The Economics of Immigration

Cross-posted.



Got to get down some thoughts on the question of immigration. It’s a hot-button political issue right now in the United States. I’ll leave aside for the moment the compilation of biblical texts showing how, in the theocratic state envisioned in the Torah, foreigners were to be treated (hints: not to be oppressed, to be loved as oneself, not to be barred from gleaning the leftovers of the wheat and grape harvest, to be included with those celebrating national feasts), and talk in real-world contemporary political and economic terms about the elephant in the room in the whole conversation about illegal immigration in the United States.

Why do people risk their lives to cross the border from Mexico into the United States? The commonly reported answer: to work at low-paying jobs that American citizens don’t want, usually as fieldworkers in agriculture. This much is pretty well agreed upon. Solutions proposed to this problem range from building a hundreds-of-miles-long fence at the border and hiring lots of agents to keep the border “secure” so as to reduce this flow of workers, all the way to providing a means for these “undocumented” workers to gain some sort of legal “green card” status, allowing them to be in the country for the purpose of working at those jobs, and eventually, perhaps, if they go through all the right procedures, begin the long and arduous task of applying for citizenship; all of which, in current political discourse, falls under the pejorative word “amnesty.” There’s all kinds of political conversation going on right now about these matters, and whether an “enforcement-only” approach or a “comprehensive” approach is better for the country. But nobody is talking about what really needs to happen to stem the flow of people across the border.

What is needed is for jobs paying a decent wage to become available in Mexico (and other countries). And what is needed for that to happen, is for the United States government to adopt a policy which will (a) put pressure on governments that do not have a decent minimum wage and, even more importantly, (b) provide economic sanctions in the form of tarriffs, taxes, or other penalties against companies which do business both inside and outside the United States but pay their non-US workers such a significantly low rate that those workers would risk their lives to get over here so they could earn bottom-of-the-economy US wages to support their families.

Full employment at a decent wage within the country of origin would shut down the economic motivation for illegal immigration to the United States. It’s a free-market solution to a social problem. It would keep US jobs for US citizens. The only losers would be, in the short run, coporations which take their profits from the sweat of below-subsistence-wage workers (whether here or elsewhere) and, again in the short run, consumers who might get a real-world free-market shock over the price of beans, bananas, coffee, sugar and other agricultural commodities (and manufactured goods in the case of companies which have shipped their jobs overseas in order to escape the cost of labor in the United States). However, our recent experience with the price of oil and gasoline has shown that at the consumer level we seem quite surprisingly capable of absorbing rather steep price increases in response to market forces.

In the long run, the winners would be:

* workers in Mexico and elsewhere who would get to stay home and support their families without risking their lives at an increasingly militarized border;
* workers in American agriculture, some of them, to be sure, recent immigrants, who could command somewhat higher pay because the endless supply of cheap throwaway labor would have begun to dry up;
* that seemingly large segment of Americans who are alarmed at the influx of illegal immigrants, which would slow dramatically;
* the United States government, which would be able to implement a border policy that requires fewer resources than would otherwise be necessary
* Economies south of the border who would begin to see the emergence of a middle class
* Workers in US industry, who would see fewer of their jobs transferred elsewhere as the differential in labor cost from country to country is reduced.

Now, there is an immigration policy. Anybody want to talk about it?

Political Paranoia

Crossposted: Philosophickal Ruminations:

"It's quiet. Too quiet.

Fifteen days before the general election, the conventional wisdom is that the Democrats will regain the House of Representatives, and maybe the Senate. Oddly, Messrs. Bush and Rove appear unconcerned; which could be spin, or there could be something up their sleeve. I'm betting on the sleeve.

So I will make a prediction here, in the fond hope that I am wrong.

One possibility is that Rove & Co. still have a genuine October Surprise up their sleeve, something that will frighten and distract the electorate some time within the next seven days, late enough so that reasoned analysis will not be able to gain a foothold in time for the election. A preemptive strike on Iran was my early thought, and I still don't rule it out. The North Korea crisis seems to have been prematurely defused by the evil machinations of Kim Jong Il, who had the audacity to depart from the script and apologize for making trouble lately. Why can't the bad guy ever be as unreasonable as we make him out to be?

But geopolitical events are too unreliable, so here's what my gut tells me: on Election Night, the election will be stolen, right from under our noses. Ohio 2004, which stole the general election for the president largely using electronic voting machines manufactured by Diebold, Inc., was a dry run for the real thing: the simultaneous theft of multiple congressional elections by undetectable electronic vote-tally flipping. Polling will show Democrats winning big until late in the evening, but official results will curiously show the polls to be, suddenly and inexplicaby, unreliable — just as happened with exit polls in Ohio in 2004. It's a bold move that can work in America precisely because none of us really can make ourselves believe that such a thing could happen in America. We'd rather mistrust the voters, the pollsters, our own eyes, than the integrity of the electoral process. The rotten corpse of democracy will lie in the street, and we'll pretend not to notice the smell.

