Multiculturalism, Economics, Peace and an Argument with the Uninformed.

I recently was engaged in a wee argument with a friend of a friend around the concepts around multiculturalism, economics and peace. Now I am a man of evidence; I will believe anything if you can justify it with reasonable and accurate evidence since I am a skeptic. None of us can get everything right all of the time, but we can try and hone our rational minds and try to shield ourselves from falling prey to logical fallacies and cognitive biases. Additionally, I can be a rather prickly person to deal with but that does not undermine the quality of arguments put forward (nor would it bolster them). Below I am going to give an account of the discussion (name changed to PLB for anonymity), then follow it up with further thoughts. I am also going to leave in all grammatical errors, plus anything not italicized will be additional thoughts and comments by me.

PLB: The worlds biggest failure is multiculturalism. While there are such cultural and political ideological groups like Islam, a united peace in a cultural diverse world can never be archived.

ME: That is absolute nonsense. Multiculturalism has worked well and led to greater prosperity in societies. Saying multiculturalism is a failure simply due to the nonsense that is Islam is like cutting the nose to spite the face.

[Note, I have no time or patience for religion; to me it is all nonsense].

PLB: What nonsense multiculturalism is a failure as it dose nothing but increase the rate of crime and has done for century’s. It has no serious positive reaction to any society as the increase in crime is always the violent crimes the increase like murders and rapes plus bashing and thieving from the elderly. So don’t go preaching that you think multiculturalism works when it has been proven for century’s that is dose not.

ME: Ok, where are your sources for that? Having a problem with multiculturalism/immigrants due to disliking Islam is a purely nonsensical position because you are choosing to vilify every other culture based on a single different one (an outlier). This is akin to being against vaccination due to reading one small study against it whilst ignoring the thousands of others. Multiculturalism has been responsible for voluntary migration, leading to migrants contributing roughly $6.7 trillion to global GDP in 2015—some $3 trillion more than they would have produced in their origin countries (McKinsey study 2016). That is fantastic. In countries like the UK migrants actually contribute more to the public purse than the English do (because we actually work harder and take up more skilled jobs thanks to our love of education; 2013 UCL study). Again something immensely good for society. Also in terms of crime, a Belgium study showed that the most culturally diverse areas, whilst having an increased perception of crime, do not actually have a higher crime rate (Hooghe, Marc; de Vroome, Thomas (2016-01-01). “The relation between ethnic diversity and fear of crime: An analysis of police records and survey data in Belgian communities”. International Journal of Intercultural Relations. 50: 66–75. ). Finally, as a medical scientist, I can tell you that homogenous populations have worse immune systems compared to mixed populations thanks to mixing the genes for the HLA haplotypes, and others. Sorry, but the facts are on my side, so time to admit you are wrong. I’ll wait.
[Note: Yes, I am being smug, but I cannae stand for making claims without backing them up. I went to the trouble of backing up my rebuttal].

PLB: Where are your sources then Christopher Haggarty-Weir and it not because I have just a problem with Islam there are many articles and research documents on why multiculturalism fails and it multiculturalism not multiracial. Go do your research and read about it their are some pages on the internet.

[Ah yes, the “go do your research” gambit, always hilarious and always seems to be the catch-cry of the delusional. Additionally, he asks for my sources after I made them clear and cited numerous ones, so clearly a problem with reading comprehension, most likely deliberate].

ME: I just gave my sources above. Real sources from industry and scholarly experts. Not old mate having a sook on some second-rate website.

PLB: They are all left wing political facts and not contributing factors to a PEACEFUL society, facts that support economic growth dose not show the success of multiculturalism it only shows economic growth. Go look at the impact on crime and violence and unity. You will see a different list of figure’s.

[A classic ad hominem. Also economists from Oxford and the London School of Economics, as well as consultants from McKinsey are hardly “lefties”].

ME: McKinsey is hardly left wing hahaha. They are staunch economic moguls. You also have sources from conservative universities like UCL (and I have another from Oxford and the LSE’s Bell B et al., Review Econ Stat 2013, where they found that the 3 waves of immigration to the UK since the 2000’s “There was no effect on violent crime; arrest rates”). You are guilty of the logical fallacy known as an argumentum ad hominem since you are rejecting scientific analysis you deem to be “from the left” rather than countering the actual data and its interpretations. This is why we don’t let people like you work in my fields.

[Again, I am being snide, but it is true; if you were to use this sort of pseudo-logic in scientific research or intellectual property management you would quickly find yourself out of a job].

