Libertarian Kerry Howley and Matt Yglesias are having an interesting back-and-forth on her excellent article about guest workers, which ran in the latest issue of Reason. Kerry's article is a broad brief in favor of the programs, based on looking at how it works in Singapore. To which Matt responds:
I’d definitely recommend that you give Kerry Howley’s Reason article on guest workers in Singapore a read. It’s a very thorough and balanced discussion of the way it works. That said, given that the crux of the opposition to such programs for the United States is “it’s repugnant and un-American, violating everything this country stands for” to say in reply but look at how well it works in a small, regimented, highly inegalitarian Asian dictatorship doesn’t seem very persuasive.The experience of a more similar society, Germany, is not something that many Americans look at and would desire to replicate. Meanwhile, I have no desire to see the United States become more like Singapore. We are, however, in the midst of a burgeoning libertarians against democracy moment (a return to classical liberalism’s traditional anti-democratic sentiments) of sorts, so maybe we’ll start seeing more and more aspects of Singapore and Hong Kong recommended to us as models.
No, we don’t want to be more like Singapore overall. We want to be more like Singapore in the ways that Singapore is more liberal than we are. I think we can reasonably expect a U.S. guest worker program to be more compassionate and less disturbingly efficient than a Singaporean one. If the system is bettering lives over there, it would surely do so in a country less excited about, say, executing people for marijuana possession.
I don't think we're particularly like Germany, which like most European countries, is still dominated by an ethnic view of what constitutes "German-ness". But I do think this rather short shrifts the question of how American society would have to change to accomodate large numbers of people who have no vested interest in our country.
I'm in favor of much more open immigration, but I'm not in favor of unlimited immigration, because I think that without limits, immigration could easily exceed our ability to assimilate immigrants. Cultures have some right to preserve themselves; America does not have a duty to suddenly double its population with people who don't speak English, have no experience with functioning liberal democracy, and low economic productivity--even if it would, as is undoubtedly true, make all those people better off.
Not that Kerry is advocating any such thing; I'm just illustrating that there are limits to our obligation to make poor people in other countries better off by allowing them to migrate here. I think that obligation is substantial. Almost no one reading this would be here if America hadn't thrown open her doors to their ancestors, and so we have something close to a sacred duty to extend that welcome to as many more people as possible. But we don't have an obligation to radically alter our society in order to make it more friendly to guest workers.
So how radically would we have to change in order to accomodate the transient population? Kerry's article offers a hint:
And yet Manalac is very much a guest in this country. He says he’ll remain for as long as they’ll have him, though he doesn’t presume to have any right to stay. If he were fired or became unable to work, he’d have to leave within seven days. He is subject to regular medical examinations to ensure that he is HIV-negative. He can’t bring his children here. He can’t bring his wife here. Were his marriage to fail, it would be illegal for him to marry a Singaporean. Were he female, a pregnancy would mean repatriation or abortion. The Singaporean government has made itself very clear: Foreign workers are here to build a nest egg, not to build a nest.
What will we do with pregnant guest workers? For three to six months, at least, they won't be working. They'll need health care; who will provide it? Will we force companies to provide their guest workers health care, which will make them uneconomical compared to other low-skilled labor, or will the taxpayer foot the bill? Do we ship them home? Do we rewrite our constitution to exclude their babies from citizenship?
We could simply discriminate against female guest workers, as many countries do; or we could allow employers to do so, as they do in most places where such things are allowed: firing the ones who get pregnant, or locking them in at night so that they can't get into trouble in the first place. It's not really surprising that the female guest workers she interviews for the articles are maids, closely supervised by the families they work for.
That's one troubling question. Here's another: do we let the guest workers date and marry American citizens, as they will? Because if we do, we'll find a lot of our guests have become permanent members of the household.
Then there's the question of social services; even if we force employers to cover health care costs, what do we do for guest workers who are between jobs? Send them back to Mexico? If we let women in, we will end up with a largish number of new citizens: are we obligated to educate them? Can they sign up for S-Chip?
But mostly, I worry about having a large number of people in the country who are, definitionally, not planning to stay here. There's something corrosive about transience: witness the way college students treat their neighborhoods. (And don't tell me they're young; they're prime guest-worker age.) Civic bonds can withstand culture clash, but I'm not sure they can withstand pockets of people who are just there for the job.
And though Kerry says that this is probably the only way we'll get to expand legal immigration, I'm not exactly sure what a guest worker program buys you--unless we really do exert Singapore-style controls to keep the workers herded in ghettos, unable to date or marry American citizens and watched like hawks by cops with a rather casual attitude about civil rights. The main objections of Americans to illegal immigration has nothing to do with the brown people staying too long. Rather, it is that the brown people introduce change to your community (all the signs are in Spanish!), commit crimes, use social services, live in slumlike conditions that reduce local property values, have babies that automatically (and at great taxpayer expense) become citizens, and refuse to assimilate. How will forcing them to leave after five years, while immediately replacing them with a new crop of non-English speaking, social service consuming, child-having extremely poor people living eight to a room actually relieve any of these tensions? Ultimately, I suspect that a guest-worker program would end up doing more harm than service to the cause of freer immigration.
Update Given that a couple of people I respect have misunderstood me, let me clarify: I'm not against immigration. I'm for expanding legal residency programs a lot. I don't particularly care about legal immigration. I am specifically against creating a guest worker program. It might, in the short run, seem like a cute way to do an end-run around anti-immigration sentiment. In the long run, it brings in workers who are less committed to the country and the community, and probably makes tensions between immigrants and natives worse, since as soon as they start to assimilate a little, we'll ship them home and import a new crop that don't speak English. Nor will the people who currently don't like immigration somehow fail to notice the ones who get married or pregnant and stay. But it is not the fact that guest workers will come here, get pregnant, and suddenly present us with new baby Americans that bothers me; it's what damage we might do to our own civic institutions in trying to keep this from happening.
