Immigration: the need for buy-in

Tim Black writes about the immigration crisis facing Italy, where last year 181 000 migrants arrived via Libya, and 'already this year, a further 84 000 have arrived, which is 20 per cent more than arrived in the first half of 2016.'

Now, if those Italians whose towns have been turned into migrant holding stations had been allowed to debate the migration issue; if those living in Lampedusa and the other migrant destinations in Italy had been part of a process of democratic deliberation; and if they had been allowed to voice their concerns, and influence the decisions which have led to the influx of migrants, then perhaps the seething resentment, the sense of being imposed upon, of having their lives turned upside down with the stroke of pen in Brussels, might have been absent. Perhaps a more workable solution could even have been found. And perhaps the migrants themselves wouldn’t be treated as a problem, but as people just like us, sometimes fleeing wretched lives, always seeking better ones. The EU: pitting migrants against citizens, Tim Black, 'Spiked', 12 July

Sadly for everybody involved, our so-called representatives at the national and EU levels have got into the habit of not consulting us about almost everything. The results are as dismal as they are predictable: the gap between citizens and politicians grows ever wider. Ordinary people feel - and are - powerless. Politics are hyper-polarised. Anger and violence are now a normal feature of political discourse.

Our politicians just know they're right. So do those NGOs and philanthropists who support 'open borders', for example, though, unlike the rest of us, they don't have to live with the consequences of their momentous decisions.

It's time to change the way policymaking works. Social Policy Bonds have two main elements: identifying society's social goals, and injecting market incentives into their achievement. If we could strive for the first of these elements alone, that would be preferable to our current system. As it is, few ordinary people are consulted on issues, such as immigration, and our political class is now so removed from everyday life that they no longer have any feeling for what's important to us.

Social Policy Bonds could narrow the gap between politicians and the people they are supposed to represent. Political debate under a bond regime would focus on outcomes that are meaningful to ordinary people; things like physical and mental health, crime and housing. Because such concerns are meaningful to all of us, we could all contribute to discussion about which goals we should target, and their relative priority. Of course, none of us will be fully satisfied by our collective decision. But, crucially, we shall know that we have been consulted and that, if we wanted to, we could have contributed to the debate.

One happy result of that is that there would be widespread buy-in. We might not fully agree with every decision, but we were able to participate in the process, and we now have a fuller understanding of the trade-offs inherent in any political decision.

I've written more about Social Policy Bonds and buy-in on my main website here, and in various blog posts including, recently, here, here and here.

Compassionate woman, compassionate policy, cruel outcome

Compassionate woman, compassionate policy, cruel outcome:

IOM [International Organization for Migration] reports an estimated 222,291 migrants and refugees entered Europe by sea in 2016 through 26 June, arriving in Italy, Greece, Cyprus and Spain. Deaths in the Mediterranean so far this year are 2,888, compared with 1,838 through the first six months of 2015. Source

Nobody, least of all, Chancellor Merkel, wanted this. Compassion works in everyday life, with people whom we know, or with people whose need is desperate and urgent. As a policy, though, it fails. I think we should do better to target outcomes, rather than the supposed means of achieving them. If our goal is to reduce drownings in the Mediterranean, then reward people for achieving that outcome. If our goal is to improve the quality of life for ordinary Africans, then we should reward people for achieving that outcome. And if our goal is to reduce or eliminate conflict in the Middle East, then why not put in place a system of incentives that motivates people to achieve that?

Social Policy Bonds allow us to set these long-term objectives and to reward the people who achieve them. They don't sound compassionate relying, as they do, on monetary incentives, and many on the left disdain or despise the idea (and their originator!) for that reason. But monetary incentives - often known as salaries or wages as well as prizes or bonuses or profits - are the very basis of whatever prosperity there is on this planet. The wish to acquire more cash can be directed into social and environmental causes, as well as frivolous or destructive ones. The world would be better served if we all got over our hang-ups about money and with our wish to appear compassionate, and actually worked towards more compassionate outcomes. Or, as a line from the 1981 movie, Southern Comfort has it: "Comes a time when you have to abandon principles and do what's right."

Britain and the European Union

I am sympathetic to the idealism that led to the formation and development of what is now the 28-member European Union. I also see great value in having hundreds and thousands of bureaucrats, from all the member states, in Brussels, talking to each other; their children going to the same schools.

But, more and more, the people who work for the European Union; the administrators and politicians, are seen as - and indeed are - a separate caste. They have seldom worked outside government and they enjoy safety-nets and benefits that are decreasingly available to private-sector would-be employees, especially the young. The processes and institutions of the EU are opaque. The decision-makers are unknown and unelected. They dictate policies that are hugely important to ordinary citizens, such as those concerning immigration, without consulting the public and so without getting buy-in. Ordinary people cannot vote these people out and cannot engage in the policymaking process. There are few consequences for failure at any level of the EU bureaucracy. All this would be less intolerable if the European Union showed any sign of adapting to the wishes of the broader population. But I don't see that.
 
So I fear that this project is going too far, too fast, and without the consent of the vast majority of the public. If I could be persuaded that the EU and the people running it were keeping the peace, then I'd forgive all their hauteur and all their extravagances. Nothing would be worse than another European war. But the signs as I interpret them -  in Austria, France and elsewhere - are that we are seeing exactly the opposite: the European project, in widening the gap between politicians and ordinary people, is planting the seeds of exactly the sort of vicious nationalism that made its founding so necessary.

