I don’t think you can give higher praise to a piece of writing than to say it forced you to reconsider your assumptions. That’s what Martin Wolf’s column on the immigration debate did for me today. In particular, Wolf demolishes the argument that “immigrants are taking jobs that natives are unwilling to do” – an argument I’ve trotted out more than once recently. The supply of labor, he reminds us, directly influences the price of labor. By increasing supply, illegal immigration pushes down wages at the low end of the job scale – for everyone competing for those jobs.
From there, Wolf connects the immigration issue with the issue of income inequality, a subject that concerns me greatly:
The opening of world trade is eliminating opportunities for production of labour-intensive tradeable goods and services in high-income countries. Employment of the native-born unskilled must increasingly be in non-tradeable activities. If unskilled immigrants drive down wages for such jobs, too, a hapless underclass will inevitably emerge. Does this matter? The answer depends on whether extreme inequality is compatible with successful democracy. The precedents suggest, instead, that it is a recipe for populism, plutocracy, or a miserable alternation between the two.
Damn. Now I have to think some more.
Exactly my point.
Everybody will do the job if the pay is right. The fact that illegal immigrants drive the wages down makes the job unattractive to Americans.
Also,to continue to be the world leader in this century, the US needs to focus more on high value jobs than low value jobs like farming which can be outsourced to the developing countries.
with all due respect not sure Europeans have the answer on this. This is a uniquely US issue and something we face every 20 years or so, as waves of Irish, Italians, Japanese, Indian immigrants have arrived. Historically, we have been nervous but then benefitted from each of those ethnic groups and our wages were not depressed. The fundamental difference is prevous waves arrived by boat and air and were easier to monitor. But previous generations came and stayed. Now we are also seeing more fluid labor models. Irish young going back, Indians going back as own countries prosper. So in a sense we already have a guest worker program. The question is whether the new immigrants from the south will similarly move back and forth. Immigration is a complex issue and needs to be debated. But Europeans have only recent experience with immigration and have not done too well – this is a debate for Americans to have – hopefully on rational, not racial lines.
The Clandestine Migration of Hindians for High paid management and software jobs , is a war declared on the West by India. The new age has a bloodless war by means of exporting flesh!
These Hindians Marry witrhin their own community and breed like pigs. You can see crowds of Hindians in NY to LA . They even do illegal migration for Motel workers , through Mexico.
One day they will flood America and wash off American Values. The Need for space is felt so dearly in Asia , where the populations are stepping one over the other……Indians and chinese if left uncontrolled will flood American streets……
How does that match with the productivity driven salaries? If serving in a bar is adding hardly any value, that will be payd low, and then the nationals will not be willing to do that.
Or else, the employers are giving misery salaries to some workers making the most of their desperate situation. Those salaries (according to the explanation above)would be higher if the immigrants weren’t there, and they would be performed by nationals…
So who is to blame, the amorality of the market, or the amorality of the employers?
Sure, if given the chance to work in an office or clean it, the majority of people would choose cleaning it, so immigrants are taking the jobs nationals are willing to do.
The new Feudalism. We’re headed back to Aristocracy. A moneyed class and a groveling class.
Those with power, money, and advantage use it to gain ever more power, money, and advantage. It’s a cycle reproven throughout history. Why do we think we’re different?
In the past, though, when there were great imbalances due to high debt levels, many civilizations cancelled the debt of the poor. What do we do? Revise bankruptcy laws in favor of the banks and credit card industries.
Representative democracy has become a representation of wealth. Corporations. The wealthy. They can buy more speech and access. And they write the laws. In their favor.
Say hello to the new boss. Same as the old boss.
“Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.”
Oscar Handlin, The Uprooted – winner, Pulitzer Prize in history, 1952
All I can urge is as a country we calmly look at what previous waves of immigration contributed to our society and economy. Absolute and real wages and purchasing power increased each time.
Looked through that lens, we need to continue to monitor and control immigration, not get hysterical about it.
As it happens, The
Economist is talking about the Borjas study this week too, but also some evidence to the contrary.
Nick,
I always respect your blogs and its contents.
Can you please remove John’s comments?
Otherwise your web site will become dirty with all sorts of comments on one another.
John,
Can you pl tell us those American values, which may be lost becuase of others?
For that matter, we need to learn a lot from those people, who are very traditional and maintain their family values, which are quickly dissapearing in our society.
We have to ashame for some of our sexual behaviour, which is worse than animals. Even animals follow certain times and seasons for mating.
In our society, which is supposed to be most advanced in the world only have problems which many other countries do not have (child molestation & pornography, sex abuses).
So tell me what values you are talking about?
Re: deleting the comment
My policy is to let idiots speak freely. It makes them easier to spot.
It’s a good policy. To me, the debate breaks down thusly:
a) Do we want open borders, keeping only known criminals and terrorists out?
b) If not, who do we keep out? The not-so-well-educated? the not-connected-to-anyone-we-know? (this ssems to be the current policy)
US immigration seems (from first-hand anecdotal experience) designed to make life difficult for skilled workers from some countries, but not so difficult if you are related to someone in the US (regardless of skill level). This is probably not the right approach, but I am more bothered by the fact that this debate has not already happened.
The WSJ addressed the issue in its Friday editorial:
Immigrants also increase the demand for labor, not just the supply. That is, they are also consumers who create jobs by buying goods and housing here. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan often pointed out how immigration has been driving housing demand. And if immigrants really were “stealing” American jobs, we wouldn’t have had the remarkable job growth of recent years.
…
Eliminate the immigrant labor force and these jobs don’t — presto! — start paying more to attract Americans. In a global economy, they’re much more likely to disappear or move overseas as domestic employers find themselves less able to compete with foreign producers. And many of the same politicians who complained about “cheap” immigrant labor would then want to block the import of products that were once made here.
As someone who acutally was an illegal immigrant for 6 years until awarded a Green Card in the 1986 Amnesty, I can vouch for the difficulties of living outside the law. However, as I mentioned here there’s a certain irony of a nation of immigrants condemming those who come after them.
Nicholas,
Why didn’t you do some thinking about this subject before? Why did you have to wait until you came across this point of view in the Financial Times? It never ceases to amaze me how rarely people bother to re-examine their assumptions until they find something in what they regard as an ‘authoritative’ source. … What’s the matter? Can’t people think for themselves anymore? Does everybody have to get their ideas from the Economist and the FT? … Anyway, for those interested in this subject, the latest post on my blog concerns the case of Greece, which was flooded with immigrants in the 1990s, permanently increasing the country’s unemployment rate. I deal with the extremely common – but baseless – allegation that the immigrants only took jobs that Greeks wouldn’t accept.
– Social Democracy Now.