"I'm in favor of much more open immigration, but I'm not in favor of unlimited immigration, because I think that without limits, immigration could easily exceed our ability to assimilate immigrants. Cultures have some right to preserve themselves; America does not have a duty to suddenly double its population with people who don't speak English, have no experience with functioning liberal democracy, and low economic productivity--even if it would, as is undoubtedly true, make all those people better off."-MM
Well said. There are two main problems with our immigration policy. First, the official quotas are unrealistically low. And second, we don't put sufficient resources into border enforcement.
We ought to expand legal immigration and crack down on illegal immigration. The goal of our policy ought to be to let in as many immigrants as will benefit our economy and society, and no more. To that end we ought also to tilt immigration in favor of highly skilled immigrants and against those with little skill.
There is a rational middle gorund here between the nativists like Buchanan and Tancredo and the open borders lobby like the editors of the Wall Street Journal. The former seem unaware of the enormous benefits immigration can have, while the latter seem to live in a dreamland in which terrorism, crime and disease don't exist and all immigrants are honest and industrious.
Conservatives and libertarians who favor unrestricted immigration ought to pay heed to Milton Friedman (hardly an advocate of heavy government control):
Quite true.
But which of the two is it more libertarian to support?
David, it's a fair question. But, given that it is very unlikely that we will ever get rid of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, the key question becomes not whether to have controls on immigration but which controls to have.
So, even libertarians ought to accept the need for restrictions on immigration, if they are interested in practical public policy rather than theoretical utopias. If I understand her correctly, that' s essentially what Ms. McArdle is arguing in her insightful post above.
David, why ask "which of the two is it more libertarian to support?" Would it not be better to ask: Which is better public policy? If the answer there turns out to be more libertarian, fine. If not, so be it.
Libertarianism, like any philosophy, ought to be the servant of getting things right. Not the straight-jacket to which all decisions must conform.
"Conservatives and libertarians who favor unrestricted immigration ought to pay heed to Milton Friedman (hardly an advocate of heavy government control):
"It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state"
This is Ron Paul's position on Immigration, funny how he gets run down as 'anti-foreigner'..
A few things:
First, the case for rolling back public benefits can be made irrespective of how many or how few immigrants are allowed to come. While I agree with the principle that there is a moral hazard in having open immigration and public benefits, the fact that so many come here to work indicates that the moral hazard is not the main factor here. So, by all means, continue to roll back the welfare state, but let's not pretend that this is the key issue in immigration as it actually happens in the US.
Second, it is reasonable to suggest that there should be some sort of limit on how many come per year. However, I'm stumped by this thing that Megan says:
Maybe it's a reasonable point, but it clashes with her concerns about immigrants coming and having kids. If you want to have a (relatively) free flow of labor, and you're hoping that most of those laborers will not partake of public schools and similar amenities, then the only reasonable option to hope for is that you'll get a bunch of people who come to work for a while and send money back to their families.
Historically, my understanding is that we've gotten waves of men who come to work and send money home, and some of them eventually bring their families while others eventually take their earnings and go home. If you want a free flow of labor, if you want to minimize the impacts on public schools and similar services, and if you want to protect a culture (whatever that means) then this should be your ideal situation: We get the benefit of people being able to come and work, a lot of them won't bring their kids, and those who do bring their kids and settle down will be the ones who have tried things out before making the long term decision to stay, so presumably they (and their kids) will assimilate better.
Worry over immigration if you like, but try to have a coherent worry.
"The main objections of Americans to illegal immigration has nothing to do with the brown people staying too long..."
I thought the main objection to ILLEGAL immigration was that it was illegal, both of principle and because of the "broken window" effects - supporting an underground economy and lifestyle that is premised on evading the law.
Liberal LEGAL immigration hase the problems Megan describes - poverty, assimilation, etc.
a perverse disincentive to 'assimilate'-even undocumenteds and their kids have a better sense and appreciation for the local culture despite their lack of english knowledge. but given how fiercely the anti-immigrants like lou/tancredo attack the employment-based immigration system as well (first they clarify that they hate only 'illegals' and then wail against the 'disastrous H1Bs' -a program that barely lets in 100k annually with a
with a
I tend to agree with Matt on this--Singapore isn't America, and what works in Singapore probably only works because it is Singapore (or at least, only enjoys public support for that reason).
Also, I think that Megan is spot-on w/r/t/ changes in the community. That sort of goes back to what Matt is saying too. Either we have a Singapore-style guest worker program so restrictive that it effectively isolates the workers from the surrounding community, or we have basically the same situation we do now with immigrants being part of the community--only as Megan points out, instead of having actual immigrants w/ an interest in staying long-term and assimilating, we get a constantly-revolving group of "guests" that could care less.
If every guest worker were treated as a future citizen, perhaps policy would change to encourage assimilation. And if every guest were treated as a future citizen, would't the admissions be narrowed to admitting the most committed guests? And why not reduce citizenship requirements from seven years to five for those who are continuously employed and have learned English? Why charge a 'fee' of several thousands for acquiring citizenship; doesn't a 'fee' unintentionally encourage guests to not become citizens? And so long as social and welfare benefits are uncoordinated between the three NAFTA states, doesn't the U.S. merely become a stop-over for guests on their way to becoming permanent Canadians?
I think "how many" (and what type) is a much better formulation of the immigration debate, but I can never understand these sentiments.
Almost no one reading this would be here if America hadn't thrown open her doors to their ancestors, and so we have something close to a sacred duty to extend that welcome to as many more people as possible.
Just because someone else got to do something at some time, someone should get to do the same thing now is a childish form of fairness. Can't things change? Like population density, relative value of manual labor, the welfare state? Also why view America's past as an immigration fairy tale and not a population expansion of Europe into North America at the expense of the native Americans? There is a big difference between demographic conquest and immigration.
Libertarianism, like any philosophy, ought to be the servant of getting things right. Not the straight-jacket to which all decisions must conform.
That sounds nice in passing, but on closer inspection, it reads like the postcard description of how the two mainstream parties got where they are today. He who writes the servant's Bill of Errands gets to determine what the "right" outcome looks like. Libertarianism arose as a backlash to "right outcomes" with a focus instead on "right inputs", with people otherwise left alone to live and let die accordingly.
