Having linked recently to a Fox News segment hosted by a close evolutionary cousin of a sea cucumber, I am delighted to balance the scales with this clip of a thoughtful and literate three-way conversation about Arizona’s anti-immigration statute, featuring Judge Andrew Napolitano, the journalist Jack Hunter, and my hero, George Mason University’s inestimable Don Boudreaux.
John Gibson? That’s cold, man — what did sea cucumbers ever do to you?
I am a sea cucumber and I resent that !
Is there evidence to back up Boudreaux’s point that labor unions (as opposed to, say, xenophobia) are behind our current immigration restrictions? I don’t know much about how our current immigration laws were passed.
Having long been an admirer of the good professor and read—usually with agreement, but always with pleasure and enlightenment—all of his writings online and off- that I’ve been able to lay my hands on, it might seem churlish of me to ask him to lay off and consider another target instead. Also, there is a certain entertainment value in watching a battle of wits between an unarmed man and a bazooka wielder.
Yet, I would ask Prof. Landsburg to turn his attention to some of the less stupid and potentially more damaging, at least with respect to an intelligent audience, objections to large-scale, low-skill immigration of the type observed by the United States over recent decades. For example:
1. Under standard and generally reasonable microeconomic assumptions, added supply of low-skill immigrant labor will etceteris paribus tend to lower the price of its substitutes, in this case native low-skill labor. The standard, correct response is that competition is not an externality or legal tort: Any losses to native low-skill labor will be more than made up by the gains to employers of low-skill labor and the low-skill immigrants.
But is this response likely to be acceptable the electorate (which includes many more low-skill laborers than their employers) and their political representatives? Or will they respond by other counter-productive measures such as increased income redistribution? Will those likely responses be more or less harmful, economically or ethically, than enforced immigration restrictions?
2. Relatedly but separately, many of these low-skill immigrants will eventually become low-skill citizens and voters. If their voting patterns are anything like that observed of other low-skill voters, the electoral and hence policy and hence economic consequences would be likely be what I (and perhaps Prof. Landsburg) would consider catastrophic. Again: Will those likely harms outweigh, economically or ethically, those of enforced immigration restrictions?
Again—not being a sea cucumber—I agree with what I perceive to be Prof. Landsburg’s support for open immigration. In an ideal world, I’d do so unreservedly. In the real world, I do so reservedly for the reasons mentioned above.
Prof. Landsburg: while of course you do not owe me any response, I’d be sincerely curious to know what your responses would be.
I tried posting this once before, but Prof. Landsburg assures me in e-mail, that this was unintentional or a technical glitch. So let me try again.
Having long been an admirer of the good professor and read—usually with agreement, but always with pleasure and enlightenment—all of his writings online and off- that I’ve been able to lay my hands on, it might seem churlish of me to ask him to lay off and consider another target instead. Also, there is a certain entertainment value in watching a battle of wits between an unarmed man and a bazooka wielder.
Yet, I would ask Prof. Landsburg to turn his attention to some of the less stupid and potentially more damaging, at least with respect to an intelligent audience, objections to large-scale, low-skill immigration of the type observed by the United States over recent decades. For example:
Under standard and generally reasonable microeconomic assumptions, added supply of low-skill immigrant labor will etceteris paribus tend to lower the price of its substitutes, in this case native low-skill labor. The standard, correct response is that competition is not an externality or legal tort: Any losses to native low-skill labor will be more than made up by the gains to employers of low-skill labor and the low-skill immigrants.
But is this response likely to be acceptable the electorate (which includes many more low-skill laborers than their employers) and their political representatives? Or will they respond by other counter-productive measures such as increased income redistribution? Will those likely responses be more or less harmful, economically or ethically, than enforced immigration restrictions?
Relatedly but separately, many of these low-skill immigrants will eventually become low-skill citizens and voters. If their voting patterns are anything like that observed of other low-skill voters, the electoral and hence policy and hence economic consequences would be likely be what I (and perhaps Prof. Landsburg) would consider catastrophic. Again: Will those likely harms outweigh, economically or ethically, those of enforced immigration restrictions?
Again—not being a sea cucumber—I agree with what I perceive to be Prof. Landsburg’s support for open immigration. In an ideal world, I’d do so unreservedly. In the real world, I do so reservedly for the reasons mentioned above.
