Caste quotas in India and immigrant quotas in America:

A reader born in India writes:

Away from the glowing, glass-tinted visions of India harboured by the "Indo-philes", there is a different India - one that is seething with social, economic and political conflict.

Consider this article "Quota: India Inc. Gives In?" The idea that "reservations" (quotas for backward castes) ought to be introduced into the Private Sector has been floating around for some time but Indian corporates managed to keep these pressures at bay. It was, however, always going to be an uphill struggle and now they seem to have caved in to some degree. Note also that the main proponents of these quotas are actually high caste politicians (similar in their opportunism and lack of principle to white politicians who favour affirmative action). The difference between the West and India is that in the West, affirmative action rests on whites feeling guilty. It is therefore more tenuous because if whites stop feeling guilty at some future date (and they remain a majority), the quotas can be got rid of. In India, that would be impossible because the "backward caste" population is about 80-85 percent. In a one man one vote political system, ignoring the resentments of 85 percent of the electorate is akin to committing political suicide.

The other point that needs to be mentioned is that these quotas were enshrined in the Constitution. The Government created quotas for the Dalits (untouchables) and those were at 20 percent initially. The lawyers who drafted the Indian constitution (barring one) were all English educated, upper caste men who got us into this mess in the first place. The reservations were meant to be (as the constitution originally provided) for a period of 10 years (one has to laugh at stupidity of these so-called "statesmen" (I'm thinking principally of Nehru) who thought that 6000 year old caste inequality could be negated by government quotas within 10 years). Of course, they lasted well beyond their 10 years and they were soon expanded well beyond the more limited untouchable population to include all sorts of other castes and groups that hadn't suffered anything like the same level of discrimination.

It is difficult to say how damaging these "reforms" are likely to be. If it is no more than just as irritant, then we could go back to business as usual, hire the odd favoured caste candidate and hire the rest of the workforce as before. But if the requirements are more stringent than that (quotas in the public sector now exceed 50 percent), then we could eventually start seeing an outflow of business and capital from India.

This is a perfect example of what America could end up becoming - a country with an economically successful minority and a hostile, poor and incapable majority that seeks to grab the wealth of the productive through the medium of political power. And once that happens, there is no going back to the old ways. Once the people have the vote, it's game over.

And yet, caste quotas in India are more defensible than quotas for immigrants in America. Indeed, almost nobody who has ever thought about their existence ever tries to defend quotas for immigrants. Thomas Sowell writes:

There is another aspect of the immigration issue that has received little or no attention but can have a serious impact anyway. Amnesty would mean, for many illegal immigrants, that they would not merely have the same rights as American citizens, but special privileges as well.

Affirmative action laws and policies already apply to some immigrants. Members of a multimillionaire Cuban family have already received government contracts set aside for minority businesses. During one period, an absolute majority of the money paid to construction companies in Washington, D.C., went to Portuguese businessmen under the same preferences.

Immigrant members of Latino, Asian, or other minority groups are legally entitled to the same preferential benefits accorded native-born members of minority groups.

The moment they set foot on American soil, they are entitled to receive benefits created originally with the rationale that these benefits were to compensate for the injustices minorities had suffered in this country.

The illegal status of many "undocumented workers" can at least make them reluctant to claim these privileges. But, take away the illegality and they become not only equal to American citizens, but more than equal.

Preferential access to jobs, government contracts, and college admissions are among the many welfare state benefits that add to the costs of immigrants which are not paid by employers of "cheap labor" but which fall on the general public in taxes and in other ways.

Even when illegal immigrants do not claim preferential treatment, employers are still under pressure to hire according to the demographic composition of the local labor force, which includes these "undocumented workers." Employers are subject to legal penalties if the ethnic composition of their employees deviates much from the ethnic composition of the population.

"Cheap labor" can turn out to be the most expensive labor this country has ever had.

It's amusing in a sad way to see libertarians try to respond to the problems exacerbated by immigration: "All we have to do is get rid of affirmative action! All we have to do is get rid of the welfare state!" Well, swell ...

My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer