Douthat’s Populist Nationalism

by Will Wilkinson on June 18, 2007

Grinding his Christian universalism under his nationalist heel, Ross Douthat breezily sets forth a multiply fallacious argument on the premise that there is no intellectual or moral difference between confiscatory redistribution and voluntary exchange when citizens of other countries are involved:

A slightly better way of putting what Matt is driving at, I think, is this: Large-scale immigration from Mexico to the United States is a form of de facto humanitarianism, and since Americans are generally leery of humanitarian spending (primarily because we overestimate the size of our existing foreign aid budget), liberal humanitarians have a vested interest in preserving the existing immigration system. It’s a rare issue where business interests line up on the side of raising the living standards of Third World peasants, and why mess with a good thing? Better, as Matt suggests, to go after the global elite in other arenas – like tax policy, say – where the business class’s preferred policies don’t have humanitarian externalities.

To which one might respond that there’s something slightly perverse about pursuing humanitarian ends through policies that lower the incomes of your poorest citizens and raise the incomes of your richest citizens. If I proposed a new AIDS-in-Africa initiative and advocated funding it through a regressive tax that included a tax credit for families making over $75,000, I doubt that many liberals would line up behind the proposal.

I’ll muster some charity and assume that Ross is simply confused here. But he really is badly confused.

It’s a rather profound error to characterize voluntary trade between American employers and Mexicans workers as equivalent to ”humanitarian spending,” as if money tax revenue had been withdrawn from the Treasury and sent to Mexicans. There is indeed a pecuniary externality of Mexican workers in the American labor market – downward price pressure from competition — and this can indeed have an effect on the pattern of American incomes. But it is a pretty basic and embarrassing mistake to confuse (1) coercive state confiscation and reallocation of income with (2) changing patterns of income from voluntary exchange.

Perhaps Ross really does think that the U.S. government has taken money from the pockets of the producers of Oceans 13 by refusing to ban Pirates of the Carribean, but I think he’s smarter than that. Government tax policy requires justification. Distribution of tax revenue require justification. Exercising our rights doesn’t.

That Ross is liable see the issue in this weird, mistaken way does indicate that he thinks some sort of nationalism is the legitimate moral baseline. The liberal (in the broad sense) presumption of freedom, on the other hand, has it that unrestricted voluntary cooperation between human beings is the moral baseline. Deviations from this require special justification. Given the liberal baseline, labor market restrictions (that’s what we’re talking about here – whether to further restrict American labor markets), besides standing as a violation of the rights of both Americans and Mexicans to freely associate and trade with one another, amount to a transfer of income from Mexican workers and American consumers to some low-skilled American workers. In addition to the basic violation of liberty, this is a monstrously regressive transfer, harming Mexican workers much more than it helps low-skilled American workers.

But Ross seems to understand the situation in a way that, as far as I can tell, completely discounts the welfare gain to Mexicans, and conceives of the effects of millions of people exercising their human rights as requiring some kind of special justification. This makes sense only relative to a nationalist worldview where ”humanitarian spending” is something benighted “liberal humanitarians” want to do and the actual welfare effects of this “spending” on foreigners is simply irrelevant to the moral calculus; all that matters is the effect of the policy on persons with valid U.S. passports. If the policy turns out to (on average) reduce the incomes of low-skilled U.S. workers and raise the incomes of  higher-skilled U.S. workers, then it’s evidently “perverse.” So if we have to placate uppity U.S. humanitarian liberals by throwing money at poor people somewhere, surely this isn’t the way we want to do it.

But what about Mexican workers and their families? Who cares! Wrong passport! What about the lost liberty of Americans to trade with Mexican workers on the labor market? Well, I guess we decide what liberties Americans have based on some undermotivated nation-level idea of just distribution. Why? Who knows!? (And who cares if it keeps Mexicans out?!) I don’t think Ross denies the fact that Mexican immigration on average makes Americans better off. So a merely utilitarian nationalism would have us accept even more immigrants. You could try to dress Ross’s view up as Rawlsian nationalism, demanding that a policy improve the lot of the least well-off Americans. But I think Ross’s argument really amounts to populist nationalism, appealing to populist class sentiments to help achieve a goal he wants anyway: a less Mexican America.  

