex]

«migrants coming now are not the same as migrants prior to Brexit»

As to that, many of the new asian and african immigrants are also colored and muslim, increasing fast in numbers with large families living in separatist areas. Plus the coming flood of hard working, highly competitive cantonese from Hong Kong.

Did all those brexit voters who approved of Farage's "Breaking Point" advert vote for a massive increase in the immigration of colored muslims to make England a less white and less western place, and to make London and Birmingham more like Karachi or Lagos in ethnic and cultural terms?

Were brexit voters (other than the obvious categories who argued that giving preferential terms to EU citizens was racist) really so "woke" that they were aiming to increase significantly the ethnic and religious diversity of England?

[Blissex]

«what matters is the share of the population that is in work,»

More specifically the critical metric is the percentage across the whole population of of men 25-54 (or less specifically that of men 18-64) who are in work, and also to some extent that of women 25-54 in work.

[ltr]

Looking only at the old age dependency ratio is a standard tool of malicious propaganda, because what matters is the share of the population that is in work, which has has not changed that much....

[ Please explain further. I know the employment-population ratio (25-54) for the UK has been and held at a comparatively high level. Why though should the age dependency ratio be unimportant?

I appreciate this criticism. ]

[ltr]

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=GEI6

January 15, 2018

United Kingdom, Germany, France, Netherlands and United States Employment-Population Ratios, * 2007-2021

* Employment age 25-54

[rsm]

》both oldies and children are dependents.

Dependents on dependents of financiers who create money willy-nilly to help their friends and hurt their enemies?

》United Kingdom

》 Deaths per million ( 1,965)

Sissy boys on TV: 1000?

》China

》Deaths per million ( 3)

Sissy boys on TV: 0?

[Dipper]

@ Blissex. It's generally not a good idea to start portraying Brexit in crude racist terms as you just end up looking silly and constantly having to point to post Brexit policies and ask whether that's what Brexiteers really wanted when the answer is generally yes it is.

For future reference, giving asylum to lots of people from Hong Kong generally popular. Importing cheap labour to drive down ages of, eg HGV drivers, not popular.

[Jim]

Well, Mrs Patel seems to be moving from abstraction to hiring a few jet skis and playing at 'spin the migrant'. I wonder if she has thought this through. Will her merry band of spinners be immune from prosecution - law of sea, endangering shipping, manslaughter. Perhaps each will have a parchment scroll pronouncing state immunity - signed by Priti in blood.

Where will she hire her ski drivers, Broadmoor?

What is your average rubber boat driver going to do faced with a mob of spinners - ignore them - puncture the boat, chuck a few babies in the water. All in full view of the press and do gooders and legal observers. Then we might consider where this spinning might take place. Close to the French boundary, can't see the Frogs being too amused.

Nah, another daft idea. But winter storms are on their way, Priti can rest easy until the Christmas lull and then relax until next summer. So we go on. Let us hope she has not wasted our money on these toys.

[ltr]

Setting aside aspects of immigration and how closed Britain might choose to be, Britain sorely needs to be open to an economic partnership with China however the Conservative intent is evidently to be as antagonistic and closed to China economically as can be.

I am appalled. Britain should be a prime Belt and Road partner for the sake of economic well-being.

[Blissex]

«Britain sorely needs to be open to an economic partnership with China»

"partnership" is a mere word, and international politics is not "kumbaya" style.

As to actual trade and finance flows, the USA welcomes manufactured imports (but only from protectorates...) to push down wages, while China is export oriented and only welcomes imports of raw materials.

The UK government is a bit like the USA government and welcomes imports of manufactures to push down wages, but it also wants to export "sovereignty based" financial services, and China really does not want for chinese oligarchs to import those financial services from London.

So chinese and english elite interests are partially aligned and partially in conflict, while USA and english elite interests are far more aligned and not much in conflict. Some things can't be forced...

[ltr]

As to actual trade and finance flows...China is export oriented and only welcomes imports of raw materials....

[ This is expressly and importantly incorrect. China encourages and welcomes manufactured and finance or goods and services imports. International trade fairs are continually held in China to important mutual benefit of countries actively involved.

The problem with Britain sadly is the ceaseless prejudicial refrain against China. ]