Prof. Landsburg: while of course you do not owe me any response, I’d be sincerely curious to know what your responses would be.
Lest this episode cause more hilarity than it already has, let me clarify that the first sentence in my previous post should not have read:
“I tried posting this once before, but Prof. Landsburg assures me in e-mail, that this was unintentional or a technical glitch. So let me try again.”
Rather, it should have include the following omitted words:
“I tried posting this once before AND WAS DELETED BY COMMENT MODERATION, but Prof. Landsburg assures me in e-mail, that this was unintentional or a technical glitch. So let me try again.”
Aeterniatis:
AHA! For some reason, my software thinks you are a spammer and has been marking all your comments as spam. I just found them in the spam folder and restored them; they should all be up now (except for the one where you asked why your first comment has disappeared, which I omitted because it is no longer relevant).
Sorry for my software’s excessive sensitivity. I’m glad we’ve got your comments up. Now to read them….
Aeterniatis:
Thanks for your exceptionally thoughtful comments. Some quick replies:
Under standard and generally reasonable microeconomic assumptions, added supply of low-skill immigrant labor will etceteris paribus tend to lower the price of its substitutes, in this case native low-skill labor. The standard, correct response is that competition is not an externality or legal tort: Any losses to native low-skill labor will be more than made up by the gains to employers of low-skill labor and the low-skill immigrants.
This is a standard *partially* correct response. To make it fully correct, “gains to employers” should be replaced by “gains to employers and consumers”. In the short run, more of the gains go to employers; in the long run almost all of the gains go to consumers.
But is this response likely to be acceptable the electorate (which includes many more low-skill laborers than their employers) and their political representatives? Or will they respond by other counter-productive measures such as increased income redistribution? Will those likely responses be more or less harmful, economically or ethically, than enforced immigration restrictions?
I claim to have at least partly responded to this in Chapter 19 of The Big Questions, where I did a back-of-the-envelope cost-benefit analysis of low-skilled immigration IGNORING the gains to employers and consumers and counting only the effects on other low-skilled workers. The bottom line there is that every immigrant who crosses the border gains about $7 per hour of work, while causing $3 an hour in losses to unskilled Americans. So yes, the losses are there, but they are small compared to the gains. (And on top of this, the gains go to very poor Mexicans while the losses are borne by considerably richer Americans, which should warm the hearts of the income redistributors.)
Relatedly but separately, many of these low-skill immigrants will eventually become low-skill citizens and voters. If their voting patterns are anything like that observed of other low-skill voters, the electoral and hence policy and hence economic consequences would be likely be what I (and perhaps Prof. Landsburg) would consider catastrophic.
I agree that this is a legitimate concern. My preferred solution is to shrink the size of government by so much that voters aren’t reallocating substantial amounts of resources in the first place. Well, that combined with unleashing the power of markets to the extent that you don’t have to be here very long to see the advantages of economic freedom. But I admit that these might be too much to hope for.
On the other hand, if the issue is that certain groups (on average) vote in ways that are harmful to the rest of us, one could equally well argue that it would be a good thing to strip
members of those groups of their citizenship (or at least their voting rights). But that seems like a pretty treacherous path to head down.
Steve:
I think your last reply was a bit *too* quick.
We’re discussing X (unrestricted immigration). A real danger (the addition of more left-leaning voters) posed by X is pointed out. You acknowledge that danger. And how do you respond?
– “My preferred solution is Y… But I admit that [it] might be too much to hope for.” (I.e., Y isn’t going to happen anytime soon.)
– “On the other hand,” Aeterniatis’ argument for opposing X might theoretically lead to supporting Z, and “that seems like a pretty treacherous path to head down.”
Newsflash: Z is “too much to hope for,” too. It’s never going to happen.
So you haven’t actually addressed Aeterniatis’ argument at all; you’ve merely bracketed it between an unrealistic fix and an equally-unrealistic fear.
Yes, losses to some low-skilled American workers are offset by gains to American employers and consumers. What will the economy-wide losses brought on by importing tens of millions of left-leaning voters be offset by? The fact that we are already stuck with plenty of such voters does not imply — as you appear to suggest, perhaps unintentionally — that it’s somehow immoral (or unfair, or hypocritical, or whatever) to oppose importing even more.
