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I think there are two separate though somewhat linked questions in the whole debate over Vivek's recent extremely controversial post:
I think that the answer to #1 is a very complex one and largely boils down to what you value. Clearly high-skill immigrants who assimilate benefit the economy, but they also take away jobs from possible US native-born competitors. A lot of one's answer to this question will depend on whether you want to maximize your at least short term market value and are willing to accept a sort of socialist nativism to try to maximize it, or whether you value other things more. There are also obvious questions of the possible dilution of culture by immigrants, fears of future race wars, and all sorts of complicated issues.
I would like to focus on #2. Is the Asian work model actually better than the US one? To me, the answer is pretty clearly no, and this is what offends me mainly about Vivek's post. The whole idea that Americans are too lazy and we should have a work ethic more like Asians.
I don't think many would doubt that the Asian work ethic is in many ways personally damaging to people who follow it. It is both emotionally and physically damaging. I have met more Asians who complain about that work ethic than Asians who support it.
But does it even bring objectively better economic results? To me the answer seems clearly to be no, it does not. Take Japan for example. It has had more than 70 uninterrupted years of peace and capitalism, yet despite its Asian work model, it has never managed to economically catch up with the US. Now to me it seems clear that Japan is in many ways a better place to live than the US is - it has much lower levels of violent crime, it seems to have a better solution to finding people housing, and so on. But I think those things, while correlated with their work culture, are also potentially separable from their work culture. I see no fundamental reason why Japanese could not adopt a more Western type of work model while also retaining the low violent crime rates and the better housing situation.
Japanese have less per-capita wealth than Americans. If working constantly was truly superior, then why do they have this outcome? Of course America has many advantages, like a historical head-start on liberal capitalism and great geography and winning wars and so on. But it's been 70 years now... the geography is what it is, but certainly modern Japan has not been plagued by a lack of capitalism or by wars or by authoritarianism. If they slave away working so hard, or pretending to work so hard, all the time, then why are they still significantly poorer than we are? To me this suggests that the Asian work model is not essentially superior to the Western one, and it would not only be personally damaging to me if we were to import it here in the US, but it would not even make up for that by yielding better economic outcomes.
This is a question I ask myself almost every day.
For now, I want to push back slightly on the wealth/GDP comparison. I've posted before about my struggles in thinking about it. The numbers show Americans are at median higher in per capita wealth and GDP, but it is difficult for me to square that with my personal experience actually living in the US vs East Asia. In a phrase, it feels like when I'm in the US I'm always paying more for less. Food tastes worse, interactions with a service workers feel worse, I'm shaken down for tips even on take-out, public spaces are covered in literal piss and shit, public transit is garbage, there's lower trust, principal-agent problems seem to play out with a high rate of defections, etc.
If GDP is the sum total of all money flows, how should I feel about getting paid >3x while I'm also having to shell out >2x for everything but it's all worse. PPP is supposed to account for this, but I don't think it quite captures the full picture, particularly the part where everything is lower quality. Every transaction in the US will nickel and dime you to death. In comparison, I generally feel a much greater utility surplus in places like Japan.
When Japanese waiters just do their job because it's culturally expected while American waiters drag their feet and still whine about 20% tips not being 25%, that's not captured by GDP.
When the best ramen shops in Tokyo don't hike up their prices despite massive queues and still put full effort into quality just out of pride in their work while American restaurants are tacking on random surcharges and skimping on ingredients, that's not fully captured by GDP.
When the city can just delete most of its trash cans and citizens will still largely refrain from littering while Americans are paying several full time salaries to pick up dog feces, that's not fully captured by GDP.
When restaurants don't have to pay for security guards because crime rates are low, that's not fully captured by GDP.
In the thread I linked above, someone gave the example that his wife could increase national GDP by getting a job and paying a nanny and a housekeeper, etc. instead of being a stay-at-home mom. The sense I get is that similar things are at play in every aspect of society and the US culture is one that lies on the former extreme in almost all of them.
Edit: It was pointed out that I went a bit off on a tangent. To get back to your question, my main thoughts comparing US and East Asia are that 1.) The productivity gap isn't as high as the GDP numbers would suggest and 2.) The advantages and disadvantages largely emerge from cultural differences rather than systemic ones. If I were to reduce it to a principal component, I'd put it along a "trust" axis, with East Asian inefficiencies arising from cultural rituals that may or may not be needed to maintain this trust while American inefficiencies arise from the constant defections in the setting of low trust. Given how difficult culture is to change I don't see much opportunity for a Hegelian sublation between the two but if there is one, I'd wager it'd be easier for East Asia than the US, simply because trust is far easier to maintain than it is to build.
I agree with everything you’ve said here, but I still feel like you’re not answering OP’s question in the spirit it was intended: could we have all those nice things without ~everyone spending needlessly excessive hours in the office?
In theory, I think the answer is yes. But as the great Yogi Berra once (apocryphally) said, in theory, there’s no difference between theory and practice—in practice, there is.
Hmm, let me give it another go: I think parts of the United States do have those things. From what I can tell, those places typically have older and wealthier populations that have lived there for a long time and that have a sort of set culture. Larger American cities aren't so much that way (in fact they are often celebrated at not being that way!) Even where I am (American Southwest) the restaurants don't have security guards [that I've noticed] and you can get great service (although it's a little hit or miss) even in the poorer/more rural places.
Japan is an aging culture, I don't think it's surprising that it's more considerate even all things being equal (which they aren't, Japan was already a culture known for having a code of polite behavior and America has always been known as being a straightforward place, except for the South.) I think (although I could be wrong) that cultural churn is destructive to polite mores. You can see how America, and particularly American cities, are full of cultural churn:
I think a large part of politeness is having to live with the consequences of your actions. Even in a large city, one without a lot of "churn" and upwards mobility means that neighbors know each other and live next to each other for years or decades. But America is wealthy, and people are always moving in, moving out, and mostly moving up and away, and so there's not as much incentive to be civil or polite or not to litter. (Although maybe stuff like that is literally just a question of whether or not you catch and punish the X% of the population that litters, I dunno.)
There's the saying that everyone in America is a temporary embarrassed millionaire, and I think that attitude makes more millionaires, and fewer polite waiters and careful ramen chefs. In other words, it's hard for a constantly moving culture to settle around a distinct set of mores. (But I've never been to Japan, so I'm on thin ice making comparisons.)
I'll assume "simply eliminating blacks" is purely hypothetical and not an expression of desire, but combined with "the malign influence of their degenerate culture" it's pretty clear you just want to sneer at a race you dislike. You are free to argue against the Civil Rights Act, but do so without waging the culture war.
You’re right, this was unbecoming of me. Next time I’ll think twice before drunkposting on a Saturday night
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