Thankyou. That really needed saying.

From the Democrats in the United States to the centre-left parties throughout the West, the enthusiasm for unrestricted immigration can only be explained rationally by the deep loathing of some parts of their own societies and the desire to irrevocably tip the electoral scales in their favour. It has nothing to do with national interest or sensible economic and social arguments; it’s about political power to transform the society to your desired vision.

A few things.

An ivy league study over thirty years of a number of economists found as their notoriety increased their accuracy went down in inverse proportion.

Put ten economists in the same room and you'll get thirty different opinions.

Economics is not an exact science! Why a dart-throwing monkey is right more often!

Moreover, an expert is defined as, an X is an unknown quantity and a spurt is merely a drip under pressure.

Levity aside there was a time after much (Great Depression) trial and error when one branch of economic management made some sense and left us as the third wealthiest nation on the planet and a creditor one at that.

And an affront to extreme capitalists the world over who have mounted a decades-long campaign to dismantle everything (cooperative capitalism) the application of Keynesian economic theory created. And created the result we see today, pockets of often extreme wealthy surrounded by endemic, generational squalor

WE CAN DO SO MUCH BETTER, WE HAVE THE TRIED AND PROVEN FORMULA! TBC.
Alan B

I'm not sure that anthropologists (green activists) would do better or actually improve the lot of those currently living in squalor? In fact, I do believe their remedy, a return to an agrarian culture would just drive the final nail in humanities coffin. As evidenced in an agrarian culture (Ethiopia) after several years of enduring drought. And transformed a wooded northern mountainous region to a lunar landscape as the sparely settled resident village-style population sort to simply survive!

Green economists seem to think all they need do to solve endemic generational squalor is to virtually print money? As advocated by some of their leaders?

And we saw how they very nearly destroyed the German economy in just one electoral term when they ruled there as the leading party!

And a good reason to stop listening to their insane propositions!

Our once robust economy was based on and created by once-affordable power and could be again if we but used the brains we were born with.

And that affordable power needs to be carbon-free, reliable and dispatchable! And ideally, walk away safe!

Given that essential criteria, there is only one source of power that even comes close and that is nuclear power.

And that nuclear power is MSR thorium which has the advantage of being able to burn other folks nuclear waste and for annual billions, we'd be paid, for supplying the burial service, but only after we'd extracted a remarkable 95% or thereabout of still retained energy quotient and in perfect, walk away, safety!

The annual billions would pay for all the new MS reactors we'd need and MSR can be bought off the shelf and adapted to fluoride, which is superior to sodium in every way and far safer! If we don't want to follow the UK?

Then let's rebuild and resuscitate our industrial base with energy dependant manufacture, processing and value-adding and the highly paid permanent jobs that'd be created by that return to sanity!
Alan B

I think we probably already have more anthropologists in our parliaments than scientists (rational thinkers) and that would explain many of the current power struggle absurdities that seem to be front and centre as the only worthwhile goal of obtaining the people's power!

Some like Kevin Andrews have made a difference?

Notably, like the aforementioned to their negatively geared real estate portfolio, which at last count included around 123 negatively geared houses?

Mr Putin is now up there among the super-wealthy oil oligarchs.

Mr Trump seems to have not paid tax for yonks even though he owns billions and indeed t
left a trail of bankrupt family business and families in his wake as the six times bankrupt amassed a personal fortune?

Mr Netenanyhu's exploits are already well known as were those of the former Ukraine President?

One could go on and on, but that would require a lifetime and the complete removal of word limits!

But I believe the above examples makes my point for both me and the Author?
Alan B.

It's not fewer economist we need, it's better economists. And that means economists who don't rely on false assumptions. The false assumption that the people would move to where the jobs are is a good example of the kind of thinking to avoid. Jobs must be created where the people are!

But a complicating factor is that many of the false assumptions of the economists are regarded as "common sense" by the general population. People just can't get their heads around the fact that the government has unlimited credit and will never have to eliminate its debt, so they favour a policy of surpluses even when it harms economic growth.

I quite like this anthropological assessment of the state of the humanly created world in 2020
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2019/12/30/the-external-costs-of-human-activity-are-killing-the-planet

A situation that very few (if indeed any_ of those on the so called conservative side of the culture wars seem to even begin to acknowledge or take into account. Indeed they all wish to turbo-charge the situation described in this essay.

Ttbn: ".. enthusiasm for unrestricted immigration.."

Australian elites' enthusiasm for mass immigration is on another level. Consider this:

"Over the last eleven years Australia’s population growth, largely driven by immigration, has been running at record levels. For the 34 years from June 1972 to June 2006 growth averaged 210,200 per year; from June 2007 to June 2018 the annual average was 378,400.

In the earlier period net overseas migration (NOM) accounted for 42% of the increase, while in the recent period it has accounted for 59%. By 2017-18 the population was growing by 393,500 per year, with 67% due to NOM.

