Migration Concepts in Depth: An Addendum to An Unchallenged Arbiter
By Chris Shaw
The major migration concepts which were defined in my recent paper An Unchallenged Arbiter have come under question. In particular, the concepts of xeno-racism, bonding and bridging capital, and the general framework of an Eriksen-defined multiculturalism have been questioned as a form of statist or academic leftism. I think it’s fair to clear up these definitions for greater clarity, and to frame them within my wider critiques of statism.
Firstly, the concept of xeno-racism has been defined by Liz Fekete as the specific exclusion of refugees, asylum seekers and other specially-defined migrants from forms of state-based welfare. When they are accessed, they are significantly diminished and can even engender forms of exclusion, as in the case of specific benefit “credit cards” which can only be used in certain places, for certain products. Of course, if these welfare programs were simply a form of national capital developed from friendly societies, healthcare cooperatives and other forms of mutual aid within communities, then there would be little problem. Those who found and fund such programs should have the final decision in terms of exclusion and inclusion when they are voluntarily funded. However, the actual development of statist welfare is anything but. For example, the early NHS was neither desired nor considered necessary as a form of healthcare that could correct previous issues. Similarly, rather than the Beveridge reforms being a ground-up consensus that developed out of friendly societies and charitable groups, they were instead an expropriation of community capital developed as an alternative to such communality. Further, the state itself not only imposes these forms of welfare (through mechanisms of theft), but also imposes strange forms of ethnic identity from the top-down. State-based multiculturalism effectively enforces a form of identity completely in ignorance of existing communities and ethnic groups. Working class communities from the east coast to the North are destroyed by mass immigration, and the cultures of these immigrants are legitimised as functions of a supposedly “civil” society. Ethnic minorities are not encouraged to integrate into existing communities, but instead construct nations within the wider nation. Any imposition of restriction that individual communities (for example those working class communities socially constructed from historical, cultural and religious bonds) want to impose on incoming immigration is impossible in the wider framework of the nation-state. Overall, xeno-racism is the specific application of ill-defined ethnic identities on incoming migrant populations which impose artificial exclusion which may not exist in a truly voluntary setting of patchwork English communities developing policies relative to their shared culture and varied economic needs. It is not a definition that attempts to paint opponents of immigration as racist, but rather to show that the state cannot truly define the dynamics of immigration with any meaningful intelligence, particularly when considering the problem of disaggregated knowledge as identified by Hayek.
Secondly, bridging and bonding capital are particular ideas that develop out of a community-based understanding of identity and culture. Where there is a huge change in ethnic makeup in particular communities, the ability for said communities to maintain cultural bonds becomes strained massively. This can be described as a breakdown in bonding capital. With this breakdown comes the inability to maintain existing community relations, thus limiting the capacity to develop bridging capital when new individuals enter a community. Such relations and dynamics have been described in much greater detail by Robert Putnam and Ed West. Within British communities, this can be seen as the increasing relevance of both white flight and the development of neighbourhoods where ethnic minorities become the majority. In Luton and Bradford, white communities and ethnic minorities turn their backs on each other, limiting both forms of capital that Putnam has identified. This serves to increase stratification and racial tension.
Finally, the concept of multiculturalism as identified by Eriksen is one defined outside the parameters of the state. This can involve a series of patchwork communities interlinked by a common identity but involving particular nuances and social differences, polycentrically confederating or maintaining separation as is their choice as individually-defined groupings. Applying this to Britain, it would most likely involve minimal influxes of immigration into areas where there still exists communal identities of English culture and sociality. London, under this definition, is realistically-speaking a lost cause, as it has fully accepted the tenets of cosmopolitanism and human rights discourse. Taking the framework Eriksen has defined, and combining it with Hoppe’s concept of natural inclusion and exclusion, there would develop ground-up national identities that excluded and included individuals through varied forms of social organisation. Such a generative framework is completely incompatible with most modern nation-states, who have completely accepted mass immigration and have no intention of reversing its consequences.
