Not so Great Britain

Alex Tabarrok summarizes the decline; Louise Perry emigrates to Australia

Alex Tabarrok writes,

It is discomforting to watch the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, individual rights, and free speech—the nation that once built the railways, the steam engines, the factories that remade the world—lose the capacity to build much of anything, or even to tolerate people speaking their minds. In parallel, instead of dealing with our real problems—almost all of our creation—the right gets literally hysterical over symbolic culture-war questions like birthright citizenship, while the left nominates candidates with Marxist-Leninist sympathies. The abundance and progress movements are some of the few shining lights. It’s not too late. But Great Britain is a warning.

I am sure that the British would be discomfited by the first sentence.

Alex quotes an article in the Atlantic in which the author claims that Britain’s National Health Service now spends more money settling maternity malpractice claims than providing maternity care.

Louise Perry is taking dramatic action, emigrating to Australia.

there is another reason for leaving, one that is more difficult to say out loud. I’m not only unhappy with how things are right now in Britain, I’m worried that they’re set to get a whole lot worse.

I started thinking seriously about leaving Britain in 2024, spurred by two things: my direct experience of the dire state of NHS maternity services, and my unease about the rise of Muslim sectarianism in politics.

…the Pakistani Muslim-dominated cities of Birmingham, Oldham and Bradford have seen multiple cases of arson attacks on politicians’ cars in the lead up to elections, as well as tire-slashing and threatening messages scratched into the paintwork. Violence is a feature of elections in Pakistan. Is it so very surprising that we are now seeing the same disorder in Pakistani-majority areas of Britain?

…nothing that has happened since 2024 has made me feel more confident about Britain’s trajectory. Since then, we have seen more outbreaks of race rioting and increased political instability. And, all the while, experts warn that the government is borrowing and spending way beyond its means, with welfare spending exceeding income tax revenue. This economic pain will be intensified by the loss to emigration of both the wealthy and the youthful which seems to be under way. A poorer Britain is hardly likely to be a more peaceful Britain.

So she and Alex differ on the immigration issue.

I think that unassimilated immigrants are a problem. Matt Yglesias agrees.

it’s not good enough for liberals to reassure voters that assimilation happens. I think we need to do our share of the work to make sure that it happens. You can’t just opportunistically invoke successful assimilation to defend immigrants when they are under attack; you need to actively promote and celebrate America as a good society that is worth assimilating into. That means getting beyond certain progressive hangups about race and American history. That does not mean denying the existence of ugly episodes in the country’s story, but it does mean denying the claim that this ugliness defines America or that it is somehow unique to our country rather than part of a perennial pattern of ethnic conflict in human history.

…the influx of very large numbers of people with illiberal values is a real topic for concern. That shouldn’t be an excuse for ethnic bigotry or exclusion, but it’s certainly an argument that people who come here should embrace American (or Dutch) values and that those values should be promoted.

I have doubts about whether some of the new winners of Congressional primaries want to be assimilated.

Have a nice day.

substacks referenced above:

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The case for assimilation