As the population has grown it has become more culturally diverse. At the 1976 census there were 10.8 million people living in Australia and 80% were Australian-born. Most of the rest (17%) had been born in the UK, Europe or New Zealand. In 2017 the total was 24.6 million with 71% Australian-born, 12% born in the UK, Europe or New Zealand, 14% in the Middle East, North Africa or Asia, and 3% in Other Africa or the Americas."

http://tapri.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Tapri-survey-2018-final-report-April.pdf

People are just getting fed up with working only to have their earnings halved by taxes which go to people who have no inclination to pull their weight in society other than doing their darnest to ruin it for all !
Then there are people who actually are allowed to make a career out of stating the bleeding obvious ! Again, from taxpayers' Dollars.

How many anthropologists picked the great financial crisis?

Leave the make believe fools in their ivory towers chattering away about their rubbish, & keep them off the street. They do less damage if isolated.

"However people tended to vote on cultural grounds. They were sick of foreigners (as they saw them) taking over the British way of life."

Yes, voters in the West are increasingly voting on cultural grounds. However, I don't think it's just a case of being "sick of foreigners."

As academics like Matthew Goodwin and Eric Kaufmann have recently argued, voters are unnerved and concerned about rapid demographic changes fuelled by unprecedented immigration. They are not opposed to new migrants but don't want their communities and country to become unrecognisable. They want a slower pace of change and are attached to their own group. Under multiculturalism, minorities are encouraged to practice group attachment but members of the old European-origin majority are condemned if they do the same. This is all bound to cause resentment.

Eric Kaufmann's book "Whiteshift" is a must read if you want to understand what's happening in the West at the moment.

Economists and anthropologist? Are those the only two options to push? Shady stock brokers and bankers playing with everyone else's money and getting rich regardless the outcome, versus professionals that study populations and more then likely are the cause of PC infused culture and rules? Between the two, I'd say that's a tough choice with no garentee of better results. Better would be something that gives a moral standing throughout society, to any class of people. That way both the anthropologist won't be as used as a tool to manipulate people, nor economists as often robing their neighbors and finding tax loopholes for the rich. That third solution? More churches! Even with their scandals, who would you trust more? Academic white collar professionals who have no knowledge of everyday people but are the "experts?" Or ministers and pastors that see more the scope of the different classes of society and can offer all of them a better moral compass?

Are there any other options besides academic showmanship in politics? More police, more military, more bakers and cooks? No matter what other options you have, religion is the only one outside of law enforcement professionals that covers the most ground on meeting society where it is and builds them up to do better then they did before. And of the religions out there Christian churches are the best at being there for each community they are in and looking out for them.

Hasbeen: "How many anthropologists picked the great financial crisis?"

I reckon they couldn't have done any worse than all the economists and financial experts.

Personally, I would argue that many anthropologists are far-left neo-Marxists with little to offer the real world. But I do agree with the author's point that cultural and social issues matter and need to be considered.

Yes, more anthropologists and fewer economists please! Let's have more ecologists too, because we need to know the ecological consequences of political decisions, not least on climate but also their effect on biodiversity. For instance, will continued high population growth destroy all remnant vegetation in SE Queensland and NE NSW, prime habitat of the koala (well, before the fires they were). It may be "economic" to mine more coal and sell it to India and Vietnam, but it is disastrous in environmental and health terms. We might bring in a few theologians too to discuss the moral case for the above. Economists have held sway for too long. NOw their views need to be balanced by others.

Diversifying the fields that are put into consideration helps keep a better picture of the world (and a more reliable picture). The down side is that the different fields don't always talk the same language. The focus is not the same, so what's actually considered the issue is never agreed on.

On the other hand, if a hammer is the only tool you have, every problem looks like a nail. Economics can't solve all the issues. But neither can anthropologists, or ecologists.

Expecially when one of the big problems is that there are roughly three different classes of people. Those with lots of money, who don't know what it takes to live on a regular income. Those with a medium income who live paycheck to paycheck, or have just a little bit extra. (Who don't understand the spending habits of the ultra rich, but also don't know difficulties of the poor). Then you have the different levels of bottoming out. Where getting by means choices of skipping a meal, paying a debt, or having something inexpensive but unaffordable to you.

This economic problem of classes, is a blind spot in the academic world. The experts of economics don't understand it. The concerns of the ecologist don't care about it, and every Ivory tower university except anthropologist courses don't even know it exists.

That's one of the reasons I suggested churches. Because they get more diversity among the economic classes to go to church, and therefore expose the different classes to those that attend that church. The other reason is of course exposing people to a moral fiber to live up to regardless of their career field.

... I should add that ecologist, economists, and anthropologics are three fields that often are blind to the problems that are obvious in the other fields. Anthropologics look at the people, and not the enviornment or the economy. Economists look at money trends, businesses and companies, and bank security issues. Unaware of the people or the enviornment. And ecologist see nothing of either the people or the cost of anything they say.