The Liberal Peril

November 24, 2007

Christchurch’s Press seems to take a perverse delight in belittling European New Zealanders in its immigration articles (or should that be advertorials?).

In a recent feature article on East Asian Immigration “Aiming for a multicultural NZ” Saturday November 17) the idea that East Asians should assimilate into the local culture is questioned on the basis that, well, European New Zealand culture is inferior:

“And what should integration mean? To put it bluntly, do we still expect Asian immigrants to turn themselves into “good sorts” if they want to be accepted – to dump several thousand years of culture and refinement and adopt a life revolving around malls, barbecues, loud cars, touch rugby and a few beers.”

If this isn’t cultural loathing I don’t know what is – lets take the most banal aspects of European New Zealand culture and compare them with the best aspects of East Asian culture. You could easily turn this statement on its head and it would be equally valid.

“And what should integration mean? To put it bluntly, do we still expect European New Zealanders to turn themselves into cultural quislings if they want to be accepted – to dump several thousand years of Classical/Judeo-Christian culture and refinement and adopt a life revolving around overcrowded cities, monotonous menus, karaoke, Marshall arts movies and a snobbish dislike of manual labour.”

The article then takes a right-liberal tack and attacks the country for failing to integrate economically with non-Western markets:

“While other small nations like Iceland, Finland and Singapore have increased their average economic “connectedness,” as measured by exports and foreign investing, from 42% to 89% of gross domestic product over the past 15 years, we are the only developing country to exporting less, managing to drop back to 3 points to just 39%.”

In an article about immigration these examples are totally irrelevant, since when have Iceland and Finland been bastions of multicultural capitalism?

Finland has one of the lowest rates of immigration in the developed world. Its export success is more likely to do with its monocultural corporatism than cultural diversity.

While New Zealand should perhaps learn more about Asian markets, and offer more Chinese language courses, some Asian countries could also be doing a lot more to open up their markets.

Before Ms Clarke rushes into a free trade deal with the Chinese, shouldn’t she wait until China cuts back its farming subsidies and stops messing about with the Yuan?

The article also has some revealing comment from Auckland University Professor Manying Ip, who perhaps inadvertently, make a good case for avoiding a free trade deal with China:

“Ip says the rapid rise in mainland Chinese immigrants, which is only likely to increase if New Zealand manages to seal a free-trade deal next year, is creating new integration hurdles. Immigrants from ex-colonial nations like India, Hong Kong and Singapore had some preparation for living here. The mainland Chinese have not just greater language and cultural differences, but a worldview still shaped by years of communism.

“Ip says they can feel fiercely patriotic and defensive of their homeland. They also have the confidence of coming from the new world superpower. Where earlier Asian immigrants might have felt more pressure to fit in, the mainland Chinese could prove more assertive of their right to their own way.”

Having posed some serious questions on immigration, the article then predictably returns to banality with some inane comment from a left-liberal British immigrant:

“As for the British immigrant, what made her decide to come to Christchurch?The Englishness of the place surely? Well, actually it was discovering you could now get a good Thai takeaway here. A big change from the hicksville of just a few decades ago she says.”

Funny how these Islington types always end up looking for non-western cuisine in western countries. If you like Thai, what’s wrong with Bangkok?

2 Comments | Immigration, Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Less preaching, more education

November 17, 2007

Like 19th Century Methodists, today’s liberal academics love to preach.

Switch on the discovery channel or pick up a history book, and you’re likely to hit a barrage of left-liberals messages about saving the environment or the evils of European imperialism.

However, it wasn’t always this way, as Fred Reed points out in a recent column “A Craving for Tyranny,” traditional western education used to follow a quaint, old-fashioned idea called objectivity:

“I went to a small, very Republican, Southern college these many years ago. In those days communism was thought poorly of. Yet in my survey course on philosophy, we learned what Marx thought, not what to think about Marx. The readings represented his ideas fairly. For further knowledge, go to the library. We were expected to come to our own conclusions, and did. A different world.”

When I was at secondary school I used to get annoyed by religious sermons and prayers at assembly time. However, in many ways I think today’s situation is much worse. Now the preaching goes on 24-7.

Leave a Comment » | Education, Liberalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Liberals and nationalism

November 13, 2007

At the Gates of Vienna site Fjordman had come up with another fine post entitled The Roots of non-Discrimation, Liberalism or Maxism? which has generated a lot of good comments.

For example, a commenter by the name of Simon de Montford made the important point that while the Nazis are often cited as the ultimate example of the evils of nationalism, they were not really true nationalists.

“Fjordman mentioned, as others have, the hysteria against nationalism in Europe after WWII, but the irony is that the Nazis were supra-nationalists who thought in terms race, not nationality: they dragooned all sorts of ‘Nordics’ into the Waffen-SS and created their crackpot myth of a northern European Master Race that had virutally nothing to do with the borders of Germany or a German nation. The Nazis were anti-Communist lunatic totalitiarians–not nationalists and not really socialists.

