DemocracyThe God That Failed

by Hans-Hermann Hoppe

  As far as emigration is concerned, a king would want to prevent the emigration of productive subjects, in particular of his best and most productive subjects, because losing them would lower the value of the kingdom. Thus, for example, from 1782 until 1824 a law prohibited the emigration of skilled workmen from Britain.10 On the other hand, a king would want to expel his nonproductive and destructive subjects (criminals, bums, beggars, gypsies, vagabonds, etc.), for their removal from his territory would increase the value of his realm. For this reason Britain expelled tens of thousands of common criminals to North America and Australia."

  9See on this also chaps. 1-3.

  10See A.M. Carr-Saunders, World Population: Past Growth and Present Trends (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1936), p. 182.

  On the other hand, as far as immigration policy is concerned, a king would want to keep the mob, as well as all people of inferior productive capabilities, out. People of the latter category would only be admitted temporarily as seasonal workers without citizenship, and they would be barred from permanent property ownership. Thus, for example, after 1880 large numbers of Poles were hired as seasonal workers in Germany.12 A king would only permit the permanent immigration of superior or at least above-average people; i.e., those, whose residence in his kingdom would increase his own property value. Thus, for example, after 1685 (with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) tens of thousands of Huguenots were permitted to settle in Prussia; and similarly Peter the Great, Frederick the Great, and Maria Theresa later promoted the immigration and settlement of large numbers of Germans in Russia, Prussia, and the eastern provinces of Austria-Hungary.13

  11Ibid., p. 47, estimates the number of criminals thus transported to North America from 1717 to 1776at 50,000.

  12Seeibid.,pp.57,145.

  13See ibid., pp. 56-57. The settlement of Germans in Eastern Europe actually began in the eleventh century and was generally encouraged by various regional Slavic kings and princes who thereby hoped to promote the economic development of their realms. See Brimelow, Alien Nation, p. 131. A highly illuminating account of the social effects and repercussions of these migration policies in the multicultural Habsburg Empire is provided by Mises, Nation, State, and Economy, pp. 112-13.

  As a result of centuries-long colonization, the urban bourgeoisie and the urban intelligentsia were German everywhere in Austria and Hungary, large landownership was in great part Germanized, and everywhere, even in the middle of foreign-language territory, there were German peasant settlements. All of Austria outwardly bore a German stamp; everywhere German education and German literature were to be found. Everywhere in the Empire the Germans were also represented among the petty bourgeoisie, among the workers, and among the peasants, even though in many districts, especially in Galicia, in many parts of Hungary, and in the coastal territories, the German minority among the members of the lower strata of the population was quite small. But in the entire Empire (upper Italy excepted) the percentage of Germans among the educated and among the members of the higher strata was quite considerable, and all those educated persons and prosperous bourgeois who were not themselves German and did not want to acknowledge belonging to the German nation were German by their education, spoke German, read German, and appeared at least outwardly to be German.... Thus Austria no doubt was not German, but politically it wore a German face. Every Austrian who wanted to take any interest at all in public affairs had to master the German language. For the members of the Czech and of the Slovene peoples, however, education and social ascent could be achieved only through Germanness. They still had no literature of their own that would have made it possible for them to do without the treasures of German culture. Whoever rose became German because precisely the members of the higher strata were German. The Germans saw that and believed that it had to be so. They were far from wanting to Germanize all non-Germans compulsorily, but they thought that this would take place on its own. They believed that every Czech and South Slav would try, even in his own interest, to adopt German culture.

  In brief, while through his immigration policies a king might not entirely avoid all cases of forced exclusion or forced integration, such policies would by and large do the same as what private property owners would do, if they could decide whom to admit and whom to exclude. That is, the king would be highly selective and very much concerned about improving the quality of the resident human capital so as to drive property values up rather than down.

  VI

  Migration policies become predictably different once the government is publicly owned. The ruler no longer owns the country's capital value but only has current use of it. He cannot sell or bequeath his position as ruler; he is merely a temporary caretaker. Moreover, "free entry" into the position of a caretaker government exists. In principle, anyone can become the ruler of the country.

  As they came into existence on a worldwide scale after World War I, democracies offer historical examples of public government.14

  What are a democracy's migration policies? Once again assuming no more than self-interest (maximizing monetary and psychic income: money and power), democratic rulers tend to maximize current income, which they can appropriate privately, at the expense of capital values, which they can not appropriate privately. Hence, in accordance with democracy's inherent egalitarianism of one-man-one-vote, they tend to pursue a distinctly egalitarian—nondiscriminatory—emigration and immigration policy.

  As far as emigration policy is concerned, this implies that for a democratic ruler it makes little, if any, difference whether productive or unproductive people, geniuses or bums leave the country. They all have one equal vote. In fact, democratic rulers might well be more concerned about the loss of a bum than that of a productive genius. While the loss of the latter would obviously lower the capital value of the country and loss of the former might actually increase it, a democratic ruler does not own the country. In the short run, which is of the most interest to a democratic ruler, the bum, voting most likely in favor of egalitarian measures, might be more valuable than the productive genius who, as egalitarianism's prime victim, will more likely vote against the democratic ruler.15 For the same reason, quite unlike a king a democratic ruler undertakes little to actively expel those people whose presence within the country constitutes a negative externality (human trash which drives individual property values down). In fact, such negative externalities—unproductive parasites, bums, and criminals—are likely to be his most reliable supporters.

