Thomas P.M. Barnett :: Weblog

OP-ED: “The Newest Americans,” by Michael Barone, Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2006, p. A16.

OP-ED: “How to Defuse the Population Bomb,” by George Melloan, Wall Street Journal, 11 April 2006, p. A17.

OP-ED: “How to get the best out of Africa,” by James Altucher, Financial Times, 11 April 2006, p. 10.

Brilliant trio of op-eds, really.

Barone’s is magisterial, reflecting the fact that he’s lifting it from a new book he’s got coming out, which sounds like a good one (“The New Americans: How the Melting Pot Can Work Again”).

Basic gist? Fears of being overwhelmed by poor foreigners is both real and overblown. Historically, we tend to underestimate the flow of cheaper workers coming to American looking for economic opportunity, so every attempt at immigration reform is usually one iteration late, meaning the resulting flow is never the one we expect because our economy is changing, as are regional economies the world over, so the fixes we tend to come up with typically reflect an experience that’s come and gone by the time we get the new rule set up and running.

That’s a complex argument and I’m not doing justice to it here. But there’s another bit in this op-ed that I found truly fascinating, and that’s Barone’s argument that what really moderates the flow of people to the U.S. is economic development back home.

Let me quote the two paras that really struck me on this:

The experience of 1965 [immigration reform act] suggest that we should consider the possibility that that assumption [that immigration and labor markets will work in the future as they have in the past] may prove wrong. Immigration from Latin America has been surging, especially illegal immigration from Mexico. But Mexico’s birth rate has been plummeting over the past dozen years [classic characteristic of a New Core “riser”]. And the experience of Puerto Rico suggest that Latin immigration will taper off when countries there reach an economic level far below our own. In the 1950s of “West Side Story,” it seemed that Puerto Rican immigrants would take over New York City. There were no barriers to that migration: Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and there were cheap flights from San Juan to New York. But around 1961, when per capita incomes in Puerto Rico reached about 35% of the U.S. average, net migration from Puerto Rico to the mainland tapered off to zero, where it has remained ever since. Incomes in Mexico are still well below that level. But at some point immigration from Mexico and other parts of Latin America will likely fall, as immigration from Germany and Britain and Ireland fell in the late 19th century as those countries’ economies grew.

Similarly in Asia. It’s already happened: Immigration from Japan, seen as a threat 100 years ago, is now minimal; immigration from South Korea peaked in the 1980s; as Taiwan and Thailand and Malaysia grow, outmigration is likely to slow. There remain great reservoirs of potential immigrants in India and China, but their economies are growing rapidly and China’s population is aging. Sub-Saharan Africa already contributes many immigrants, and could send more; but the tragic high rates of AIDS infection in many countries there may limit immigration.

Melloan’s piece, coincidentally, makes the same essential point: develop undeveloped states or deal with the consequences of “demographic mismatch” (Core is rapidly aging, Gap is still having mucho babies). He cites a new CSIS study on demography by noting that “Over the next 20 years, 80% of the world’s population growth will occur in those countries least capable of supporting it--politically, environmentally and/or economically.”

Melloan then makes the great connection I seek to promote:

When viewed in these terms, it becomes clearer that the root of the problem is fundamentally economic. Countries that have large numbers of idle, frustrated youths obviously have faulty economic policies that waste opportunities to employ human capital. This is usually because of domestic power structures that protect existing elites by shutting out opportunities for new ventures and enterprises [what I constantly refer to as “broadband economic connectivity for the masses”]. Even the U.S. government occasionally has succumbed to protectionist pressures from industry, unions and farmers over the years, but never to the extent of killing off the spirit of enterprise that has fueled U.S. growth.

Keeping that spirit alive and spreading it abroad is a vital task. The challenge of this century for the developed nations is to find a way to put the world’s rising supply of youthful talent to productive use.

How hard will that be?

Here we turn to the last op-ed, which is surprisingly optimistic on the economic pathway of Africa:

Quietly, the political situation in Africa has been improving. Only 11 out 53 African countries have governments that came into office without due process. Many newly democratic countries have instituted market-friendly reforms, and listed state-owned companies on local exchanges… There’s a perception against reality game here as well--most people perceive Africa as plagued with famine, war and general decline. In reality seven of the world’s 20 fastest growing economies are in Africa.

This was a point I pushed in PNM when I noted that Africa’s plight tended to be exaggerated beyond all hope--or feasibility of systematic improvement.

In combination, I can’t help but read this trio of op-eds and feel more certain about the logic that shrinking the Gap is the obvious grand strategic goal of this age: makes us safer, makes us more prosperous, and it’s the right moral thing to do.

As for having the resources in hand to do it? That’s something I tackled at length in Chapter 5 of BFA. If we just rethink who can be our friends (trading “down” from Old Core to New Core), and realize how much we’re currently wasting on pretend wars we’ll never fight with fellow Core states and on doing efforts inside the Gap badly, there’s no question that the resources are at hand.

And yes, the fact that that strategic vision sales job is so hard pisses me off too--just like those generals.