On the opinion page of today’s New York Times was an insightful essay, by business editor Eduardo Porter. In it Mr. Porter makes the case that to the extent that societies are fragmented along ethnic, racial, linguistic and religious lines, they are less inclined to support public spending for social programs. While this may be good news for conservatives opposed to Utopian social-engineering schemes and confiscatory redistribution of wealth, it is also, insofar as it reflects a reluctance to pull together as Americans when necessary for the common cause, bad news for a nation of immigrants.
We read:
For all the appeal of America’s melting pot, the country’s diverse ethnic mix is one main reason for entrenched opposition to public spending on the public good.
Among the 30 nations in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, a club of industrial countries, only Mexicans, Koreans and Greeks pay less in taxes than Americans, as a share of the economy. The United States also ranks near the bottom on public spending on social programs: 19 percent of the nation’s total output in 2003, compared with 29 percent in Sweden, 23 percent in Portugal and almost 30 percent in France.
The Harvard economists Alberto Alesina and Edward Glaeser correlated public spending in Western Europe and the United States with diversity and concluded that half the social-spending gap was due to the United States’ more varied racial and ethnic mix. The other half was mostly due to the existence of stronger left-wing parties in Europe.
Americans are not less generous than Europeans. When private charities are included, they probably spend more money for social purposes than Europeans do. But philanthropy allows them to target spending on those they personally believe are deserving, instead of allowing the government to choose.
Mr. Glaeser’s and Mr. Alesina’s work suggests that white Europeans support a big welfare state because they believe the money will probably go to other white Europeans. In America, the Harvard economist Erzo F. P. Luttmer found that support for social spending among respondents to General Social Survey polls increased in tandem with the share of welfare recipients in the area who were in their own racial group. A study of charity by Daniel Hungerman, a Notre Dame economist, found that all-white congregations become less charitably active as the share of black residents in the local community grows.
This is, for me, a clear indictment of the politics of multiculturalism and identity, in which a fetish for diversity is prized above national unity. There is nothing wrong with appreciating one’s cultural heritage — I feel strongly rooted in my own ethnic group, the Scots — but if a nation as heterogeneous as ours is to survive, we must remind ourselves that such allegiances belong in third place. They must be subordinated to our identification with, and obligations to, each other as Americans — and, finally, above all, as human beings.
7 Comments
I think one of the problems with “national unity” in America is that a lot of people think we have it, but most groups exclude one or more other groups from their idea of the nation. Everyone has their own idea of what a true American is, and a lot of these ideas are rather exclusive.
Which leads me to wonder (as I have often wondered before): how exactly can we define a nation? In Korea, I’ve heard the Korean nation defined in a number of ways, some more exclusive than others, but very few definitions (if any) would account for, say, a Westerner who is a naturalized citizen but does not speak Korean. How do we define the nation of America? It can’t be by ethnicity, obviously. Nor can it be by language. Is it enough to simply possess American citizenship? I know people who hold American passports but don’t consider themselves Americans (because they hold passports from other nations of which they do consider themselves a part). Or is it just geography–is America the group of people living within the borders of America? I hope not, because even though I still have a legal residence in the States for voting purposes, I don’t live there.
It seems to me that all definitions of the concept of nation are slippery in their own way. And the tiniest bit of slipperyness is all that is needed to justify an exclusive interpretation of the nation.
But I babble. I don’t even know what I’m trying to say. I do know that I’ve written about this on my site before, but I’m no closer to an answer now than I was then.
Two things spring to mind that bring Porter’s thesis into question. First, consciousness of one’s ethnic loyalties was quite high in the 30s, when our most sweeping social spending legislation was passed. Second–the evidence, such as it is, is correlational. Pick pretty much anything to compare the US and European countries on, and if there’s a significant difference, bring cultural-ethnic-racial diversity into the mix, and bingo! you’ll have a correlation, purely because we’re vastly more diverse than any given European country.