The modern left in Britain accepts immigration because it provides a fruitful voting base, and the modern Conservative Party happily accepts immigration because the major retail and agricultural monopolies (who happen to be major Conservative donors) need them as a pool of surplus labour who are easily exploitable. Relying on the modern nation-state to create an immigration framework which properly distributes resources and maintains traditional socio-economic relations is extremely naive. Instead, communities need to be constructed and defined which further these traditional ways of life and protect them from further state-led degradation. Deconstructing multiculturalism and the imposed welfare state should be foremost in the development of these communities, as without it the cultural rot, the destruction of national identity and the imposition of effective theft will simply continue.
This is correct and effectively argued analysis. But I would add some other observations. It’s not merely Labour and Conservative Party interests which are served by mass migration. The interests of the State itself are also well served. The ‘State’ is not the ‘Nation’.
Mass migration, mostly of the most enterprising young people from their country of origin, invariably seeking employment or the chance to set up businesses, is a bonanza for the State itself in the short term. And of course all politicians live in the short term. These migrants are perfect subjects for the State. They are the least likely to require social services and benefits, are the most content to live in poor housing conditions, will put up with almost anything, and make the economy larger.
All State power ultimately derives from the size of the economy on which it can subsist, and on the numbers of people it can govern. The more supplicant the people the better. And there are few more supplicant and insecure than immigrants. Immigration also helps mitigate the adverse effects of an ageing population. If the birth rate drops and the population ages (see Japan) the survival of a State (as opposed to a Nation can, in the extreme, depend on migration.
The political elite of all political persuasions, and the Civil Service are well aware of this phenomenon and they themselves are not affected by the loss of national and localised community. They have their own community, largely white, or where it isn’t, determinedly cosmopolitan.
The UK is turning into a ‘community of communities’ rather than a ‘Nation’. I do not comment one way or the other on whether this might be a good thing. In a number of cities people of different ethnicities, although living and working peaceable side by side, live parallel lives. White people have their own pubs and clubs for example. In parts of Birmingham the White community is almost a kind of hidden sub culture.
This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the parallel communities live side by side in harmony. The ‘live and let live’ indigenous culture which already prevails in Britain might well make this a successful social model for Britain.
There is also a noticeable trend for White people to congregate in different parts of the country. There has for example been significant migration from the West Midlands into Mid Wales and from other parts into South Wales, particularly Carmarthenshire. This is a ‘migration’ which is not often commented upon. But it is still ethnic migration, albeit in the form of ethnicities which find it much easier to integrate.
After a generation or two the newcomers appear to all intents and purposes Welsh. But are they? Notice who they support when the Rugby or Football comes on. Having said that it’s all good natured. But when the chips are down they know who they really are, and they are respected for it.
This internal UK migration does however have exactly the same implications for pressure on local services and housing that Eastern European migration into the UK has. In some respects it can be worse because the newcomers are more likely to be older retired people who place the biggest burdens on the local NHS social care etc. In Wales the NHS is devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government. Elderly migrants from England bring no extra money to fund it, and neither do younger families who need to send children to School. The Block Grant from London remains the same
Their spending power in the private sector however, and the jobs required to serve them are largely filled by locals. It’s no coincidence that Wales has the lowest unemployment of any of the four UK nations and the gap is widening.
After all these years of heavy migration into the UK, we can at least consol ourselves that we have experienced a degree of shock treatment. Though it has pushed us close to our limits, we have shown ourselves able to tolerate and cope with it. When we leave the EU and the main source of UK wide anger, namely the entitlement newcomers to receive in work benefit and social housing from day one is addressed, the mood might well change. Against the background of our traditionally tolerant culture, near zero unemployment, and rising minimum wage, people might start appreciating the economic value of migration at a not much lower level than we have now, and even start convincing themselves that migrants are hard done by. The key challenge is to build more affordable housing.
