Day of Empire_ How Hyperpowers Rise to Global Dominance--And Why They Fall - Amy Chua [162]
On a more personal level, I asked a Yale Law student of Indian descent, who spent the summer of 2006 in India, to conduct a series of interviews for me. The interviewees included small-business owners, students, bank employees, technology consultants, and other upwardly mobile Indians in Mumbai, Bangalore, and New Delhi. They were questioned about their perceptions of relative economic opportunity around the world. One question was whether the United States, the EU, or Canada offered better prospects for Indian immigrants. Here is a representative sampling of their responses:
Europe is less attractive than the U.S. for Indians. Except for England, the countries are not welcoming. The culture just does not match with ours, and we cannot speak their languages.
Europe offers fewer opportunities. People are crazy for the U.S. The U.S. has much more opportunity; it is easier to survive because of the system—it is a full-fledged democracy. The language makes it easier. And people in Europe are more racist.
Canada is big and half of it is covered in snow…The U.S. obviously offers more opportunities. But there are a few industries in Canada that I think do well globally, like steel. Still, even for that I wouldn't want to work there. They have very little vegetarian food.
Canada is still considered and referred to as a subnation and only in relation with the U.S. It has still to develop an identity of its own.
Europe will offer more opportunities in time, but not yet. The EU is taking a much more proactive approach in investing and in establishing and promoting trade and commerce. But there are language barriers.
Europe is a very very costly state. Therefore the opportunities are not often looked to by Indian people. Also India and the U.S. have better financial and cultural ties.
[Europeans] are much more racist against Indians. And the language and the climate are a problem. London is nice, but for work people should go to the U.S.
These responses are obviously not a scientific study, just the impressions of a tiny handful, but they do confirm what a larger body of evidence suggests. At least for now, the United States is still perceived as the place where motivated immigrants can most easily rise, where hard work is most likely to cash out. This is why America continues to draw even European brain power rather than vice versa; as of 2004, there were roughly 400,000 European science and technology graduates employed in the United States and very few comparable Americans working in Europe.36
Of course, from the European perspective, the EU's relatively restrictive immigration policies may not be a bad thing. Like China, the European states have never claimed the goal of turning themselves into multiethnic immigrant societies. Similarly, most Europeans probably favor the slowdown of the EU's expansion. As a postimperial superpower, the EU has no interest in incorporating Russia or the countries of Asia and Africa simply for the sake of enlargement. But if one of the EU's goals is to restore a multipolar world order, these limits may prevent its attainment of that goal. For so long as the EU permits America to remain the destination for the world's most valuable human capital, Europe may be ceding to the United States the global technological and economic edge that has made America a hyperpower.
THE UNDERDOG: INDIA
During the 2006 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the Confederation of Indian Industry chose the logo “India Everywhere.” And in Davos, India was everywhere. India's slogan leapt from buses and billboards, Indian delegates handed out free iPods with Bollywood's latest hits, and members of the Indian government known to economists as India's “Dream Team” lauded their country's prospects with potential investors. During the final social extravaganza,