  14See on this also chaps. 1-3.

  As far as immigration policies are concerned, the incentives and disincentives are likewise distorted, and the results are equally perverse. For a democratic ruler, it also matters little whether bums or geniuses, below or above-average civilized and productive people immigrate into the country. Nor is he much concerned about the distinction between temporary workers (owners of work permits) and permanent, property owning immigrants (naturalized citizens)." In fact, bums and unproductive people may well be preferred as residents and citizens, because they create more so-called "social" problems," and democratic rulers thrive on the existence of such problems. Moreover, bums and inferior people will likely support his egalitarian policies, whereas geniuses and superior people will not. The result of this policy of nondiscrimination is forced integration: the forcing of masses of inferior immigrants onto domestic property owners who, if the decision were left to them, would have sharply discriminated and chosen very different neighbors for themselves. Thus, as the best available example of democracy at work, the United States immigration laws of 1965 eliminated all previous "quality" concerns and the explicit preference for European immigrants, replacing them with a policy of almost complete nondiscrimination (multiculturalism).17

  15To avoid any misunderstanding, it should be emphasized here that the difference between monarchical and democratic-republican government with respect to emigration policy is not one of restrictive versus unrestricted emigration. In fact, the most severe restrictions on emigra
tion were imposed in the twentieth century, by the so-called socialist peoples' republics of Eastern Europe. Rather, the difference is one concerning the type of restrictions, respectively the motivation underlying such restrictions. Thus, whereas monarchical emigration restrictions were typically motivated by economic concerns, democratic-republican restrictions are typically motivated by power concerns, with the most frequent restriction being that one may not emigrate until one has fulfilled one's compulsory military service. See on this Carr-Saunders, World Population, p. 148.

  16Of all major European countries it has been France, the country with the longest democratic-republican tradition, which has boasted the most "liberal," i.e., least restrictive, immigration and naturalization policy. See on this ibid., pp. 57,145,154.

  17See Lawrence Auster, The Path to National Suicide: An Essay on Immigration and Multiculturalism (Monterey, Calif.: A1CEF, 1990); Immigration and the American Identity, Thomas Fleming, ed. (Rockford, Ill.: Rockford Institute, 1995); George J. Borjas, Friends or Strangers: The Impact of Immigrants on the U.S. Economy (New York: Basic Books, 1990); idem, Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999); Brimelow, Alien Nation.

  To put matters into perspective, Brimelow documents chat from 1820 until 1967, when the new immigration laws went into effect, almost 90 percent of all immigrants were of European descent. In contrast, from 1967 until 1993, some 85 percent of the close to 17 million legal immigrants arriving in the U.S. came from the Third World, mostly Latin America and Asia (pp. 77,281-85). Rather than selection by skill and job qualification as before 1967, the primary selection criteria currently are "family reunification," "asylum," and "diversity lottery" (pp. 78-84). Consequently, the average level of education and the average wage rate of immigrants has continually fallen as compared to their native American counterparts. Moreover, the welfare participation rate of immigrant households significantly exceeds—and increasingly so—that of the native population (which includes Blacks and Puerto Ricans with an already extremely high welfare participation rate). For instance, the welfare participation rate of Cambodian and Laotian immigrants is almost 50 percent; that of Vietnamese immigrants is above 25 percent; Dominican Republic 28 percent; Cuba 16 percent; former Soviet Union 16 percent; China 10 percent. As well, immigrants remain on the dole for increasingly longer periods (pp. 141-53,287-88). Last but not least, Brimelow estimates that if the current trends of legal as well as illegal immigraton continue, the population of European descent, which has traditionally made up close to 90 percent of the U.S. population, will be on the verge of becoming a minority by the year 2050 (p. 63). But won't all of the immigrants be assimilated and become Americans? Not likely, because in order to be successfully assimilated, the influx of immigrants needs to be small in comparison to the host population. However, the current influx of about one million legal immigrants (and two to three-hundred-thousand illegal immigrants) per year is concentrated in just a few regions: California, Texas, Illinois, Florida, New York, and New Jersey—and most immigrants actually move to just six metropolitan areas: Los Angeles, Anaheim, Chicago, Miami, New York, and Washington, D.C. (p. 36). In these regions, the number of immigrants is proportionally so large that any assimilation is essentially out of the question. Rather than gradually being Americanized, then, in these areas immigrants have established foreign Third World "countries" on formerly American soil.

