Hey you, you're a Nazi: A discrimination and immigration rant.

So I've been pretty busy lately and haven't posted, which is a bad start for the blog. So i thought I'd make the title suitable abusive to grab attention :). Nazi comparisons are generally thought poorly of because they are lazy and usually miss the complicated and specific ideas that characterise that ugly ideology. However I am not entirely joking as I will attempt draw out a specific similarity between an opinion that I imagine most readers will hold and specific (but horrifying) beliefs and actions of the Nazis.

Today I want to talk about restrictions on free migration and discrimination. I have always been puzzled by peoples differing attitudes towards nationality and race, and people's understanding of discrimination in general. It is widely accepted that treating people differently based on their so-called 'race' (by which I mean ethnic origin) and gender is unacceptable and many countries have laws prohibiting this. To some extent religion (which is sometimes included in the definition of race) is also protected by social and legal convention. When it comes to nationality however many countries have laws that require employers to discriminate on this basis when considering job applicants. Indeed restrictions on on immigration in general are a form of discrimination based on nationality. There are some reasons for this which I will discuss later, but I do think people are confused about why racism, and other forms of discrimination are inappropriate and why it is illegal and will discuss that first.

I have witnessed this confusion with religion. When someone makes offensive blanket statements of the nature "Muslims are terrorists so they deserve to be blown up" or "Muslims oppress women, so we should remove their civil liberties" etc and are accused of racism they defend themselves with the line "but Muslims are connected by religion, not racial identity". Regardless of whether the definition of racism is discrimination against "race, colour or creed" or the narrower one focused only on ethnicity, this rather misses the point. Either way they are being an offensive bigot.

These statements are inappropriate because of their blanket nature. Everyone in a particular group is treated as if they all share some common characteristic, simply because there is a perceived (true of false) correlation. Even if that correlation is true (and remember correlation does not imply causation) it is still unacceptable because how an individual is treated then depends on the actions or beliefs of other individuals, whose behavior they have no control over. We are effectively punishing them for things which they couldn't change and bear no responsibility for.

Muslims who do not supports terrorism should not be held responsible for a tiny number who carry such acts out, anymore than I should be responsible for the God Delusion written by Richard Dawkins just because we are both atheists and scientists. Similarly those specific Muslims who believe in the oppression of women should not be held responsible for the actions of more liberal Muslims who allow women to dress liberally, thus causing earthquakes, (do you see what I did there?) and of course needless to say vice versa.

The same logic applies to all forms of discrimination which are based on correlations rather than causation and as such all should be deemed socially unacceptable. Of course there are good historical and social reasons why we perceive certain types of prejudice differently. Someone making jokes about the French in the pub should not usually be regarded with the same disgust as someone making fun of 'niggers' because the intent is rarely the same. I myself often hurl racist abuse about English people ('racism' is correct here because they are in fact a race -- of cunts). It is not the same as someone shouting nigger because my intent and meaning are different, I am invoking distinctions between individuals, which I do not believe, for humor. Unlike jokes from racists, my humor does not derive from a shared belief but the ridiculousness of me holding it, and it is not an attempt to encourage such beliefs. This should not be confused with those people who genuinely hold grudges against English people.

There is a widespread social problem, in many societies, of discrimination and indeed violence against people because of the colour of their skin and that lead to specific laws against racism. Though qualitatively different (it's not visible, meaning you won't be as abused/intimidated by passing strangers etc) there is also a problem within Scotland of anti-English discrimination, which despite my earlier joke, is not based on race but nationality. While some individuals might genuinely harbor hatred for the French it is not a wide spread social problem that I am aware of, so it's understandable that governments don't have policies to deal with it. However even if some discrimination is not a widespread social problem, the individual experiencing it still gets disadvantaged through no fault of their own. The reasons why racism is socially unacceptable also apply, such discrimination is not acceptable.

Let me now return to the question of laws restricting immigration. These laws dramatically alter an individuals quality of life based on their arbitrary association. Just because there is a line on maps separating Spain from Portugal and Morocco does not mean that individuals from those countries would perform less well in a job in Madrid than, say, someone from Barcelona. Nor does it make them more of a security threat if they wish to visit Madrid. It is also not the case that individuals from Portugal and Morocco deserve or need less (or more, I have no idea how the welfare provisions of these countries compare) financial aid when unable to work.

So why do so many people support such discriminatory laws? There are various justifications put forward connected to linguistic, cultural and historical differences, but all such these arguments could equally be applied to minorities living within a country. Many nations are not monolingual, many have groups of people who typically have different values and ideas about how society should be run, but discrimination against such a group is nonetheless prohibited because people are still entitled to be treated as individuals. The differences mentioned above should only be used if they apply to a specific individual and only when relevant, i.e. it's OK to deny someone a job writing newspaper articles in English, if they do not know English, but not OK to refuse them a job (on that basis) where communication is not an issue.