Unfortunately, in terms of trying to participate in the present political climate, that does tend to give it a straitjacket character, and the LP necessarily plods foward as a festival of kooks. The next-best option they can ever hope for is to abondon the straitjacket (and alienate a large chunk of the existing LP base), assimilate the most-compatible points of the Republican platform, and then gradually Whig out the Republican old guard.
we could always ask the hard question... like, wouldn't it be easier just to make it more attractive to stay home? The reason we don't really have this problem of illegal immigration with Canadians, is that there isn't a ton [if any] of economic advantage to come to the US.
Mexico, is a different story.
The Singapore model falls down because it is an island, so it has a natural barrier to entry that it can enforce. This makes it's guest worker program tight enough to set the limits and make sure they work. Why does anyone believe that having a guest worker program here will keep more illegal ims. from coming? On the contrary it will simply make it more likely.
Because we cannot control the boarder in any worthwhile way.
In any cycle of immigration the big problem is what do you do when you are FULL? Letting 'em in is the easy part. The hard part is when you are full, because "It's not fair!" Which is why we have 12mil. illegal ims here now. We say 'it's a problem' and they say, "But it's not fair! You can't stop now!"
We should adopt the same immigrant policy as Mexico, so that everyone will shut up about how unfair we are, with our really lax policy. Then we have to control the boarder, and I mean CONTROL, as in looking at anyone who crosses outside of a regulated crossing point, as an INVADER, and treat them accordingly. It is going to be expensive, regardless, so we should just make it happen instead of whining about it. Finally AFTER that, we make all the people who are here illegally, legal with whatever conditions need to be met, because logistically it may be impossible to do any other way.
Then you can change the immigration policy to something deemed suitable, whatever that is.
Whatever you do simply will not work, without making the boarder, a boarder.
I think what irks me the most, is the whining about it. IT IS going to cost money. IT WILL not be fair to everyone. WE HAVE BEEN STUPID to let it go on this long. Letting it continue status quo ONLY MAKES IT WORSE.
Dreaming of guest worker programs, or more open immigration or whatever, is pie in the sky until you can prosecute the immigration laws you already have. With a thousand miles of boarder that only exist by treaty and not physically, there isn't much basis to do anything.
Full circle, perhaps we need a Marshal plan for Mexico, to make it a place where the people who live there actually want to stay. and then the permeability of the boarder isn't as much an issue.
At least until someone decides to invade through Mexico, and they look back on us at this time and say, "what a buncha idiots, they never secured that boarder, so the enemy waltzed in, took over the southwest, and defined a treaty de facto.
Why are you conflating guest worker programs with bailing out Mexico? Any rational program will give preferences to those that speak English and have some educational attainments, and there are millions of young men in India, Bangladesh, China that will be desperate to get out of an environment where young men outnumber young women three to one. Build the fence, then all things become managable.
At least until someone decides to invade through Mexico,
Terrorist cells operating covertly, maybe, but the southern border is hardly the only place where there are exploitable holes. There will be no open invasion through that border for the same reason there will be no open invasion through any US border: it requires that you be able to outgun the one country in the world that has the military resources to, for example, launch and maintain more than half of the global carrier fleet.
At least until someone decides to invade through Mexico
Brown Dawn?
The goal of our policy ought to be to let in as many immigrants as will benefit our economy and society, and no more. To that end we ought also to tilt immigration in favor of highly skilled immigrants and against those with little skill.
This presumes central planning can determine markets better than the actual markets.
Not possible.
It's just obvious you can't have free immigration and a welfare state
The welfare state of the US is vastly overrated.
I thought the main objection to ILLEGAL immigration was that it was illegal, both of principle and because of the "broken window" effects - supporting an underground economy and lifestyle that is premised on evading the law.
That is often the objection. But it turns pretty flaccid when the negative effects are difficult to determine.
I'm in favor of much more open immigration, but I'm not in favor of unlimited immigration, because I think that without limits, immigration could easily exceed our ability to assimilate immigrants.
Agreed. My main disagreement with the restrictionists isn't over the existence of limits as such. I agree with them -- and disagree with Cato-types who want a mid-19th century style laissez-faire immigration regime. No, my principal disagreement with the restrictionists is that I think the limits they want are unrealistically low, infeasible, and basically counterproductive. It's hard to be overly precise about hypotheticals, but I reckon an optimal quantity of immigration for the US is likely somewhere between 2 and 3 million annually. Not unlimited, but a lot less than we'd get if we reimplemented the immigration policies we had in place before the First World War.
On the subject of guest workers, I think we ought to use the term only as a politically convenient way of describing an immigration program for Latin American laborers. I think any program that closes the door on permanent residency, and, eventually, citizenship, to those who can meet certain criteria (paying taxes, learning English, etc.), is profoundly wrong-headed in that it fosters the existence of an official, permanent, Germany-style, second-class, ersatz "citizenship."
Cultures have some right to preserve themselves
Do they? This seems to fly in the face of history. Witness the European arrival into the Americas. And not necessarily wise policy. Or is it now justifiable to ban McDonalds or Walmart on cultural grounds?
This presumes central planning can determine markets better than the actual markets...Not possible.
Nonsense. While it may be true that markets will outperform central planning in the pursuit of GDP maximization, this is not the only criterion worth considering. Voters want other items, such as resource depletion, crowding, national security, social stability, public services capacity and general quality of life to be considered, as well.
@Shecky
Are the people who benefit from Immigration (employers and immigrants) the same people who shoulder the costs (general public)? I think immigration is a prime example of market failure. I don't find labor efficiency arguments persuasive.
Also how do you define the welfare state, do you include public goods such as roads and schools, or just direct wealth transfers? Progressive taxation means that low skilled workers with families never will pay "their" portion of public goods. This is tolerable if the number of low skilled immigrants is small but it doesn't scale well.
I. "This is Ron Paul's position on Immigration, funny how he gets run down as 'anti-foreigner'."-MEH
I don't think I ever called Paul "anti-foregner." Those who want to can read his very sensible analysis here.
IIa. "The welfare state of the US is vastly overrated."-shecky
I'm guessing you mean "overstated." If so, that's a strange view, given that government spending in the United States represents about 1/3 of GDP and that the largest component of that is the big entitlements (Medicare, Medicaid & Social Security), which are growing all too rapidly. Like it or not, we have heavy government involvement in the economy and large transfers. This means that Friedman's (and Paul's) objection to open borders stands.
