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It's always important to remember that one area's skilled immigration is another area's brain drain. The moral issue is whether it is ok to take skilled people

It's always important to remember that one area's skilled immigration is another area's brain drain. The moral issue is whether it is ok to take skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas of the world without supplying an equally skilled person in return. Consider it within a country. The cities take the skills from the rural areas. What does that do to the rural areas? It is no different between countries. Fiscal transfer payments don't correct the problem. A pile of dollars will not treat your sick grandmother. You need a doctor in the local area. If they have been poached by a richer country, then you're in trouble. And no country on earth has a surplus of medical staff, and not everybody can realistically become a doctor. The framing with immigration is always down to the choice of the individual, and never really takes into account the desires of the community the individual has moved into, nor the desires of the community the individual has moved from - particularly if the source area has expended effort training the individual. What do you owe beyond money to the people that helped you be who you are? As with companies if the drain continues, then nobody bothers training anybody - or doing the training - and we all eat our seed corn. There's no simple answer, but net zero migration seems the best prospect to satisfy all sides - for somebody to move in, somebody else has to move out. A swap of equals. After all fair exchange is no robbery.

elamje 8y ago
That is a perspective I haven't heard, and one that could help a lot of people on both sides better understand immigration. In a world with hundreds of autonomous countries, it's hard to envision that becoming a reality unless countries set up immigration partnerships. It definitely is unfortunate for regions where there isn't much opportunity, since the current system typically allows your citizens to just leave and go to the highest bidder, unless the government restricts emigration.
dpeck 8y ago
> The framing with immigration is always down to the choice of the individual Because it should be.
gusmd 8y ago
> The moral issue is whether it is ok to take skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas of the world without supplying an equally skilled person in return. The skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas have literally funded those limited resources through their taxes or by directly paying for their education (private schools are a thing everywhere, even in poor countries -- 1st-hand experience here). Nobody has a moral obligation to stay in their home country when a much better quality of life is achievable elsewhere. The origin nation does not need to be to "satisfied". Humans should be free agents to defend their best interests and seek a better outcome for themselves and their families, wherever that may be (as long as the destination accepts them!).
- thedevindevops 8y ago
  > Nobody has a moral obligation to stay in their home country when a much better quality of life is achievable elsewhere. When using that model, is there any mechanism for the quality of life in their home country to ever improve?
  - gusmd 8y ago
    I would like to believe so. But maybe there isn't, or his leaving makes it worse. My point, though, is that that burden shouldn't fall on the single individual, for his power to promote actual change is negligible. More anecdotally, I know in my home country it was a lost fight, as even among close friends and family, I found it hard to find a reflection of my own values. How could I hope to influence the other 200+ million people?
- neilwilson 8y ago
  Taxes haven’t funded anything since the end of the Gold Standard. That’s another framing myth that fails to look at the overall picture. Here’s Beardsley Ruml ex chair of the NY fed on the subject: http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html Society funds things in real terms not in financial terms. To train more doctors there has to be less medical care available for a time to everybody. It’s the same investment problem faced by firms. Firms invest in training which is a real cost to their production, then other firms nick the staff. The result is that firms stop training. It a major dilemma at country level though because the get out of borrow to train yourself doesn’t exist there. There is no independent training country you can go to that only does training.

elamje 8y ago

That is a perspective I haven't heard, and one that could help a lot of people on both sides better understand immigration. In a world with hundreds of autonomous countries, it's hard to envision that becoming a reality unless countries set up immigration partnerships. It definitely is unfortunate for regions where there isn't much opportunity, since the current system typically allows your citizens to just leave and go to the highest bidder, unless the government restricts emigration.

dpeck 8y ago

> The framing with immigration is always down to the choice of the individual Because it should be.

gusmd 8y ago

> The moral issue is whether it is ok to take skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas of the world without supplying an equally skilled person in return. The skilled people that have been trained using the limited resources of poorer areas have literally funded those limited resources through their taxes or by directly paying for their education (private schools are a thing everywhere, even in poor countries -- 1st-hand experience here). Nobody has a moral obligation to stay in their home country when a much better quality of life is achievable elsewhere. The origin nation does not need to be to "satisfied". Humans should be free agents to defend their best interests and seek a better outcome for themselves and their families, wherever that may be (as long as the destination accepts them!).

thedevindevops 8y ago
> Nobody has a moral obligation to stay in their home country when a much better quality of life is achievable elsewhere. When using that model, is there any mechanism for the quality of life in their home country to ever improve?
- gusmd 8y ago
  I would like to believe so. But maybe there isn't, or his leaving makes it worse. My point, though, is that that burden shouldn't fall on the single individual, for his power to promote actual change is negligible. More anecdotally, I know in my home country it was a lost fight, as even among close friends and family, I found it hard to find a reflection of my own values. How could I hope to influence the other 200+ million people?
neilwilson 8y ago
Taxes haven’t funded anything since the end of the Gold Standard. That’s another framing myth that fails to look at the overall picture. Here’s Beardsley Ruml ex chair of the NY fed on the subject: http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html http://home.hiwaay.net/~becraft/RUMLTAXES.html Society funds things in real terms not in financial terms. To train more doctors there has to be less medical care available for a time to everybody. It’s the same investment problem faced by firms. Firms invest in training which is a real cost to their production, then other firms nick the staff. The result is that firms stop training. It a major dilemma at country level though because the get out of borrow to train yourself doesn’t exist there. There is no independent training country you can go to that only does training.