In response to Charles: one of the things I figured out (or decided–which is the right word depends on whenther or not I’m right :-) when I was in the Peace Corps is that the questions of “What is an American?, how to forge a national identity, and how to have a society in which or differences don’t tear us apart, have been with us from the beginning, and oddly enough as a result we have a very high awareness of nationhood. The very fact that we engage in dabate/conversations about “What is an American?” or “What does it mean to be unAmerican?” contributes to our national identity. As a corollary to all this, I decided that diversity is inherent to “America”–grappling with it, learning to live with it, testing its limits–it’s all very American, and has been from the beginning.
Hi Charles,
Well, I think one of the characteristics you describe — language — is critical to national unity. But above all, the nation of America might be thought to consist of those who, when asked, identify themselves — and not only to the interviewer, but in their hearts as well — not by ethnicity, race, or religion, but first and foremost as Americans.
Addofio, the correlation you describe would be easy to place on surer footing if the quantitative variation being examined was compared to the degree of diversity in the countries under study. Was that not the case here?
It’s hard to know for sure from the excerpt, but it seems to me that the argument here is pretty flaccid.
The authors state that half of the difference is “mostly due to the existence of stronger left-wing parties in Europe:” how they quantify that I have no idea. However, when half of the support for reduced spending on social programs is due to exogenous factors, it sort of weakens your case.
Many European countries have had socialist or quasi-socialist regimes for decades, but no right thinking American would want to emulate the Germans or (gasp!) the French. So there is a long history of a strong safety net there.
There is also the factor that the US spends a disproportionate share of its budget on defense (including contributing to the defense of NATO) — hence the Europeans have a lot more to spend on social programs. Ditto for our spending on the UN.
There is also the matter of East Germany, whose reintegration with West Germany cost hundreds of billions of dollars in social costs. Ditto (to a lesser extent) for the other Eastern European countries.
So to draw a straight line from comparing social welfare costs to multiculturalism seems a little shaky to me.
Hi Peter,
You make a good point about defense spending. The Europeans may have reason to be grateful for that again soon, as the Russian bear appears to be emerging, hungry and ill-tempered, from hibernation.
I think it’s relevant what Porter said about Americans not being any less generous, but preferring to redistribute their wealth through private channels.
But above all, the nation of America might be thought to consist of those who, when asked, identify themselves – and not only to the interviewer, but in their hearts as well – not by ethnicity, race, or religion, but first and foremost as Americans.
I think that’s probably the ideal definition, because it allows each individual to define his or her own identity. But it’s also problematic for the same reason–because the primary criterion is essentially invisible, it makes forming any sort of national unity very difficult. Language is fairly easy to spot, but plenty of people speak American English without actually being American (and vice versa). Ethnicity is easiest to spot of all (usually, although not always), but we’ve already ruled that out. What we’re left with are things that cannot be seen by the naked eye, and while it might be well and good that an individual considers him or herself an American, that doesn’t change how they are perceived by others.
To give an example, I’ve spoken to Asian-Americans who have told me of their frustrations with some of their less-than-cosmopolitan fellow citizens. Conversations often go like this:
White Bread: So, where are you from?
Asian-American: New York.
WB: No, I mean where are from originally?
AA: Uh, New York.
WB: (getting slightly exasperated) I mean, where were you born?
AA: (also getting slightly exasperated) Brooklyn.
This goes on ad nauseum. What WB is basically trying to ask is “What is your ethnicity?” but what AA hears is “What is your identity?” This is a fairly benign example, and WB doesn’t necessarily assume that AA is not an American (although he might), but it does show how easily what we see on the surface trumps whatever self-image other people may have.
Korea is an interesting case of national unity. You would never hear one ethnic Korean accuse another ethnic Korean of not being a “true Korean” or of doing something “un-Korean” (which is really just a sly way of saying the same thing). But an ethnically distinct individual could naturalize as a Korean citizen and would still be considered a “foreigner” by most people. For Koreans, nationality equals ethnicity. If you share that ethnicity, you are part of a very strong national family, but if you don’t, you’re little better than the family dog.
I’m not saying I disagree with your definition–I do in fact agree, I just don’t think it’s practical in terms of bringing us closer to national unity.