IIb. "This presumes central planning can determine markets better than the actual markets. Not possible..."-shecky, again
I give credit to Ron Paul, Milton Friedman and others who, unlike shecky (evidently), understand that "libertarian" does not mean "anarchist." As Jasper argued above, even a limited government must perform some functions--protecting the borders is one of those.
Jasper, if they want it the market will supply it. The truth is that they don't really want it, or consider other things more important. The other thing is, if you think the govt is better than private actors at getting maximum utility from resources, I have a bridge to sell you........
Jasper, if they want it the market will supply it. The truth is that they don't really want it, or consider other things more important.
Who's they? Are you talking about voters? I would agree with you that "they" want "it" (if by "it" you mean more immigration than we currently allow). You're right, the market will (and does) supply it. It's just that America's unwise immigration policies mean that much of "it" is supplied by a black market. I much prefer legal markets.
if they want it the market will supply it.
Really? Let's see what Jasper was referring to as the things that the government might concern itself with when setting immigration policies:
Voters want other items, such as resource depletion, crowding, national security, social stability, public services capacity and general quality of life to be considered, as well.
That's a list of things that are either public goods, parts of the commons with free-rider problems, or at least private goods with big externalities.So no, I don't think we can depend on the market 100% here.
We should let in only as many workers as companies can hire.
What we should do is get some bureaucrats to figure out how much foreign labor American businesses need, and allot them that much.
If we don't have bureaucrats deciding how much labor the businesses need, we'll be overrun with people who will espouse values inimical to a free market economy.
So let's preserve our free market culture in this country by having bureaucrats decide how much labor the businesses need. What could possibly go wrong?
One more thing: If we want to preserve the American ideals of individualism and independence, the best way to preserve that cultural heritage is to only admit people who will stand in line, do paperwork, jump through whatever hurdles the bureaucrats put before them, and not do anything until given government permission.
This will ensure that we retain our freewheeling, risk-taking, individualistic culture.
If we want to preserve the American ideals of individualism and independence, the best way to preserve that cultural heritage is to only admit people who will stand in line...
Well, yes, actually. A free society is only possible when the majority of people play by the rules without being forced to. Indeed, it is only possible when a large majority agree on what the rules are to begin with. Absent that cultural agreement, you get either chaos or a police state.
What would driving be like if most of us didn't stop at red lights, even when there were no cops around? We'd have to choose: lots and lots more cops or lots and lots of deaths in t-bone crashes.
So while I think the current system is idiotic on many levels, I don't think that just ignoring it because you feel like it is really a great way to promote liberty.
The very first comment was left by rwe, and they stated...
We ought to expand *legal* immigration and crack down on *illegal* immigration.
This is the very center of the reality of immigration in the US.
Any discussion of immigration policy that goes beyond securing the border is putting the cart before the horse. It is extremely unrealistic, even to the point of insanity if you define sanity as acknowledging conditions in the real world.
Speculating about guest worker programs? Debating the merits of denying entry to immigrants? Speculating on how long to allow immigrants to stay? Debating policies to controlling foreign nationals here on our own soil?
Complete foolishness. As of this writing, our choices are to offer illegals more goodies or to ignore them. We certainly can't ship them home and do anything to keep them there if they decide to come back.
I'm a big fan of legal immigration, and I am truly horrified with the policies and lack of efficiency that the government has in place to promote it. But that doesn't have anything at all to do with the issue of securing our borders.
Until that very basic first step is achieved, any discussion of immigration policy has about the same utility as a drunken college bull session. It is highly entertaining to the people taking part, but almost all of the solutions proposed are unworkable and naive in the extreme.
James
James R. Rummel-
It may be that border enforcement would be easier if the laws made it easier for labor supply to meet demand. Any law that works against market forces will be almost impossible to enforce.
If it were possible for labor supply to meet demand via lawful channels, then I suspect the main people trying to cross the border illegally would be those who are looking for a handout, who are looking to hurt people, or who fail to meet basic admissions criteria (e.g. criminal and terrorist background checks, perhaps some basic medical checks). With the problem greatly reduced in scope, the solution would probably become simpler.
Rob Lyman-
You make a fair point, but like I just wrote, it's easier to get lawful behavior when the law is not striving against powerful market forces.
My old friend Thoreau says sarcastically:
I wonder, though, does he really want no regulations on immigration? Would he permit Osama bin Laden & friends into the country?
What I want, rwe, is a system where it's relatively simple for people seeking work to come and work. Reduce the barriers standing between people and jobs to something modest, like a background check, fee, and medical test, and you'll find fewer people trying to sneak in illegally. Those who are trying to sneak in illegally will probably be the ones you refer to, and it will be easier to focus efforts on them.
Alternatively, we could secure the border, eliminate the minimum wage, and encourage/facilitate domestic migration among the lower-class and habitually un(der)employed.
Not saying I endorse it, exactly, but it would address the issue a little more head-on.
Okay, thoreau, what your write is pretty reasonable. But, to be clear, even you want some restrictions on immigration. I still have doubts about this, though:
I certainly see how it benefits us to allow skilled immigrants into the country, but I'm not so sure that allowing unskilled immigrants to come in huge numbers would benefit us, given that we have the big entitlement programs. Perhaps you will enlighten me.
I'm thinking about the Solow Growth Model. Population growth (without an increase in human capital) tends to diminish the steady-state capital stock and, hence, the average standard of living.
rwe-
We need to define "unskilled." A lot of manual work requires no formal credentials but is still a skill. I'm hopeless with my hands, so I would say that the guy who never went to school but knows how to fix stuff is skilled. And if people are willing to hire him, clearly they value his skills. Likewise, people who know how to get stuff done and keep the kitchen, retail establishment, or cleaning crew going smoothly are valuable employees, even if they don't have formal credentials. Some people are useless and require supervision, other people know how to get stuff done. So many of the jobs that some might classify as "unskilled" still require a person who knows how to get stuff done, and hence require skills of some sort.
