I think there is a more general question involved in this debate. Who gets to decide who to let in, and how many? I would argue this is up to Russia’s current citizens. Popular opinion is against mass immigration.

Efficiency is often misunderstood. It is ultimately based on utility, which is a personal characteristic. If the representative voter rationally prefers to keep immigrants away, zero immigration is the efficient solution.

Russia has a relatively free, although highly imperfect labor market that keeps millions of native Russians underemployed. They are not a tiny minority — they may easily be the majority. Labor mobility isn’t great but it’s not the root of the problem. The Russian economy would still be abnormal with perfectly mobile workers. Importing workers will make a large number of Russian citizens even worse off and a small number better off (in the short term).

As for the millions of un- and underemployed Russians, this is of course the classic anti-immigration argument which we hear every so often in the US as well, advanced in turn by inefficiency-creating (rent-extracting, if you like) groups like labor unions and bigots who forget that everyone in this country except for the Native Americans had an ancestor get off a boat or a plane at some point. Of course, Russia is not traditionally a “nation of immigrants” in the way that America is, but if Russia intends to create a free labor market, it’s inevitable that some Russians will wind up out of work, and this should not be blamed on those enterprising or hard-working immigrants who somehow are able to find work.

One more note on this – according to Andrei Piontkovsky (I cornered him after his very interesting talk at SAIS in DC tonight and asked about this) the decision to bar Rodina from the MosGorDuma elections was appealed to the Supreme Court and will be finally decided tomorrow. Piontkovsky’s comment was that the decision would show whether the Kremlin wanted to get rid of it’s “Frankenstein” – i.e., Rodina – or give them a bunch of added publicity and presumably a boost in the polls. He also questioned Russia’s ability to support “two Le Pens” – Zhirik and Rogozin – on an ongoing basis.

So, Andy, we’ll be counting on you to follow the story tomorrow to see where it comes out.

Lyndon: 1) is what Germans thought was good about their guest worker program — now the country is full of immigrants; 2) right, and most Russians don’t object to Ukrainians and Moldovans coming here; 3) Russia offers no dole (although health care is still infinitely better in Moscow that in a Tajikistan village) but well-organized communities can extract rent through monopolization. Look what happened to farmers’ markets in Moscow; recall American garbage collectors. 4) It depends on the growth pattern but in any case there are millions of un- and underemployed Russians out there; plus, not everyone wants growth at any price.

1) Many if not most of the migrant workers in Russia are still rooted in their home countries/communities and do not view Russia as a future or permanent home, due to several factors:
– they are often not legally documented in Russia
– their families often do not accompany them to Russia
– many of them work for a finite period of time in order to purchase a residence in their home country and then may return periodically to work as their financial needs dictate.

2) Not all of the migrant workers in Russia are from Muslim countries – many are from Ukraine, Moldova, Armenia… – and at least some of the Muslim migrants to Moscow are not really immigrants to Russia, since they come from Russia’s North Caucasus.

3) Unlike in France, the immigrants’ children (those of them who do make it to Russia instead of waiting for their dad to come home to ****stan with a bulging wallet) will not have the benefits of a welfare state to fall back upon, much less “spoil them,” as the French welfare state has been accused of doing. Anyone who moves to Russia to take advantage of the social services there will be sorely disappointed, even if he can jump through all of the bribe-seeking, bureaucratic hoops required to get citizenship and actually qualify for the benefits.

4) If the Russian economy grows as much as the Russian government wants it to, it will need the labor force enhancement much more than France’s economy needs its surplus labor force.

Alexei, this is what I wanted to post as a comment to one of your several recent posts on immigration – http://therussiandilettante.blogspot.com/2005/11/amnesty-for-illegals-2-standard-pro.html

Well, now I feel like I’ve put more effort into this comment than into most posts on my own blog… but I think the discussion about immigration is going to be increasingly important in Russia’s future, so it’s an interesting topic to discuss.

I haven’t seen the ad either (oddly, despite the massive Russian community, they didn’t air it in London) but, what I can gather from news reports is that Rodina very explicity made the analogy that immigrants are garbage, and that they soil Russia.

Opposing immigration is a perfectly valid political view, but there are ways to hold the debate that don’t sink into racism. I don’t know if I would necessarily class Rodina as a racist party, but their advert was clearly pandering to people’s worst fears of another race.

I would acknowledge that those fears exist, but there is no excuse for playing to them in such a blantant way and, worse, making it seem acceptable to discuss a problematic issue in such a way.

By the way – I just discovered that the LDPR initiated the case. Pot, kettle, black, etc.

LDPR stands to gain from this ban (but not much), and as Lyndon says, they are Kremlin puppets.

Delyagin’s recent interview to Time is puzzling. He used to sound reasonable but now he’s talking about Russia embracing Islam and creating a “new civilization”. And he’s Rodina’s official economist, isn’t he?

Seriously, though, I have a feeling that the Rodina verdict is one of those bizarre verdicts that the courts sometimes throw out when the folks at the top aren’t paying close enough attention.

And, while you are right that the banning of Rodina does give Putin the chance to say that Russian society (and by inference, he) is intolerant of racism and ultra-nationalist policies, the banning is only for a local election. There’s a fair chance that, actually, the banning will increase support throughout the country, if Rodina manage it well.