Here's a good article in Slate by Gershom Gorenberg on how Israeli government subsidies have created so many ultra-Orthodox men who don't work, don't soldier, but do father many children. The author feels this is disastrous for the Israeli economy, but, overall, the Israeli economy is doing pretty well, although rapid Jewish population growth in Israel has caused land prices to skyrocket.
What's not included is the "bleed-off rate" of what % of ultra-orthodox leave the lifestyle and become tax-paying workers.
In general, the Israeli government is pretty good at manipulating population dynamics to bring about favored outcomes. For decades you heard that Israel was doomed because Israeli Jewish fertility is too low. Well, guess what? It has gone up. Now you hear a lot of complaints from secular Jewish Israelis that the fertility is too high among the wrong kind of Israeli Jews.
Well, the Israeli government created that high ultra-Orthodox fertility by turning on the financial spigot, and I don't think it's all that far-fetched that at some point they'll turn off the welfare gravy train for the ultra-Orthodox.
The point is that in Israel, very smart people are encouraged to publicly discuss these kinds of population issues so that appropriate steps can be taken, whereas in the U.S., anybody who brings up these topics is demonized. Can you imagine Slate running an article complaining about the high fertility of illegal immigrants in the U.S.?
A decade ago, for instance, demographer Hans P. Johnson of the super-respected Public Policy Institute of California pointed out that the 1986 amnesty law created a major Hispanic baby boom in California from 1988-1994, which had sizable consequences for the state. But who, besides me, every pointed this out, even when amnesty and guest workers were the hot topics in Washington in 2004, 2006, and 2007? It's just not done. (But it is in Israel.)
In general, the Israeli government is pretty good at manipulating population dynamics to bring about favored outcomes. For decades you heard that Israel was doomed because Israeli Jewish fertility is too low. Well, guess what? It has gone up. Now you hear a lot of complaints from secular Jewish Israelis that the fertility is too high among the wrong kind of Israeli Jews.
Well, the Israeli government created that high ultra-Orthodox fertility by turning on the financial spigot, and I don't think it's all that far-fetched that at some point they'll turn off the welfare gravy train for the ultra-Orthodox.
The point is that in Israel, very smart people are encouraged to publicly discuss these kinds of population issues so that appropriate steps can be taken, whereas in the U.S., anybody who brings up these topics is demonized. Can you imagine Slate running an article complaining about the high fertility of illegal immigrants in the U.S.?
A decade ago, for instance, demographer Hans P. Johnson of the super-respected Public Policy Institute of California pointed out that the 1986 amnesty law created a major Hispanic baby boom in California from 1988-1994, which had sizable consequences for the state. But who, besides me, every pointed this out, even when amnesty and guest workers were the hot topics in Washington in 2004, 2006, and 2007? It's just not done. (But it is in Israel.)
I was thinking much the same in terms of bleed-off rate. I don't have much use for Mormonism per se, but it does create a lot of "jack Mormons" who end up being pretty normal, productive people, aside from the girls having some odd sexual issues.
ReplyDeleteHeh, I saw Commentary bitching about this guy but didn't have a paywall subscription to read their article yesterday. Thanks for the link
ReplyDeleteAll those children of Orthodox Jews may not stick to religiosity and go into secular fields, so it may all pay off in the long run.
ReplyDeleteBtw, I think maybe all white gentiles in the US should convert to Judaism and call for immigration restriction for the sake of preserving a Jewish majority state. That might work.
I don't think comparing what discourse is permissible in Israel with what discourse is permissible in the US is exactly fair.
ReplyDeleteAfter all, ther are still A LOT of white gentiles in the world, and most Western nations are still solidly majority-white(though future trends do look frightening). Also, even though there are troublesome non-white minorities in the West, you don't get the general sense that they really hate whites and wanna destroy the West--and if they do destroy it, it may well be more by neglect than any intention.
For example, despite the hostile rhetoric of groups like Aztlan, I think California is going under not because of Mexican hostility but because of their mediocrity that gives even mediocrity a bad name.
In contrast, Israel is the ONLY Jewish-majority nation in the world, it is tiny, and it is surrounded by peoples who really would like to see horrible things happen to Jews.