The outlook for community relations in the UK (or at least England and Wales), might be better than we fear. Our ‘community of communities’ model might well work out for us. ‘Multiculture’, opposed to ‘Multiculturalism’ will have been the solution we ourselves have found to deal with our challenges. I increasingly encounter individuals of differing ethnicities laughing together at one another’s cultures. That’s always the sign that things are looking up.
It won’t be the first time solutions have been found not because of, but despite, the efforts of the State. ‘Multiculture’ and ‘Multiculturalism’ are not the same thing. Just as ‘Social’ is good and ‘Socialism’ is bad, it’s the ‘ism’ that’s the road to ruin.
Never. We will never accept a mixed-racial Britain, no matter what fancy name you want to call it. And we will fight you, if we have to.
Some questions on human nature and libertarianism:
Why do, we must presume, intelligent people supposedly interested in liberty deny native European peoples the simple freedom to be? Do they also deny native African, Arab, and Asian peoples that freedom? No, so what’s going on?
How did the love of liberty become the struggle against the struggle for the native European life? Who established the notion that the bounds of Nature could or should be broken? How did the libertarian “individual” become so alienated from his or her ethnic group that he or she could ever believe that? Anyway, what is it about the defining nature of ethnicity which offends them?
Why on earth would anyone ever accept his people’s colonisation and replacement by racially-alien peoples, never mind that in this case we are talking about the gene-killing of the European creative genius? Why should Europeans agree to cease to exist?
If Tom Rogers can’t ‘accept’ a ‘mixed- racial Britain’ that’s his problem not ours. He’ll have to go and live somewhere else. He has no right to be socially accepted by others solely on grounds of what his passport says.
What we call the ‘British’ have been a ‘Mixed Race’ community ever since the colonisation of what are now the British Isles, around 12,000 years ago. I don’t count anyone who lived here before the Ice Age, and who managed to cling on, perhaps on the South Coast, throughout the Cold Snap,
The racial mix has been added to continuously ever since. All of us are of mixed race. If Mr Rogers isn’t, he must be an ethnically pure descendent of the first homo sapiens to evolve, hundreds of thousands of years ago, in East Africa,.
The present colonisation of Britain started when various continental inhabitants wandered over the land link between Britain and the continent around 12-15,000 years. All of them must have been variously of ‘mixed race’ and a ‘mix of different races’. The entire population of Europe itself had migrated from East Africa when mankind started its journey from its evolutionary roots. The various races evolved ‘en route’.
To cut a long story short (although there’s is no rational reason why we should), perhaps we can restrict our examination of Britain’s racial composition to the most recent 2500 years.
Even at the start of that recent and arbitrarily defined epoch, Britain had long since become physically detached from the continent and its population was almost entirely composed of the mixed race people we call the ‘Celts’. They are sometimes called the ‘Welsh’. So anyone who isn’t a pure bred direct descendent of from them, and can’t ‘accept’ a mixed-racial Britain, can pack their bags and go. Anyone who actually is of pure bred ‘Welsh’ stock, will just have to live with the 12,000 years of migration.
One significant ‘Johnny come lately’ wave of Mixed Race Migrants are the Anglo Saxons who arrived less than 1500 years ago. They contributed significantly (although not as much as some people think) to the cultural evolution of Britain, but were nevertheless subsumed into the existing ‘Romano Celtic’, population. It would no longer be possible to find anything close to an ethically pure Anglo Saxon any more, and such Anglo Saxon stock as there was, didn’t penetrate much further into Britain than the North and the East of the English Midlands.
In the 1500 years that have elapsed since, endless ethnicities have arrived and settled here not least because the British Isles is physically accessible by sea to the whole World .