I think what you're getting at is "low income" rather than "unskilled." Perhaps you could argue that those below a certain income should not be allowed to bring their kids here to attend public school. Whatever the merits of that argument, I would observe that more open systems have often had de facto filters along those lines: The first wave is composed of (mostly) single adults who send their earnings to kids back home, and only those who decide they have potential here bring their families. This already reduces the burden on public schools and other services. (Also, it's worth noting that when people have the flexibility to travel back and forth to visit their families and then return here to work, they're less likely to bring their families here.)
Still, you could press it and say "Yes, but what of those in the more open system who bring their kids here but have low incomes?" Well, if your sticking point is that any individual who brings kids here needs to make enough money (and pay enough taxes) to pay for their public school education, then that's your sticking point. Perhaps it's even a good one. Perhaps that argues in favor of limits on who can bring kids to the US, or who can obtain citizenship and stay here long-term to raise kids.
But that, in turn, raises another issue:
I get that one might want to analyze the wider impact an immigrant has on others, via social services and whatnot. What about the wider impact an immigrant has in terms of economic growth and taxes collected on that growth? Even if the person at the bottom of the company's ladder isn't paying much in taxes, other people in that company probably are paying significant amounts of taxes. But they need those people on the bottom of the ladder for the company to function. If they didn't, they wouldn't hire them. So you might ask what happens to the overall health of the economy, the success of private businesses, and the taxes collected, if a pool of needed labor is suddenly cut off.
Now, you might consider it vulgar and un-libertarian to justify a poor immigrant in terms of the taxes paid by his boss. Truthfully, I don't like analyzing it in those terms either. But as soon as you start considering how a person entering the country imposes a burden on others via the Treasury, it's only fair to ask how he benefits others as well, and how those burdens and benefits impact the Treasury. The fact that these effects are distasteful to analyze doesn't make them any less real.
I suspect that if we succeeded in placing very strict controls on the number of poor workers coming here, something very bad would happen to the economy. Those at the bottom of the ladder are just as much a part of the economy as those at the top, and they wouldn't be hired if somebody didn't need them.
OK, I'll accept that the problem is illegal immigration, and not just xenophobia on the part of those who are upset. Just as soon as someone comes up with the name of a prominent objector to illegal immigration, who is equally loud about the need to substantially expand the current level of legal immigration. Not just H1-B visas, but actual immigrants.
Option: poll results, showing a substantial portion (not even, necessarily, an actual majority) of those who object to illegal immigration are in favor of more legal immigration.
But I confess that I'm not holding my breath.
If America can be assumed to be Sweden for purposes of importing universal health-care schemes, why can't it be assumed to be Singapore for purposes of importing guest-worker schemes?
I suspect that if we succeeded in placing very strict controls on the number of poor workers coming here, something very bad would happen to the economy. Those at the bottom of the ladder are just as much a part of the economy as those at the top, and they wouldn't be hired if somebody didn't need them.
thoreau, I think you out thought yourself on this one. If someone is paid a low wage, almost by definition they either provide little value or there are many people willing to do the job. Although both are part of economy, high paying jobs add much more to the economy than low paying jobs, this is why they are high paying.
If you want to define skills, its better to do it in terms of supply (potential workers) and not whether you think a particular job is easy or hard. One skill that immigrants bring, is the willingness to work cheap. This definitely helps businesses, which is why they like to hire them. I don't think business's bear most of costs associated with immigrations though and this results in the tragedy of the commons we have today.
rwe--
with this: "I. "This is Ron Paul's position on Immigration, funny how he gets run down as 'anti-foreigner'."-MEH
I don't think I ever called Paul "anti-foreigner." Those who want to can read his very sensible analysis here:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul269.html
sorry I wasn't clear, I was referring to our hostess--who refers to Paul's take as: "anti-foreigner".
bp-
A high paying job may add more to the economy, but there are more jobs at the bottom of the pay scale. Multiply a small number by a really big number and you can still get a big number.
Also, if the supply of labor in a particular category is seriously depleted by a regulatory intervention (e.g. rounding up a bunch of workers and sending them out of the country) then the price will rise. You might not consider the rise significant, but if a company needs to fill a bunch of those jobs, and if the profit margins are low in their industry, then the effects can be appreciable.
If the proposal were a minimum wage increase (another way for the state to forcibly increase the cost of labor) I suspect a lot of people here would be on my side.
wj, How many immigrants does the US have to take in per year before we stop being "xenophobic"?
Perhaps you can't find any "prominent objectors" to illegal immigration who promotes more legal immigration because we have had too much total immigration in the last decade, and everyone who studies the issue reaches that conclusion? That would be my first guess. But perhaps neither of us looked?
One other point, its an election year (almost), if increasing legal immigration were a popular issue at all, I am sure one candidate would at least be giving it some lip service.
Thoreau,
Your math doesn't add up, when you multiply that small number by the big number, don't forget to also multiply that big number by the cost of social services. If tax payers lose money on each low skill immigrant, lets not try to make it up on volume.
I don't have much sympathy for a company breaking the law, but I do see where they could experience short term pain. I don't see why this is a long term problem? If the companies good's/services are desired, let them raise wages to get the work done, or mechanize, or innovate. If they can't provide a good or service at a price people are willing to pay, then capitalism says they shouldn't be in business. Our quality of life increase when we increase productivity, why do we want to subsidize cheap labor?
I agree that increasing the minimum wage would reduce low skill immigration.
Perhaps I should be a bit more cautious with some of my economic predictions, but I'm curious about why you said this:
I agree that increasing the minimum wage would reduce low skill immigration.
Um, I never called for an increase in the minimum wage. I argued against a government policy that might increase the cost of labor in a particular category.
Indeed, I suspect that increasing the minimum wage would serve to make legal labor more expensive and increase the incentives to hire workers under the table. I'm against any policy that increases the size of a black market. I'd rather see people working and living in the open.
thoreau -
I'm sorry I misunderstood you when you said If the proposal were a minimum wage.. but I think we basically agree about the effects of the minimum wage, although I think reduced employment would be more the more common than under-the-table employment.
It would seem that one of the major causes of illegal immigration is the chance for employment, combined with the benefits our society offers (if one stays here) or the purchasing power in Mexico if one sends the money home.
