News recently came out that around half of Germany's population of Turks don't work. This is quite a drag on the economy, as there are thought to be over 4 million of them in the country, or 5% of the total population. Also, it is worth pointing out that this is not some EU backwater with high unemployment, but the economic powerhouse of Europe where well-paid jobs are not hard to get. So, what exactly is going on here?
Short answer: The bad end of a Faustian bargain.
Immigration may sometimes seem like a stop-gap solution if you are a major employer looking to cover a labour shortage and keep down wages or a leftist politician looking for easy votes. But it is something that tends to move in only one direction, and can easily get out of hand, especially if you are a weak-minded liberal Western state, as Germany has been since the foundation of the Federal Republic.
This is not really news. In 2013 Der Spiegel reported on the concerns of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1982, as revealed by the minutes of his meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Kohl was worried that the number of Turks in West Germany (at that time about 1.5 million) was so large that there would be very little pressure on them to assimilate. As a solution, he envisioned reducing the number of Turks by half.
The problem in its essence is this: Germany shouldn't have been relying on immigrants in the first place. If there was a labour shortage, German industry should have automated more or increased its own population. Naturally that second option would have meant sending women back to the home and would have pushed up Labour costs even more (at least in the short to middle term), but really that was exactly what Germany needed—a check on what we can now see was the necrosis of economic over-expansion.
When a nation's elites decide to "supplement" the existing labour force for their own selfish benefit, the existence of a national identity places strong obstacles and restraints. In the wake of WWII and the defeat of Naziism and the demonization of all German nationalism as Naziism, this healthy checking mechanism was somewhat impaired, but still existed with enough strength to prevent the importation of millions of foreigners.
What was required was a swing to the Left, a propaganda blitz, and a cultural revolution that further demonized healthy group instincts, which is exactly what happened. This was the process that overrode the nation's immune system and allowed the Turks and others to arrive in their multitudes.
But the flaw with this "brilliant plan" is that the morality that was employed by the elites to get the migrants into the country was also the morality that allowed them to loaf around on welfare or on easy-going training schemes. If it is "racist," "xenophobic," and "Nazi" to oppose migrants who are coming to Germany to "help pay for our pensions" etc., then it is also "Nazi," "xenophobic," and "racist" to insist that they pull their weight once they get their feet in the door.
Same lube, different arsehole, to use a vulgar but apposite idiom.
In any country where the elites have managed to dupe the population into drinking from the poisoned chalice of mass immigration (everywhere in the West, basically), you will see the same paradox in play. The bacillus that is employed in breaking down the strength of the nation to facilitate an influx of cheap labour, also becomes the pathogen that allows the incomers to become fully-fledged economic parasites, as the Turks in Germany have become.
And what is the solution? The Dissident Right knows, of course. But those who are less enlightened favour rinse and repeat: "If the Turks won't work, maybe the Syrians and Sub-Saharan Africans will, if only we can do enough to combat racism..."
Short answer: The bad end of a Faustian bargain.
Immigration may sometimes seem like a stop-gap solution if you are a major employer looking to cover a labour shortage and keep down wages or a leftist politician looking for easy votes. But it is something that tends to move in only one direction, and can easily get out of hand, especially if you are a weak-minded liberal Western state, as Germany has been since the foundation of the Federal Republic.
This is not really news. In 2013 Der Spiegel reported on the concerns of Chancellor Helmut Kohl in 1982, as revealed by the minutes of his meeting with British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Kohl was worried that the number of Turks in West Germany (at that time about 1.5 million) was so large that there would be very little pressure on them to assimilate. As a solution, he envisioned reducing the number of Turks by half.
"Germany had no problems with the Portuguese, the Italians, even the Southeast Asians, because these communities integrated well," the minutes read. "But the Turks came from a very distinctive culture and did not integrate well."Sadly, Kohl then did what politicians in Western democracies typically do when faced by thorny problems: he kicked the can of worms down the road for someone else to deal with, meaning that the problem is now nearly three times as big.
The problem in its essence is this: Germany shouldn't have been relying on immigrants in the first place. If there was a labour shortage, German industry should have automated more or increased its own population. Naturally that second option would have meant sending women back to the home and would have pushed up Labour costs even more (at least in the short to middle term), but really that was exactly what Germany needed—a check on what we can now see was the necrosis of economic over-expansion.
When a nation's elites decide to "supplement" the existing labour force for their own selfish benefit, the existence of a national identity places strong obstacles and restraints. In the wake of WWII and the defeat of Naziism and the demonization of all German nationalism as Naziism, this healthy checking mechanism was somewhat impaired, but still existed with enough strength to prevent the importation of millions of foreigners.
What was required was a swing to the Left, a propaganda blitz, and a cultural revolution that further demonized healthy group instincts, which is exactly what happened. This was the process that overrode the nation's immune system and allowed the Turks and others to arrive in their multitudes.
But the flaw with this "brilliant plan" is that the morality that was employed by the elites to get the migrants into the country was also the morality that allowed them to loaf around on welfare or on easy-going training schemes. If it is "racist," "xenophobic," and "Nazi" to oppose migrants who are coming to Germany to "help pay for our pensions" etc., then it is also "Nazi," "xenophobic," and "racist" to insist that they pull their weight once they get their feet in the door.
Same lube, different arsehole, to use a vulgar but apposite idiom.
In any country where the elites have managed to dupe the population into drinking from the poisoned chalice of mass immigration (everywhere in the West, basically), you will see the same paradox in play. The bacillus that is employed in breaking down the strength of the nation to facilitate an influx of cheap labour, also becomes the pathogen that allows the incomers to become fully-fledged economic parasites, as the Turks in Germany have become.
And what is the solution? The Dissident Right knows, of course. But those who are less enlightened favour rinse and repeat: "If the Turks won't work, maybe the Syrians and Sub-Saharan Africans will, if only we can do enough to combat racism..."
