Despite a profoundly narrow outlook, the Establishment produced a truly remarkable number of first class statesmen – Charles Francis Adams, John Hay, Elihu Root, Henry Cabot Lodge, Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Henry Stimson, George Marshall, George Kennan, Paul Nitze, Dean Acheson, Charles Bohlen, Averrell Harriman, Dean Rusk, McGeorge Bundy, John J. McCloy, Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr. – outside of the conquering founders of great empires, there are few examples in history that are comparable to their collective achievment of steering an outlier republic through grave dangers to world hegemony.
The men of the Eastern Establishment were successful not merely because of their often considerable education and social cohesiveness but from their general acceptance of the long view in preference to the short and a serious attention to the underlying economic fundamentals governing world affairs. That they were ” Present at the Creation” was no idle boast – they had a hand in the creating and understood how the institutions that they proposed were going to work in the real world. They married American national interest to the global greater good in a way that most foreign leaders could find attractive or at least, tolerable.
The Establishment is dead and gone. It has been replaced by a new American elite whose values have shifted as a result of the Eastern Establishment’s grand failure in Vietnam but that will be discussed in Part III.
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Mithras:
March 31st, 2006 at 9:57 am
While the disconnect you identify exists and is a real problem, I would argue that the public’s desire for a crackdown is both unworkable and counterproductive. I’m looking forward to part III to see where you come out.
–Mithras
mark:
March 31st, 2006 at 2:58 pm
Hey Mithras,
The public’s unrealism centers on the existing illegals who number somewhere between 7 and 12 million. They are not going home any more than 3rd generation Turkish Gastarbeiters in Germany are going back to Turkey. And it is in our collective interest to bring them out of the underground economy and legalize their status – too large a population to safely or wisely keep marginalized.
I understand the popular annoyance with rewarding lawbreakers who wave foreign flags but this is simply in our own self-interest to integrate this population into the American mainsteam and concentrate instead on controlling the flow of future migrants.
Changing the current immigration policy that creates incentives for mass migration however can be done fairly easily. The elite, Left and Right, simply doesn’t want to do so for ideological and economic reasons.
Mithras:
March 31st, 2006 at 4:24 pm
Mark-
Changing the current immigration policy that creates incentives for mass migration however can be done fairly easily.
This is hardly my field, but as I see it, the incentives are wage differences, and there is nothing in the short run we can do about that. Maybe you mean we can easily create disincentives (for employers?). If so, I don’t see anything easy about it.
mark:
April 2nd, 2006 at 12:34 am
Hi Mithras,
Yes, I think it has to be fairly stiff penalties for employers, say $ 50,000 k fines per illegal alien employee. More if the illegals were being paid less than the legal minimum wage and/or other aggravating circumstances (violations of other labor laws or outright criminal activity). All three, say $ 250,000 per illegal alien employee.
The wage differential you mention is real but once the illegal navigates the initial risk of crossing the border, his potential risk of incurring real costs drop dramitically. So, why not try ? Employers have to be engaging truly egregious behavior to face the risk any sanction whatsoever so they will keep providing the jobs that draw migrants.
Moreover, by employing illegal labor, employers are effectively securing an unearned, extra-market advantage over legal labor in terms of bargaining for wages. Our current policy rewards lawbreakers and punishes law-abiding, unskilled workers both native-born and immigrant.
After that you can address the border itself and any penalties for those crossing it illegally beyond deportation. That’s of secondary importance anyway except for security issues, a separate subject.
What we need is a cut in illegal migration rates not zero immigration per se – and a handle on who is actually crossing the border.