Jumping to the 20th Century a big wave of Asians and West Indians came here, entirely as a consequence of there having been a ‘British Empire’. The West Indians are a particularly interesting example. The already multi racial inhabitants of Britain, forcibly transported their families from Africa to the West Indies and then in the late 19th and 20th Century invited them to come here. Every one of them is a British Citizen, no different from the descendants of the Anglo Saxons or the Celtic immigrants who arrived 12,000 years ago. The (allegedly) ‘indigenous’ ‘Welsh’ will just have to put up with it just as they have to put up with descendants of the Anglo Saxon immigrants. The present influx of Central and East Europeans is, ethnically speaking at least, a fairly routine affair.
There is no such thing as an ‘indigenous’ Briton. We are all ‘half’ and ‘multi breeds’ of various sorts. What is ironic about some of these ‘multi breeds’ who claim to be ‘indigenous’, however is that they completely ignore the fact that, when you include their descendants, the various Political ‘States’ which have existed in the British Isles, have, between them, been the biggest exporters of people the World has ever known. But the early populations of Australia, New Zealand and North America will just have to put up with that as well.
The difference any libertarian would have with Guessedworker’s remarks is that he elevates the State over the nature of the individual. No one denies any individual ‘the freedom to be’ wherever he lives in the World. Anyone is totally free to identify with whoever he likes. But no libertarian would define another group as ‘his people’ solely on grounds that they too are also long standing subjects of the British State or indeed of any ‘State’. That’s a deeply ‘Statist’ and anti libertarian viewpoint.
The ‘British State’ as presently constituted, exists because England was occupied by a foreign invader in 1066. Wales was, (eventually), occupied by the invader as well. Scotland entered into a voluntary Union with the forces of occupation 300 years ago. England was quite unlucky to lose the Battle of Hastings. But it did and England was thus occupied. That however, did not alter the character of the ethnically diverse communities, which constituted the territory known as England. But no ‘libertarian’ would define the inhabitants of these occupied territories as ‘his people’ SOLEY on the grounds that he was born in one of them, let alone on the grounds that he was born in the artificially constructed State of England, or more recently in he even more artificial State called the ‘United Kingdom’.
The present UK only dates back to 1921 and its’ constitution would change again if Scotland secedes. It would be a grossly anti libertarian, Statist and anti social attitude of mind, to suggest that someone’s definition or ‘his people’ changes with it.
For my part ‘my people’ are my friends, neighbours, family, and the people I choose to identify with. Regardless of what ‘Race’ they claim to be, I do not, for example identify the leader of the British National Party, Sinn Fein, Jeremy Corbyn, Nicola Sturgeon, or Diane Abbott as ‘my people’, over and above (say) Tory MP Priti Patel, the half Spanish Michael Portillo, or some Irish person.
I did however identify Ronald and Nancy Reagan, as ‘my people’. But I don’t identify Ted Cruz. I identify with nearly all Australians and New Zealanders regardless of race. But I do not identify with Boers. I see Canadians as being closer to the definition of ‘my people’ than I do Americans. I see French people as being closer, than I do Germans. I see inhabitants of England, Wales, Ireland, and Orkney and Shetland, including Indians who’s families have lived here for generations as being ‘my people’, more readily than I do Scots. If any Gurkhas turned up I would immediately identity them as ‘my people’.
All of these conclusions however are based on prejudice, and they change or are refined if I actually meet one of them.
Finally any suggestion that some ‘gene’ or other has a communal right to survive is not merely ferociously anti libertarian, it’s downright Nazi, and anti human. It’s the personal humanity of the individual which has rights, not lumps of meat, or DNA.
If Tom Rogers can’t ‘accept’ a ‘mixed- racial Britain’ that’s his problem not ours.
You are anti-white racism is noted.
Race-mixing consequential upon the coercion of racially alien populations on a native people is gene-killing. It is the killing of native peoples. You are a genocidalist. Would that be because you have a racially alien people in your family? I think you should explain your obvious distaste for white skin.
