July 04, 2007... The immoral logic of welfare and the consequences for illegal immigrants and the competing EU underclass.

Great Britain and Ireland, for example, bitterly complain about being swamped by illegal immigrants. African illegal immigrants attempting to enter Europe for a new life, are drowning by the hundreds in the Mediterranian and the Atlantic or dying by other means, as various authorities argue about which European Union (EU) country must take social and financial responsibility. And, worst of all, these ‘immoral, scrounging slackers’ are only here for the EU handouts of welfare payments and all that goes with them in social services, etc., in direct competition with the necessarily permanent and indigenous EU underclass. Or so the claim goes when EU politicians have to face a robust line of questioning in their respective member-state Parliaments or media interview-cum-interrogation opportunities, when the current estimate is somewhere between 3-8 million illegal immigrants in the EU. The entire population of the island of Ireland, to put that figure in perspective.

Whilst there is a grain of truth in this accusation, it is trifling when compared to the immorality of the welfare state itself as per the EU’s policy of coercive wealth redistribution. In fact, if there were any moral justification to such wealth redistribution, having the wealth go to illegal immigrants could be considered far more morally defensible than having it go to EU citizens or legal immigrants. This is because the justification for coercive wealth redistribution is that those in terribly dire straits cannot be expected to make it in life, so they deserve to be provided with a break from others who are doing well or well enough. The majority of all available literature defending the welfare state advance arguments along such lines: The desperate needs of others make it right to have a serious amount of the wealth of those who have it taken from them, and handed to the needy.

But if this is so, which it isn’t at all, who but the illegal immigrant is more qualified? Such an individual is nearly destitute. Moreover, such an individual has shown some merit in having done something about his or her dire straits, namely, escaped from a terrible country where virtually no opportunity for advancement exists and chosen one where, with some effort, one can possibly make it. So such people, the reasoning of welfare statists should go, have a greater claim on the taxes collected from well (or well enough) to do Europeans than have the claims, in relative terms—judging by global standards—of locals who aren’t all that badly off. It is just those illegal immigrants who can make the most use of “free” health care, education, welfare and such, given how badly off they all are.

Of course there is a great deal wrong with this line of reasoning but not because it involves illegal immigrants. The problem lies with coercive wealth redistribution as an immoral method to expropriate wealth from the comparatively affluent Peter in order to benefit destitute Paul. Such a transfer is not generosity, of course, because generosity must be voluntary, not coercive. All that the welfare state exhibits is how much bullying people will tolerate before they finally have had enough. And yes, sadly, too many people in the EU are entirely too compliant where coercive wealth redistribution and other kinds of government intrusion is concerned. They are intimidated by those who claim that holding on to what is theirs is greedy or mean, which is bunk.

Thus, those who approve of coercive wealth redistribution have absolutely no case against illegal immigrants obtaining some of the booty confiscated from EU citizens. They have no case because illegal immigrants are in general far more in need of what the welfare state hands out than EU citizens or legal immigrants.

There is a principle in logic according to which when one allows a contradiction into a line of argumentation, nothing can make sense any longer. And this applies to political economy as well. Once the welfare state’s principle of coercive wealth redistribution has become standard public policy, there is no hope of any kind of rational, intelligent solution to the problems that arise.

This is what is evident in the current debate about illegal immigration—the welfare state is the underlying fundamental problem. Until that system is abolished, until a revolutionary change occurs and no Peter is looted for the sake of any poor, rich, legal or illegal Paul, there can be no solution to the illegal immigration problem or an indigenous EU underclass with no need to be permanent.