Four cheers for the Eastern brain drain

By Edward Lucas

Date: 15/12/05

I can understand pure protectionism more easily. That is selfish and timid, but at least it's not disguised as altruism.

But a lot of the moaning about the "brain drain" from East European countries like Latvia, Lithuania and Poland makes out that it is having a dreadful effect on these poor post-Communist countries (for which read 'aboriginal reservations'). The natives, so this patronising argument goes, would be so much happier living their traditional lifestyle (muddy, cold, vodka-soaked) than being spoiled by exposure to the temptations of Western culture.

Instead of celebrating the marvellous opportunities that migration in a united Europe presents, the old rich countries are pretending that it's a disaster. How dare those funny little people with their incomprehensible languages search for a better life elsewhere? How dare they respond to market signals that tell them that their labour is more valuable abroad than at home? How dare they try to learn new skills? They should stop having ideas above their station, and instead stay at home and go folkdancing in those picturesque felt boots, and wait gratefully for the nice new roads that the rich world is going to give them later in the century.

In theory, of course, migration combined with bad government can make a country collapse. Zimbabwe is a good example. There may be some sign of that in the more benighted bits of Central Asia (I am sure that anyone who can leave Turkmenistan has done so). But what's happening in the post-Communist countries of Eastern Europe is quite different.

For a start, the current wave of migration is quite small. Many more people moved immediately after the collapse of Communism: Jews, Russians and Germans shifted around in their hundreds of thousands. But this was less politically sensitive. Germany, albeit not very enthusiastically, feels that it has to be the ethnic homeland of all Teutons, however tenuous their connection. Israel feels the same about Jews (who in some cases got their Israeli passports and moved on). Russians in the former Soviet empire were welcome home, regardless of whether they were really persecuted, or just unable to cope with the end of their imperial privilege.

The difference now is that the migration is economic, not political, and it's much more short-term. People are going abroad and trying their luck. Sometimes it doesn't work out. Qualifications may be unrecognised, or employers unscrupulous. But it's not the end of the world: if Greece is no good, try Italy. If the UK is overcrowded, there's Ireland. If nothing works, then there's a bus back home. And if it does work, the pay-offs are great: money earned can be capital for a business or pay for education, or a better house. Simply seeing how a hospital, farm or office in another country works is a mind-stretching experience.

In short: free trade in people, as in goods or services, matches wants and preferences precisely, creating more winners than losers. True, spending long periods abroad is not ideal for marriages, or for parenting, or for caring for elderly relatives. But if staying put means rotting your life away with ill-paid, boring work, that's not exactly ideal either.

Some East European employers are complaining. Their nice pool of cheap labour is indeed draining away. But if they want to tempt the migrants back, they'll have to work at it, by offering better pay and conditions, and raising productivity through better management and more modern equipment. Help! At this rate, those muddy aborigines may end up richer than us.

• Edward Lucas is Central and Eastern Europe correspondent for The Economist.

Author welcomes the benefits that Eastern and Western Europe ('new' and 'old' Europe) get from economic migration, and dismisses the arguments that it harms Europe.