“They wanted to destroy the whole concept of nationhood and replace it with an empire dominated by ‘Nordics’. Somehow their anti-nationalist efforts ended up as the driving force for the anti-nationalism of the last 60 years.”

Take out the Nazis, and the likes of Franco and Mussolini look relatively tame.

In contrast, communism dictators like Stalin and Pol Pot have gotten off far too lightly in liberal assessments of 20th Century history post WWI.

1 Comment | Liberalism, Nationalism | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Communism is liberalism

November 10, 2007

One thing which most liberals conveniently gloss over is the fact that communism is a type of liberalism.

Communism combines left-liberal faith in human equality with right-liberal faith in technological progress and rational management. Traditionalist blogger Mark Richardson suggest that communism is best defined as a type of radical liberalism.

The fact that communism is a type of enlightenment liberalism helps explain why western intellectuals have been far less critical of communism than right-wing fascism, and why right liberals like Christopher Hitchens do not seem to be particularly embarrassed about their Marxist past.

The Nazis may have been more merciless that the Soviets or the Maoists, but overall, communism created far more human misery over the course of the 20th Century. Moreover, its legacy is still causing major social, economic and environmental problems in Eastern Europe and Central Asia.

Say what what you like about the cruelty of extreme nationalism, but it has never created an environmental problem on a par with what Marxism has done to the Aral Sea.

In discussing the growth of skinhead attacks on foreigners in Russia, left-liberal journalist Mark Ames, of Exile fame, puts much of the blame on communism and neo-liberal economics, while carefully avoiding any criticism of liberalism per se:

“Over the past few decades, Communism and Western-style liberalism have been thoroughly discredited, first by the collapse of the Soviet Union and then with the collapse of the Russian economy by the end of the 1990s. Christianity has never recovered from the Bolshevik Revolution. All of this, put into the context of social, economic, cultural and geopolitical decline, has helped foster growing ultranationalism, including neo-Nazism–which seems strange in a country that lost 27 million people to the Nazis.”

Because Ames cannot see that western liberalism in general has aggravated many of the problems faced by Russia, he blames the relatively conservative government of Vladamir Putin for encouraging ethnic violence:

“Since Putin came to power in 2000, Russia has experienced an unexpectedly rapid yet uneven revival, and his government’s overt patriotism, as well as its ambivalent attitude toward Western liberalism, reflect and enable the growing appeal of ultranationalism.”

I would suspect that to understand the racial attacks in Russia, it is necessary to take into account one or two factors that liberal pundits tend to overlook.

A major factor in the collapse of the Soviet Union was the economic burden Russia faced in having to support economically backward colonies. This drag on the economy became critical in the 1980s, when global prices for oil and minerals nose-dived. Russia was then faced with the unenviable problem of having to support backward countries like Turkmenistan, while its own economy was in economic free-fall.

It is probably hard to underestimate just how disruptive communism was in Russia. When communism collapsed it was found that many cities, of hundreds of thousands of people, were located in economically illogical places and some experts believe that the burden of relocating people to areas where they actually want to live, as opposed to where Soviet planner dictated they should live, is the country’s biggest economic problem.

Given that most Russians are still poor, and gain almost no benefit from the arrival of immigrants from former satellites, that used to be subsidised by the Russian government for little in return, it’s not really surprising that some of them are hostile to immigrants from former non-Slavic satellites.

The Putin government may be trying to impose conservatism and stability from above, in a rough and ready manner, but it seems preferable to re-visiting liberal approaches which have led to far more pervasive problems.

Leave a Comment » | Liberalism, Russia | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman

Immigration and labour shortages

November 5, 2007

Immigration solves labour shortages, this is common knowledge right?

Well not if this recent survey by NZ Consumer Magazine is anything to go by.

Consumer magazine has surveyed trade rates in 18 centres and found they were significantly higher in Auckland than in South Island centres like Christchurch and Dunedin. For example, in Auckland, auto-mechanics charge $60-111 per hour, in Christchurch $45-81 per hour, and in Dunedin just $40-68 per hour.

Plumbers in Auckland charge $56—79 per hour while in Dunedin only $41-62 per hour. The survey also notes that Auckland has a significant problem with unregistered cowboy tradesmen.

According to the logic of pro-immigration economists, diverse multi-cultural Auckland should have plenty of eager tradesmen willing to work for modest rates, while tradesmen should cost an arm and leg in white bread South Island cities with lower immigration levels.

Critics will argue that living cost are higher in Auckland, so tradesmen have to charge higher rates to make a living. This is true to some extent, but living cost are also partly caused by immigration.

Saying immigration solves labour shortages is a highly simplistic, dare I say ideological argument which only applies to a few industries, especially unskilled and non-essential ones, and does not appear to be much help in solving the labour shortage in the skilled manual trades.

2 Comments | Immigration, NZ economy | Permalink
Posted by mikecourtman