no third solution » Potpourri » On Immigration
On Immigration
[edited: 5-3-06; 12:43]
I am an American. And lots of people from poor countries throughout the world would like to be Americans someday, too.
During most of the pre-20 Century world, people could move freely between countries the world over – the only hurdle was the price of a steamer ticket. Those who could afford to travel to America, or wherever else they desired, were free to do so. And we’re all better off for it. The 19th century saw some of the greatest economic growth in the history of the known world – this is not disputable. And it did not cause irreparable harm to our national infrastructure, indeed, the contrary is true. For alot of reasons, though, becoming an American is not that easy anymore.
I’m decidedly pro-immigration. If you have a problem with “immigrants draining our welfare system,” I’ve previously argued for removing the welfare system, or a large part of it:
“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 … government spending
Two birds with one stone. But onwards…
Leave it to David Friedman to ask the question throwing a new light on the situation:
In the America I live in, despite political rhetoric to the contrary, most people believe in obeying laws selectively–ignoring the ones they think are foolish or wicked except when the risk of getting caught makes it more prudent to obey.
When I told the story to my wife, she offered another question to put to the host. It is 1855, the fugitive slave law is the law of the land. Do you help with the underground railway or do you do “the right thing” and turn in any escaped slaves who come your way?
Just another angle to consider…
Filed under: Potpourri
Except that illegal immigrants _don’t_ so much drain our welfare system (Caveat: you’re talking about illegals, right? “Legal” immigrants this ought not to be so much at issue.) They do burden some public goods — can get served from ERs, use infrastrcuture, and so on — although they pay into them too and I’m not sure it’s not a wash.
But a lot of the government sponsored social infrastructure that’s what people commonly mean when they talk about “welfare” — e.g. TANF, AFDC, EITC payments, Medicare, etc. — illegals have no mechanism to receive. At best they might get a roundabout transfer by receiving family or food services from an untaxed private charitable institution.
Captain Capitalism made a particularly egregious error along these lines recently, saying immigrants moved to France for “W-E-L-F-A-R-E.” In France since government is much more involved in social welfare spending, it’s even harder for an illegal to receive such services, and there is less of a private network. So I’m biting you here because you’re in the company of people who push your misapprhension here to a goofy, immigant-bashing extreme.
I think I know what you’re trying to say with “the 19th century saw some of the greatest economic growth in the history of the world – this is not disputable” but as it stands it is a goofy statement. Yep, it did, until the 20th century. Before then the biggest growth had been in the 18th century. I mean, the best economic ideas implemented in America inthe 19th century were Clay’s “American System,” which nowadays we’d (correctly) dismiss as protectionist. I don’t think you’re saying a lot there.
The problem i think is a “goofy immigrant bashing extreme.” I’m all for totally overhauling our system – i.e., basically making it alot easier for the willing, able immigrants to come here legally and work. That’s the line – that the process is very difficult and many people are irrationally excluded from doing so. There certainly wouldn’t be millions of illegals here if it were easier to get in legally.
The fears, I think, are mostly along those lines – they want to keep “illegals” illegal, to prevent them from draining our welfare services, which to a large extent, I’m against, anyway.
Excellent points…
I’ve always made the point that legality must conform to morality. Immigration to me, is a moral issue.
Sure, but I guess what I started out saying — evidently badly — is, immigrants _don’t_ drain our welfare services, so those peoples’ fears are moot.
That legality must conform to morality is either foolishly trivial (if the law is morally awful, let’s do get rid of it) or something I can’t quite buy.
Certainly most people would agree morality for individuals isn’t the same as morality for states, for example, so you’re going to have a problem there. And you’re going to have a lot of religion problems: most Americans, for example, are of a faith background that mandates proseltyzation on moral grounds, and yet of those most seem to think the state ought not to proseltyze. Most importantly I’m not sure efforts to quantify moral choices are real real great (I’m not sure yet why they’re _not_ but it smells): policy is often about least worst options and real world data.
I’m thinking here (aloud, sorry) about satrting with a moral system and going from that to a legal one: there’s another case where you start with a legal “what works” system and try to go back to prescribe a moral one, but the few cases I can think of of people trying to do that are patent nutjobs (Mao, Ayn Rand) so I’m not thinking aloing those lines, in case you are.
I think moral might be the wrong word LJ – you’d be better of starting with the argument that the law ought to be “ethical,” in an Aristotelian sense, which, historically speaking is how common law has been derived throughout the centuries according to natural law – doing the right thing, at the right time, in the right amounts, to the right people, etc.
The problem is that policy is crafted as a result of politicians pandering to such fears. If one’s fears are wholly unfounded, undue legislative restrictions certainly are without merit, and likely to be positively harmful. eg – if there were a large number of citizens who were afraid of coca-cola, even though their fears are unsubstantiated, any policy restricting the sale, consumption, or importation of coca-cola based on those fears would be positively harmful to a number of interests. Coca-cola is an absurd example, but the same case can be made for steel, sugar, etc.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to suggest that labor, too, is a marketable commodity, the price of which varies according to its supply, its demand, its quality, its knowledge, etc.
[...] I’m on record as opposing immigration laws – but I’ll hand it off to Don Boudreaux at cafehayek, who [...]