Put it this way: Suppose all Western nations were solidly majority Jewish while white gentiles were the majority only in a small nation(like Israel) surrounded by hostile bigger nations. Also, let's say that it was the white gentile who had suffered the Holocaust carried out be a rogue Jewish-Western nation(with some collaboration with other Jewish-Western peoples). Then, it might be permissible to speak of the survival of the white gentile race and not so politically correct to worry about Jews.
So, I'm not sure that the accusation of hypocrisy against the Jewish elite on the issue of demographic matters is entirely fair.
Even so, we need to discuss race and immigration in the West because there are serious problems stemming from them and the future really does not look good for white people.
This Israeli views the growth of the Ultra-Orthodox as a kind of future demographic investment, and also a necessary replenishment of the losses our people suffered in World War 2.
ReplyDeleteIt is a gamble, though.
A decade ago, for instance, demographer Hans P. Johnson of the super-respected Public Policy Institute of California pointed out that the 1986 amnesty law created a major Hispanic baby boom in California from 1988-1994, which had sizable consequences for the state. But who, besides me, every pointed this out when amnesty and guest workers was the hot topic in Washington in 2004, 2006, and 2007.
ReplyDeleteSeriously, I don't think I've ever read about Hispanic-American TFR rising after the first amnesty, outside of VDARE. A lot of what happened after the first amnesty (Hispanic baby boom, massive increase in social spending, white flight from California, fall in wages, outright fraud, gutting of sanctions against employers) never gets discussed on television or in the print media.
Given the destruction that the first amensty of 2.8 million illegals did to California, I wonder what an amensty for our current 11-12 million illegals (approximately 4x the 1986 number) would do.
Re-read the last paragraph Steve. Looks like you ran out of coffee!
ReplyDelete(Feel free not to print this comment.)
So, what could we do to encourage family formation among smart, functional people in the US? Most ways to encourage that seem both creepily intrusive and easy to game.
ReplyDeleteOne fairly simple thing we could do: encourage serious support for women with children at all level of schooling. Make it less painful for a woman to finisih her degree with a baby, and she'll be both more likely to finish the degree and less likely to abort the kid. Stuff like free high-quality childcare and medical care for the kid on campus, nice family-friendly student housing, etc., might make a difference here.
My suspicion is that making birth control more widely and cheaply available would be a win, since smarter, more functional people probably are better at getting their own, while dumber and less functional people probably will use more birth control as a result.
I wonder if there are scholarships that specifically target women with children. Limiting that to women in hard science, math, or engineering fields, or to women in grad school in something other than education, might have some effect.
I wonder if it would be possible to make the deduction per child scale with income in some way that wouldn't cause too much outcry.
I suspect all this might have an effect at the edges, but probably won't have a huge effect.
With high land prices, Israel's economy might suffer the fate of Manhattan, Silicon Valley, or Singapore.
ReplyDelete"I don't have much use for Mormonism per se, but it does create a lot of 'jack Mormons' who end up being pretty normal, productive people..."
ReplyDeleteThis is someting I've noticed too. People often get together and form a 'community' based on common tastes or interests, but it doesn't cut very deep. For example, deadheads got together at dead concerts, but there wasn't much of lingering sense of dead-nationhood when the band was not touring--except for hardcore deadheads.
People who love movies get together at screenings and film festivals and sometimes at cafes to discuss stuff, but the film community is an on-and-off thing. It can never develop into an organic self-generating community. Amish don't need non-Amish stuff or new stuff to continue as an Amish community. But film community constantly needs new films and new opinions. Amish culture and people are self-contained and self-generating. Artistic-and-pop-cultural communities are not.
Non-whites are of course allowed and even encouraged to have their tribal-ethno-communities. But even this seems to weaken as immigrants become more Americanized. I know plenty of people, white or non-white, who haven't much in the sense of tribalism. If you're an Arab-American, what great meaning is there in speaking Arabic or
eating falafel? As time passes, not only do such things mean little to most Americans but it means less to the Arab-American as well. Besides, anyone can enjoy falafel, so what great meaning is there to be derived from it. But if the Arab-American returns to his religous roots, he gains meaning cuz he's part of a self-sustaining community.
All over the world, genuine communities form around religion.
We see this among orthodox Jews in America. There are Jewish neighborhoods where it's really walking into a unique culture and community that operates 24/7 according to its uniqueness. It makes its members feel special and as such united for a common purpose.
