This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
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.
USA isn't doing bad productivity wise in comparison with Asian countries. The hyper competitive nature of Korean especially society might be related to their really low fertility rate.
But I don't think that what Vivek is advocating is the Asian work model. They are looking to justify mass migration by claiming that workers are higher quality and willing to work for worse conditions and pay. The later is true, sometimes subsidized with welfare.
It isn't good for American workers if the norms change in that direction.
Since the claim is more about justifying 1. that is unavoidable. The massive economic elephant in the room in regards to migration is the discrimination against white Americans that was already a problem and would increase with more Indians migrants who have this narrative of their superiority, as a means of justification. This discrimination is part of the current situation, and caused in part by the influence of not only the migrants themselves who discriminate such as Indians who are especially nepotistic, but also of many who have this pro migration philosophy that is strongly associated with progressive stack type discrimination. See here as an example: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-black-lives-matter-equal-opportunity-corporate-diversity/
In relevance with 1: this blog addresses it in more detail: https://arctotherium.substack.com/p/increasing-skilled-immigration-is
But are the Japanese actually that much more hard working than Americans? This model might represent in part some Asian migrants or some Asian communities, and also in part just exaggeration.
I am not convinced it represents the "Asian" norm. There is something to it with Japan and Korea and some practices among some Asian migrants. But even then when it comes to Japan in particular, considering that Americans are hard working, I am not sure that Japanese are more hard working.
I would say that Americans are already a hard working people who choose to balance working longer and harder over vacations in comparison with the rest of the world. Including when comparing their practices with European countries. Even if there was some economic benefit in doing so, putting the balance even more in the work category seems to not be worth it considering the trade offs in other facets of life. This model is more related with bragging and the more desperate situation of migrants. But such people are also of lower human capital and also subsidized by welfare and benefit through discrimination policies.
But a part of this is due to oligarchs wanting cheaper labor who they can more easily get rid of. They might also desire to force workers in general to adopt these standards and bring wages down.
A culture that is too hyper competitive can also lead to people wasting time to prove superiority in internal competitions. If smart people have fewer children due to that then the end result is negative. Therefore, it would be a bad idea to adopt such norms.
There is actually a potential, like some of them did in the past, for a left that isn't anti-native, to take the side of its own native labor. I am not a leftist economically, but there is a balance to this. Certainly 8 hour week and some level of worker rights is not valueless.
Historically there was slavery but there were also even children that weren't slaves working in abysmal conditions and dying in the industrial revolution. While a balance that allows productive work over laziness is good, it isn't a good idea to allow oligarchs to push for norms further in the direction of desperate workers willing to accept terrible working standards.
Supposedly, very hypothetically, H1B workers are legally required to make prevailing wages. It's explicitly not a wage suppression scheme. But, I have had horrible conversations with such workers in which they say they would never ask for a raise.
In my practical experience it seems like a wage suppression scheme. Also they can't easily change jobs and if they quit they get deported. So it really seems like a scheme targeted at people like me.
Increasing labor supply drives down the prevailing wages in and of itself (else being equal).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link