The Costs of Diversity: Contra Hanania on Immigration

Non-white immigration causes negative externalities

In his latest article, Richard Hanania asserts that “diversity really is our strength.” There isn’t much of an argument to respond to per se — the key point, less justified than merely asserted, is that free markets are good, and increasing diversity increases market freedom. This is supposedly why homogenous European countries have lower GDPs than many American states, including insignificant flyover states. The flyover states are more diverse than the European countries, and so they have freer markets, leading to higher GDP.

Hanania, of course, has only circumstantial evidence for this claim, which is mostly narrative based on a thin, superficial veneer of GDP data. Noah Carl tore this narrative apart. To summarize his article, the US has more economic freedom because of high Northern European IQ, and selection effects on the European immigrants that composed the original population. As “diversity” has increased, a more restrictionist population has earned more voting power, and economic freedom in the US has declined. While ethnic heterogeneity might predict less redistribution, it still predicts lower economic freedom overall, for example increased regulation, increased taxation, and less entrepreneurial opportunity.

Emil Kirkegaard also tested this narrative and concluded “As such, we can pretty confidently say that ethnic fractionalization — that is, diversity — isn’t a strength insofar as wealth is concerned. Rather, it doesn’t matter except as a proxy for the intelligence of the population.” And, while I’m citing everyone, Seb Jensen wrote on how the IQ decline from Hispanic immigration is real, significant, and a negative externality, something which Hanania glosses over as not mattering for some reason.

The debate over this article so far has focused on IQ and debunking Hanania’s claims. In this article, I would like to broaden the perspective of the discourse on immigration by considering data on immigrant tastes and behaviors. I argue that mass non-white immigration has and will continue to produce the following negative externalities: increased crime rate, negative fiscal impact, more wealth redistribution to non-whites, and less freedoms.