We end up with a symbiotic relationship between businesses and illegal immigration; that said, profits are enhanced by this relationship and should be called into question.
Why is this allowed to persist?
Why is a business allowed to make the argument that illegal immigration improves profits and keeps them in business? (Although, the argument is usually framed differently, that the lack of said immigration will put them out of business).
What the hell? I mean really, what in the world?
I could make that argument in my own life. I want a laptop (and I really do!) and yet, my lifestyle (income/cost structure) does not allow for me to have the disposable income to put toward that laptop right now. I get by with an old desktop.
However, if I tap into alternate methods of income enhancement (perhaps, turning out a particularly slutty female friend of mine, or "loaning" some money to someone so they can pursue a career in pharmaceutical sales (weed, meth, whatever)... well then I would be able to hit my numbers and get my laptop, and with the least amount of extra work possible.
No. NO! If a business cannot make it by paying market wages, then they need to rethink and either improve efficiencies, improve product, sell out or shut down.
Now perhaps something can be done about this in terms of helping companies not go out of business when they follow the law, but until we seriously start enforcing the actual laws, then no part of the immigration situation will get resolved in coherent fashion.
The business angle is just one broken spoke in a wheel of immigration wagon circling.
bp, if you think the US has had too much immigration, I can only guess that you haven't seen anything about
a) the fact that the annual quota on H1-B visas is routinely taken up in the first day each year. To the point that they hold a lottery among the first day applicants for the number that is available, or
b) the number of (sometimes illegal, sometimes not) immigrants employed in agriculture.
The former are all jobs for which there simply are not sufficient skilled people available in the US. Frequently, these are people who have been educated here -- often with advanced degrees. Their work is vital if the US is to maintain our primary comparitive advantage -- which is in innovation and bringing new products to market. Of course, we can just force them to take their talents elsewhere. The EU, to take just one example, has a formal effort under way to attract as many as possible -- being smart enough to see the obvious economic advantages.
If there was any rational basis for our immigration policies, we would be doing everything we could to get those people to locate here permanently. Many of the ones who manage to make it thru the lottery end up starting companies which employ lots of people, generate lots of money in exports, and generally help the economy. But apparently our politicians would rather have those companies, and those jobs, set up elsewhere -- and, when we buy the resulting products, add to our trade deficit. The logic escapes me, but that's what follows from the argument that there have been "too many immigrants."
As for the latter, cut out immigration, and we get to stop eating. The last figures I saw had well over 50% of the labor involved in producing the food you eat being immigrants. You could, of course, raise the wages for agricultural labor until enough US citizens were willing to do the jobs. But having grown up doing farm labor, I can tell you that you'd end up increasing the price of food dramatically. Of course, if you are rich, you don't have to care. But most of the population would be more than a little unhappy.
I want to open a gas station. I'll sell a gallon of gas for $2, undercutting every station in town. People will drive from all over the Valley to get gas at my station and I'll make a mint. If...
If the government will command refiners to sell me gas for $1 a gallon.
That is the "free market" argument that the people here seem to be making. The people and their governmnt have the obligation to allow businesses to bring in labor at whatever price they need or want to pay to keep their businesses in operation and profitable.
The "free marketeers" seem to be forgetting something: businessman have the right to try to make a profit, not an absolute right to a profit and to stay in business. If necessary inputs, whether of land, raw materials, or labor cannot be had at the desired price, then the businessman must either accept lower profits or go out of business.
We do not have an absolute free market in this country. We have never had such a thing, nor will we ever. One thing - THE thing - that makes such a thing impossible is the (necessary) existence of government. That government keeps tens of trillions of dollars in assets in trust for the people, assets that belong to every American equally. Those assets include schools, roads, watersheds, public transportation, prisons, military bases & hardware, fisheries, public parks, national parks, national forests, mineral & timber rights on public lands, ad infinitum.
We are not talking about a small or insignificant sum here. We are talking about tens of trillions of dollars - $100,000 for every single man, woman, and child in this country.
It is one thing to say we should allow Person X to come to America and work for Person Y for sum Z. But that, of course, is not all that Person X is doing. He is also coming here and benefitting from the assets of 300 million other people, who get nothign in return for his presence.
Libertarians and free marketeers are big fans of the old "Tragedy of the Commons" schtick. Well this is Tragedy of the COmmons in action. Take your schtick and shtick it.
If the transient element bothers you my query would be whether this bothers you among Americans as well? That is, is the fact that Americans are more mobile and move far more frequently and farther than their European counterparts a bad thing for America. If workers from Mexico taking a temporary job in the US is bad then was it bad for construction workers from New Jersey to take a job in New Orleans after Katrina?
I would also like to know whether regulations restricting the mobility of Americans would then improve our country?
Is there some magical reason this is only a problem between Mexico and America? Or is it also a problem between Alabama and Wyoming? And why not a problem between San Francisco and Sacramento?
cls,
you may care to do some research on the effect of social "mobility"(geographical) on social cohesion.
Bill, the next time you invent an anti-immigrant argument you should try to come up with one that can't be used equally well against babies.
Bill, the next time you invent an anti-immigrant argument you should try to come up with one that can't be used equally well against babies.
Fine, then, use it against babies. Maybe you don't understand the difference between the baby of an American citizen and an immigrant, legal or illegal, but most people do.
We have finite resources in this country. The people who say "Hey, no big deal - let's let 3 million people (or an infinite number of people) come here each year" don't seem to understand that by making that decision we are implicitly denying those resources to our own children. 3 million people a year for a century would double our population. We are literally replacing our own children with someone else's children. Will Americans be better off because of it?
Many of the ones who manage to make it thru the lottery end up starting companies which employ lots of people, generate lots of money in exports, and generally help the economy.
These are very specific people, however - they're people who have usually come here on visas granted because of their educaion or skills. Yet they come from a very small fraction - less than 10% - of our overall number of immigrants.
"Voters want other items, such as resource depletion, crowding, national security, social stability, public services capacity and general quality of life to be considered, as well."
Both North and South Dakota have the nation's most stable societies, ample resources, a quality of life to die for, and have space aplenty. Both states also have, arguably, the nation's fewest Hispanic immigrants (illegal or legal).
