Prosperity is a devil’s bargain. You get higher wages. But your rent goes up, your commute gets longer, and your traditional culture gets replaced by an insipid global one. It’s not that prosperity isn’t a good thing, on net. People strongly prefer it: As Byrne Hobart pointed out on Twitter this week, it’s difficult to think of any pair of countries where net immigration flows from the richer country to the poorer one. Prosperity is good. It’s just a shame that it tends to come at such a high price. The choice is to live in a backwater, where life…

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