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The claim that immigration is the engine of economic growth in the West is frequently repeated but rarely scrutinized. While some groups of immigrants contribute positively to the economies of host nations, others create fiscal challenges, raising questions about the universality of immigration’s purported benefits. A closer examination reveals significant disparities in the contributions of various immigrant groups, requiring a more nuanced understanding of immigration’s economic impact
Research consistently highlights the economic advantages of European immigration. In the Netherlands, a study by Jan Van de Beek and colleagues demonstrates that immigrants from Europe and North America are net contributors to public finances due to their high levels of education and human capital. Similarly, immigrants from East Asia and South Africans of Dutch ancestry also provide a net positive economic impact.
In contrast, immigrants from North Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean, and West Africa impose a net cost on public finances. Even second-generation immigrants from non-Western regions remain a fiscal drain, a trend attributed to enduring socioeconomic disparities. These disparities, researchers suggest, often track closely with country of origin and reflect variations in cognitive ability and educational attainment. Moreover, Central and Eastern European immigrants, though from Europe, perform below their Western European counterparts, underscoring the heterogeneity within European populations.
Sweden’s experience with immigration further illuminates the economic divergence between immigrant groups. Historically, Sweden attracted skilled European immigrants, particularly from professional and entrepreneurial classes. According to Tino Sanandaji’s Swedes and Immigration: End of Homogeneity, immigrants in Sweden during the 1970s had employment rates equal to or higher than native Swedes, reflecting the high quality of labor from European countries. However, recent waves of immigration from non-Western countries have shifted this dynamic. Immigrants today are more likely to occupy low-wage jobs and trail behind natives in earnings. This change has strained Sweden’s welfare state, showing how immigration’s economic impact depends significantly on the source and skills of immigrant populations.
Denmark provides concrete evidence of the fiscal disparities between immigrant groups. In 2018, estimates from the Danish Finance Ministry revealed that immigrants and their descendants from non-Western countries drained public finances by a net 31 billion kroner ($4.9 billion), akin to 1.4% of GDP. In contrast, immigrants from Western countries contributed a net 7 billion kroner. Of particular concern is the disproportionate impact of Muslim immigrants, who represent 50% of non-Western immigrants but account for 77% of the fiscal drain. These figures reiterate the financial strain associated with poorly integrated immigrant groups and the importance of selective immigration policies.
Likewise, Wim Naudé and colleagues, in Migration, Entrepreneurship, and Development: A Critical Review, explore the role of immigrants in fostering entrepreneurship and economic development. Their findings reveal a mixed picture. While some immigrant groups contribute significantly to entrepreneurship and innovation, many others remain concentrated in low-skill, low-value sectors. Scrutinizing the data on Canada, for example shows that migrant firms did not outperform locally owned businesses, except in the exporting sector where immigrants had a network advantage.
Entrepreneurship among immigrants is heavily influenced by their education levels, cultural background, and the institutional environment of host countries. For example, highly skilled immigrants from East Asia are more likely to establish high-growth, innovation-driven enterprises, while other groups often pursue subsistence-level entrepreneurship with limited economic impact. Naudé’s work shows that the entrepreneurial contributions of immigrants are far from uniform and are contingent on a range of contextual factors.
Matthias Niggli’s study, Moving On: Investigating Inventors’ Ethnic Origins Using Supervised Learning, sheds further light on the role of immigrants in innovation. Historically, inventors of Anglo-Saxon, German, and Japanese origins dominated global innovation, but their prominence has declined since the 1990s. In their place, inventors of Korean, Indian, and Chinese origins have risen, particularly in sectors requiring advanced technical expertise. This shift illustrates how immigration policies that attract highly skilled individuals can bolster innovation and economic growth. However, these contributions are concentrated among specific groups, reinforcing the need for selective immigration policies tailored to economic objectives.
The narrative that immigration is universally beneficial to Western economies fails to account for significant disparities in the contributions of different immigrant groups. European immigrants, particularly those from Western Europe, have historically made positive economic contributions, while non-Western immigrants often present fiscal and social challenges. Entrepreneurship and innovation, often cited as key benefits of immigration, are highly variable and depend on the skills and backgrounds of immigrants. Policymakers must move beyond one-size-fits-all approaches and adopt immigration policies that prioritize high human capital, economic potential, and cultural compatibility. Only by addressing these complexities can Western nations harness the true potential of immigration while mitigating its challenges
11 comments
This article is filled with good observations. The economic arguments for immigration have largely been lies; the droves of third-worlders coming here are a drag on the economy. They were supposed to enable us to fund our safety net programs by paying in to the system; instead, our debt just keeps growing to pay for the newcomers’ incessant needs. And they are not likely to take care of us the way we would like when we get old.
But the article still troubles a bit. The author seems to regard immigration as something that is necessary. Furthermore, some of the meritocratic criteria he suggests: “policymakers must . . . adopt immigration policies that prioritize high human capital, economic potential, and cultural compatibility” will cause more problems than benefits. By continuing to scrape the cream of the crop from (mainly) Asian and Middle Eastern countries, we are enabling ethnic elites with strong group preferences to become increasingly powerful in our countries. They will use their power to bring more of their countrymen over. Witness the behaviors of Indian immigrants with high human capital and economic potential. They are rising as a political and economic class, they hire their own, they break laws with impunity to import more of their countrymen, and their gaudy temples suggest cultural assimilation is not in their plans. Many of them have a Brahmin sense of superiority that causes them to look down on Americans. Only “cultural compatibility” is not necessarily a blueprint for disaster, and unless you spell out “whites only,” it could mean almost anything. Cosmopolitans can fit in everywhere–until they don’t.
