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Let's say for the sake of argument that every Indian immigrant displaces one American from their job. Under what moral calculus is that a bad trade? The per-cap

• hackerboos 12y ago
  "By American standards, keeping someone from leaving India seems pretty equivalent to condemning them to life-long poverty." That's a bit of a leap. "Can you imagine someone making (with a straight face) the argument that people from Detroit shouldn't be allowed to move to San Francisco to take a better job, because they'll steal jobs from and drive down the wages of SF natives? What's the difference?" Probably the fact that Michigan and California are 2 states within the US and whilst America is protectionist (as are most sovereign nations) against other countries when it comes to labour (with few exceptions like the EU), there are laws that prevent this kind of protectionism between states.
  • Swizec 12y ago
    > Probably the fact that Michigan and California are 2 states within the US And yet, until just 20 years ago, you couldn't move from Germany to France for similar reasons. You had to get a work visa. Just because they weren't part of the same union, even though they are neighbouring countries and you could literally commute from Germany to work in France (or vice-versa) every day if you wanted to.
    • deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  • evanpw 12y ago
    > That's a bit of a leap. If someone lives in India, they are likely to have a standard of living below what would be considered poverty level in the United States. If you actively prevent them from taking a job that would take them out of poverty, how else would you describe that? > Michigan and California are 2 states within the US This is my point. Why is it morally okay to exclude people from India, but not people from Detroit?
    • hackerboos 12y ago
      > If someone lives in India, they are likely to have a standard of living below what would be considered poverty level in the United States. If you actively prevent them from taking a job that would take them out of poverty, how else would you describe that? And thus placing an American in poverty in the process. You've displaced their job and gave it to an Indian who is paid less (so the article suggests). Less federal income tax, less state tax and it's not unreasonable to assume that a portion of the paycheck will be returned to India. This is why we have foreign aid budgets and charities. People do care and want to give, but what you're suggesting is not the way to go about it. > This is my point. Why is it morally okay to exclude people from India, but not people from Detroit? Morally it's not OK. Agreed. Even economically it's possible, but not without severely driving down US living standards. Politically though, it's a disaster.
  • jqm 12y ago
    It's more than a leap because it implicitly states that the only way a citizen of India can avoid poverty is to come to the US, and I'm pretty sure there are no shortage of wealthy Indians who became so without immigrating.
    • evanpw 12y ago
      Absolutely. I don't mean that it's true on a case-by-case basis, only on average. If you force a large number of Indians who want to move to the US to stay in India, then you will keep a large-but-not-quite-as-large number of people in (relative) poverty.
      • chrismcb 12y ago
        I don't get it. Are you saying it is ok to force an American into poverty so an Indian can get out of poverty?
• jqm 12y ago
  You really don't know that Detroit and San Francisco are in the same country and Mumbai and New York are not? Because that is the difference. If you arguing that national borders are immoral... well, I might agree in theory. But many more things besides immigration change at that point, and we are not there right now.
• rayiner 12y ago
  There is nothing morally wrong with people grouping together to ensure their own collective prosperity. It's something humans have been doing ever since people banded together to hunt gazelle on the savannah. People throughout history have fought and died to have their own country where they could look after their own interests. It follows that there is no moral obligation on the part of tribes to take all comers, if doing so might reduce the properity of their existing members. Look at it this way. Indians are much richer than sub-Saharan Africans. But go over there and tell them that they have a moral obligation to allow African immigration. People will laugh at you, if you're lucky.
  • savanaly 12y ago
    >Indians are much richer than sub-Saharan Africans. But go over there and tell them that they have a moral obligation to allow African immigration. People will laugh at you, if you're lucky. That wouldn't make them right. Humans are humans, doesn't matter what country they were born in. Just because people have been doing it since forever doesn't mean it makes any sense.
    • powertower 12y ago
      > Humans are humans, doesn't matter what country they were born in.. Doesn't matter to who?... The guy in the US? The guy from India that wants to replace the guy in the US? The guy in Africa that wants to replace the guy in India? And how does the guy in India feel about the guy in Africa taking his job or lowering his salary, does his stand still stand - or was it one-sided all from the start? Most humans do see nationality, race, and other attributes of the group - even to the extent of killing someone over it.
      • savanaly 12y ago
        But surely at least the commenters of HN can see that the country you are born in is pure chance? And it's really important to remember that when thinking about whether workers from one country or another should be able to work for someone else in another country.
• A_COMPUTER 12y ago
  Because I am legally and morally compelled to pay taxes to my country, and in exchange my country is legally and morally compelled to look out for my interests and well-being--not to find the fastest and most economical means to replace me. It's called the social contract, that is my moral calculus.