Well, I understand that a certain kind of nationalism may well be the default baseline for a broad swathe of American public opinion, but that makes it no less repugnant from the perspective of both human liberty and human welfare. Democrats and then Republicans in the American South long succeeded in winning elections by drumming up racist majorities. (Integrating blacks fully into the labor market no doubt put downward pressure on low-skilled white wages, and I don’t doubt successful politicians brought this up.) But I don’t think this speaks well of our democracy.

This whole issue really turns on what we take to be the relevant moral baseline. I would very much like to see Ross defend what I see as his form of nationalism. From where I sit, there’s something more than “slightly perverse” about denying our human rights to freely cooperate and locking very poor people out of our labor markets so that relatively wealthy people whose grandparents got here first don’t have to take a paycut.

Viewing 30 Comments

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    And what about the 5,043,000,000 people who live in countries with lower per capita GDP's than Mexico? Why are you prejudiced in favor Mexicans over the other five billion?
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    Steve, Ross was talking specifically about Mexican immigration, which, you may have noticed, is the focus of the recent immigration debate that we are now having in the United States. Naturally, the same reasoning applies to other people as well, and I have no special preference for Mexicans. However, the reality of specifically Mexican partipation in the U.S. labor market does call for policy that addresses this issue in particular. That is one reason I am in favor of a common American labor market.
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    Will, the price of a one-way airplane ticket from just about anywhere in the world is no more than what a coyote charges to sneak across the Mexican border. If you are going to go on about moral universalism, you need to deal with the reality of how big the world is. Otherwise, you are just extending the "nationalist heel" down to the Guatemalan border.
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    Will, I don't think Douthat is quite as confused as you make him sound. He approves of spending to help poor Mexicans; that's the point of the passage where he approves of humanitarian externalities. He just seems to be saying, "surely we can find some way of helping poor Mexicans that screws over rich people instead, right?"

    Consider 3 groups: L, the (prospective) Mexican immigrants; M, the American lower class; and H, the American upper-middle to upper class. Freer immigration benefits L and H, and hurts M; Douthat sees a policy that benefits H and hurts M as ipso facto bad. Hence, he says, we should find some policy with the same benefit to L, but that hurts H and helps M instead. I've never understood why inequality should be considered a particularly bad thing, as long as we stay away from third-world-hellhole levels that make the market unable to function. But if you do believe that, the argument "we should find a way to do this that screws over the rich instead" makes some sense.
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    Steve, I'm arguing about the moral baseline from which deviations need to be justified. I think it is fully possible to justify limitations on entry and labor market participation on the grounds that this is necessary to preserve the institutional structure immigrants are so keen to join. We have an obligation, however, to limit liberty as little as possible, and to expand the scope of cooperation as that becomes feasible. Labor market integration with Mexico is a good first step. As there is convergence in development over time, ever-widening multinational labor markets will not only be consistent with American liberty and well-being, but will enhance it.

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    Being a libertarian ideologue is just another form of political correctness -- an excuse for thinking yourself superior to those who do the hard work of learning about reality.
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    Arguments against the liberal baseline? Anyone? Anyone?
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    [Wilkinson:] "As there is convergence in development over time, ever-widening multinational labor markets will not only be consistent with American liberty and well-being, but will enhance it."

    But your support for a multi-national labor market is not actually contingent on a "convergence in development" is it? You want one NOW! don't you? Your moralistic argument for one certainly doesn't seem to require waiting for anything else to happen.

    And who here really thinks "convergence in development" is so inevitable? There's plenty of reasons to believe that some nations on earth will just always be comparatively underdeveloped.

    Here's a question I have about comparative advantage. The two groups are better off than they would have been by trading, correct? But not necessarily will they both be equally well off, correct?

    Unless your plan is that the world becomes so mixed up and homogeneous there won't be any distinct nations left to compare?

    Oh yeah that world sounds great for "American" liberty.
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    I think it is fully possible to justify limitations on entry and labor market participation on the grounds that this is necessary to preserve the institutional structure immigrants are so keen to join.

    Will, have you looked at polls on the political opinions of Mexican immigrants? Did you know that "on the question of more taxing and spending, Hispanic Republicans are slightly more liberal than white Democrats. Indeed, Hispanic Republicans are to the left of African-Americans!". Not only do they reverse-assimilate when it comes to crime, welfare dependency and illegitimacy get stuck in a rut well below average when it comes to education, but generation after generation they get more leftist (and by that I don't mean cosmopolitan libertarian left either).

