Immigration from the third world to Sweden has led to massive social and economic problems. However, the Swedish elites compactly believe in the ideology of multiculturalism. This is true both of the left and of the right.
Their main strategy is to deny objective reality. If our lying eyes tell us that immigrants disproportionally commit crime, live off government benefits and cause negative social externalities, our eyes and our statistics must be wrong. First, anyone who points out data about the effects of immigration is silenced using the effective ad hominem accusation of racism.
Once everyone who is not a multi-culturalist is out of the way and the intellectual level of the debate is lowered to satisfactory levels, the elites are free to exaggerate the benefits, reject or underplay the problems, and make up fantasies about what would happen without immigration. So for example they have claimed that without immigration from the third world Sweden would not have olive oil in the stores or fast food. Or that immigrants, who even when they are younger than Swedes are a net burden on the welfare state, and who like everyone else age and eventually collect pensions, will somehow magically save the pension system.
There is however a second strategy, that I want to write about today. This is when problems with immigration are acknowledged, but blamed on Sweden. Under the dominant multi-culturalist ideology immigration is axiomatically good, so any problems must be due to external factors.
Each side self-servingly attributes the problems of immigration to what they don’t like about the Swedish system.
The left therefore claims that the explanation of why half of non-western immigrants don’t work is racism by capitalist firms. The reason immigrants are 6 times as likely to go to jail for committing crime is discrimination in the legal system, and the lack of funding for public services.
The right conversly claims that problems associated with immigration are entirely due to the welfare state.
Usually we rely on some sort of efficiency in the marketplace for ideas through competition. The left will point out the weak arguments of the right, and vice versa. The result is of course not perfect, but at least you don’t get away with anything. But when it comes to immigration the elites to the left and right in Sweden have formed an intellectual cartel.
The respective arguments in favor of continued mass immigration are *never* questioned by either side. So for example when currently the government and academia are lying to the public and claiming that immigration has not contributed to more incidents of rape - even though according to official statistics half of all rapes are committed by immigrants - the law-and-order right is silent.
The secondary debate where each side blames the problems of third world immigration to the policies of the other side (because it would be unthinkable that the problem was immigration itself) is a little less taboo, but even here the elites tread carefully.
Which brings me to the subject of this post. The Center party (the right of center rural, small town party) has a think tank managed by a bright, energetic guy called Martin Ådahl.
They are releasing a new book called “Successful immigration”, claiming that in opposite to common perceptions, research shows that immigration to Sweden is beneficial for growth and job creation.
The book release emphasizes the success story of Somali immigrants in Minnesota by Benny Carlson.
Why do Swedes care so much about Somali immigrants in Minnesota, American readers might ask themselves?
It is very simple. Somali immigrants in Sweden are one of the most problematic groups. Only about 20% work, the rest living on welfare. Since according to multi-culturalists it is not logically possible that immigration from Somalia is not beneficial for Sweden, we must assume Swedes or the Swedish system is to blame.
As we noted the right blames this on the welfare state. They have thus invented the story that Somalia immigrants in free-market Minnesota are a magnificently successful group, largely based on anecdotal evidence. If we could only copy the policies of Minnesota, they would thrive also in Sweden.
Can we trust the research presented by this book? What does the data tell us?
I downloaded US Census American Community Survey 2006-2008 (before the crisis), which allows us to directly investigate Somali immigrants in Minnesota.
The average income of the working age adults in Minnesota is $38.000.
The average income of working age Somali immigrants in Minnesota is $13.800, or about one third(!). As a comparison, one third of the average American income is Mexico.
More than half of Somali immigrants in Minnesota are below the poverty line.
Only one half of Somali immigrants in Minnesota work.
Those who work earn $21.000 per year, compared to $46.000 for Minnesotans on average.
The median income of Somalis that work is $12000 per year, or about 9000 Swedish kronor per month (using 9 kronor to a dollar as a PPP-adjusted conversion rate).
The conclusion that this data tells us is that Somali immigration to Minnesota has been a complete disaster from the perspective of Minnesota.
A group that earn one third of average income cannot possibly be a net contributor to the public sector (in the U.S those with low income pay virtually no taxes, yet consume public services).
A group that earns one third of average income and where half live in poverty is not a success story for other countries to be inspired by.
One consolation is that we find that 51% of Somalis in Minnesota work, compared to about 20% in Sweden. Is that not at least a partial success story?
Minnesota in 2008 has very little labor regulations, low taxes, and much less generous public services than Sweden (although contrary to public perception they do still have some welfare and public services). It is more of a brutal sink-or-swim climate for immigrants than Sweden will ever be in my lifetime.
Yet, half of Somalis don’t work.
Moreover, those who do work earn very little, because they have low productivity.
If we import the Minnesota “success-story” to Sweden, we will get more Somali immigrants to work. But half of them would earn 9000 Swedish kronor per month or less, income levels that Swedes consider abject poverty. Swedes simply do not want a segregated, low-wage labour market.
The entire purpose of the Swedish social experiment is that Swedes are inequality averse, and do not want to live in a society where unskilled workers earn third world wages.
Nor do Swedes enjoy social problems, and are satisfied if over 50% of a community lives in poverty (compared to less than 7% of Swedes).
When a group with this dismal performance is cheerfully presented to the Swedish public as a “success-story” that we should emulate, we know that the intellectual level of the Swedish right has sunk very low.
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