Every now and then Atrios has a short post that says something like "Silly, Silly, Japan - hostile to immigration."  His point, so much as it needs explanation, is how often we criticize other countries for acting stupidly and making obvious mistakes that only serve to make life worse abroad than it is here at home, where everything is great.

Donal has done a great job tearing apart the notion that life is so much better in the U.S. that other countries would be foolish to follow our example - some places in the developed world offer better standards of living or, if not that, then at least perks and advantages over our fast aging country.

What Atrios says about Japan strikes a real chord with me since the biggest advantage in the U.S. is that people want to live here and they have generally been welcomed (though the details of that are, of course, complicated, some have been more welcome than others).  For now, being a good destination for immigrants is the U.S.'s major long-term advantage over China, India, Japan and much of the developing world.  Notice that when wealthy westerners like Jim Rogers decides that the future lies east and they want to raise his kids where the growth is, he doesn't go to Shanghai.  He goes to Singapore.  In effect, he's chosen what seems like a benign dictatorship over one that is decidedly more dangerous to an outspoken capitalist prone to ticking people off.  Likewise, people are not flocking to move their headquarters or their families to Russia where democracy is fragile, organized crime operates with impunity and rights are a gift, not an expectation.

We silly Americans talk about the corporate tax rate as if that and not the promise of property rights, a functioning legal system and a culture that darn near worships hard work and business success.  It really matters, is that we don't have a national race or religion.  If we found a way to emphasize that, people would do business in the U.S. regardless of the corporate tax rate.  Our key competitive advantage is that a Scientologist can be rich enough to rent several apartments in Manhattan's American Felt Building, including one apartment for their children's clothing (Blind Item!).  This is not possible even in a developed democracy like Germany.

Yet here we are, publicly hostile to immigration.  In effect we're turning our backs on our competitive advantage and that's too bad.  China has cheaper labor.  That's its advantage.  The U.S. is generally a nicer place to live.  That's our selling point.  When we tell the world "but you can't live here," then cheap labor wins.  Very sad.

Another silliness that I've heard over the years is that the European welfare system, its pensions, its worker protection laws and universal health care have all cause Europe to have higher unemployment in the U.S.  This argument gets trotted out every time somebody asks why the Europeans have more vacation time or why they're less likely to get laid off or why they get to retire younger: "Oh, you can have all those things," we're told, "but do you want 10% unemployment?"

Of course, we now have 10% unemployment and none of those things.  Europe has 10% unemployment and all of those things.  So who gets the better deal?  I've heard so many people over the years say "you don't want to be like Europe, do you?"  I've been to Paris twice, to Ireland for a long stay, to Berlin and Munich in Germany and to Crete and Athens in Greece.  I'm going to Barcelona for the first time this year.  I've never seen anything in Europe except for one Paris purse snatching that made me think being Europe would be all that bad.  As I said above, I do prefer the culture of individual rights that exists in the U.S. and that's something we might want to emphasize is available to Europeans or anyone in the world, who would like to come to the U.S.

Awhile back, President Obama made a smart remark about exceptionalism - every country believes they have it to one extent or another.  The U.S. has used the concept to justify its actions abroad, especially when it does things that it would not accept from any other country.  The U.S. can invade Panama.  If Venezuela did it, there'd be a problem.

Well, I suggest that exceptionalism can mean a lot of things besides being just a word for "Yes, it's a total double standard but we're going to mine your harbor anyway."  Every country has an exceptional quality.  With China its cheap labor and a command economy which lets them do things that wouldn't be possible in the U.S. (like building big empty ghost cities to keep GDP up) and with Japan it's a fully developed export economy centered around technology, while with India its cheap high value labor and an aspiration culture and in the U.S. its all about quality of life, which is a combination of both enforceable rights and creature comforts.

We're very quick to tell other countries that they should be more open to immigration like we are.  We'd be better off just being more open to immigrants and less nasty about.  We should sell America to the next generation of growth bringing immigrants.  We're also very quick to criticize countries in Europe for treating their citizens too well.  But now that it's been proven that you can have 10% unemployment with none of the benefits, maybe we should look inward and try to make life here a little nicer than it is.  It will only entice more people to come and that will help keep us ahead of our cheap labor competition.