The other defense is more pragmatic. It is a question of space, infrastructure and social services. If I proposed removing all restrictions on immigration in the UK tomorrow most people would say that this would lead to so much immigration that the UK infrastructure could not cope and the UK quality of life would be dramatically decreased with massive overcrowding and I believe, if done as an isolated nation at least, this is correct.

The question of jobs is another issue. Often politicians campaign on "British jobs for British people". But why would I care about the nationality? With a job offer there is automatically the statement that the immigrating individual will consume less than he provides (otherwise there wouldn't, or at least shouldn't be a job). That individual will benefit society. In addition since I don't personally feel any special empathy for people born in the same country as me I would be happiest if the person who got the job is one who would be most helped by it and that will typically be the person from the poorest background, most likely a person from abroad since the UK has relatively high quality of life.

Nonetheless the existence of a welfare state provides some pragmatic arguments for restricting low paid jobs going to people outside the country. If we are instead able to fill it that vacancy with someone from within, who was previously unemployed, then we no longer need to provide them with basic necessities like housing and enough money for food.

So it appears there is some truth to this argument, but it is not one from the principle. Perhaps we would tolerate racial discrimination or even segregation within a country if there were pragmatic reasons for maintaining it? The thought makes me want to vomit. I imagine defenders of apartheid in South Africa put forward similar arguments, which appear to have been falsified since, but nonetheless I doubt many would claim apartheid disgusts them because the pragmatic defence turned out to be wrong.

Similarly I am sure slavery could have been defended with claims that the economy and way of life would collapse in the US and Europe and I know it was defended in such a way in the Roman republic and empire. I have no idea if this pragmatic argument might be correct or not. Perhaps at the time abolishing slavery would have had catastrophic consequences for the Roman elite, and their way way of disintegrated. Maybe civilisation would have even been set back. That wouldn't change my stance, I am still disgusted by slavery and were I present in the time of the Roman republic with my modern mindset I would either stand up and oppose the slavery or be sickened by my cowardice and failure to do so (admittedly the latter is more likely :)).

Finally now I arrive at the point behind my title. I recently read The War of the world by Niall Ferguson where he describes not just the horrors of the holocaust and the Nazi's racial ideology, but also their expansionist plans and economic ideas. My understanding from the book is that Hitler believed that he needed to expand the German Reich because Germany required more living space and raw materials for the German people. To this end when they invaded countries to the east of Germany, like Poland and Russia, they did not only murder Jews to sate the hatred and disgust Hitlers rhetoric had inspired they also carried out ethnic cleansing on other perceived non-Germanic races, e.g. Slavic people, because they believed they needed the living space for Germans.

In this sense the pragmatic defense and practise of immigration controls can be compared to the Nazis expansionist ideology. The justification is very similar, arguing that one nation (or supposed race in Hitlers case) need a certain amount of space to have a reasonable quality of life. The outcome is also similar. If one compares infant mortality and average life expectancy (note this will also be strongly affected by the former, I couldn't find a post infancy life expectancy comparison), then one can see the dramatic variations depending on where you live, 180 per 1000 to 2 per 1000 and 30 to 80 respectively! By refusing to admit people into this country we condemn them (on average) to an early death. While this more passive role seems less cold blooded than the direct murder of millions of Slavic people, we know the consequences of our actions. Does anyone really doubt that when we refuse immigration to someone from a very poor nation or deport them back if they arrived here "illegally" that they will have a significantly higher chance of dying young? It may be called "economic migration" but in this case at least economics is life.

I am not saying that we can suddenly open our borders on our own, I cowardly bow to the pragmatic and selfish argument here, but we should recognise the abhorrence of the current situation. Freedom of movement and a free choice of where to live is not only a basic freedom, which one should expect for everyone, but it is also one which one which can save lives. We need to demand that the politicians we elect will allow more migration into our countries not restrict it further as all major parties in the wealthy western nations seem to propose. We need to insist also that they work together to bring a global end to restrictions on economic migration, as well as universal welfare provision so that there is lower safety net protecting everyone at the bottom, not just people in wealthy nations.

This is a lofty goal and I have no real plan to bring it about or even any proof to offer that it is at all achievable. It perhaps is my hippie moment, but nonetheless a change in attitude will help a lot and moderate increases in the legal migration into the wealthy nations is achievable and will help real lives. And at the very least people should see immigration laws for what they really are, discriminatory and destructive of life.

And until you commit to this, you are a Nazi.