He has no right to be socially accepted by others solely on grounds of what his passport says
No native people is required to accept its own race-replacement and genetic dissolution. Every native people which has not been defeated at arms is free at any time to assert its right in Nature to struggle for life and life – the only human right which is in Nature, and the basis for the morally unimpeachable right to self-defence (all others rights are contingent, and the one you claim for racially alien peoples – to live where they want – does not exist at all in international law).
“What we call the ‘British’ have been a ‘Mixed Race’ community ever since the colonisation of what are now the British Isles, around 12,000 years ago.”
The three native British peoples, each of them ethnies, are the English, the Scots, and Welsh. All are so by the fact that they developed shared distinctive genes on the lands which bear their names. That is the basis of indigeneity. There are NO mixed-races native Britons. Indeed the very fact of race (ie, genetic variation at the continental level) renders your statement invalid from the outset.
The racial mix has been added to continuously ever since. All of us are of mixed race. If Mr Rogers isn’t, he must be an ethnically pure descendent of the first homo sapiens to evolve …
According to the PoBI survey the Romans, Normans, and Danes left vanishingly little genetic trace. Some 50,000 northern European Huguenots arrives in the last middle and early modern period, of which 30,000 shipped on to North America. 50,000 Jews arrived in the 19th century, but never allowed themselves to be assimilated, and are not ethnically English, Scots, or Welsh.
Our three peoples exist, and you, like the hating left, need to stop lying about it. Show some respect for all of us.
The entire population of Europe itself had migrated from East Africa when mankind started its journey from its evolutionary roots.
So according to you no native people on this earth has the right to exclude any other people because of OoA. Is that your argument? 100,000 years of human evolution means nothing. The principle of fitness, of genetic interest, of natural right on the soil, and of the defence of kind … all that means nothing. The vast wealth of human diversity means nothing. The European creative genius means nothing. The beauty of the European woman means nothing. Everything is just disposable subject to the whim of globalist politicians and internationalists, millenarian Jews, neo-Marxist post-racial utopians, the foreigners themselves … and little you. That’s it, is it, Ronald?
In the 1500 years that have elapsed since, endless ethnicities have arrived and settled here not least because the British Isles is physically accessible by sea to the whole World.
The evolution of distinct peoples occurs rather faster on islands than it does within continents, and everywhere does so through the four modes ofgenetic variation in Nature. They are natural selection, mutation, and drift, all of which tend to genetic specificity and clustering (distinctiveness), and gene flow, which is the flow of genes from neighbouring territories, and which tends to clining with neighbouring populations. Manifestly, human evolution, could not occur at all where there is constant racial or ethnic churning. Go to the PoBI study and then come back and tell me you have understood that you’re wrong.
The already multi racial inhabitants of Britain, forcibly transported their families from Africa to the West Indies and then in the late 19th and 20th Century invited them to come here. Every one of them is a British Citizen, no different from the descendants of the Anglo Saxons or the Celtic immigrants who arrived 12,000 years ago. The (allegedly) ‘indigenous’ ‘Welsh’ will just have to put up with it just as they have to put up with descendants of the Anglo Saxon immigrants. The present influx of Central and East Europeans is, ethnically speaking at least, a fairly routine affair.
What a little comic you are! When did the English, Scots, and Welsh “invite” Africans to come to their lands? Do tell. I think you will find that, in reality, the sources of political power did that, and at the same time ignored, then spat upon, then did their best to illegalise the righteous anger and discontents of the natives.
Foreigness, btw, does no go away in one generation. Ethnicity is a once-finalised process, after which further selection leads to greater and greater specificity and separateness from the foreign. No non-whites can belong to the native ethnicities of Europe. No Slavs can belong to the native ethnicities of Germanic Europe – as they would doubtless all understand perfectly well if matters were the other way around. There is elasticity in ethnicity only in regard to naturally arising gene flow, but it is limited.
The ‘British State’ as presently constituted, exists because England was occupied by a foreign invader in 1066.
