Sicily in the medieval days was a mixture of Latin, Greek, North African, Norman, and Turkish people living together on one small island.
Judea too has been a land where Romans, Greeks, Hebrews, Arabs, Persians, Turks, and Syrians regularly rubbed shoulders in the streets.
Both these regions have not been known for any particular lack of law, order, and stability in days of antiquity.
So why do so many contemporary Central European and Western European newspapers and news sites talk so much about the erosion of morality and orderly, stable life due to the increased presence of Morrocans, Algerians, Indonesians, Turks, Sudanese, and Somalians in their cities? Because it's not like their regions weren't cosmopolitan before the most recent generation of those groups. Right?
Anybody? What's the difference now?
It sounds like the same anti-immigration fever that americans have.
Freedom has always been the only route to progress.
What you're saying might be correct, and I wouldn't doubt it, and I am guessing proggressive welfare nation statism might be a culprit in this. But just thinking about it quickly, all these histories have very bumpy roads and this could be a very wrong assumption and too broad a question.
The good thing is, it is an empirically testable question; you just have to put up better and more specific perameters for us to make better sense of things I think.
Hoppe talks about some of these things in Democracy: the God that failed (and in some of his articles online). In earlier times, the different communities generally were able to live by their own customs and laws (and customary law was in general much more prevalent than today and is quite suitable for settling disputes between communities - I recommend Bruce L. Benson's work on this matter). Today, the subsitution of the state for the community and family causes a breakdown in this kind of order. Add in various state-created incentives for poverty etc. and you reach the current situation: many people look to the state rather than assuming personal responsibility or relying on people they personally know within their community/family/kinship group etc. - and we all know how efficient the state is. Does this answer your question somewhat?
I should also add that there was at times great and violent unrest between different groups within various ancient and medieval cities.
I guess all the residents of Sicily and Judea in ancient times essentially shared the same culture (by virtue of no significant shocks of population inflow), and there was no notion of nation state, and also no state-imposed welfare.
I approach this from a methodological individualism point of view - even if a region was cosmopolitan for a long time, an inflow of new individuals who are not accustomed to existing conventions is going to be painful. Demographic aggregates are as useless as economic ones.
I guess all the residents of Sicily
This is most certainly not true.
By sharing I didn't mean having the same.
I meant, they had compatible "public culture", though surely widely differing "private/family cultures".
On the other hand, immigrants coming to Germany now have a public culture of entitlement, compared to (disappearing) existing culture of earning.
I would say this is not the case either; it has a very very hetrogeneous history in all respects by almost any standard - particularly pre - Roman times:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Sicily
Other than arguably the British Isles and Japan, Sicily is probably the most interesting island to study the history of.
Because welfare state policies in Europe is so vast that instead of European countries attracting what's good from African and middle east countries it actually attracts the worst people of these countries, who are eager to leech off of this broken system instead of working and adapting to these countries. During the times you are referring to most people who migrated from one place to another did so because they were wanted at these places by private parties, that's why they adapted so well.
Immigration for welfare might seem logically plausible, but not intuitively.
Who spends that kind of money on immigration, just to get those meager sums of welfare money? Even the most generous European welfare states provide you with barely enough to live on for a brief time, and the sums are made with the expectation that they cover a small portion of your expenses along with your past savings. And once you get a job, they will take every penny spent on your welfare back through fees and whatnot. And if you don't get a job, they end it.
Algerians are found in France, not because they want to get some of that juicy French public money, but because they were always there. (Of course, when they were pirates raiding on French coasts, they were initially uninvited guests.) Famous French comedian Jacques Villeret was an Algerian. Zinedine Zidane is an Algerian.
Those of Zidane's and Villeret's generation were still there when France was a welfare state - moreso than it is now. Now, however, Algerian is synonymous with criminal youth, and euphemistically, Algerians are even called youth. Some even call them invaders, and say that they can't even be considered French, because they hate French. (Which is partly true, considering the famous video in which a Frenchman was mugged by an African and Algerian who called him "Sale Francais!" while beating him up.)
Why wasn't this there earlier? Are Algerians worse people than they were 50 years ago? Are the French less tolerant and cosmopolitan than they were 50 years ago? Or is it both?
The erosion of the capital stock of France will turns it population into over-optimal, which means that it will pay for all if the population is lowered. In such cases you see the breakdown of social order. If a third of my own conationals had not been allowed to leave the grossly overpopulated (by Mises’ standards) Albania in 1990, we’d have had the total breakdown of social cooperation and endless civil strife.
A welfare state creates, by consuming capital, a population time bomb. This, I believe, is Europe’s problem and this is why the US will never have such issues in the foreseeable future, but western Europe might turn fascist again
Interesting things start to happen when you live someplace, but do not consider yourself a part of the larger society (not part of any hierarchical class), but as an outsider looking in. And when the larger society looks at you the same way and is able to recognise you as such. Think about the Roma and the treatment of thereof through centuries for a different spin on cosmopolitanism of old.
I think Vienna of the 19th century and Amsterdam of the Golden Era are good examples as well. The Habsburg Empire was actually the progressive fantasy of multiculturalism. It was a meltingpot of different nationalities, religions, 'races' and even languages. Even the jews had a lot of rights there, until I think when Karl Lueger was elected as mayor of Vienna after an anti-capitalistic and anti-semitic campaign. After that it went all down hill with the end of WWI as the total collapse of the empire.
Morals are the product of customs and cultures within a group. When another group arrives with different customs and cultures, then it's natural for there to be a perception that morals are in decline. This isn't just an anti-immigration thing. It cuts both ways.
1) I'm not too sure I buy your premise to begin with, particularly without set qualifiers
2) Are the laws and subsidies now and than the same to the Algerians and French? Could they be in a comprable situation to that of African or Native Americans in the US? Is it possible more opinion outlets within the framework of current society causes more subversive intellectualism that can group together in obnoxious ways? Is the educational system the same for both groups? There are a lot of questions that could be raised.
3) I thought Arabs today did immgate to Scandinavia for the Welfare, and that was causing problems
4) Hasn't modern Europe always been a little pissy about immigration of any kind?
lol, sorry I can't provide any answer. It's almost as if your post just invites me to ask more questions about it.
It wasn't a meltingpot. If it were a meltingpot it would stop being 'multicultural'.