Immigrant ambition
Europe's Politics of Victimology is a thoughtful op-ed by Flemming Rose, culture editor of the largest newspaper in Denmark, which is also the one that published the satirical Mohammed cartoons. He is trying to put his finger on why it is that Europe has such difficulty assimilating its Muslim immigrants. At one point he talks about his observations of Russian Jews in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, and how they have adapted to the U.S. I think in that one example he skirts with the fundamental difference between the U.S. and Europe when it comes to assimilating immigrants, but then he moves on without seeming to quite grasp it. The difference, I think, is entrepreneurial, capitalist economics.
In the U.S. it has always been extremely easy to start a business, and small business has always been the escalator of immigrant success and assimilation here. Chinese laundries, Jewish corner stores, Cambodian donut shops, motel operators from India, Korean fruit & vegetable stands, Vietnamese fishermen, ethnic restaurants, bars, and groceries of every description, small business has always been the key and continues to be. Farming is also small business (or was), and many immigrants from Northern and Western Europe started that way. Starting a business gives a family an immediate stake in their new country, commits them to a different future, and eventually draws them out beyond their ethnic community and into the larger society. Business means always looking forward, not back, and it means trying to anticipate what the other guy, who might be different from you in every cultural respect, might want and be willing to pay for. Business inevitably has a universalizing influence, corrosive of old loyalties and identities. The Chinese hand laundries and Jewish corner stores are long gone, but they were crucial to the eventual assimilation and success of those immigrant groups. Question: What would have been the experience of all such groups if they could not have entered U.S. society by starting their own businesses? Well, look at Europe.
In the regulation-strangled EU, starting any kind of business is extremely difficult, and it is impossible to buy land. In European countries, private-sector job growth is minimal; a huge proportion of the jobs that exist are government jobs, and those depend on certain kinds of educational and other certification. The European welfare dole is very attractive and immigrants are criticized for going on it -- but what are the alternatives for someone who arrives without education, language, or other cultural skills? Parallel to immigration everywhere, the Muslims who come to Europe are not the successful cream of their societies, but primarily the poorer and less well-educated, fleeing a dismal future back home. In the U.S., immigrant ambition has generally translated into business startups, a foothold in the society, eventual success and assimilation.
What can immigrant ambition translate to in Europe? Too often, apparently, to disappointment, frustration, and resentment -- which various political and religious interests are only too eager to exploit for their own purposes. Immigrants always, and understandably, concentrate in ethnic communities to begin with, but in Europe they don't have the small business opportunities that would eventually draw them into a larger orbit. Lacking the opportunity to start businesses, they are stuck in dependency, unable to see a future outside their hopeless, hostile ethnic enclaves. Ethnic communities, which in the U.S. have functioned as wellsprings of entrepreneurial energy, in Europe become nothing but festering sink holes. Without the ability to climb out through the window of small business, how could it be otherwise?
Byron
In the U.S. it has always been extremely easy to start a business, and small business has always been the escalator of immigrant success and assimilation here. Chinese laundries, Jewish corner stores, Cambodian donut shops, motel operators from India, Korean fruit & vegetable stands, Vietnamese fishermen, ethnic restaurants, bars, and groceries of every description, small business has always been the key and continues to be. Farming is also small business (or was), and many immigrants from Northern and Western Europe started that way. Starting a business gives a family an immediate stake in their new country, commits them to a different future, and eventually draws them out beyond their ethnic community and into the larger society. Business means always looking forward, not back, and it means trying to anticipate what the other guy, who might be different from you in every cultural respect, might want and be willing to pay for. Business inevitably has a universalizing influence, corrosive of old loyalties and identities. The Chinese hand laundries and Jewish corner stores are long gone, but they were crucial to the eventual assimilation and success of those immigrant groups. Question: What would have been the experience of all such groups if they could not have entered U.S. society by starting their own businesses? Well, look at Europe.
In the regulation-strangled EU, starting any kind of business is extremely difficult, and it is impossible to buy land. In European countries, private-sector job growth is minimal; a huge proportion of the jobs that exist are government jobs, and those depend on certain kinds of educational and other certification. The European welfare dole is very attractive and immigrants are criticized for going on it -- but what are the alternatives for someone who arrives without education, language, or other cultural skills? Parallel to immigration everywhere, the Muslims who come to Europe are not the successful cream of their societies, but primarily the poorer and less well-educated, fleeing a dismal future back home. In the U.S., immigrant ambition has generally translated into business startups, a foothold in the society, eventual success and assimilation.
What can immigrant ambition translate to in Europe? Too often, apparently, to disappointment, frustration, and resentment -- which various political and religious interests are only too eager to exploit for their own purposes. Immigrants always, and understandably, concentrate in ethnic communities to begin with, but in Europe they don't have the small business opportunities that would eventually draw them into a larger orbit. Lacking the opportunity to start businesses, they are stuck in dependency, unable to see a future outside their hopeless, hostile ethnic enclaves. Ethnic communities, which in the U.S. have functioned as wellsprings of entrepreneurial energy, in Europe become nothing but festering sink holes. Without the ability to climb out through the window of small business, how could it be otherwise?
Byron
posted by Byron | Sunday, May 28, 2006
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