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Contrary to perception, open immigration is unfair to the weakest and poorest in a society. I live in India. My country has 300M people living in acute poverty
by puranjay 9y ago
Contrary to perception, open immigration is unfair to the weakest and poorest in a society.
I live in India. My country has 300M people living in acute poverty - less than $1/day.
These are the people who would likely benefit most from immigrating to a developed country with better healthcare and opportunities.
Yet:
1. These people would be liabilities in a developed nation since they have no transferable skills apart from manual labor. Most can't even read or write.
2. In 99% of cases, these people wouldn't even know anything about immigration, refugee status, etc.
Open immigration essentially helps people who already have the knowledge and means to immigrate. These are not the poorest and most in-need.
The Indian immigrants moving to America or Europe can have perfectly okay lives in India. I don't begrudge them for moving, but for western people to assume a philanthropic stance for taking them in is wrong. You aren't helping the poorest; you're helping the "doing okay" segment of the population.
- ben_w 9y agoAnd interesting perspective. What do you forsee happening when tech like this replaces the labour of those currently earning less than $1/day?
- puranjay 9y agoThe agriculture sector employs nearly 55% of India's workforce. There is already enough tech to replace 90% of this labor force - simple mechanization. Yet, legal roadblocks make mechanization unfeasible in India (laws against owning farm land beyond a certain level, making mechanized farming effectively unfeasible). These roadblocks are mostly because of political reasons. Politicians know that if they were to make mechanized farming possible, they'd see massive unemployment and hence, massive loss of votes. So the same thing is going to happen to any other technological advancement that affects this massive vote bank: it will be stopped at a political level. Silicon Valley ambitions tend to fail hard when confronted with the reality of acute poverty and the kind of political situations it engenders.
- ben_w 9y agoThanks. I'm not sure if that situation is a good one or a bad one, but it's good to know about.
- Mediterraneo10 9y agoBeing able to do manual labour is still enough of a desirable skill on its own, and yes, hordes of the poor from the Indian subcontinent emigrate (albeit on a temporary contractual basis). The outflow of dirt-poor Indian farming villages to Gulf construction projects has been a phenomenon for decades now.
- puranjay 9y agoThe people emigrating aren't the poorest of the poor. The gulf workers you talk about are mostly from India's most developed state (Kerala), are educated (or at least, literate), and have access to decent healthcare. The people I'm talking about are from states where 40% of the population lives below poverty line and the literacy rate is still at 60%.
- jawbone3 9y agoWhat, you are saying that keeping people with more opportunities than the poorest in India helps them more than letting those with means emigrate and send remittances? Or do you just not care for those 300 millions of citizen?