The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam

by Douglas Murray

Over recent years there has been, for instance, a niche search to prove that the societal change Europe has been going through makes the continent significantly richer. In fact the opposite is true, as anybody who lives in a twenty-first-century welfare state can work out for themselves. Having paid into the system for all of their working lives, working Europeans know that the basis of the modern welfare state broadly consists of being able to take services out from the state (when you fall ill, become unemployed or reach retirement age), because you have paid into the system throughout your working life. There will be some people who have rarely paid in, but they will be covered by some who have rarely taken out. Anybody can see that a family of people who arrive for the first time in their adopted country and who have never paid into the system are at the very least going to take some time before they have paid in as much in taxes as they will have taken out in housing, schooling, welfare, benefits and all the other advantages of the European welfare state. In the same way it is obvious to anybody involved in the labour market – especially at the lower end – that one which is comparatively closed off will operate differently from one in which the workforce can come from almost anywhere in the world. Although from an employer’s viewpoint there is an obvious advantage to the mass import of cheap labour, it is equally obvious that a very open labour market will see people ...