Will Immigration Destroy Europe? I think not, Jeff Fynn-Paul

Jeff Fynn-Paul, a lecturer at the University of Leiden, has a curious piece in the Telegraph. The title reads “Immigration destroyed the Roman Empire. Now it could bring down Europe”. I was happy when I saw this - low lying fruit for the old Substack, ya know. 

If I’m honest, this article is plagued with linguistic ambiguity and extreme numerical imprecision I’ve often found with nationalist writers. Writing a coherent response was therefore challenging. But if all fails, the very title provides an opportunity for debate: immigration did not destroy the Roman Empire, you utter dimwit. It was, in fact, the debasement of the Roman coinage which produced inflation and weighed down real wages, reducing the incentive to join the army. I’ll let him elaborate, though. 

Which to begin with, he doesn’t do particularly well. The article points out a problem, without really telling me why it’s a problem: 

With more than 10,000 migrants arriving on the Italian island of Lampedusa in a single week – a figure which dwarfs the island’s resident population of 6,000 – it’s not just men who are beginning to feel as though we’re living through the Fall of Rome 2.0

I can only guess at what the implied argument against immigration is here. Let’s think: rapid population growth…...home price inflation? Job displacement? Wage cuts? Fiscal burdens? Many of these arguments against immigration have been debunked. I’ll build on all this when he explicitly states in detail what the exact issues with immigration are. Anyway, onward we press.

While the Romans were swamped by barbaric German hordes, ageing modern Europe might be sunk by too many millions of people seeking to participate in the high living standards and guaranteed incomes afforded by the European system. Does the comparison hold water? In some obvious senses, no.

Aside from a-historical, this comparison is morally egregious. The Romans were only ‘swamped’ by German ‘hordes’ (careful with that term, Jeff), because the Empire invaded Germanic areas. To equate the cultural and economic consequences of forced assimilation and subjugation by a foreign power with those of foreigners entering a country out of their own volition, is just absurd. It’s equivalent to saying we shouldn’t make broccoli available for voluntary consumption, because when I was little, my mum made me eat broccoli, which produced an often hostile reaction. 

At least Fynn-Paul finally clarifies an actual problem he sees with immigration into Europe - namely, putting burdens on the welfare state. This argument is dumb for 2 reasons: (1) on average, immigrants are net fiscal contributors. While it’s true that immigrants from outside the EU are net negative contributors, studies estimate that this cost is only small, at around 1% of GDP. Meanwhile, (2) the economic growth immigration helps generate creates taxable private sector income, in turn filling government coffers. Even if low-skilled, non-EEA immigrants are fiscal burdens, it is clear that they benefit natives in multiple other ways, like working jobs nobody else wants to do and reducing consumer prices.

Fynn-Paul proceeds to further try and justify this ridiculous (and frankly racist) analogy:

The Germans were able to achieve military victory because they were less centralised: by training every man for war, small tribes could raise larger armies than a Roman province. Roman professional armies represented a tiny fraction of the Roman population, but could only be maintained via an exorbitant and oppressive tax system. In the end, many Romans concluded that civilisation was simply not worth the price they were being asked to pay for it.

Well there you go. He confirms what I said and demonstrates the stupidity of his entire comparison right there. Ancient Rome didn’t collapse because of immigration, but imperialism - going out of its way to invade other groups and forcibly impose economic and cultural institutions upon them. Maintaining that incurred a belligerent social reaction, contributing to its downfall. If you’re not able to distinguish that from how the present-day immigration system works, I don’t recommend you pursue a career in political journalism. 

On top of that, there are various assumptions made within this comparison to modern Europe. One is that immigrants will ‘destroy’ Europe by being violent and rebellious, just as the Germanic tribes were under the Roman Empire. There is no evidence of this whatsoever - immigrants do not have a higher per capita crime rate than natives. Another is that the social and economic impacts of multiculturalism will incur a higher tax burden. The opposite appears to be true. Fynn-Paul further expounds on his historical treatise:

Ever since the days of St. Augustine (the other Augustine – he of Hippo), the Romans had a nagging feeling that their civilization was falling at least in part because it had endured a sea change in culture. While Christianity would go on to become a major humanising force in the world down to the present day, early Christianity was often applied with such new-convert zeal in Rome that ruling elites were no longer sure what it was that they were defending

Right, ok. I suppose this rather cryptic argument makes two statements of the modern-day immigration situation: (1) immigration has a large cultural and political impact on destinations such as Europe, just as minority groups did in Rome (2) that impact is detrimental, to the extent it will ‘destroy’ Europe, just as the influx of Christians did to the Roman Empire.