Gallant, not Goofus, will be swept into the Senate — and start sharing out not his own oranges, but (more of) mine. Which would be enough of a reason for me to oppose this, even according to the EGR. But, as you agree, this and other policies he’s likely to pursue will have further negative economic effects; so I’ll be earning fewer oranges (as will everyone else), of which Gallant will start taking more, and so on. Do you wish to increase the chances of this happening? I don’t.
The voters do not believe the gains will nearly all come to consumers, or more specifically, to low-skilled consumers. There have been various arguments made that the benefits do get down, but I don’t find them completely convincing. One was that labor’s share of National income has remained steady for decades. Part of the trouble here is that the bosses of the bank earning millions a year count as labor. This does not help the shop-floor worker. The argument must be made that the people at the bottom get the benefits, not “labor” in general. In China, labor’s share of national income is much lower, and has dropped over recent years – how can this be? Why can’t that happen here?
Women earn less than men for equivalent work. At times and in some places blacks have earned less than whites. How can this be if workers get paid their marginal product? Clearly, it is possible for this not to happen in the real world, and workers perceive that it is more likely to happen to them if there is more competition. I asked in a previous comment what happens if there is an infinite pool of starving workers – as I see it, no-one would get paid more than a basic subsistence level (for unskilled work), as there would always be someone willing to work for this. This might be the greatest good, as lots of people can eat. It may not persuade the average American worker it would be a good thing.
The argument that the income is redistributed to those with the greatest need is unarguable (I think). This can only be objected to by appeal to self interest. I care more about myself than others, so whilst their $7 gain is in principle a benefit, I will not vote for it if it is me who pays the $3 penalty. In the same way I do not give all my money away after providing subsistence level provision for myself. I may happily vote for it if is some other poor schmuck who pays the $3.
So there are two basic issues.
1) Will unrestricted immigration improve the lot of a current unskilled USA worker?
2) If not, then to what extent is that worker morally “allowed” to discriminate in favour of himself?
Question 1 might come down to short term and long term. This will bring us back neatly to how much we value our future selves. It seems very likely that the short term answer is: definitely not, I will get laid off before prices drop. The long term answer is: maybe or yes. However, if we do not value our future self, this becomes moot.
So it boils down to unrestricted immigration will provide benfits for capital and the wealthy in the short term. Models predict that it will ultimately benefit the poor, but there are situations where these models can be shown not to workperfectly, and it might take a while for the benefits to come through. Up till then the poor will be worse off. The skilled worker is quite happy to gamble that the theories are right, and benefits will feed through. This is OK because the price is paid by the unskilled worker. The unskilled worker is a bit more reticent and is not quite so happy to pay now for a possible gain in the future. I am not sure that is an unreasonable position.
Harold:
So there are two basic issues.
1) Will unrestricted immigration improve the lot of a current unskilled USA worker?
2) If not, then to what extent is that worker morally “allowed” to discriminate in favour of himself?
You left out:
3) If not, then to what extent are the rest of us morally “allowed” to discriminate in favor of the relatively wealthy American and against the relatively poor non-American?
Yes, it depends on the point of view. From my analysis, skilled and managerial workers should be shouting for unrestricted immigration (at leaat of unskilled workers), which is not the case. The worker himself has self interest, but what of these others?. There clearly is some discrimination in favour of the relatively wealthy American unskilled worker by other Americans (meaning USA citizens). This is just wild speculation, but I think this feeling comes from our “tribal” origins and is quite difficult to justify from first principles. To what extent should one be morally “allowed” to do something because most of humanity seems to share the same bias? If I say “I love America”, I am surely implying that I don’t love Mexico as much. And presumably, I don’t love Mexicans as much as Americans.
I think your perspective is to acknowledge this, call it wrong, and act accordingly. This entails free movement of labor accross borders, but does it also require an abandonmnent of “love of ones Country”? It is difficult to give up these affiliations, no matter how irrational.
Off the subject: please, in a few words, why is Don Boudreaux your “hero”? Thanks in advance.
Even more off-topic, but Don Boudreaux and I share the same, today unfortunately slightly obscure, 19th century hero that we both independently named our sons after him (and I chose his likeness for my blog image, linked above).
Good exposition of inconsistencies which emerge when using the idea that our beliefs reside more deeply in our actions than in our words.
Not a hard point to miss, I thought.
Nice job AEterniatis.
And thank you Steve for bringing this over.