And this could be said of Mormons too and the Evangelical community.
Religion is so powerful a bond that some of the most integrated communities have been created via religion. Though there are white churches and black churches, it is in certain megamall churches that whites and blacks do come together and feel part of an organic community.
Religioius communities of orthodox Judaism or Mormonism are on firm ground. People form deep bonds, and these bonds also encourage marriage and that means families, which means more of a sense of community.
People may look to pick up dates at concerts or movies, but it's an random individual thing, not a truly cultural-communal thing.
If it happens, it happens; if it doesn't, it doesn't. Some deadheads got laid, some didn't. But there was no concerted purpose to bring different people together to form families.
But religious communities often stress, directly or indirectly, the formation of long bonds and commitments between man and woman. Churches and temples, in this sense, are the best dating services in the history of mankind. After all, people get married there too. It seems birthrates dropped in the West cuz fewer people went to churches. Though churches preach spiritualism, no institution has done more to bring flesh together with flesh--and not just for a good time but for long-lasting bonds leading to marriage and family.
To belong to a Mormon community and marry a Mormon and have Mormon kids is meaningful. But I don't think anyone married someone on the basis that they were both Fellini fans and wanted to raise Fellini-kids and have them grow up in a Fellini-community. Even if people will love movies forever, old ones are forgotten and new ones come along. There isn't much sense of continuity or permanence, of being part of something eternal and deep. (To be sure, Trekkies can be rather freaky in their nerd community which is semi-religious.)
ReplyDeleteSo, maybe the best way to create a new community for white interests is to go the religious route. Maybe there's something to learn from Mormomism.
Now, some people will claim that they are doing just that with stuff like Asatru and Odin worship. But really, the idea of attracting a lot of people by celebrating a one-eyed beer swilling god is rather far-fetched in these times.
But if Christianity can be fused with certain elements of Western paganism(especially the Greek), and if this can be used to form a kind of particularist-Christian movement, it might give birth and rise to a a new community of deep white identity and interests.
I think the HOW is as important as the WHAT.
ReplyDeletePeople may go to singles bars or attend churches to find sexual mates... but
...if you meet someone at a singles bar, the emphasis is on style and sex. But pleasures of the flesh may soon get boring, and style fades like perfume.
but...
if you meet someone at a church, the emphasis is on the heart and shared values, a sense of roots and commitment, and so the bond is likely to be much stronger.
It's like you can serve the same food, but HOW it's served makes all the difference.
If it's served in a diner, you'll forget it after you've finished it.
But if someone invites you over for dinner and serves it as 'home-cooked meal for a special someone', it is more than just something you eat.
So, gaining sex via the church is like 'home-cooked loving'.
It's more likely to linger. So, if we want more white folks mating, we need to create neo-religious communities that will appeal to the 21st century generation.
There is tremendous hypocrisy among Jews. They demand open door universal immigration to countries like the USA but also demand Jewish only immigration to Israel. They care only about themselves.
ReplyDelete"the Israeli government is pretty good at manipulating population dynamics to bring about favored outcomes. "
ReplyDeleteI guess that explains bringing in the Falasha.
This Israeli views the growth of the Ultra-Orthodox as a kind of future demographic investment, and also a necessary replenishment of the losses our people suffered in World War 2.
ReplyDeleteIt is a gamble, though.
If I were the Israeli government, I'd view it likewise. Have the ultra-Orthodox be the nursery, relying on "jack Orthodox" (adapting the term "jack Mormon" used in the first comment here) to replenish the secular population.
The only problem is, Israel is far too small and far too crowded. I can thereby understand the reasons they have for settling the West Bank; in a word, they need living space terribly. But the Palestinians also have a high birth rate. Trouble is a-brewin'.
Incidentally, if one wants to extend this to European countries, perhaps Italy and Spain (with their 1.4 child-per-woman fertility) could encourage Argentina (2.4 fertility) to send a certain fixed number of immigrants to their countries every year. I can't understand why Argentina has nearly double the birth rate of its home countries, but since it does, why not take advantage of it?
Likewise, Britain, Denmark and Sweden could encourage their "jack Mormon" diaspora to come back home with similar incentives.
Well I am not a fan of the educationalization of all society but off the top of my head I do know there are undergraduate & grad programs catering to early-middle-aged parents at Minnesota. Undoubtedly they exist nationwide.
