I recently attended a conference on Martin Luther in his hometown of Wittenberg.
To get there involved making a two-hour train journey from Berlin through the wastelands of former East Germany. For the most part, what I saw seems to have remained untouched for the last half-century or so, save to have acquired, yet with a quality of ferocious abandon that was as unsettling as it was unfamiliar, the all-too-familiar spray-paint graffiti that blights so much of our own urban landscape.
On arrival at Wittenberg, now valiantly trying to turn itself into a place of pilgrimage and an international tourist centre, yet in reality largely a ghost-town still, I was reliably informed that much of the population of former East Germany, though now amply provided by the state with welfare in comparison with how things were before 1989,remains deeply demoralised, with many of the young having gone west to seek their fortunes.
I have no doubt that this sorry condition in which East Germany languishes as a result of the long years of Soviet domination has been replicated elsewhere throughout the countries of the former Soviet bloc.
Small wonder is it today, since the accession to the EU of so many of these countries whose populations have been debarred from taking jobs within the EU save for Britain and Ireland, there has been a massive influx to this country of young East Europeans eager to throw themselves into whatever work they can find.
And jobs they have found in plenty: jobs in the domestic and service sector as well as construction work and other areas of employment, in both the official and, doubtless, black economy.
One can only admire and wish these young workers well, although one fears for the lands they have left which have been deprived of their more enterprising young folk.
Is their steady immigration to Britain a good thing or a bad thing – not for them, which it clearly is, but for Britain?
In the short-term, their arrival here must be deemed a blessing: they are willingly taking jobs for which employers cannot otherwise find suitable applicants or applicants willing to work at the pay-rates offered. Moreover, culturally speaking, they have close affinity with the indigenous population and often possess proficiency in the English language and knowledge of its literature and history that compares favourably with that of many of native-born British. (I can say this with some authority, having taught -- or, rather, attempted to -- for many years at one of London's universities.)
However, over the longer-term, the grounds for considering the continuing influx of economic migrants from East Europe a good thing for Britain begin to pall.
The reasons have been well set out in a letter in today’s Times from David Coleman, Professor of Demography at Oxford. Basically, so he explains, these reasons are two-fold.
First, in a welfare-state such as Britain remains, low wage-earners and the unemployed must have their incomes topped up by state subsidy to reach levels deemed acceptable by society. When one reads in a comment in the same edition of the paper by Camilla Cavendish that ‘in 2004 about 30% of all households [in Britain] received half or more of their income in state benefits’, one begins to see the country might not have obtained such a good bargain by this influx of cheap labour.
Admittedly, much of the current demand for state support is home-grown rather than having been imported from beyond these shores.
For example, in the same article, it is noted that ‘there are now more than 2.7 million people in incapacity benefit, including many low or unskilled men in their 30s and 40s whose permanent exclusion from the job market is becoming a real worry.’
This fact, however, merely highlights the salience of the second reason why the influx of economic migrants from the accession countries might not be such a good bargain for this country.
Professor Coleman explains what this reason is with exemplary clarity and cogency in his letter, when he observes their arrival here and willingness to work for low wages and in unattractive jobs merely ‘tempts us to side-step the solution of difficult political issues, including reforming the training, education and motivation of millions of the existing population, young an not so young, who are economically inactive, and rethinking the perverse welfare incentives that keep them so.’
For understandable reasons, perhaps, Michael Howard fought shy of highlighting this aspect of the immigration issue in his electoral campaign, preferring to focus on aspects of the issue which, rightly or wrongly, he judged would have more voter-appeal.
The ability of politicians to avoid facing up to it is a luxury that might not be so nearly affordable for them next time around, if, as economic forecasters are predicting, the country is about to face a very significant down-turn in its economic fortunes.
Maybe, just maybe, our own landscape is about to acquire the look of decay, neglect and general dereliction that I witnessed on my rail-joruney through former East Germany and which, perhaps, provides the most graphic proof there can be, for those unable to follow economic reasoning, why all socialist endeavour must inexorably end in ruin.
Comments (2)
It seems to me that we are getting a "double whammy" here.
We have a vast number of people drawing unemployment for a variety of reasons (Chavs who are essentially illiterate and think the World owes them a living including their partners, older people on "invalidity benefit" to massage the unmeployed figures etc. etc.) who would be perfectly capable of doing the so called low skilled jobs. However, it is financially more beneficial for them to be paid by the State for doing nothing rather than work and any inducement to force them to earn their keep will be shouted down by the Guardianista. The Roman Empre was corrupted from within by a similar process. (Tradesmen could not compete with the slave economy, so they were paid dole to top up their wages to allow them to compete. However they decided they would prefer a reduced standard of living rather than work. Does this sound like a familiar scenario?)
Of course we then "need" mass immigration to take these unskilled jobs, often below any sort of decent salary allowing a standard of living without needing massive subsidies from the state (such as rent subsidy, child benefit subsidy etc.) and all the costs of education, health and all the rest of the benefits they are "entitled" to as soon as they set foot in the country.
Mighty expensive cheap labour ....
Posted by PhilB | May 9, 2005 7:27 PM
Posted on May 9, 2005 19:27
....30% of all households [in Britain] received half or more of their income in state benefits’....
God help us. We really have gone to the dogs.
With sweeping tax cuts many of these people could earn much more than they do and the demand for benefits would be much less. However if our socialist education system keeps churning out illiterates, I'm afraid they will always need to suck at the state's teat.
Posted by EU-Serf | May 6, 2005 5:17 PM
Posted on May 6, 2005 17:17