Alexander Stille hat einen interessanten Artikel in der NYT geschrieben über den Zusammenhang von Inklusion und Gleichheit. Stille will eigentlich auf die Vorteile der europäischen Gesellschaften hinaus, was die Stratifizierung des Sozialen angeht. Es gibt bei uns weniger harte Abgrenzungen, weniger scharfe soziale Unterschiede, eine weniger hermetische Elite.
Aber: für die Diskussionen dieses Blogs, die um die Fragen der Einwanderungsgesellschaft rotieren, hat Stilles Ausführung eine gegenläufige Pointe. Eine Gesellschaft, die mehr ökonomische Ungleichheit zu akzeptieren bereit ist, kann sich viel inklusiver gegenüber Einwanderern verhalten. Und umgekehrt: Inklusivität gegenüber Einwanderern und Minderheiten (in Form von Chancengerechtigkeit) führt letztlich dazu, dass die unterschiedlichen Ergebnisse, die der einzelne erzielt, wesentlich mehr Akzeptanz erfahren.
Das Argument für Umverteilung wird schwächer, je besser eine Gesellschaft darin ist, alle zum Wettbewerb zuzulassen. Die Abwesenheit von Diskrimierung legitimiert paradoxer Weise größere soziale Ungleichheit als Ergebnis.
Other nations seem to face the same challenge: either inclusive, or economically just. Europe has maintained much more economic equality but is struggling greatly with inclusiveness and discrimination, and is far less open to minorities than is the United States.
European countries have done a better job of protecting workers’ salaries and rights but have been reluctant to extend the benefits of their generous welfare state to new immigrants who look and act differently from them. Could America’s lost enthusiasm for income redistribution and progressive taxation be in part a reaction to sharing resources with traditionally excluded groups?
“I do think there is a trade-off between inclusion and equality,” said Gary Becker, a professor of economics at the University of Chicago and a Nobel laureate. “I think if you are a German worker you are better off than your American equivalent, but if you are an immigrant, you are better off in the U.S.”
PROFESSOR Becker, a celebrated free-market conservative, wrote his Ph.D. dissertation (and first book, “The Economics of Discrimination”) to demonstrate that racial discrimination was economically inefficient. American business leaders seem to have learned that there is no money to be made in exclusion: bringing in each new group has simply created new consumers to court. If you can capture nearly three-quarters of the economy’s growth — as the top 1 percent did between 2002 and 2006 — it may not be worth worrying about gay marriage or skin color.
Die europäischen Gesellschaftsmodelle, die alle (mit Ausnahme Großbritanniens) auf einem System von Schutzmechanismen und Ansprüchen für diejenigen beruhen, die bereits drin sind, werden auch darum so stark durch Migration herausgefordert: Einwanderungsgesellschaften tendieren zu stärkerer Ungleichheit. Soziale Sicherungssysteme werden unhaltbar. Die Hausse der so genannten Rechtspopulisten ist eine Reaktion darauf. Sie sind Anspruchsbewahrungsparteien der alteingesessenen Mittelschichten mit – auf den Sozialstaat bezogen – konservativer Tendenz (-> Wilders, Front National, „Freiheitliche“).
Removing the most blatant forms of discrimination, ironically, made it easier to justify keeping whatever rewards you could obtain through the new, supposedly more meritocratic system. “Greater inclusiveness was a precondition for greater economic stratification,” said Professor Karabel. “It strengthened the system, reinvigorated its ideology — it is much easier to defend gains that appear to be earned through merit. In a meritocracy, inequality becomes much more acceptable.”
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Of the European countries, Britain’s politics of inequality and inclusion most resemble those of the United States. Even as inequality has grown considerably, the British sense of economic class has diminished. As recently as 1988, some 67 percent of British citizens proudly identified themselves as working class. Now only 24 percent do. Almost everybody below the Queen and above the poverty line considers himself or herself “middle class.”
Germany still has robust protections for its workers and one of the healthiest economies in Europe. Children at age 10 are placed on different tracks, some leading to university and others to vocational school — a closing off of opportunity that Americans would find intolerable. But it is uncontroversial because those attending vocational school often earn as much as those who attend university.
In France, it is illegal for the government to collect information on people on the basis of race. And yet millions of immigrants — and the children and grandchildren of immigrants — fester in slums.
Der Zusammenhang von Ungleichheit und Inklusion ist vielleicht so etwas wie das dirty little secret unserer Migrationsdebatte.