ReplyDeleteQuestion is whether its worth doing outside of Minn.
Basketball team problem, input vs. output. You can't make a bunch of patent lawyers out of this local material necessarily. The notion you can make even .1% of them into mini-Adele Goldbergs is more than a little absurd.
"...aside from the girls having some odd sexual issues."
ReplyDeleteTell us more...
I'm seriously puzzled by people here who worry about Israel getting too crowded. Has anybody here looked at the development of the state map during the last century?
ReplyDeleteIsrael has expanded continuously by war and land grabs.
Argentina has nearly double the birth rate of its home countries, but since it does, why not take advantage of it?
ReplyDeleteBut how many of those are mestizo?
"They demand open door universal immigration to countries like the USA but also demand Jewish only immigration to Israel. They care only about themselves."
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, in a lot of cases those are different Jews. For example, Tim Wise and Joe Slovo are typically against Jewish ethnocentrism and against white ethnocentrism. By contrast, many of the more ethnocentric Jews I know have asked why white Americans are essentially giving up their country to Mexicans and Negroes. I think it's a very vocal minority of Jews who are both anti-white and pro-Jewish.
The problem we have is we cannot get intelligent women to have lots or even any kids at all. IMHO this is because the more intelligent women find the opportunity costs of a kid early to be detrimental to getting an Alpha (and an Alpha's kids).
ReplyDeleteThat same pre-law, pre-med chick that has a 140 IQ who would NEVER sacrifice her career prospects by having a kid with some "icky" beta male with the same IQ, would happily have say, George Clooney's, or Brad Pitt's, or heck Kevin Federline's illegitimate kid.
Anonymous 4:48. Land grabs.
ReplyDeleteI know, Israel is like huge now. Much bigger than anything else nearby. And all in one century!
Cult went on at ridiculous length but the point is sound. It would be great to have a group we can encourage now that would pay dividends in the future, but consideration of how rather immediately reveals the problems.
What do we want more of? And how were they raised? Did the others raised similarly create additional problems for the country?
Yeah, if we could do over again, we would have encouraged lots of indenture and no slavery in the colonies.
If the US Hispanic birthrate was one of the highest in the world instead of barely above the US non-Hispanic birthrate then I think people would be talking about it.
ReplyDeleteAs I've said before, don't worry about non-Whites beecoming a majority in the US. It won't last. Very soon afterward the combined Mormon-Orthodox Jewish effect will see to that.
"Can you imagine Slate running an article complaining about the high fertility of illegal immigrants in the U.S.?"
ReplyDeleteNo. Furthermore, I don't think they would address that question either. "There is nothing to see here! Move on or else be called nasty names!"
Simple and effective ad-hominem. I wonder if we'll ever get past it.
"...aside from the girls having some odd sexual issues."
ReplyDeleteTell us more...
Are you sure you're talking about Mormons and not Catholics?
Now, some people will claim that they are doing just that with stuff like Asatru and Odin worship. But really, the idea of attracting a lot of people by celebrating a one-eyed beer swilling god is rather far-fetched in these times.
ReplyDeleteAnd a wimpy skinny peacenik who allowed himself to be crucified is not far-fetched?
(That's probably not what the real Jesus was like, BTW, just the most common image of him in Western societies. And if you want some really strange (to us) gods, look at Hinduism.)
So, what could we do to encourage family formation among smart, functional people in the US? Most ways to encourage that seem both creepily intrusive and easy to game.
ReplyDeleteEnd forced integration.
I'm really skeptical of this statement:
ReplyDeleteIn general, the Israeli government is pretty good at manipulating population dynamics to bring about favored outcomes.
Isn't the whole topic of Gorenberg's article kind of a glaring counter-example? A large, powerful population of ultra-Orthodox "parasites" (as they're sometimes charmingly called) is a "favored outcome"?
Even in Jewish vs. Arab fertility, it's extremely doubtful that government policies had any (intended) effects. Government supports outcome X, very weakly; outcome X occurs; therefore, government caused outcome X? In this case, most likely not.