  • murbard2 12y ago
    Valentino Mancini has been coming to your grocery store and he's offered to protect you against fire hazards. He made such a compelling offer you couldn't refuse it, and you've been paying him off for years. Valentino protects you, he's been looking out for you. Like when they tried to build a K-Mart in the neighborhood, and the developer had an unfortunate accident. But here's the thing, Valentino's consigliere has convinced him to let in a new grocer in the neighborhood, and business hasn't been that good since. Is it ethical for you to go see Valentino and complain that, since you've been paying him off for years, he should kick that new grocer out of the neighborhood?
    • freehunter 12y ago
      Oh right, because the government is like the Mafia. Yeah that whole anarchy thing totally works.
      • murbard2 12y ago
        The government is different from the Mafia in many ways, and similar in other ways. Analogies are helpful as a source of moral intuition. What matters in this example is that two wrongs don't make a right. If it's morally wrong to prevent immigrants from finding jobs in the US, then the fact that the parent has paid taxes is irrelevant. Using it to justify preventing immigrants from getting jobs in the country is begging the question.
  • dennisgorelik 12y ago
    1) Most of the taxes are paid by businesses and business owners 2) Immigrant workers are paying their taxes as much as you do (or more). Considering the above and applying your logic, government should remove all restrictions (except security consideration) on bringing foreign workers into the US.
• dogma1138 12y ago
  Are you volunteering to give up your job for some one who will live in the states and make just about above minimum wage (if that even since Google and some others were caught paying less than minimum wage to migrant workers)? Some how i doubt so, it's not a question of job displacement it's a question of competitiveness. An Indian developer will cost a fraction of what a US born developer costs even if they are working in the states. And why is that? Simply because it cost about a fraction of what it cost to bring you from infancy to your current stats to do the same to him. Cost of living in India is cheaper, education is cheaper, and well life overall is cheaper. You have debts, whether they are direct debts say for example student loans or indirect debts to say your parents who brought you up and count on your direct and indirect support in the future. Flooding the market with skilled workers who are willing to get paid much less tends to break it. No company in the world would say no dude keep the 120K a year + equity if you only ask for 35. Highly skilled worker visas are there for a reason, they allow very specific people to migrate to the country to work. The UK for example limits even inter-company transfer to salaries above 50K GPB(77K $), and limits open tier 2 general visas to salaries of 153K GBP a year and above. There are exceptions for other classes of T2 such as elderly care workers etc. But for the most part if a company wants to bring a highly skilled employee into the UK they have to either pay them a metric ton of money, or they have to be employed by the company and still get paid a fair wage (slightly less fair if you live in London, but even for London 50K isn't that bad for 1-4 years of experience jobs). Also last time I've checked Detroit was still a part of the US, India currently isn't. Countries still take care firstly of their own citizens, unless you are advocating here for a complete globalization and abolition of all borders this is nothing more than a demagogic straw-man argument.
• kbenson 12y ago
  Because I believe morally the correct thing to do is not the thing that reduces poverty quickest in the short term, but reduces it the most in the long term. I do not believe economics is a zero-sum game, which would imply that the moral thing to do is to reduce our own fortunes to increase that of others less fortunate. I think that some countries, being extremely successful, can both help guide other countries into successful strategies (there are hundreds of large scale economic experiments going on at all times by the nature of different states), and help bolster those countries that have followed strategies that were less optimal (global aid). I do not believe this gives a blank check to some countries to ignore the less fortunate portions of the world, there is an obligation, enforced up by the reality of the threats these places produce, to attempt to help the world as a whole advance, which it largely has done over hundreds of years. This is analogous to the differences in the populace within a country, but I think it's easier for people to see it on a world stage, even if they don't equate it to income disparity within a country. The global system we've been using, with countries largely distinct, has yielded great gains. Altering major aspects of that system should not be taken lightly, as unforeseen implications could cause great problems (would the world be served better overall if free movement between these countries caused a depression within America, and that happened to trigger a global depression?). That's not to say it shouldn't be tried. Indeed, as others here have posted, is seems the EU is trying this very idea out, to some extent.
  • evanpw 12y ago
    > Because I believe morally the correct thing to do is not the thing that reduces poverty quickest in the short term, but reduces it the most in the long term. I completely agree with this. It's my take on the evidence that immigrants tend to have little effect on wages of native workers on average (except possibly at the bottom of the education distribution), and huge benefits for the immigrants themselves. (As you say, economics is not zero-sum). You just hear more from the small concentrated group of people who are displaced than you do from the large diffuse group who have new customers. In the other direction, if "brain drain" from poor countries to rich countries was keeping the former poor, then restrictions might be justified to keep skilled workers from leaving. But no one seems to really believe this: restrictions are almost always on immigration, not on emigration. > Altering major aspects of that system should not be taken lightly Absolutely. I don't advocate totally open borders tomorrow, but it seems to me that they could be much more open than they currently are without any drastic consequences.