Browsing through this week’s Economist, I came across this article about migrant workers, and I’d like to address the hot-topic.
Which brings us to the more controversial, and promising, part of Mr Bush’s plan. To “match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do”, he proposes letting illegal aliens currently in America register for legal status.
Suppose someone holds the belief that a gardener ought to earn $10/hour, and that it’s unfair to American gardeners that immigrants are willing to do the same work for $5/hour. And suppose that I would like to be a school teacher. But I believe that school-teachers should earn $70,000 per year, and I refuse to work for any amount less than that. What either of these arguments are really saying, is that ceterus parabus, someone is not willing to do a job. And this is the principle which advocates migrant worker programmes.
If you subscribe to the belief that any occupation, (for instance, a cherry-picker in Traverse City, MI) is deserving of some pre-determined “fair wage,” you are subscribing to the socialist theory of valuation – that a commodity posesses a value intrinsic in its being. It is also to subscribe to the fallacios belief in the Theory of Scarcity that Frederic Bastiat refutes in Economic Fallacies.
Aside from security issues which must certainly be addressed, I see no reason why we should be denying willing laborers the privelege of enjoying our wonderful country. In fact, I say we make the process easier, because the “illegal immigrants” are only nominally illegal. If we make it easier for them to become legal (or at least Work-Authorized Aliens) they would by and large continue to take these jobs at lower wages.
The middle classes may love illegal gardeners, but many unskilled Americans fear being displaced by them, or forced to accept lower wages. “Keep them fools out,” says Alvin Pablo, an unemployed landscaper in Tucson, who says that Mexicans took his job.
As far as your competition for employment is concerned, it really makes no difference whether your competitor is Mexican, American, black, asian, WASP, or otherwise. The Mexicans are not stealing your jobs any more than the current (and potential) teachers are stealing mine. You do not “have” or “own” a job. Employment is not your “right.” But there’s a bright side to all of this: You do have the right to sell the commodity, Labor, which you have the ability to produce. You have the right to compete with other providers of this commodity in hopes of selling yours. If your price is higher than the next man’s, you’ll be asked to justify your price with skills, speed, proficiency, etc., in short, your wage will be “commensurate with your experience and/or your skill set.” To express dissatisfaction with the labor market in this manner, specifically targeting a group or groups of people, is the basest form of xenophobia and bigoted hatred that exists. We would all do well to ignore such reasoning in the future. Would it make a difference to Mr. Pablo if it were a white, midwestern boy who took outbid him for his job?” I don’t imagine it would – but if so, that fact would only further prove my assertion regarding xenophobia and bigoted hatred.
“But they’ll abuse our welfare-state!” the liberals will cry — The prudent solution is to stop espousing political ideology that fosters the nanny-state – this will concurrently reduce the incentive for immigration, and possibly reduce government spending – a very happy equilibrium if I do say so myself.
Labor is a commodity, and a scarce economic resource. Do not believe people who insist on nonsense like “fair wages”, with that, I’ll bring more on Federal Minimum Wages later this week.
Excellent. The problem is that most Americans are more interested in protectionism than in the free market. Most Americans don’t mind being xenophobic if it helps their own standard of living.
Have you been by Cafe Hayek lately? They are actually on a very similar topic.
I saw Russ’s post yesterday about the Minimum Wage, and the prospect of raising it – I initially was going to write about that, but at the gym I was going over the Economist, and I found the article about the border with mexico, which set me off on this tangent.
I’ve got some minimum wage stuff that I’ll be working on in the next few days.
Wulf is prety close, but as they say just a bit outside. Protectionism and xenophobia may promise a better standard of living that reliance upon the free market. But it is not a promise that is realized by more than a handful. Most supporters of protectionism actually suffer from higher prices and lower quality out of some horeshit altruistic inclination to help their “the common man” to a bigger (nominal) paycheck for fewer lower quality products.
Nominal paychecks may be higher, for a few, real incomes are lower virtually across the board. But the politicians, corporate executives and lobbyists make out okay.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a Liberal complain about mexicans taking advantage of the welfare state- mostly, i’ve heard them say that such issues are really overblown.
You’re assuming a much freer market than actually exists. -Ancedote-
county next to mine spent a bunch of money wooing a company that makes trailers- you know, the kind that lawnmower men keep their equipment in- on the expectation that it will bring jobs to the county. For six months or so, everything goes great, untill 2/3 of the factory gets laid off and replaced by mexicans on guest worker permits.
The mexicans barely interact with the local economy- they have barrack/dorms, and (well, they don’t call it that, but) what is essentially a company store. I assume they go back to mexico better off than when they got here.
The long term economc impacts of this must be really weird. I look at it from a different perspective- that americans want those jobs, at a higher pay scale. To avoid paying it, employers import serfs from elsewhere, now legaly thanks to Bush.
Indy:
And little kids want newspaper routes. But little kids don’t get newspaper routes anymore – because some old man in a beat-up buick does the same job, only he does it faster and better, and he actually delivers your paper at 5am.
Like I said, I want to be a teacher. Just at a higher pay-scale. My desire to be compensated at $X is in no way a justification for actually being paid that much.
As far as the illegals go, I just think we need to streamline the process to make them legal. And cut the welfare state in half – like I said, two birds with one stone.
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