  George Borjas notes further that

  almost a quarter of immigrant households received some type of assistance, compared to 15 percent of native households. ... What's more, the use of public assistance by immigrants increases over time. It seems that assimilation involves learning not only about labor market opportunities but also about the opportunities provided by the welfare state.... A study by the National Academy of Sciences concluded that immigration in fact raised the taxes of the typical native household in California by about $1,200 per year.... [As for refugees in particular,] the evidence indicates that... after 10 years in the United States, 16 percent of Vietnamese refugees, 24 percent of Cambodian refugees and 34 percent of Laotian refugees were still receiving public assistance. ("Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American Economy," Milken Institute Review 1, no. 3 [1999]: 64-65,79)

  Indeed, the immigration policy of a democracy is the mirror image of its policy toward internal population movements: toward the voluntary association and dissociation, segregation and desegregation, and the physical distancing and approximating of various private property owners. Like a king, a democratic ruler promotes spatial over-integration by over-producing the "public good" of roads. However, for a democratic ruler, unlike a king, it will not be sufficient that everyone can move next door to anyone else on government roads. Concerned about his current income and power rather than capital values and constrained by egalitarian sentiments, a democratic ruler will tend to go even further. Through nondiscrimination laws—one cannot discriminate against Germans, Jews, Blacks, Catholics, Hindus, homosexuals, etc.—the government will want to increase the physical access and entrance to everyone's property to everyone else. Thus, it is hardly surprising that the so-called "civil rights" legislation in the United States, which outlawed domestic discrimination on the basis of color, race, national origin, religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, disability, etc., and which thereby actually mandated forced integration,18 coincided with the adoption of a nondiscriminatory immigration policy; i.e., mandated international desegregation (forced integration).

  Moreover, Borjas emphasizes, "ethnicity matters in economic life, and it matters for a very long time" (p. 66). That is, the (increasingly high) skill differential between the native and the immigrant population does not quickly disappear as the result of cultural assimilation. Instead, immigrants typically move to "ethnic ghettos" which "incubate ethnic differences," and thus "ethnic skill differentials may persist for three generations" (p. 66).

  18On the law and economics of "affirmative action" and discrimination see Richard A. Epstein, Forbidden Grounds (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992); Walter Block and Michael Walker, eds., Discrimination, Affirmative Action, and Equal Opportunity (Vancouver: Frazer Institute, 1982); Hugh Murray, "White Male Privilege? A Social Construct for Political Oppression," Journal of Libertarian Studies 14, no. 1 (1999).

  VII

  The current situation in the United States and in Western Europe has nothing whatsoever to do with "free" immigration. It is forced integration, plain and simple, and forced integration is the predictable outcome of democratic one-man-one-vote rule. Abolishing forced integration requires the de-democratization of society and ultimately the abolition of democracy. More specifically, the power to admit or exclude should be stripped from the hands of the central government19 and reassigned to the states, provinces, cities, towns, villages, residential districts, and ultimately to private property owners and their voluntary associations. The means to achieve this goal are decentralization and secession (both inherently undemocratic, and antimajoritarian).20 One would be well on the way toward a restoration of the freedom of association and exclusion as is implied in the idea and institution of private property, and much of the social strife currently caused by forced integration would disappear, if only towns and villages could and would do what they did as a matter of course until well into the nineteenth century in Europe and the United States: to post signs regarding entrance requirements to the town, and once in town for entering specific pieces of property (no beggars, bums, or homeless, but also no Moslems, Hindus, Jews, Catholics, etc.); to expel as trespassers those who do not fulfill these requirements; and to solve the "naturalization" question somewhat along the Swiss model, where local assemblies, not the central government, determine who can and who cannot become a Swiss citizen.

  What should one advocate as the relatively correct immigration policy, however, as long as the democratic central state is still in place and successfully arrogates the power to determine a unifor
m national immigration policy? The best one may hope for, even if it goes against the "nature" of a democracy and thus is not very likely to happen, is that the democratic rulers act as if they were the personal owners of the country and as if they had to decide who to include and who to exclude from their own personal property (into their very own houses). This means following a policy of the strictest discrimination in favor of the human qualities of skill, character, and cultural compatibility.

  More specifically, it means distinguishing strictly between "citizens" (naturalized immigrants) and "resident aliens" and excluding the latter from all welfare entitlements. It means requiring, for resident alien status as well as for citizenship, the personal sponsorship by a resident citizen and his assumption of liability for all property damage caused by the immigrant. It implies requiring an existing employment contract with a resident citizen; moreover, for both categories but especially that of citizenship, it implies that all immigrants must demonstrate through tests not only English language proficiency, but all-around superior (above-average) intellectual performance and character structure as well as a compatible system of values—with the predictable result of a systematic pro-European immigration bias.21

  19Until a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 1875, the regulation of immigration into the United States was considered a state, rather than a federal, matter. 20See further on this chap. 5.

  21Currently, about one-half of the U.S. foreign-bom citizens, after more than five years of presence in the U.S., still speak virtually no English. Of the largest immigrant group, Hispanics, well above two-thirds speak practically no English. See Brimelow, Alien Nation, pp. 88-89. Their level of intellectual performance is significantly below the U.S. average (ibid., p. 56); and growing evidence indicates that the crime rate of the immigrant population systematically exceeds that of the nativeborn population (pp. 182-86).