The Ground Floor of the World: On the Socio-Economic Consequences of Linguistic Globalization

Abstract

As English emerges as the first world-wide lingua franca, countries whose native language is not English increasingly face the following dilemma: either they will have to lose their soul (by switching off the protection of their national language and culture) or they will have to lose their heart (by scaling down the redistributive component of their welfare state). This conclusion rests on the following premises, which the article presents and vindicates: (1) If weaker languages are to survive, the countries in which they are spoken will have to insist on the linguistic territoriality principle. (2) Plurilingual portfolios do now and increasingly will tend to include English. (3) If some area’s native language emerges as a world lingua franca and if the territoriality principle is in place elsewhere, the migration of the high-skilled will display a growing bias towards the lingua-franca countries, here called for this reason the ground floor of the world. (4) If there is a significant asymmetric skill drain, then the other countries’ governments will have no real option but to reduce net taxation on high-skilled labour income. The article closes with a brief discussion of various conceivable strategies for avoiding, or at least softening the dilemma.