The post title is a quote of Tyler Cowen, aka Cheap Chalupas aka Bargain Beans, from a Walled Street Journal review of his book “Average is Over” (h/t to Plucky Gents, Inc.),
To sum up, Mr. Cowen believes that America is dividing itself in two. At the top will be 10% to 15% of high achievers, the “Tiger Mother” kids if you like, whose self-motivation and mastery of technology will allow them to roar away into the future. Then there will be everyone else, slouching into an underfunded future of lower economic expectations, shantytowns and an endless diet of beans. I’m not kidding about the beans.
Poor Americans, writes Mr. Cowen, will have to “reshape their tastes” and live more like Mexicans. “Don’t scoff at the beans,” he says. “With an income above the national average, I receive more pleasure from the beans, which I cook with freshly ground cumin and rehydrated, pureed chilies. Good tacos and quesadillas and tamales are cheap too, and that is one reason why they are eaten so frequently in low-income countries.”
Cowen likes to eat his nation’s heritage with a sprinkling of freshly ground cumin and a side of refried beans. You can’t make this shit up. If it were any other psychologically healthy person, I would say this quote is a deliberate self-parody to subvert the deracinating Elsa Island narrative. But Cowen is borderline sperg, so you can assume his sincerity.
Commenter Porter responds,
More pleasure from the beans than what? Wearing a gimp suit? Having a sigmoidoscopy? And do the epicurean delights of bean consumption occur with or despite a higher than the national average income?
Does this Maria Antoinette actually believe his imported oompa loompas will forever docilely dine on discarded legumes while he devours caviar, truffles, and quail eggs? More importantly, does he have any subsidiary labor units…what pre-beaners called “children?” What are his hopes for their future? A warm grate in the winter? A cozy 300sqft favela? A hale old age of 35? Perhaps he assumes his higher than the national average income will purchase for them the best electrified concertina money can buy. Or perhaps he simply doesn’t give a damn. After all, The Economy is a jealous master.
An above national average amount of open borders nutjobbery is abetted by low ruling class fertility. When you don’t have kids, you don’t care much for entrusting a prosperous and livable nation to its posterity. You mostly care about cheap iPhones and status whore feels with your ideologically inbred SWPL courtesans. Your coin of the realm is phony morals instead of fecund maidens.
On a related TCCC post about Switzerland’s recent pro-national integrity vote to curb immigration, commenter The Anti-Gnostic writes,
how much immigration is possible without a backlash?
Lots, when you have an entire Cathedral that mandates equal treatment and endlessly reminds everyone how horrible and stupid they are for not allowing high-rise apartments on every square foot of available space.
Also, of course this is all framed in terms of “backlash.” In the Cathedral’s calculation, corporations exist but nations do not, and people are interchangeable cogs.
The more important question is how much immigration is possible before the traits which made the host society desirable to begin with are lost? I think that percentage is probably quite low, particularly for K-selected societies importing r-selected societies. My hunch, and it’s just a hunch, around 5%/yr immigrants assimilate. Around 10%/yr they gravitate to certain areas and leverage their presence. The natives start withdrawing. Above 10%/yr, the immigrants want their own country. Sure, they may speak the language and adopt some superficial norms, but at that point it’s not about assimilation but transformation.
The natives, lacking anywhere to withdraw, start shutting down.
Taking a cue from The Anti-Gnostic, a good metric for predicting at what levels Diversity + Proximity will explode into War by whichever means is a tiered alert system based on percentage of country that is foreign or otherwise ethnically or racially very different from the people who created and sustain the nation and its culture. CH suggests a reformatted DEFCON warning system, called DIVCON, for Diversity Overload Condition.
DIVCON 5: Five percent of population is genetically and culturally distant from natives. Assimilation probable with minimal fiscal outlay or native sacrifice.
DIVCON 4: Ten percent of population is genetically and culturally distant from natives. Assimilation possible with substantial fiscal outlay. Social cohesion index (SCI) shows first signs of stress. Foreign immigrants begin to self-segregate into politically potent neighborhoods that serve as conduits for overseas relatives and the continuance of their homeland cultures.
DIVCON 3: Twenty percent of population is genetically and culturally distant from natives. Assimilation improbable without enormous fiscal outlay and native sacrifice. SCI records explosion of cultural and racial fault lines running through regions and communities. Foreign immigrants and non-native minorities control entire neighborhoods and some cities. Multilingualism is codified into law. Native and racial flight from these non-native outposts of political and cultural control accelerates.
DIVCON 2: Thirty percent of population is genetically and culturally distant from natives. Assimilation impossible despite massive debt-propped outlays and propagandized humiliation of natives to abjure their culture and identity. SCI passes threshold from greater social cohesion to greater social strife. States begin to switch political allegiances as demographic change sweeps out native majority status. Native/racial flight peaks in intensity, limited only by economically constrained immobility. Self-segregation reverses historical integrationist policies. Regional power bases coalesce as federal power simultaneously strengthens and fractures. Anti-native propaganda loses its influence to inform native sensibilities and self-identity.
DIVCON 1: Forty percent or more of population is genetically and culturally distant from natives. Nation begins irrevocable transformation into resembling the countries from which the non-native populations originate. Political compromise impossible. Jury system breaks down along ethnic and racial boundaries. Wealth inequality reaches historical maximums. SCI red lines. Social discord and native ennui/withdrawal from civic processes undermine legitimacy of state apparatuses. “Anarcho-tyranny” — underclass and overclass lawlessness combined with police state intimidation of native middle class — is implemented to tamp down rising hostilities. Major cities and some states are abandoned by natives to non-native control. Redistribution to politically powerful non-natives impoverishes the natives. Anti-native propaganda assaults every cultural institution, becomes bolder and more transparently aggressive. Natives begin active and unapologetic campaigns against ruling class propaganda. Racial and cultural tensions provoke excessive and violent government response. Free speech surrendered as a founding principle. Mass surveillance and kangaroo courts operate with impunity.
At DIVCON 1, political and armed rebellion become distinct possibilities. Secession movements grow in number and intensify rapidly. Tax evasion increases. Tax havens multiply. Political parties realign. Military volunteerism bottoms out. Third parties experience surge in popularity. Tribal nepotism and corruption in every facet of life erodes trust, bankrupts communities, endangers citizens, and reduces standard of living and other measures of personal happiness. Mental illness and symptoms of psychological distress increase. Private militias, high- and low-tech security systems and fortress communities sever the last strands of national unity. Break-up is inevitable barring repatriation of immigrants, anti-dysgenic fertility policies, and social and economic protection of native middle classes.
America currently sits its rehydrated, pureed ass at DIVCON 2. And as any good economics PhD will tell you, this is good news. So bend over and take it like you like it. Those PhD models of human nature can’t be wrong.
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