Jonah: I think it is true that welfare-state social democracy works better in an ethnostate than in a modern multi-culti nation. (Though this is not true of full-bore “command economy” socialism, which doesn’t work anywhere.) People are more willing to sacrifice for the common good when the common good has a face that looks like their own. It does not follow, though, that ethnostates trend inevitably towards socialism. Japan hasn’t, and China is actually trending away from socialism.

“Immigration used to feed the individualistic narrative quite powerfully. But these days that narrative has been dangerously muddied by identity politics.”

It’s been muddied by more than that, as Sam Huntington’s indispensable book shows. By, for example, the fact that an immigrant in, say, 1900 was a long way from home, and jostling in the labor market with other immigrants most of whose languages he couldn’t understand. And there’s a discussion to be had about how much the real individualism nurtured (I agree) by the pre-1924 wave of immigration really only took off after the 1924 Act, when identity politics–or what passed for it in the 1920s–faded for want of new blood.

The underlying questions here are: What kind of a good is social harmony? Too much of it–a stultifying conformism with no room for orneriness or creativity–is unappealing. A dash of immigrant vitality sure does spice society up and keep the Houyhnhnms at bay. (? I’m going to rely on Rick Brookhiser to correct my spelling there.) But remember how you salt your stew.