“The British state” actually flows from the crowning of Edgar at Bath in 953, establishing a unified crown for all England, which crown suffered reversal at the hands of the Danes until the latter were finally expelled by a Norman monarch. That aside, the British state as presently constituted actually flows from the Act of Union of 1701.
Interestingly, the Royal Oath of 1688 distinguishes between the people of England and the peoples of the colonies. The English constitution (and, by extension, the British) establishes the people OF England (and, by extension, of Britain) – not the people IN England – as the sovereign power on this soil. The person of the sovereign is inviolate. There is no power in the land, not the monarch, not parliament, not the judiciary, which can replace or dissolve the sovereign constitutionally.
There is no such thing as an ‘indigenous’ Briton. We are all ‘half’ and ‘multi breeds’ of various sorts.
Repeating your lie will not make it true. Go to the PoBI project. Show some respect for our people.
the British Isles, have, between them, been the biggest exporters of people the World has ever known. But the early populations of Australia, New Zealand and North America will just have to put up with that as well.
There are only two bases on which a colonisation can be legitimised. One is the consent of the natives, which, for obvious reasons, is never forthcoming. The other is their defeat at arms. Are you suggesting that we take up arms against the invading hordes in our land? Many of us – Tom Rogers among them – would love to do so.
The difference any libertarian would have with Guessedworker’s remarks is that he elevates the State over the nature of the individual.
The usual intellectual incompetence in matters of human being. The liberal model of Man is non-real. It is a notional product of the Christian and modern Western canons, and of the Judaic thinking about the gentile which informs them (and which is so very obvious in second-wave libertarianism). You are not a self-authorial being. There has never been a self-authorial being, nor can there ever be a self-authorial being. You are merely a victim of the age in which you live.
When I talk about the freedom to be, Ronald, I am referring to the claim on life of peoples, and its emergence into the consciousness in that state which Martin Heidegger termed “being before death”.
I am not talking about travel, OK?
Anyone is totally free to identify with whoever he likes.
Identity is not self-authored. Libertarianism has no understanding of the limits of the human will, of natural identity, and of the formation of the personality. As far as I can see, no libertarian thinker has given serious consideration to human consciousness, human presence and absence, and to what Heidegger sought to uncover as “the meaning of being”.
You, very plainly, are a prime example of the libertarian ideologue who spouts the usual certainties, but lacks fundamental understanding of Man, hence …
no ‘libertarian’ would define the inhabitants of these occupied territories as ‘his people’ SOLEY on the grounds that he was born in one of them
No man has two ethnicities. All men whose forebears are a distinct people is of that people, owes his existence to that people, shares genetic interests with that people, and natural right to and on that people’s soil, takes his sociobiology from that people … everything that he inherits, including ideal of woman, for example … and, if he manages to behave endogamously, will continue the life of that people. If he is healthy of mind he will know security in that people’s midst, and natural love and loyalty from them and toward them.
For my part ‘my people’ are my friends, neighbours, family, and the people I choose to identify with.
These are merely people. YOUR people are another consideration entirely. You are placing a quotidian confection over an eternal human reality. It’s a grave error.
any suggestion that some ‘gene’ or other has a communal right to survive is not merely ferociously anti libertarian, it’s downright Nazi, and anti human. It’s the personal humanity of the individual which has rights, not lumps of meat, or DNA.
You might try reading Salter. Of course, you won’t. You want to live by the petty Weltanschauung supplied to you by others, when there awaits the mighty task of hewing from the rock-face some understanding of this terrible and final age for our race and kind. We are a dying people, a dying race; and it is not a natural death. It is politically engineered. You are on the engineers’ side. But you are so out of ignorance. I estimate you have an IQ around 120. It is sufficient to escape from nonsense like calling human freedom “Nazi”, and to acquire an advanced political, if not philosophical, understanding. At least take from this exchange the certain knowledge that your positions are almost exclusively false and received in nature, and that you do better.
Thank you, Guessedworker, for your comments. A real breath of fresh air.