The Failure of Free Migration

One immigrant’s brutal crime – using a truck to kill 84 people and injure hundreds during Bastille Day festivities in Nice, France – heightens mistrust for all immigrants and boosts support for a swift crackdown. “Throughout the Western world, a toxic mix of physical, economic, and cultural insecurity has been fueling anti-immigration sentiment and politics precisely at the moment when the disintegration of post-colonial states across the Islamic crescent is producing a refugee problem on a scale not seen since World War II,” writes Robert Skidelsky for Project Syndicate. “[T]he task of political leadership was to keep such views out of the dominant discourse, and to facilitate integration or assimilation. Unfortunately, most Western elites failed to appreciate the conditions of success.” The world’s population is seven times larger than it was in 1800 and undeveloped land is less available. Skidelsky summarizes the history of migration and points out that migrants often don’t return to their homelands. He concludes that an era of unregulated mass movements of people has ended and, without increased security in both destination and sending countries, he anticipates a rise in related political violence. – YaleGlobal

The Failure of Free Migration

Unregulated mass migrations of people is ending in a world with seven times more people than in 1800; without increased security, political violence may rise
Robert Skidelsky
Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Robert Skidelsky, professor emeritus of political economy at Warwick University and a fellow of the British Academy in history and economics, is a member of the British House of Lords. The author of a three-volume biography of John Maynard Keynes, he began his political career in the Labour party, became the Conservative Party’s spokesman for Treasury affairs in the House of Lords, and was eventually forced out of the Conservative Party for his opposition to NATO’s intervention in Kosovo in 1999.

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