PLB: Stop using economic to try to prove peace. Economic policies and money don’t prove success of a cultural society of peace. This not about money so stop trying to make it about money.
[He seems adamant on not reading the sources I gave him, which were not only about economic factors but also crime, which would appear obvious to talk about when discussing if multiculturalism is good or not].

ME: I am not trying to make it purely about money, hence why I went into the crime data, and the medical reasons of why mixing with other races is optimal for Homo sapiens. But even if I were to focus exclusively on the economic factors, there is a very high correlation between wealth (particularly distributed wealth) and peace. In fact it is a statistically significant correlation, not a mere post hoc ergo propter hoc justification.

[A potential slight error in my last sentence since it should be “cum hoc ergo propter hoc”].

This article from the Economist decimates your argument since it relies on real studies in both the UK and the US. I am a man of data, not hearsay from old mate. http://www.economist.com/…/2013/12/economist-explains-10.

PLB: I already put in that multiracial is not multiculturalism so now you trying to back up on how you are trying to use economics to prove that multiculturalism is successful in making a peaceful society when it dose not. Your facts on economic growth dose not show peaceful multiculturalism. Economics is also not s proven way to a peaceful society. Multiracial society’s can and are peaceful built multicultural society’s always bring indifference and crime and violence. Migration gas nothing to do with this either. See more on money and economy not peaceful society. Your all about money not peaceful unity.

[Now he is trying to differentiate between multiculturalism and multiracialism. Firstly the idea of race is mostly nonsense. Secondly, you cannot have one without the other if we are talking about how the term “race” is used in common parlance. Thirdly, he does not seem to realize that just because the article was from The Economist, does not mean it is purely about economics; it was in fact about crime which is an important aspect of a peaceful society].

ME: But a multi racial societies are typically multicultural. So yes, it has plenty to do with the argument. And remember, “Western” culture is made up of numerous cultures within it with differences (ie. German and French cultures have differences as do English and Scottish). how was that about money? It was an article from the Economist, but not on economics. Are you incapable of reading that? Pretty much every culture melds very well together, with the exception of Islamic culture, a single outlier. But even Islamic culture has aspects which are good (just the majority is not). No one culture is perfect and we should be taking an amalgamation of numerous ones to strive for a better society.

[I stay mentioning race since I do think a scientific discussion on race would be above his comprehension level. I also get very impatient when people criticize things without reading them as is clear from my tone here].

PLB: Are you dumb it is by an economist so a study on economic not socially do your listing the same shit stop looking at things written by economist they only loom at the economic success.

[By this “logic”, anything written by a doctor must be about medicine, anything written by an engineer must be about engineering].

ME: you clearly were not capable of reading. It was about crime rates, not economics. I know the truth can hurt, but we should not deliberately be obtuse to avoid it.

PLB: Crime has to with peaceful unity not economy.

[The atrocious grammar at this point is really grinding on my brain].

ME: Now your grammar seems to have gone… Crime and the economy are 2 crucial aspects of a peaceful modern society.

[This is a point he really seems incapable of grasping].

PLB: Economy has absolutely nothing to do with peace, seriously so your going to use grammar now to have a go at me wow very nice of you.

ME: I am going to bring up grammar if I can’t understand what you are saying. Where is your evidence for the claim of “Economy has absolutely nothing to do with peace”? Because the consensus amongst experts in studies of peace and leading economists would say you are wrong based on data. Data is king.

At this point he left and didn’t want a bar of what I had to say. I think it is intellectually dishonest to recognize that certain things like globalization, multiculturalism and immigration are inextricably linked. I am a huge fan of each of these things primarily for the reason that fellow Scot and Nobel laureate Prof. Angus Deaton is; “Globalisation for me seems to be not first-order harm and I find it very hard not to think about the billion people who have been dragged out of poverty as a result”. Just because there might be certain issues with how certain governments deal with issues, does not mean that the whole of modern capitalism is bad or that multiculturalism as a concept is bad (and yes, these two things are also linked in the modern world). Additionally, despite mentioning it above, there is a point I want to reiterate- no one culture is perfect and we should be taking a mix of different cultural views and practices to certain things that would lead or could lead to a more progressive and productive society. Being conservative around this essentially means staying still whilst the world moves forwards.

[Final note: before anyone tries to bring up any increases in crime rates amongst any places with higher immigration, first consider if you are only looking at a single cultural group as opposed to a culturally diverse group, and contrast that data with some that I have provided here. You will see it simply does not hold water to make the broad claim that multiculturalism doesn’t work. Yes, you may find problems with a single culture integrating, but 1. the British found that when they were colonizing the world, and 2. it is not a mixing pot of cultures you’re looking at, thus making your use of the term “multicultural” misleading].