By Steven J. Grisafi, PhD.
If a people choose to adopt the Rule of Law as their means of governance, there still remains to be decided the manner upon which they would choose to define their laws. Economists suggest an interesting method through which to develop the rules for a just society. They propose that all laws imagine the fate of the citizenry, whose behavior the laws seek to regulate, without prior knowledge of their condition upon birth. The laws are to be developed such that they treat equally all persons belonging to the society where all knowledge of the circumstances of persons entering the society is kept strictly Behind the Veil. However, even amongst the more enlightened societies of Western Civilization today, there exists certain presumptions of theocracy. For the original creators of the Rule of Law, the Romans, the development of the laws for a secular state was a simpler task than today. This is because the Romans were polytheists. As Edward Gibbon noticed: For the Roman people all religions were equally true, for Roman philosophers all religions were equally false, and for the Roman magistrates all religions were equally useful.
This past March 1st marked the beginning of the forty day Christian period known as Lent. On this day, known as Ash Wednesday, I took notice of the day”s celebrations in Germany. The two political parties known as the Union, the Christian Democratic Union and their Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union, both celebrated what is called Political Ash Wednesday. This occasion in Germany is an opportunity for the people to toast their beer steins. While the political parties of the Union clearly identify themselves as Christian with their party names, the toasting of the beer steins on Political Ash Wednesday was not limited only to the parties of Union, but to other such political parties as the former communist party now known as the Linke, the Left Party. In Germany, one does not have to be Christian to drink beer on Political Ash Wednesday. As such, this Christian Holy Day of Obligation has become a cultural festivity in Germany. Throughout the world the religion of a people has served as the basis of their culture.
Economists assert that international trade benefits all parties concerned because to each is assigned their strengths of production. However, geographic diversification of production is not what it once was. Transport and communication technology has limited all advantages once attributed to geographic location. Economists recognize that the specialization expected from geographic diversification would lead to both winners and losers in all locations. It is expected that government would then serve the needs of the losers by compensating them from the gains of the winners. This is a nice thought in theory; but rarely observed in practice. The winners often have too much clout to allow their gains to be diminished for the benefit of the losers. The losers are expected to transform themselves into winners. Also overlooked is the possibility that there exist locations for which no factor of production advantage exists. In such situations the result is often migration of talented people away from such areas to other areas that do possess some advantage. This loss of persons of ability further weakens the capacity of the emigration source to overcome its disadvantages such that then all persons seek to leave it and not just those persons possessing marketable skills. Immigration then becomes a disadvantage for both the source and the destination locations. In such situations salvation occurs only when the leadership of both the migration source and destination recognize that it must be money that flows across international borders and not people.
In the United States we often hear the argument made from members of the Capitalist Class that immigration of skilled workers from around the world coming to America benefits the American people. The disadvantage suffered by the loss of talented people from the source country is never considered. The reality is that immigration is always harmful to some people. If there be migration of unskilled workers arriving at a highly developed industrial nation, such as Germany, regardless of the demand for unskilled labor, such workers never earn an income sufficient to pay the taxes required of them to sustain a lifestyle expected of the citizenry within that destination country. Consequently, they always become a net burden on other taxpayers. But it is not the economic burden of immigration that is most harmful. Depending upon the degree of differences between the cultures of the arriving peoples with that of the native peoples, a greater harm may be felt. This is not to suggest that differing perspectives cannot be useful to a people. But too great a divergence of viewpoint can make a host society dysfunctional. Successful assimilation of immigration flows assumes dominance of the host cultural viewpoints over that of the arrivals. Too large an immigration flow and assimilation fails. This also presumes that assimilation is the goal of the host society. This is not the case in which the host society presumes for itself multiculturalism. At one time America took pride in the assertion that our society is a melting pot. Please understand now that a melting pot presages a single culture. A different perspective was offered by the former mayor of New York City, David Dinkins, who referred to America as a “gorgeous mosaic.” A mosaic is not the result of a melting pot. Each gem of a mosaic retains its distinct identity. A mosaic is the representation of a multicultural society.
Is there something wrong with multiculturalism within a society? As one would expect, the answer depends upon what one considers the society to be. If one defines a people as the society of a single culture then a multicultural nation is a country of many peoples. This may be contrary to the traditional notion of a nation, but who says one cannot break tradition to create something new? So that then the question becomes: How well are things working when diverse cultures interact? Does the society adhere to its fundamental assertion that they are a people who adhere to the Rule of Law? Or do they modify their version of the Rule of Law to include contemporary elements of morality? One may consider any such expediency acceptable if it maintains harmony within the multicultural society. But a possible difficulty is that morality is no longer clearly defined within the multicultural society. Ultimately, morality decays to its smallest set of elements common to all of the gems within the gorgeous mosaic. Then what one has is a nation whose identity is indistinguishable from any other multicultural society. At first glance, one might conclude: Alas, we have achieved the Utopian Society! But look again. There is no allegiance to such a nation. No one chooses to sacrifice for this nation. All of the people become each man for himself: Until other distinctions grow in importance and then a new cycle of nationalism begins.