That's my prediction. I do hope to God I'm wrong. For the record, in case I'm not wrong, you heard it here."

Edit: 11/7/06 11:40 PM EDT: Looks like there is a God, I am, thankfully, wrong, and there is a possibility that democracy is not dead in America. However, Ken Mehlman is still spouting puff and bluster about Virginia and Maryland. Since Maryland has gone all electronic, it's a great candidate for pulling one more test run in the Senate race; we'll see if that's where the final "official" results contradict the exit polls. Nevertheless, it does look like the People's House cannot yet be taken out from under us wholesale.

Pacifism in 2006 « The Search For Integrity

Pacifism in 2006 « The Search For Integrity

Crossposted.

Many thoughts have been rumbling in my brain.....

Let's talk about civil disobedience and terrorism. I met someone this summer, a grown man, who had never even considered the idea that being willing to die and being willing to kill are not necessarily the same thing. He wouldn't know the difference between a pacifist and a terrorist.

The provocative claim I want to make is that at some deep level, the suicide bomber and the practitioner of civil disobedience — I'm thinking here of our old friends Mahatma "Great Soul" Gandhi and Martin Luther King, and those who are influenced by them — have, I would suggest, several commonalities and one major difference.

Commonalities:

* Both act from a deep religious conviction, or from an ideological commitment that arises from an overarching religious view of the world.
* Both are convinced that they are doing something for a cause much greater than themselves.
* Both are willing to go outside the law to achieve their goals.
* Both are radically committed to taking responsibility for their own actions.
* Both have made up their mind that their actions are taken on behalf of the oppressed.
* Both are familiar with the religious concept of martyrdom. Both are willing to die.
* Both believe history is on their side.

Now for the difference.

* The practitioner of civil disobedience has made a decision to renounce violent action as a means to a good end.

In that one thing, the terrorist has more in common with the authorities than he does with the practitioner of civil disobedience. The terrorist and the government authorities he opposes are agreed that violence is a legitimate way to solve problems.

Because they challenge that very idea, the practitioners of civil disobedience are a greater potential threat to oppressive governments than a bomber could ever be. It's just that to really practice civil disobedience, a huge level of clear-headed commitment, courage, and integrity is required. Such people are, seemingly, all too rare.

Martin Luther King, Jr. applied what he learned from the New Testament to the social conflicts of mid-twentieth century America, and instructed enough people in nonviolent methods of confrontation that a great social revolution brought about change, without recourse to the kind of violence that some, who also wanted change, were convinced was going to be necessary to make it happen. Indeed, King explicitly repudiated violent methods and trained people in the methodologies of nonviolent civil disobedience. Building on a similar vision, the bloodbath everyone expected to see with the dismantling of apartheid in South Africa didn't happen, because leaders arose who learned and applied the same lessons. Reconciliation, a word rooted in the redemptive work of Jesus Christ himself, entered the global political vocabulary at that time.

What I'm saying is this: Nonviolent confrontation works to bring about large-scale transformation in modern societies. It worked in Poland with the Solidarity movement. It worked when Gandhi led an independence movement in India. It worked to bring about enormous social change in the United States and in Africa.

Of course, when the authorities meet up with a leader who engages in nonviolent confrontation and teaches others to do the same, that leader often finds that several things occur. Think about this with regard to, say, Gandhi, King, and Nelson Mandela.

* First the leader is opposed, denounced, spied on, inveighed against, sometimes imprisoned, and the people he trains in nonviolent methods are often confronted violently. There are casualties. People die. Often as not, at some point the dead include the outspoken leader.
* Second, the movement is found to succeed, and eventually gains some advocates among those who wield power. Transformational change occurs. The advocate of nonviolent confrontation is now treated with respect, though perhaps posthumously.
* Third, some among those who have followed this leader begin to move among the powerful. This is a dangerous time, because they are now tempted to forget some of what they have learned and begin to use the methods (including legitimated violence) that tend to be available to those in power.
* Fourthly, the population at large is encouraged to do two things at once: continue to neglect the actual teachings of the leader, while also admiring said leader's character.
* Finally, an officially sanctioned personality cult emerges as a substitute for the study and practice of the leader's ideas and methods. His ways are forgotten, and instead, let's say, his birthday is made an official holiday.

Time passes. Oppression and violence again begin to portray themselves as the only real and practical way to solve problems in the world. The leadership vacuum begins to be filled by those who combine violent ways with unwavering faith. Things get worse, unless and until someone remembers, and a new leader takes courage and begins to practice the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth.

And that new leader, like his predecessors, will be denounced by those who would prefer, instead of studying and following those teachings of Jesus of Nazareth, to promote instead a cult of personality, satisfied that he too is sufficiently honored by making his birthday an official holiday.