    This is one of the fastest growing groups in the U.S and the Republicans have been trying for years to appeal to them with little to show for it, convinced that they are doomed if they stay a party of the white middle class. I think that far enough off in the future the parties will adjust their policies and approach so that each gets about half the vote, but the vote itself is going to be a lot more hostile to libertarianism than now (this is assuming that the United States does not get Mexicanized enough to have decades of one-party rule like what the PRI enjoyed).

    Most people do not accept the liberal or Rawlsian "moral baseline" as a default. As I've noted before, I do not care for such arguments about nothing, but as Jonathan Haidt can tell you, most people view ingroup-outgroup distinctions as an essential part of morality, and the lack of it to be clear evidence of deficiency on the part of the cosmopolitan liberal "moral baseline".

    A final note, Will. We are not talking about just a "labor market", we are talking about PEOPLE who have effects other than simply through the labor market. Their children are going to live here not because they have been "purchased" by anyone but because of their parents. We could have a Gulf State style guest-worker system in which they really are little more than labor. Both I and Lant Pritchett support this (I think not granting full citizenship is desirable, he sees it as an unfortunate compromise) and many people on the right who have the taboo "cultural objections" might as well. Liberals may not like this much (although the benefits to the many people who might work here stacked against their disadvantages might convince some of them), and it is such people that Ross Douthat was addressing his comments, but such people also accept the legitimacy of government redistribution and do not necessarily see market-induced distribution of wealth as legitimate. I realize that all this may not be satisfactory on a philosophical level, but since most people have wisely chosen not to waste much time over philosophy you are going to be frequently disappointed by them.
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    "Grinding his Christian universalism under his nationalist heel"??? The heel of the populist-nationalist fascist jackboot you mean? Oh please! Even leaving aside problems of substance, the grim, cliche-ridden dogmatism of this Wilkinson piece goes some way towards explaining why "libertarianism" remains such a tiny and largely despised political faith. “Unrestricted voluntary cooperation among human beings!” – or else, you ignorant vermin!
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    Steve- what exactly is your problem with Will's answer?
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    "And who here really thinks “convergence in development” is so inevitable?"

    Because it's happening. Read Martin Wolf's _Why Globalization Works_.
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    So these Mexican workers are also going to fight in American wars? They're going to register for the selective service and be eligible for the draft? A nation is composed of all the other people who agree to fight on my side, if necessary. That's why I care more about my fellow citizens than about Mexicans. That's why the universalist baseline doesn't work. Of course, WW lives in the what if world: imagine there were no friction, no wars, no nations, perfect competition. Then what would we do? We don't live in hypothetical worlds, nor do we follow hypothetical moral obligations. Obviously.
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    Citizens of White and Hispanic origin serve at about the same rates. Non-citizen workers, by lowering prices for many kinds of goods, make us wealthier, freeing up capital to build bombs, if that's what you really want. The U.S. is powerful because it has a dynamic economy, not because it has citizens infatuated with the romance of dying for the state. On your odious terms, Mexican workers still make us stronger.
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    I consider all of my fellow citizens equally patriotic. If you want to question the loyalty of Hispanic Americans, don't drag me into it.

    You asked, why do I value the interests of Mexicans less than those of Americans? Why not look at the sum total of utility, and not just at the American side of the equation? I care about my fellow citizens because they've promised to fight by my side, if it comes to that. There's nothing odious about that. I expect them to do the same.

    Some immigration benefits all of us. Plenty of it benefits few and hurts many of us. Maybe it helps the immigrant. So what? That's my bottom line. The burden is on the humanitarians to justify the "deviations."
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    So once an alien becomes a citizen, I take it you value his welfare as much as anyone born a citizen. But until then, you value his welfare less...and that is how you justify not allowing him to become a citizen.

    That's a catch-22, and it strikes me as morally perverse.
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    It's so perverse that it's actually the law and practice of every nation on earth, including this one. Man, it's crazy.
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    Is there a better argument than "everyone is doing it"? (And I don't think the U.S. did until the 20th century, FWIW.)

    Mind you, I think you can support some immigration restrictions without basing them on the flawed logic I spelled out above. But not protectionist immigration restrictions.
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    "I care about my fellow citizens because they’ve promised to fight by my side, if it comes to that."