Wonder why both states seem to bleed young white people. I also wonder why both states are wards of the Federal Government.
Wonder why both states seem to bleed young white people. I also wonder why both states are wards of the Federal Government.
They aren't "wards of the Federal Government" anymore than any other state is. They aren't exactly bleeding people - no state between 1990 and 2000 lost population. Not one. But people do leave there because - well, because they're North & South Dakota, not California or Oregon.
Oh, but California's bleeding people too. It has been, in fact, for nearly 20 years. But those are only American people, so if you don't care about the distinction between American and immigrant then I guess that means nothing to you.
Bill, both Dakotas receive a lot more in federal spending than pay out in federal taxes. By definition, that makes them a ward of the Feds. Now, if you don't want to demean those fine Americans up there with that term, that's your prerogative, but it still does not change their circumstance.
BTW, I don't see you packing up the moving van and heading in that direction yet. I wonder why that is.
Folks, can we at least be a little honest on this issue? Namely, can't we be honest that the whole debate is predicated on two places: California and Mexico? Do you restrictionists fully realize what you are saying: "Those Mexicans are ruining MY CALIFORNIA!!"
Any high-minded, tribute-paying argument you could make for restricting immigration falls on deaf ears because you said the quoted statement above first.
wj,
I agree that high skilled workers bring a lot of positives, although you seem to ignore that the high skilled workers are a small fraction of total immigrants (legal and illegal) and most of this thread has been discussing low skill immigration. Also note that high skilled immigrants do come with some downsides (and diminishing marginal returns), but high skilled immigration is a complicated argument.
As for your comment
cut out immigration, and we get to stop eating. The last figures I saw had well over 50% of the labor involved in producing the food you eat being immigrants.
This is just nonsense, wealthy nations don't stop eating. Labor costs comprise only 6 percent of the price consumers pay for fresh produce. Also don't forget that its possible to mechanize and/or innovate, and the financial incentive for doing so is removed with an endless supply of cheap labor.
bp,
I realize that labor costs are a small percentage fo the prices that consumers pay for food. However, they are a much, much bigger fraction of the costs at the farm level. And farming is a pretty low-margin business. It doesn't take too much for increased costs to convert it to a loss-making business.
Consider, for example, the last couple of harvests. Due to (slightly) increased pressure to avoid illegal immigrant labor, we ended up with a lot of farms with crops rotting in the fields or on the trees. Just no labor available to harvest it. Your costs for food may not have moved much this time. But those farmers are likely looking at bankruptcy -- and shutting down their farming permanently.
P.S. Farm labor is typically regarded as "low skill." But it isn't actually something that you can simply walk in off the street and start doing immediately with no training. It just takes a very different set of skills than working with computers does.
Brad S.
So you are saying low skilled immigrants are not ruining Ca or do you just not care? Have you heard about Ca budget problems? Have you seen their crowding? Why not look to the Ca experience with low skill immigration and ask is this a good thing, is this what we want?
For the record, I think other states matter too, and especially the southwest is just as affected by immigration.
Also if someone wants to reduce immigration, why do you think their first reaction should be to move?
BTW, I don't see you packing up the moving van and heading in that direction yet. I wonder why that is.
Why not argue the position on a blog, or call your congressman and ask tell him that you want the actually enforced, before doing something as drastic as moving. Of course you were being sarcastic, but I just don't get the reasoning.
I realize that labor costs are a small percentage fo the prices that consumers pay for food. However, they are a much, much bigger fraction of the costs at the farm level. And farming is a pretty low-margin business. It doesn't take too much for increased costs to convert it to a loss-making business.
If labor costs are a small percentage of the cost of food, then paying more for labor won't significantly affect the price of food. Why look at the cost to the Farm? That just shows the incentive they have to find cheap labor, not their ability to pass costs along to the consumer. Let's give all farms a level playing field of legal workers.
Look, I understand why farms like cheap labor, and I understand why they have the media write propaganda about food rotting in the fields, but until farms wages start increasing relative to other wages, I won't believe there is a labor shortage.
How much training do you think farm work takes, a day, week, month, season? If training were really important to farm labor, it would be reflected in their wages.
Kerry Howley has been entertaining as an occasional guest on Fox News Channel's atypical show Red Eye (3am Eastern, M-F, so set your DVRs). If she is looking to Singapore for policy ideas though, she'd be better off looking at their social security system.
Bill, both Dakotas receive a lot more in federal spending than pay out in federal taxes.
Because the federal government is currently running a 12 figure deficit, by definition almost every state gets more in services than they pay in taxes.
And why the hell are you picking North & South Dakota - two of the most unrepresentative states in all the nation? And people are not "fleeing" the Dakotas. The Bureau of the Census estimates that the population of South Dakota increased by 3.6% between 2000 and 2005.
For the record, I think other states matter too, and especially the southwest is just as affected by immigration.
We aren't pointing to California and crying that immigrants have ruined it. We're pointing to California and asking "is that the future you want for us all?" Because the same effects that excess immigration has had on California it will have everywhere else: political, economic, cultural, environmental.
The tsunami of immigration that has swept over California has not ushered in a glorious new free market future: California is one of the most over-regulated, over-taxed, and over-unionized states in the nation.
Consider, for example, the last couple of harvests. Due to (slightly) increased pressure to avoid illegal immigrant labor, we ended up with a lot of farms with crops rotting in the fields or on the trees. Just no labor available to harvest it. Your costs for food may not have moved much this time. But those farmers are likely looking at bankruptcy -- and shutting down their farming permanently.
Data, please, instead of press releases from the cheap labor lobby. Food prices have gone up, but that is entirely a result of the price of oil. In all the articles decrying the horrendous lack of cheap fruit pickers, I have yet to see one single source citing an actual drop in farm output, which would be the case if crops were rotting. I have yet to see a single case of increasing bankruptcy of farms, which would also be the case.
In spite of the fact that these stories have been rolled out before every harvest, it should be interesting to note that every piece of "data" mentioned in these stories named is prospective, not retrospective.