It is hard to address each one individually, because they seem so intertwined. Immigration clearly does have a large cultural impact - and that seems to be good. If you don’t believe me, walk through Borough market in London, and see how the infusion of different cultures has enriched the West. Immigration brings in ideas, innovations and capital, which undoubtedly fuels long-run development. According to Nath and Qian, US states which were exposed to more immigration from 1860-1920 are substantially richer today by a variety of metrics. As for the ‘negative’ cultural impacts - there are a few things I can conceive of: diluting natives’ languages? By the fourth generation, only 2% of descendants of immigrants speak their foreign language well. Importing extremist political views which are reflected in voting trends? Immigrants have a very low rate of turnout, and even then they don’t deviate substantially from natives on economic and social issues. If anything, the political reactions to immigration by natives seem to be more troublesome. 

Jeff continues:

Many of us have the uneasy feeling that today’s woke revolution, with its loathing for the Enlightenment, and the Liberal values that gave birth to the Industrial Revolution and modern democracy, has all the earmarks of a cultural sea change similar to that experienced by the later Roman empire.

Of course, I’m willing to admit I agree with him on the benefits of Enlightenment values. That goes without saying. But, he’s completely out of his mind to suggest that immigration threatens them. I’ve already provided data to prove this point, but here’s even more: a study compared the social values of newly arrived immigrants into Sweden with natives. Respondents were asked 35 questions on everything ranging from the ethics of abortion and homosexuality to the benefits of multiculturalism. The study attempted to correlate social values - both on an individual basis, and on a country-level basis - to characteristics such as religiosity, immigrant status, education, and country HDI.

On a country-level basis, the study found that the greatest predictor of social liberalism was HDI - “with higher HDI being most often associated with more liberal social values”. This implies that if you allow immigrants to reap the benefits of residing in richer countries, their conservative attitudes will melt over time. When it comes to individuals, as opposed to country groups, it turns out that refugee status doesn’t have a massive impact on social values - “Having a high education is consistently associated with more liberal values, while being a refugee is quite consistent with having more conservative values. However, the effect sizes for these three variables are small”. It's true that religiosity - adherence to Islam in particular - appears to have a larger effect on immigrants’ attitudes, making them more conservative. But this is only on fairly peripheral issues like abortion, sex ed in schools, and premarital sex. While I myself take liberal stances on all those issues, more conservative attitudes hardly represent “the earmarks of a cultural sea change similar to that experienced by the later Roman Empire” and an endangerment of the Enlightenment. Overall, immigrants demonstrate a strong alignment with natives on social issues, with a huge correlation of 0.83 between immigrant and natively Swedish social views. This varies from a high of 0.96 with Germans, 0.75 with Iranians, 0.7 with Syrians, 0.6 with Pakistanis, to a low of 0.46 with Bangladeshis - which is still pretty strong, as the study notes. While the immigrants Jeff Fynn-Paul fears the most are indeed stricter on social issues than native Westerners, we can comfortably assert, I think, based on the evidence, that their entry into Europe will not undo the Enlightenment. But Fynn-Paul continues to insist otherwise:

The root of our modern immigration problem lies at the intersection of demography and institutions. In 1950, the population of Europe was about 550 million, while the population of Africa was 220 million. Today, the population of Europe is 750 million, while Africa’s surges towards 1.5 billion. The Middle East has witnessed similar levels of population growth in recent decades. This is no one’s fault: Europe’s population went through a similar ballooning phase 100 years ago and it’s simply what happens when modern medicine and technology are introduced to a society. In the long run, the populations of Africa and the Middle East will plateau, just like Europe’s did. But in the short run, this will put enormous pressure on Europe’s ability to cope.

“The intersection of demography and institutions”. Now, what’s he trynna say here? That immigration alters a destination country’s political institutions? Benjamin Powell and Alex Nowrasteh have extensively investigated that. There’s no evidence for it at all - whether you like it or not, immigration does not erode the basic political institutions which the Enlightenment gave us.

As for this rant about population statistics: it’s as though the guy’s implying there’s complete open borders between Europe and Africa, meaning population growth in developing countries directly threatens the West. The vast majority of Africans or Arabs do not make it to Europe. Hell, most immigrants to Europe are not even from Africa or the Middle East. On top of that, Flynn-Paul makes the same mistake that Malthus and Erlich did - committing to the belief that ‘unsustainable’ population growth worsens living standards. This has been categorically and unequivocally debunked: assuming the right institutional environment, population growth brings more bright minds, and in turn more innovation and greater abundance. Superabundance, you might even say. 

The reason why I find this article so problematic is, really, its ambiguous language - immigrants will ‘bring down’ Europe just as they ‘destroyed’ the Roman Empire (I’m surprised the editors of the Telegraph allowed such a charged term to be used). What does that even mean? He alludes to cultural ruination, of course, but even that’s edgily underdefined, and up for interpretative grabs. I’ve given Jeff Fynn-Paul the benefit of the doubt here, and assumed he only means well. I could easily be wrong, though.