A Country Is More Than An Economy, But ...

I want to recommend an article by Christopher Roach that gets into some similar issues that Techno Fog recently raised (hat tip to commenter ML for the TF substack re H-1B). In fact, Vivek himself started a lot of this consciousness raising by his initial tweet that stressed the importance of what he calls “culture”—which others might call swotting to score well on standardized tests to get into “elite” institutions and train for becoming wealthy. Am I being unkind? I don’t think so. For example, the Imperial Examination concept—and the swotting associated with it—has been a key part of Chinese culture for, well, forever, just about. Here’s the idealistic view of it:

The imperial examination was a civil service examination system in Imperial China administered for the purpose of selecting candidates for the state bureaucracy. The concept of choosing bureaucrats by merit rather than by birth started early in Chinese history, but using written examinations as a tool of selection started in earnest during the Sui dynasty^[1] (581–618), then into the Tang dynasty (618–907). The system became dominant during the Song dynasty (960–1279) and lasted for almost a millennium until its abolition during the late Qing dynasty reforms in 1905. The key sponsors for abolition were Yuan Shikai, Yin Chang and Zhang Zhidong. Aspects of the imperial examination still exist for entry into the civil service of both China and Taiwan.

The exams served to ensure a common knowledge of writing, Chinese classics, and literary style among state officials. This common culture helped to unify the empire, and the ideal of achievement by merit gave legitimacy to imperial rule. The examination system played a significant role in tempering the power of hereditary aristocracy and military authority, and in the rise of a gentry class of scholar-bureaucrats.

People who come from a culture like that to America see the American culture differently than Americans do. But … they see that the millennia long tradition of swotting for standardized tests works in America, too. It’s just that in America it’s a matter of scrambling to the top of the heap, so to speak—nothing really to do with culture as that word is usually understood. Learning to read English and grokking the English language classics—nobody really pays attention to the Western classics any longer—is a very different thing than becoming literate and educated in China. In America we worship Mammon, or celebrity, or … well, you get the idea. So perhaps Vivek was being kind. Maybe what he really meant is that there really is no common American culture—it’s just a sort of free for all.

Which is actually the classical liberal—or libertarian, if you prefer—ideal. In that kind of “culture”, people who come from a culture of swotting (yes, that is a bit unkind) see a land of wide open opportunity in which they have a cultural advantage.

Of course, it’s not exactly true to say that Americans have no culture, but it is true that our common culture is under siege. And that’s our own fault, historically speaking. Roach has a lot of good things to say about what American culture should be and, in its better moments, sometimes still is. But American as a nation arose from the Enlightenment, which means Classical Liberalism, or Libertarianism. Within a generation or so of the founding that common culture was already disintegrating under the attacks of the Enlightened (Woke?) elites. But here’s the nub of what Roach is saying:

H1B Blues

Infighting among Trump supporters highlights a clash between traditional MAGA values and tech elites over immigration, culture, and the true meaning of national loyalty.

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A Country Is More Than Its Economy

While Trump is a successful businessman, and part of the MAGA agenda aims to secure sustained economic growth, not all growth is created equal. An excessive concern for “the economy” often conceals who is benefiting from economic growth. The economy is a means to an end. It is supposed to provide for the needs of citizens and create some excess for their wants so that our people can pursue their own happiness.

A country, after all, is a combination of a people and a particular place. The government is supposed to serve the interests of the people in that place. By contrast, multinational companies are generally indifferent to both people and places. The “economy” benefits whether a new job goes to an American or an H1B worker imported from overseas.

In Ramaswamy’s account of success, it does not matter if the person obtaining that success is an American citizen deeply rooted in the land or someone who just landed at JFK Airport, but the identity of beneficiaries does matter to voters.

Consider a smaller-scale illustration of this principle. No one would trade their children for someone else’s children, born of other parents, simply because the replacements were destined to win the Math Olympiad or otherwise end up as high achievers. We love our families because they are ours, not because they are “elite human capital.” Our country and its countrymen should evoke a similar instinctual love and loyalty.

A nation’s policies are supposed to increase the collective wealth, security, and happiness of the people living there. This is what the Constitution’s preamble means when it says the government is supposed to “provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity . . .”

Our founding documents sensibly recognize both the existence of a common good and that it is supposed to accrue to a particular people, the American people. Trump understood this with his MAGA agenda. I hope his retinue figures it out in due time.

But all that wisdom that was embodied in the Constitution has been subverted by the smarty pants—and desperately shallow—libertarians of both Left and Right. Yes, the Uniparty people. How we got to this point is the story of the West, going back many centuries. The short story is that the American Founding occurred in the context of the dissolution of Western culture. Here’s what I mean—the author of this article skewers Roach’s well intentioned idealization of an America that barely exists at this point:

Immigration and Culture

Vivek Ramaswamy is right that culture matters when it comes to immigration policies. But it matters far more than he thinks it does.

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But there is a problem. What exactly is American culture? After all, we have built-in diversity based on our history, although it is primarily European and African in origin. What values represent American culture, as opposed to Indian or Chinese or some other culture? What exactly should an immigrant assimilate into?

At the very least, the English language should be a starting point. If you come to this country, you should learn to speak the language and should teach it to your children. Indians, at the very least, do speak English and so that’s clearly not enough for those who opposed Indian enclaves forming in America. So what else? The most powerful force in a culture is religion, and the religion of American culture has always been Christian, even if in recent decades the influence of Christianity has waned. So do we require immigrants to be Christian before they are allowed in? I can see many benefits to this policy, but then what brand of Christianity is acceptable? America is a Protestant country with a history of anti-Catholicism, so Catholics might be excluded in a “Christians only” immigration policy. Or should we settle for more generic moral cultural norms, such as an acceptance of the Ten Commandments (which is not part of Asian cultures)?

Those who want to defend American culture from immigrant groups that will undermine it are fighting a valiant battle, but it seems to me that we first must establish what exactly is American culture before we can impose it upon those who immigrate here. I would say that speaking the English language, embracing the natural law tradition of Christian Europe, and respecting Christian customs is the minimum required for an immigration policy that respects and fosters American culture. But I’m sure many others who want to restrict immigration as I do might have different requirements.

That being said, we should be realistic about what is possible in political terms. My own minimum requirements would never be supported by the majority of the political class; we’ve already seen that Vivek and Elon wouldn’t support them. In today’s immigration debate, we need to shoot a lot lower. Just securing the border to stop the flow of illegal immigrants and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed a crime since coming to America would be a huge step in the right direction, yet even those small goals will be difficult to achieve. If we can do that, however, then perhaps we can move on to a broader discussion of what matters in American culture and how to preserve it (without labelling anyone racist who brings the topic up).

Having successful tech companies is nice, having a successful culture is essential. Vivek is right, it does come down to the c-word: culture. But just not how he thinks it does.

But, if you put it like that, the question arises: Short of a really deep Great Awakening, is this all a losing battle? Seen from this perspective, it’s easy to see why Americans as a nation seem to be constitutionally incapable of understanding other cultures. At this juncture the prime examples of places and cultures we just don’t seem to get might include places like Russia—above all—China, Iran, and more. I hope to get into Russia a bit more, but it’s easy enough to see why a country as fragmented as America—which rejects a unifying culture pretty much as a matter of principle, or as an anti-principle—finds itself back footed as the world devolves into multi-polarity. And why we find ourselves ruled by a corrupt and unprincipled class of people who feel no particular loyalty to a country without an identity beyond a hazy idea of personal “freedom”—but no idea what that freedom is for, no sense of purpose.

Hey, Happy New Year!