A vote in favour of Britain's leaving the EU might lead to worthwhile reforms. So might a close decision, either way. But I wouldn't bet on it. For British voters, I'd suggest that a Leave victory would help to close the gap between themselves and the people who make their laws, and reduce the risk of contagion from what looks increasingly likely to be a mean-spiritedly (at best) or murderously (at worst) nationalistic continent. 

The importance of buy-in

The American Interest writes about the European immigration crisis:

However much the idea appeals to cosmopolitan utopians, it is not possible for such human communities to accommodate levels of migration beyond some ceiling. That ceiling is variable, and when there are large cultural and religious differences between the native population and newcomers, the ceiling drops. Europe's waning welcome, 'The American Interest', 1 February

'Such human communities' refers to 'polities that were relatively ethnically homogenous'. I agree that the 'ceiling is variable', but think the authors should have mentioned the importance of buy-in. It's unfortunate that hugely important issues, like immigration, are influenced less by ordinary people than by the usual benefactors and manipulators of an inaccessible policymaking environment. Especially when it is ordinary people who will experience most of the disadvantages of mass immigration, and it is ordinary people whose attitude to immigrants will do much to determine immigrants' loyalty to their new home. The usual benefactors and manipulators? Politicians, lobbyists, billionaires and ideologues.

It wouldn't be hard to involve the public in policymaking if we were to focus on outcomes rather than institutional funding and structures, legal processes, slogans and the celebrity status of policy proponents. Immigration is a relatively accessible issue, and the public should be consulted about it. I am certain the reception accorded to immigrants described in the article excerpted above would be less hostile if our leaders had thought to consult us on the issue.

So too with other policies: consultation generates buy-in, and our democracies face many urgent, big challenges for which buy-in from ordinary citizens will be crucial but is almost entirely absent. Climate change, for instance, health care, nuclear weaponry, or disaster prevention or, not least, the nature of the policymaking process itself. Expressing our policy goals in terms of outcomes, rather than impossible-to-follow procedures, would allow public consultation and with that, buy-in. Without buy-in, we're going to see continuing public disengagement from the policy process, which could express itself in ways that are dangerous to us all.

Social Policy Bonds are a means by which policymaking would be focused on outcomes rather than process. Under a bond regime, government would articulate society's goals and could back bonds that would reward their efficient achievement. By emphasising outcomes, rather than the supposed means of achieving them, policymaking would  become comprehensible to ordinary people. Buy-in would be one happy result: efficiency, brought about by market forces, would be another.

Immigration to Europe

The large numbers of people trying to migrate on flimsy boats from Africa to Europe are not all poor and desperate. The cost of arranging these trips is beyond the means of most. Many of the people on these boats would be entrepreneurs in their own countries if there were even a slight prospect of a better life there. So why isn't there? Why do they leave their culture, their families, their support network and pay large sums to criminals to arrange a very chancy, unpleasant trip to countries that certainly don't want them (to put it mildly).

Not the whole explanation, but a large part of it, are the corrupt, insane European Union trade policies including especially the Common Agricultural Policy which, by subsidising farm production in Europe and imposing formidable barriers to imports has made it very difficult for the food-rich African countries to step onto the first rung of the economic development ladder. Europe adopted the same policies with respect to tropical products and textiles, all at the behest of their own powerful farm lobbies and corporations.

So what did they expect? By creating 'fortress Europe' the Eurocrats exported poverty and instability to poor countries. At the same time they give a few million dollars of funds collected from taxpayers in 'aid' and expect these countries to be grateful. And they act concerned when, after decades of kicking these countries off the development ladder, they are besieged by Africans looking for a better life. It would be unhelpful, childish and arrogant to say 'I told you so', so I won't say it even if it's true – which it is.

Immigration and buy-in

A bleak picture of the corrosive effects of ethnic diversity has been revealed in research by Harvard University’s Robert Putnam, one of the world’s most influential political scientists. His research shows that the more diverse a community is, the less likely its inhabitants are to trust anyone – from their next-door neighbour to the mayor. Financial Times, 8 October 2006

This is an oldish article, but the conclusions of the research cited are relevant. It’s worthwhile asking whence the impetus in favour of immigration arises, and what are its long-term effects on the social fabric of the countries receiving and losing migrants? My own view is that our governments have tended to regard our social environment very much as they have looked at the physical environment: something that can be run down for as long as an obvious emergency can be avoided, so that the financial figures look good.

Immigration is one subject on which buy-in is especially important. If people feel they haven’t been consulted about who is allowed into the country they live in, then the result will be, as Professor Putnam’s research indicates, negative. Consultation on such a sensitive subject could make a lot of difference: not necessarily to the immigration statistics, but to the far less quantifiable, but at least as crucial, matters of attitudes and trust.

We’re fast losing the habit of such consultation. National policy is decided by professional politicians whose policies are mainly expressed in terms of institutional structures and funding, a proliferation of micro-targets, or arcane legalistic discussion. Absent from such policymaking are outcomes that are meaningful to citizens. Government instead is concerned mainly about the means of achieving its (very often) unexpressed or mis-expressed goals. To reconnect politicians with its electorate, I have long advocated Social Policy Bonds: not only because of their likely efficiency gains, but also because they start out with an explicit statement of a meaningful policy goal. By doing that, they encourage greater public participation in policymaking. When it comes to hosting migrants from many different cultures and backgrounds, such participation, and the buy-in it generates, are essential.