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WSJ is a big proponent of cheap labor, which open borders and loose immigration helps. (Pointing this out is not somehow anti-immigrant BTW)
by gedy 11y ago
WSJ is a big proponent of cheap labor, which open borders and loose immigration helps. (Pointing this out is not somehow anti-immigrant BTW)
- dominotw 11y agoso, whats your solution? Place minimum income restrictions on immigrants ?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- skylan_q 11y agoOne idea: that they bring capital with them. Increasing the supply of labor while not increasing the supply of capital can drive down productivity and wages in the nation getting migrants. If they come with accompanying capital, it could help maintain or improve productivity.
- gedy 11y agoI was basically pointing out that WSJ is biased towards loose immigration and to take the article with a grain of salt. I favor legal, limited, and controlled immigration. Immigration en masse of poor, low skilled labor to a developed country like the US (where manufacturing is on the wane) is not a net benefit in the long run.
- jaredhansen 11y agoWSJ is a big proponent of cheap labor, which open borders and loose immigration helps That's only true if you limit your definition of "cheap" to mean "cheaper than historical norms in geographies that have historically had high labor prices relative to those prevailing in migrants' original locations". There's a common myth that immigration somehow reduces the cost of labor. This is nonsense. It reduces the price of labor in the location receiving the migrants (by increasing its supply) while simultaneously raising the price of labor in the migrants' original location by reducing such supply (both by direct labor outflows and by the increased leverage held by those who don't migrate, since they can now credibly threaten to do so). Pretending that free migration is bad for workers is incredibly parochial and ignores the vast, vast majority of the world's workers, who currently live in places like India and southeastern Asia, and who would strongly benefit from the upward wage pressure that freer migration would bring about.
- talmand 11y agoWell, you do tend to get different reactions to the "make this group richer by making this group poorer" train of thought from the different sides of that equation.