One of the
developing fault lines in the Trump world is over the question of selective
issue of visas for certain individuals regarded as being exceptional – the usual
term used is ‘the brightest and the best’. The billionaires funding Trump,
including the official First
Buddy, Elon Musk, want to continue issuing such visas, whilst the MAGA
purists want a complete halt to immigration and see every such visa as denying
a job to an existing US citizen. At the moment, Trump seems to be siding with
the billionaires (‘billionaire supports billionaires’ would hardly be a
surprising headline), although history shows that he eventually falls out with
everyone, and sooner rather than later in the case of anyone who might distract
attention from himself.
There’s a similar,
albeit not exactly parallel, debate here in the UK. By and large, businesses
want more visas whilst politicians believe that the public wants fewer. Talk
about attracting ‘the brightest and the best’ is the compromise adopted by
those politicians who want to try and appeal to both sides of that debate,
although they generally end up satisfying neither. But whether in the US or the
UK that term, ‘brightest and best’, could do with more detailed scrutiny than
it’s getting. Why are some people considered ‘brighter and better’ than others?
In the case of Musk
and Trump, their position is clear and public – they genuinely believe that
ability is first and foremost genetically determined. It’s a core belief which
underpins what they believe is their inherent right to rule over the rest of
us. Trump even seems to believe that his
uncle’s career as a professor somehow shows that Trump himself is a genius. A stable
one, of course. That belief in genetic pre-determination is less obvious in the
UK, but it still underpins the argument. It’s a convenient – and ultimately
lazy – belief, which saves its adherents from having to explain why one of the
richest countries in the world, with one of the historically most well-regarded
systems of higher education, is incapable of producing the same people, and
needs, in effect, to outsource their production to others. Reluctant as I am to
agree with the MAGA purists on anything, they may have a point here.
I’m not arguing that
the people concerned should not be allowed to migrate to the UK (or the US, for
that matter); on the contrary, at the level of principle, I believe that people
should be able to choose freely where to pursue their lives and careers. But
there’s something dishonest about an advanced country like the UK with its 67
million inhabitants (and even more so the US with its 335 million people)
claiming that it is unable to train and educate people to the highest level and
needs to attract them from elsewhere instead – unless they truly believe that
nature (genetics) plays the key role and that nurture (environment, education
etc.) is always secondary. The evidence to support such a categoric belief is
noticeable primarily by its absence.
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8 comments:
"I believe that people should be able to choose freely where to pursue their lives and careers." Are you insane?
I don't believe so, no. But your extract from the blog is selective, isn't it? It misses out the key caveat, which is "at the level of principle".
And I stand by that: there are two possible starting assumptions at the level of principle. The first is that people should be free to move as they wish, and the alternative is that all movement is subject to the whim of governments. There are practical reasons why states might choose to control that freedom, of course, but do those controls start from an assumption that all movement should be prohibited unless specifically granted or from the assumption that all movement should be free unless specifically prohibited? In some respects, actual policies might end up looking very similar, although the underlying attitudes towards would-be migrants might be rather different. I choose the latter - you clearly don't.
It is nuts, John. half of sub-Saharan Africa would chose to live in Europe. I sure don't blame them, but it is crazy. John, I love reading your blog and I have been an economic migrant for decades, but come on.
John, I really enjoy reading you blog and I have been an economic migrant for decades Allowing everyone to live where they choose, would see half sub-Saharan Africa moving to Europe, and who could blame them.
Thank you for the kind feedback on the blog, even if we may not entirely agree on this one!
"Allowing everyone to live where they choose, would see half sub-Saharan Africa moving to Europe" Quite possibly true, but I don't think I suggested that. My point is about the starting point for considering the movement of people, and there are only two options. If we start from the perspective that migration is a privilege only bestowed on some by governments, two things happen: firstly, the onus is on the would-be migrants to justify why they and not others should be allowed to migrate, and secondly, we exclude the poorest and most desperate. If, on the other hand, we start from the assumption that people are free to migrate, subject to such constraints as governments might impose from time to time, something very different happens: the onus is on the authorities to justify refusal. I prefer the latter.
Now, in practice, the outcome of the two approaches might look very similar (although the treatment of those seeking to migrate might be based on a more humane view of people and their needs and wishes) because a completely 'open door' policy' isn't currently practical or sensible, so there could be a rather long list of reasons for refusal. But if we start from the perspective which says that, in principle (and I stress those two words), humans should have maximum freedom to move around as they wish, then migration policy starts not with building walls and barriers, but with examining the reasons for migration in the first place. Why is it that people in countries which were colonised and robbed of their resources seek to move elsewhere for better opportunities rather then deploy their talents where they are? (The answer is, at least partly, contained in my less-than-entirely-objective framing of the question.)
You talk specifically of sub-Saharan Africa, which is one of the hotspots today, but looking closer to home, is there not a parallel with what happened (and is still happening) in Wales, with young people - for generations - seeking opportunities elsewhere? I would have preferred that they hadn't, and even more that they hadn't seen it as necessary, but I wouldn't have sought to prevent them from doing so. But if the solution for Wales is about creating the opportunities here for people to stay and pursue their careers, rather then physically preventing them from leaving (or from entering some other country) surely the same is true of African countries? Maybe it's the construct of 'Britishness' which makes it difficult to see the parallel, but it is there, nevertheless. Migration is largely a product of economics and inequality, and building walls, whether made of bricks or of policies, doesn't address that.
'Than', not 'then', of course.
Late to this debate but I found it interesting. Although for all sorts of practical reasons, complete freedom of movement is impracticable, it has only become so because we have decided that the besy way to govern the world is to carve it up into series of 'nation' states with entirely arbitrary borders imposed by political, military and economic elites on a population that, for the most part, neither asked for them nor needed them. I am not sure how we will ever extract ourselves from that system but it didn't have to be like that. And surely the ultimate aim should be to get back our ancestoral right to roam where we choose?
Whilst I agree with "complete freedom of movement is impracticable", at least until we collectively address the drivers of mass migration (my point was about whether complete freedom of movement rather than building walls and barriers ought to be the objective of policy over the long term, not whether it should be implemented tomorrow), I'm not so sure that I agree with "it has only become so because we have decided that the best way to govern the world is to carve it up into series of 'nation' states", because I'm far from convinced that anyone ever 'decided' anything of the sort. It might be what has happened, and I agree with your point about borders being largely arbitrary and "imposed by political, military and economic elites", but that doesn't mean it was exactly intended. One interpretation is that the problem started when the elites in a society decided that they personally owned what had previously been unowned and available to all, and then decided that they'd rather like to own that which was previously owned by neighbouring communities as well. The outcome of conflict, usually violent, is that we have to work with the borders with which we've ended up (except where we can find a peaceful way of amending them), which reflect the way some have helped themselves to the resources of others, creating an inequality which then drives a desire to migrate. The nationalistic 'solution' to the 'problem' of migration (which is all that most of our politicians seem able to offer or even imagine) is to build more walls and barriers, an approach which can only ever work for so long as it's backed up by the use, or threat, of force. It can never be the long term solution, which has to start by addressing the inequality which is the driver.
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