This is even going along with the fiction of a government that has some kind of will or interest. On Jewish/Arab fertility, one could say that it does. But the government is a shaky coalition of groups from ultra-Orthodox to national-religious to ultra-secular. If you start with the assumption that the government even has a will in the matter of the ultra-Orthodox, and add the view that it's hyper-competent at achieving its goals, then you're writing fantasy fiction.
That's because Israel is monolithic -- all White (mostly) Jews. Not Blacks, Hispanics, Whites, with ugly eugenics issues below the surface (including sterilization of not just Blacks/Hispanics but "lower" Irish Catholics, Scots-Irish, Hungarians, Poles, etc.)
ReplyDeleteNot so. In fact, I'm not even sure that Ashkenazim, or white Jews, are even a majority in Israel anymore. Mizrahim, or brown Jews from the Arab world, are a large portion, if not a plurality, and are thought of by Ashkenazim much as we think of mestizos (if not blacks). Sephardim, or Mediterranean Jews, are the remainder, often lumped in together with Mizrahim as "non-Ashkenazi".
As I've said before, don't worry about non-Whites beecoming a majority in the US. It won't last.
In fact, as the Hispanic baby bubble has burst since 2007, the percentage of U.S. births that are white flattened out and actually ticked up a bit in 2009.
Re Anonymous' comment about the "tremendous hypocrisy among Jews": American Jews are hypocritical, no doubt about that. But you're wrong about immigration. A large majority of Jewish-Americans believe that immigration levels are too high. (That's from numbers I saw in an article at alternativeright.com.) About half (52%) of Jewish-Americans supported the Arizona immigration law. Both numbers are probably lower than among non-Jewish, non-Hispanic whites. But a large majority of Jewish-Americans does support immigration restriction.
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, in a lot of cases those are different Jews. For example, Tim Wise and Joe Slovo are typically against Jewish ethnocentrism and against white ethnocentrism.
ReplyDeleteBullshit. Their whole lives are/were ethnocentric endeavors.
But it wouldn't matter even if it were otherwise. Orthodox Jewish law says that each Jew is responsible for the acts of their fellow Jews. The Jewish community is morally indivisible; Jewish morality is national in character.
In the words of the preeminent Jewish historian Salo Baron, "To this day orthodox Jewish ethics has remained in its essence national rather than individual, and this accounts, incidentally, for the otherwise incomprehensible legal theorem of the common responsibility of all Jews for the deeds of each."
If the US Hispanic birthrate was one of the highest in the world instead of barely above the US non-Hispanic birthrate then I think people would be talking about it.
ReplyDeletePeople are talking about it, just not the people who matter in the mass media. Try spending some some time with black people in Texas. Once in a while you'll hear one express amazement at the number of children Mexicans produce. And you can ear the same thing from White Texans of any class.
Israel has expanded continuously by war and land grabs. --anonymous (of course)
ReplyDeleteMust be a Semitic trait...
Israeli demographics - a truly bizarre and f*cked up situation.
ReplyDeleteOn the one hand you have the Palestinians who as a deliberate policy have the highest birth-rates the world has ever seen.Doubling times 20 years or less.The real tragedy is that in time the excess will dump itself on Europe and the cowards who run Europe will take them all in.
On the other hand you have the Israelis relying on the beardie-weirdies (who are economically worse than useless)as their athletes in the bed-room stakes, rivalling the Pals, perhaps, but economically destroying Israel.
Surely this scenario is 'manna from heaven' for you Steve as a test bed for your theories.
Cult,
ReplyDeleteBut if Christianity can be fused with certain elements of Western paganism(especially the Greek), and if this can be used to form a kind of particularist-Christian movement, it might give birth and rise to a a new community of deep white identity and interests.
Hasn't Christianity already been fused with paganism?
Perhaps you mean there should be a greater awareness of the pagan element. I don't think that's necessary, though. Christianity already has a high degree of "Western" cultural content. That's probably the best thing it's got going for it in terms of keeping European "culturalists" (not uncommonly meaning racialists-who-don't-yet-know-it) attached to the faith.
The key thing, as you say, is to enable churches to become particularist, rather universalist. The Orthodox churches basically already do this, so the trick for them will be learning how to keep doing it in the face of pressure to 'modernize.' The Catholic church makes provisions for particularist groups like the Maronites (who I doubt are out there seeking converts, and if they got too many incompatible types I think they'd shunt them off to the universalists) so there's some precedent for it. My guess is that if higher-ups adjudge that particularism will allow the church (as a whole) to expand they'll be all for it. They're foursquare behind universalism nowadays because it's one of the few aspects of their religion that liberals/secularists/anti-christians themselves support. But universalism is underwhelming stuff, and I think people will increasingly tire of it and yearn for something 'more real,' and that's where the church could step in and help nurture the formation of 'real communities.'