And maybe we should stop using “economic growth” as the reason we do everything and find other measures for the health of our society. I kind of like “life expectancy” as a standard. Although it is quantitative rather than qualitative, the longer one remains active is sugestive of a better life. Using it as the main measure would show that, despite our economic growth, life is declining for white males in the US.
Has economic growth really made that many happier? I reckon there’s plenty of amerikans who’d gladly live like hobbits and be far more content than big city people, even with a lower life expectancy. Not everyone is cut out for the soulless gigantism of a techno-sci megalopolis of millions. johann hari said the amish are the least dysfunctional with the fewest mental health problems among us. That is not surprising.
The author is giving our rulers the benefit of the doubt, but they don’t deserve it. (The title is appropriate, though!) As Derek wrote, the promises were lies, not mere mistakes, and exposure to data like this by and large hasn’t made them change their minds or policies. They know Haitians, Afghans, etc. are a drain on our nations and yet they still clamor for more. The economic argument is just a fig leaf.
But it’s still good to have it exposed as false, because the normies can be swayed.
The most significant argument against immigration, beyond cultural concerns, is environmental. One would think with the ‘shrill hysteria’ over climate change, the environmental impact of economic growth driven by mass immigration would be a primary concern. We’re not in the 1900s anymore; the population has far exceeded the point where cheap land and exploration were readily available. The ‘American dream’ was built on space, not on being crammed into a suburbanized shoebox. This environmental argument remains the strongest case against immigration, and it’s surprising that white nationalists don’t use it more effectively to their advantage.
I’ve been pointing this fact out to others — especially leftists — since Trump’s first term. Globalization itself is harmful to the environment, and if you really want to make things better you should support anything that leads to less immigration. Too bad most people don’t want to hear it.
Pentti Linkola was militant on this but I did enjoy his book. I’m confident all the ‘green’ types would be the first to kosher-programmatically attack any assertion that true green and their bumper sticker wishes will only become real under proWhite. I was accosted by a greenpeacer only once-he looked like charles manson meets styxhexenhammer outside that weird epicenter apartment building in Seattle. Maybe branding White Power Nationalism as the ecogreen environmental conservation of a people might get thru to some of them.
I’m not sure that it’s the most important argument, but it certainly is a big one. And real environmentalism has been handed over to us as an issue. The lefty environmentalists showed their true colors back in the 1970s when the Sierra Club changed its policy about limiting population growth because, with the baby boom over, the growth was all coming from brown-skinned immigrants and their spawn. White bad, brown good–even though the people who care most about the environment are white.
Good to see Lipton here again. It’s wild how severely his twitter is suppressed.
I was interested in this article until I saw who the writer was and recalled that he was black.I have no interest in black writers on any subject.I seem to get that all the time.I look up something I’m concerned with and some of the results take me to an article i immediately recognize,by name,as being written by a black.Oops,hit the back button and try again.I have no interest in black commentary,even if it’s on the right side or conservative “white-friendly’ side.As a white advocate,I have become totally averse to these people and regard them as completely alien to our people,society and cause.I make no exceptions.That being said,I definitely agree that the environmental arguments against immigration are the most important and rarely discussed ones.
I tend to agree with you, Stewart. Although a good interview, that Matthews is Black should have been disclosed up front — not merely Lipton Matthews of the Occidental Observer. KMac could have had any number of serious White writers to interview Dr. Dalton. That he didn’t, is about as silly as having Alex Haley interview GLR for Playboy magazine in 1966. AmRen and Unz Review are other sites on the supposedly “White’-friendly” side that promote the Negro Matthews’ work.
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Stewart: April 7, 2025 I was interested in this article until I saw who the writer was and recalled that he was black. I have no interest in black writers on any subject… I have no interest in black commentary, even if it’s on the right side or conservative “white-friendly’ side. As a white advocate,I have become totally averse to these people and regard them as completely alien to our people, society and cause. I make no exceptions.
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An Interview With Thomas Dalton | National Vanguard
Dr. Thomas Dalton is an American academic known for his extensive commentaries on controversial topics. Here he discusses his views on Jews, anti-Semitism, and Jewish power structures with Lipton Matthews of the Occidental Observer.
MATTHEWS: ‘Anti-Semitism’ is frequently employed as a derisive term to shame thinkers like yourself who adopt an unflinching approach to criticizing Jewish power structures. Do you think that this epithet is justified?
Dalton: This all depends on what we mean by ‘anti-Semitism.’ Let’s look at a bit of history. The Semites were the people traditionally descended from Noah’s (of the ark) son Shem, who were described as ‘Shemites’ or Semites. Some nine generations after Shem came Abraham, traditional patriarch of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. Abraham was said to live circa 2000 BC, which would put Shem at 4000 BC or earlier—although such genealogies have almost zero credence…
There doesn’t seem to be much agreement with you among C-Cers about not having Blacks write for our side.
Stewart: April 7, 2025 I was interested in this article until I saw who the writer was and recalled that he was black. I have no interest in black writers on any subject…
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