    HORSESHIT. This would imply that anyone not eligable for service (for any reason) gets less weight in your moral calculus than those who are eligable. You do not behave this way in your everyday life.

    As someone once said, "I hate liars".
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    This is, of course, neverminding the fact that very few of your fellow citizens have ever made any such promise, and that this begs the question of *why* they *should* behave in the idealized way you'd like them to.
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    If you want a simpler argument: economic nationalism is just individual selfishness writ large. It is perfectly consistent.

    WW's position makes no sense. It is retail selfishness and wholesale or national humanitarianism. It is incoherent.
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    Will, you think it's odious that people would rather die in wars fought for the benefit of their countrymen or nation, basically the norm since the beginning of history.

    But it's not war per se that you find odious; here you are telling us all what we should be willing to die for:

    "Let me just say that I would be willing to die in a war against a state that made it policy to deny me my natural liberty to enter into voluntary, mutually benficial exchanges with every other human being who does not happen to have a social security number."

    Yeah, I'm sure that's why there are 150 million babies born every year, because parents hope to pass on their ... economic ideology.
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    bjkad: "If you want a simpler argument: economic nationalism is just individual selfishness writ large. It is perfectly consistent."

    No, because the nation isn't unanimous in its choice of immigration policy. E.g., a primary reason there's conflict over this issue is that some Americans want to employ certain immigrants and other Americans don't want to allow that, each group acting in its own self-interest.
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    This gets us back to WW's original post. The point isn't that American policy must always equate aliens and citizens, in every context. The point is that it's particularly pernicious to coerce citizens, and justify that coercion on the ground that aliens are worth less than citizens.

    In other words, it is objectionable to force citizens to discriminate against aliens on the ground that aliens are worth less.
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    Will writes:

    It’s a rather profound error to characterize voluntary trade between American employers and Mexicans workers as equivalent to ”humanitarian spending,”

    True. But it is also a profound error to characterize immigration as equivalent to voluntary trade. Setting up a call center in Saudi Arabia is voluntary trade. Hiring a guy in Oaxaca to mine World-of-Warcraft gold for you is voluntary trade. Bully for voluntary trade across borders, bully, indeed, for the right to engage in voluntary trade across borders. The right to engage in voluntary trade across borders is simply not the same, however, as the right to become a resident or citizen of another country. There are all sorts of good reasons to want individuals to be able to choose their own country of citizenship and residence. I endorse this goal myself.

    It is not, however, part of the ‘liberal baseline’ (if liberal here means the classical liberal tradition) to assume that anyone has a right to be the citizen or resident of the country he chooses. The classic liberal has reasonable arguments for denying this as a right, including: a) a state is a contract between its members, and they can exclude whomever they want, b) a free, liberal society has cultural preconditions that open immigration might damage. Now, as it happens, I support high levels of continued immigration into the US, but not because I think support is written into classical liberalism.
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    Matt McIntosh, do you really think that, say, sub-Saharan Africa is going to "converge" developmentally within our lifetimes (assuming the Singularity doesn't let us live forever)?
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    TGGP, apparently you're using "converge" in a stricter sense than me: I'm talking about convergence of living standards, not necessarily something like per capita GDP.
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    Also wasn't talking specifically about SSA, and neither was anyone else. The overall *worldwide* trend is toward convergence.
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    Will Wilkinson asked: "Arguments against the liberal baseline? Anyone? Anyone?"

    Edmund Burke might say that we simply are not built that way--we are not rootless cosmopolitans, and attempts to build societies on rootless-cosmopolitan principles will go badly wrong in horrible ways. We care first about ourselves, second about our descendants, third about our families, fourth about our neighbors, fifth about people we see on TV who we can easily identify with, sixth about people who speak our own language, seventh about people from countries we have visited or see often on TV in ways that make us identify with them, and eighth about everybody else.

    Thus even if we want (for some reason) to achieve rootless cosmopolitan ends, the means we must use are to encourage the growth and development of societies that reflect this hierarchy of moral concern, because societies that don't will not long survive.
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    Ferris, Excellent! I think this is probably about as good as it gets. But I'm not sure this is an argument against the liberal baseline so much as a charge to be realistically prudent when attempting to take it seriously. The fact that we care more about people we see on TV than people we don't obviously doesn't embody a GOOD reason, but it is a constraint. And it is of course possible culturally to widen the circle of concern, so we should.
 

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    June 18, 2007 at 9:37 pm

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