Cochran,
I guess that explains bringing in the Falasha.
Cost/benefit. There are not many of them so bringing them in wouldn't cause too much disruption ("low cost", even if means putting up with stuff like "Live and Become"). On the other hand, it enables them to say, look, we're not racists, Israel consists of people of all colors and races ("high benefit," considering the international pressures it helps alleviate).
Silver
So any chance that demographics pressure in Israel will cause a Muhammad style explosion of warlike joos fighting for lebensraum against their neighbors?
ReplyDeleteLet's say Israel conquers up to the Iranian border. Plenty of place for diaspora Jews to return to! Win-win. Stop criticizing the neocons, Steve, they may be up to something.
Steve said, "The point is that in Israel, very smart people are encouraged to publicly discuss these kinds of population issues so that appropriate steps can be taken, whereas in the U.S., anybody who brings up these topics is demonized. Can you imagine Slate running an article complaining about the high fertility of illegal immigrants in the U.S.?"
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could ping Wolf Blitzer, Larry King, or Mel Karmazin for a 60 Minutes expose regarding this question. I'm sure they'd be all over it!
Hispanics in California and share of the population, by decade:
ReplyDelete1970: 2.738 million (13.7%)
1980: 4.544 million (19.2%)
1990: 7.687 million (25.8%)
2000: 10.966 million (32.4%)
2010: 14.008 million (37.6%)
The numbers for 1970 are Census Bureau estimates.
Hispanic share of California's population increase:
1970-1980: 48.7%
1980-1990: 51.6%
1990-2000: 79.8%
2000-2010: 89.9%
"I don't think comparing what discourse is permissible in Israel with what discourse is permissible in the US is exactly fair." - I Am A Cult
ReplyDeleteWhat rules are we playing by again - are Jews an ethnicity, or a race? Because sure, there might be plenty of countries which are majority "white," but how many are majority Norwegian or majority Danish, Icelandic, English, Scottish, German, Dutch, French, etc.?
If we're going to play fair then Israel shouldn't mind getting overrun by non-whites because 'there are plenty of white majority countries in the world.'
Why does Jewish culture have a right to survive but not English culture, or Scottish culture, or Danish culture?
Once again, Jews get to play by different rules. I as a British-American get dumped into the vast ocean of "white" when it suits others, but Jews get to be Jews. Fuck that.
"...aside from the [Mormon] girls having some odd sexual issues."
I have never noticed that ex-Mormons have odd sexual issues, unless you count being a bit more sexually conservative which, in our oversexed culture, is mostly a plus.
"But if Christianity can be fused with certain elements of Western paganism(especially the Greek), and if this can be used to form a kind of particularist-Christian movement
What remains of Christianity is centered on belief and behavior. You're a Christian by believing certain myths and adhering to a certain moral code. For non-universalist religions, like Judaism, perhaps Hindusism, and certain segments of Christianity like Greek Orthodox and the various Asian congregations, you belong as a result of your birth and culturation.
No one thinks less of Brett Ratner as a Jew (as opposed to a person) after baring his sexual history with all and sundry on a Howard Stern show. But a Christian admits to infedilty or promiscuity and suddenly he's not a real Christian.
re: Semitic trait--well that would work if you meant "Muslim/Hebraic" trait. The ad-hoc Zionist ideology was realpolitikally terrific back in the grand armies stage of global conflict, but I wonder now if the local Arabs haven't out-Semited the Israelis at their own game (or rather, out-out-Semited them at the Arabs' game, etc. ad absurdum) Izzy is today about as isolated as South Africa circa 1981. When the State Dept's candidate recently became prez in U.S. I thought that might put them closer to 1990 SA but frankly, Obama is a provincial yutz and the Israelis have an edge over him that comes with a few millennia of practice.
ReplyDeleteBut a Christian admits to infedilty or promiscuity and suddenly he's not a real Christian.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about that. Is Mel Gibson no longer a real Catholic?