Williamson (Roughnecking It, 1982, etc.) examines the intertwined economic and moral issues presented by the immigration debate. The author, formerly an editor of National Review, challenges what he calls the ``myth'' that immigration was always a blessing for America. He concedes that the vast numbers of immigrants from Britain, Germany, and Ireland who came here in the 19th century, despite sometimes strong opposition, were needed to settle the land. These immigrants gradually absorbed American culture and were in turn absorbed into American society. Williamson sees the massive immigration from 1870 to the 1920s as the start of great and disruptive changes, citing gradual but persistent negative effects on national identity, social and political order, population growth, and the environment. While earlier immigrants may have had a disruptive effect on America, Williamson sees the massive numbers of modern immigrants, both legal and illegal, from Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, and eastern Europe, and their embrace of the concept of multiculturalism, as challenging the very idea of a special American identity. He argues that the newcomers have produced levels of cultural, ethnic, and social diversity that have had the effect of loosening the old American commitment to a distinctive, homogenous identity. Rather than being transformed by American culture, the author argues, these immigrants have tried to remake it, pressing for a larger and ever-more intrusive government, thus undermining traditional American concepts of personal liberty and self-reliance, and arguing against any cohesive national culture. Williamson points to such developments as the tensions between Cuban immigrants and poorer African- Americans in Miami as demonstrating that immigration is also generating new, and potentiallly violent, economic conflicts in American society. The book, largely polemical, would have benefitted from further examples and from a discussion of remedies. Nonetheless, Williamson does raise some disturbing questions about the will of America to enforce its laws, to control its borders, and to define and protect its identity.
Pub Date: July 17, 1996
ISBN: 0-465-03286-9
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Basic Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1996
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.
“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.
It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.
Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0
Page Count: 432
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019
SEEN & HEARD
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.
Known for her often contentious perspectives, New York Times opinion writer Weiss battles societal Jewish intolerance through lucid prose and a linear playbook of remedies.
While she was vividly aware of anti-Semitism throughout her life, the reality of the problem hit home when an active shooter stormed a Pittsburgh synagogue where her family regularly met for morning services and where she became a bat mitzvah years earlier. The massacre that ensued there further spurred her outrage and passionate activism. She writes that European Jews face a three-pronged threat in contemporary society, where physical, moral, and political fears of mounting violence are putting their general safety in jeopardy. She believes that Americans live in an era when “the lunatic fringe has gone mainstream” and Jews have been forced to become “a people apart.” With palpable frustration, she adroitly assesses the origins of anti-Semitism and how its prevalence is increasing through more discreet portals such as internet self-radicalization. Furthermore, the erosion of civility and tolerance and the demonization of minorities continue via the “casual racism” of political figures like Donald Trump. Following densely political discourses on Zionism and radical Islam, the author offers a list of bullet-point solutions focused on using behavioral and personal action items—individual accountability, active involvement, building community, loving neighbors, etc.—to help stem the tide of anti-Semitism. Weiss sounds a clarion call to Jewish readers who share her growing angst as well as non-Jewish Americans who wish to arm themselves with the knowledge and intellectual tools to combat marginalization and defuse and disavow trends of dehumanizing behavior. “Call it out,” she writes. “Especially when it’s hard.” At the core of the text is the author’s concern for the health and safety of American citizens, and she encourages anyone “who loves freedom and seeks to protect it” to join with her in vigorous activism.
A forceful, necessarily provocative call to action for the preservation and protection of American Jewish freedom.Pub Date: Sept. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-0-593-13605-8
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Crown
Review Posted Online: Aug. 22, 2019
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