I have long espoused the fundamental dignity inherent in productive human labor. People using their God-given talents to provide for their families is essential to a successful society. As is typically true, government is the greatest barrier to employment. The article cites important considerations, to which I would like to add welfare and excessive unemployment compensation. Larry Summers detailed this in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics perhaps 20 years ago - until he changed his tune to join the Obama administration. Many states provide welfare benefits far in excess of lower-wage jobs, strongly encouraging indolence and other social pathologies.
Where we differ is the nature of immigration, particularly legal versus illegal. My wife and younger son are legal immigrants, as are a brother-in-law, sister-in-law, son-in-law, and many close friends. Illegal immigration is an entirely different matter which provides precious little benefit to the USA. Any discussion that does not address these as separate issues is, ipso facto, flawed. Under the Biden administration, some 8-10 million illegals have entered our country, 2.5 - 3% of the population. There has been no increase in persons employed over at least the past year, indicating essentially no one is working. What we have are massive additional costs, likely approaching $150 billion, with no apparent contribution to the country.
And I fully agree with the idea of greater labor mobility.
If one believes in the rule of law, one should decry the support of illegal immigration - rampant on the left today, and where you have indicated you believe that the overt policies of border czar Kamala and the left are better than the overt policies of DJT on the right - because it is quite literally (old school use of the term) crowding out the ability to have a sane increase in the amount of legal immigration to this country.
On the desirability of a far greater amount of legal immigration, I agree strongly with your and Somin’s thrust.
However when you stretch it from that to fully open borders, as opposed to merely “much greater labor mobility”, then you switch to advocating for policies which are at the expense of all taxpayers - given our extremely generous welfare state - and all citizens, given the risk to our culture and future that unlimited migration from fully open borders would bring. As well as changing the equation to where at minimum it is unobvious whether unlimited migration would in fact be in the interests of the poor and working class citizens of the U.S. (I submit it almost surely would not.)
Somin seems to skirt the issue of whether he is advocating for fully open borders or not. But in this particular case, it is a distinction with an *enormous* difference.
David--well done! This may not be totally relevant, but your approach got me thinking about labor union endorsements during presidential elections and how the leadership votes one way and its rank and file another. People forget that labor leaders often, in my opinion, vote their own personal needs and views first. The lone example, in this election cycle, of a leader who did not is Teamsters President Sean O'Brien who reached out to both Republicans and Democrats asking to speak at their conventions because his members are about evenly split between the two parties. The Republicans invited him immediately and he gave a rousing, unedited speech where he called Trump one tough SOB. The Democrats never even bothered to answer his request, which he said really upset his members. This should say a lot to anybody yet undecided about which way to vote.
I have long espoused the fundamental dignity inherent in productive human labor. People using their God-given talents to provide for their families is essential to a successful society. As is typically true, government is the greatest barrier to employment. The article cites important considerations, to which I would like to add welfare and excessive unemployment compensation. Larry Summers detailed this in the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics perhaps 20 years ago - until he changed his tune to join the Obama administration. Many states provide welfare benefits far in excess of lower-wage jobs, strongly encouraging indolence and other social pathologies.
Where we differ is the nature of immigration, particularly legal versus illegal. My wife and younger son are legal immigrants, as are a brother-in-law, sister-in-law, son-in-law, and many close friends. Illegal immigration is an entirely different matter which provides precious little benefit to the USA. Any discussion that does not address these as separate issues is, ipso facto, flawed. Under the Biden administration, some 8-10 million illegals have entered our country, 2.5 - 3% of the population. There has been no increase in persons employed over at least the past year, indicating essentially no one is working. What we have are massive additional costs, likely approaching $150 billion, with no apparent contribution to the country.
Legal, yes; illegal, no.
Labor is human capital. It's sad so many gov impediments restrict this incredible resource.
Well, I agree with almost all of the sentiments.
And I fully agree with the idea of greater labor mobility.
If one believes in the rule of law, one should decry the support of illegal immigration - rampant on the left today, and where you have indicated you believe that the overt policies of border czar Kamala and the left are better than the overt policies of DJT on the right - because it is quite literally (old school use of the term) crowding out the ability to have a sane increase in the amount of legal immigration to this country.
On the desirability of a far greater amount of legal immigration, I agree strongly with your and Somin’s thrust.
However when you stretch it from that to fully open borders, as opposed to merely “much greater labor mobility”, then you switch to advocating for policies which are at the expense of all taxpayers - given our extremely generous welfare state - and all citizens, given the risk to our culture and future that unlimited migration from fully open borders would bring. As well as changing the equation to where at minimum it is unobvious whether unlimited migration would in fact be in the interests of the poor and working class citizens of the U.S. (I submit it almost surely would not.)
Somin seems to skirt the issue of whether he is advocating for fully open borders or not. But in this particular case, it is a distinction with an *enormous* difference.
David--well done! This may not be totally relevant, but your approach got me thinking about labor union endorsements during presidential elections and how the leadership votes one way and its rank and file another. People forget that labor leaders often, in my opinion, vote their own personal needs and views first. The lone example, in this election cycle, of a leader who did not is Teamsters President Sean O'Brien who reached out to both Republicans and Democrats asking to speak at their conventions because his members are about evenly split between the two parties. The Republicans invited him immediately and he gave a rousing, unedited speech where he called Trump one tough SOB. The Democrats never even bothered to answer his request, which he said really upset his members. This should say a lot to anybody yet undecided about which way to vote.