And besides, isn't the whole argument about free marets centered on the fact that we don't have o grow our food here. Other countries can grow it, and we can buy it. Indeed, if we're growing it at a loss, because farmers are getting subsidized labor and subsidized water thanks to big brother, wouldn't that be the better option?
Bill, I pick on both Dakotas (I am a native South Dakotan) because both those states appear to have the optimum level of "we're all in this together" white American-ness and social stability that you so implicitly desire. And both have few of those nasty illegals that you depend upon to keep your costs low, and that you castigate for not keeping quiet enough.
bp, thank you very much for making my point better than I could make it in the heat of the moment. BTW, CA's deficits exist because CA's politicians made too many promises to too many public employees (especially prison guards), and because CA thinks certain folks will gladly pay for the privilege of being in the center of the universe.
I pick on both Dakotas (I am a native South Dakotan) because both those states appear to have the optimum level of "we're all in this together" white American-ness and social stability that you so implicitly desire. - Brad S
It's oh so nice, Brad, that instead of choosing to argue against the arguments I've explicitly made you choose to attack feelings you assume I have.
Where all all those people allegedly fleeing South Dakota, for example? The Census data don't seem to show it.
And where are all the real crop losses you've been cooing about, as opposed to the phony ones?
CA's deficits exist because CA's politicians made too many promises to too many public employees (especially prison guards), and because CA thinks certain folks will gladly pay for the privilege of being in the center of the universe. - Brad S
It's funny you chose prison guard salaries to pick on, Brad, because just the other day I read that even if Cali shut down it's entire prison system it still wouldn't come close to making up the $14 billion budget deficit.
Those public servants need higher pay so that they can afford to keep living in California. Take away the higher pay and you'd star losing a lot of Cali's civil service employees to other states, too.
What has driven California off the cliff is immigration. No discussion about the state's perpetual fiscal crisis can avoid the fact that 27% of the state's population is first generation immigrant. They have pushed it's politics so far to the left it's absurd.
Bill, I presume that the 27% first-generation immigrant figure you quoted includes those "first-generation" Asians and Indians who, by and large, are fueling Silicon Valley growth. Which, in turn, fuels CA income tax growth, as anyone exercising a Google stock option can tell you. Are you figuring that contribution in your equation?
The growth figures you quoted for my home state of South Dakota consist almost solely of retirees. SD's K-12 school enrollment has declined every year for the last 15 years, and nearly 50% of the college degrees awarded by SD's universities go to graduates who leave the state for work. And the education profession there is not ashamed to let you know about it: SD is 51st in Teacher salaries.
As far as my own observation of your implicit desires, I guess I should be thankful you didn't say "Nanny-nanny-boo-boo! You called me a racist! I don't have to talk to you!" Too many on the anti-illegal side show that attitude whenever challenged.
The growth figures you quoted for my home state of South Dakota consist almost solely of retirees.
Lots of South Dakota women giving birth to 68 year old men these days, Bill? And since when has SD been a state for snowbirds?
And why do you still argue about South Dakota? It's irrelevant. No one cares about it! You choose one of the coldest, most rural, most landlocked states in the entire stinking nation to make your point? So what!
Bill, I presume that the 27% first-generation immigrant figure you quoted includes those "first-generation" Asians and Indians who, by and large, are fueling Silicon Valley growth.
All 27% are Silcion Valley millionaires? Wow, that's amazing.
Indeed, Asians have been making contributions to Silcion Valley, but those Asians come from a very small, specific subset of our immigrant population. Much of the wealth - perhaps all of it - that they generate is dissipated by the other 26.999% of immigrants who are not Silicon Valley entrepeneurs.
In addition, much of what's fueling high-tech competition from abroad is driven by current or former Asian guestworkers who have opened businesses or subsidiaries in their home countries. Nearly half of all Indian-founded tech companies in the Valley outsource work to India.
Bill, I beat up on my old home state because it has all the attributes you so implicitly desire (stable white culture, few illegals/legals) whenever you complain about illegals raping "MY CALIFORNIA!" So you apparently want an example of a state with a stable culture that has a metro area in it. How about Utah? Nice, clean, wholesome living abounds in that state. Again, there are relatively few illegals, everyone goes to church, there's awesome golf in St. George, and it has skiing that puts my current state's (CO) resorts to shame. Oh, and did I mention breathtaking scenery?
Or are you just another in a long line of "tea-and-crumpets" conservatives who "stands atwart history, yelling STOP" while society races by you, but can't be pulled away from the Starbucks near your Manhattan apartment or Orange County townhome long enough to do anything about it?
I'm calling you out, Bill. Your move.
If we can agree that the goal of immigration reform should be to regulate immigration so that it occurs at an "optimum" rate (however we want to define that as a society), I think that a reasonably administered guest worker program could be a key part in that goal's achievement.
The first step towards attaining the goal would be stopping the immigration that we refer to as "illegal" of "undocumented" depending on where we fall along the immigration politics continuum. Much of the debate focuses on the accomplishing this with a fence, or with employer sanctions, and many feel that both of these tactics are doomed to fail. My instinct is that if they are not supplemented, they will indeed fail. However, if it were easier and more efficient for employers and immigrants to use the guest worker program, the incentive to jump over a fence, or dodge sanctions dissapears. In essence, we start with a guestworker program that lets labor markets reach an equilibrium.
The guest worker program would continue to be important even if we ever actually accomplished the task of documenting all immigration. It would allow us to observe the economic and societal effects that immigration would have while workers were still guests. We would then be able to make better decisions about who and how many we wanted to let in permanently. We would still have to decide how to balance between economic and other considerations, but the guest worker program would at least make the decision a more educated one.
Obviously, this solution is not acceptable to anyone who believes our borders should be completely open, or completely closed. That being said, I think that most people have a position in between these two poles, and that for them a guest worker program makes a lot of sense.
I would welcome anyone who wants to continue a discussion about what provisions would be needed in order to construct a guest worker program that would be a real solution to immigration reform to visit:
immigrationpolicyideas.blogspot.com
The guest worker program in Singapore, where I work, allows girls from Malaysia and Indonesia in for 6 weeks every 6 months. They work as prostitutes and make enough in one week to equal school teacher salary for a year at home.
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