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I'm reading Philip Cafaro's book on US Immigration from University Of Chicago Press http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022619065X http://www.amazon.com/gp/product

I'm reading Philip Cafaro's book on US Immigration from University Of Chicago Press http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022619065X http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022619065X He's progressive but tackles a subject many liberals and libertarians avoid: that overpopulation (from immigration) makes many problems worse, drives down workers’ wages, drives up inequality, drives up unemployment, leads to political disempowerment, and creates sprawling suburbs which destroy habitats. These problems, he argues, fall disproportionally on the immigrants themselves and resident poor. He also talks about US policies which are causing problems outside the US, motivating people to move here in the first place. So far its a compassionate treatment of the subject. He doesn't favor border control, and does favor amnesty to those here already. It seems hard to talk about societies problems without talking about overpopulation.

fennecfoxen 11y ago
> "overpopulation (from immigration) makes many problems worse, drives down workers’ wages, drives up inequality, drives up unemployment, leads to political disempowerment, and creates sprawling suburbs which destroy habitats." You should see the equality statistics when you add workers working in Mexico and the US in the same diagram - see what their wages and unemployment rates and political empowerment look like before they immigrate. As for habitats, forget the suburbs: the real habitat-mangler is agriculture.
- IkmoIkmo 11y ago
  Exactly. This is the comparison it feels like he's making: a universe with just the US with immigrants from a lower socioeconomic status vs a universe with just the US without those immigrants and then sure, the net effect is that the 'without' universe is better because if you get immigrants with relatively (vs the current inhabitants) lower education, skills, literacy, networks, cultural cohesion etc, you inevitably reduce the average person's scores on those traits, that's just simple math. And those traits correlate with social and economic well being. But the actual comparison is that the US isn't alone in the universe, the immigrants already exist, and they're better off in the US than not. Now if you live in a world where you believe that because you're born in the US, something which is literally a blood right, which has nothing to do with merit, affords you the unique luxury of living in the US while others do not, then sure... the first comparison is your perspective. But if you consider yourself a human being who happened to live in the US, then the latter comparison is your perspective. I mean it's obvious. Let's create an extreeeemely exaggerated comparison. Imagine a universe of twenty people, you and 9 others lived, solely, on some ocean paradise where food, health, education etc was 100% abundant, provided by sustainable robots. And you're rich, well educated, crime free etc. And then the other 10, poor people with little education, raised in a shithole environment of scarcity making him prone to crime as a tool for survival, and one of them wants to migrate to your island. Of COURSE your island will be worse off when it comes to security, education, cooperation etc, in the short term. But it still makes the world a better place to have him on the island instead of some shithole. And if carefully managed (e.g. 1 coming over every few years, resources dedicated to integrate these people, give them educational subsidies, mix them into your neighbourhoods instead of seclude them, give them representation and give them preferential treatment for jobs for the first few years), the negative effects would be minimised and temporary, and a few generations later it'd all be fine. This is an extremely exaggerated and simplified story of course (to the point it's very paternalistic, even a bit racist) but I truly feel this is pretty much what a large part of the immigration debate boils down to. I don't think anyone questions that in the short term immigration from lower socioeconomic classes has slightly negative effects, but it's not really an anti-immigration argument for me.
larzang 11y ago
It's absolutely absurd to try to assert that overpopulation is the root problem with a straight face when you're dealing with a system with such radical inequality. Yes, piling more people into the box of fighting for a single-digit percent of a single-digit percent of the wealth in the US is rarely great for anyone, but the root problem is not the people being added but the minuscule scraps they're forced to fight for while the rich get richer. Barring outliers like NYC, the US is centuries away from even population density _parity_ relative to most of the rest of the world.

fennecfoxen 11y ago

> "overpopulation (from immigration) makes many problems worse, drives down workers’ wages, drives up inequality, drives up unemployment, leads to political disempowerment, and creates sprawling suburbs which destroy habitats." You should see the equality statistics when you add workers working in Mexico and the US in the same diagram - see what their wages and unemployment rates and political empowerment look like before they immigrate. As for habitats, forget the suburbs: the real habitat-mangler is agriculture.

IkmoIkmo 11y ago
Exactly. This is the comparison it feels like he's making: a universe with just the US with immigrants from a lower socioeconomic status vs a universe with just the US without those immigrants and then sure, the net effect is that the 'without' universe is better because if you get immigrants with relatively (vs the current inhabitants) lower education, skills, literacy, networks, cultural cohesion etc, you inevitably reduce the average person's scores on those traits, that's just simple math. And those traits correlate with social and economic well being. But the actual comparison is that the US isn't alone in the universe, the immigrants already exist, and they're better off in the US than not. Now if you live in a world where you believe that because you're born in the US, something which is literally a blood right, which has nothing to do with merit, affords you the unique luxury of living in the US while others do not, then sure... the first comparison is your perspective. But if you consider yourself a human being who happened to live in the US, then the latter comparison is your perspective. I mean it's obvious. Let's create an extreeeemely exaggerated comparison. Imagine a universe of twenty people, you and 9 others lived, solely, on some ocean paradise where food, health, education etc was 100% abundant, provided by sustainable robots. And you're rich, well educated, crime free etc. And then the other 10, poor people with little education, raised in a shithole environment of scarcity making him prone to crime as a tool for survival, and one of them wants to migrate to your island. Of COURSE your island will be worse off when it comes to security, education, cooperation etc, in the short term. But it still makes the world a better place to have him on the island instead of some shithole. And if carefully managed (e.g. 1 coming over every few years, resources dedicated to integrate these people, give them educational subsidies, mix them into your neighbourhoods instead of seclude them, give them representation and give them preferential treatment for jobs for the first few years), the negative effects would be minimised and temporary, and a few generations later it'd all be fine. This is an extremely exaggerated and simplified story of course (to the point it's very paternalistic, even a bit racist) but I truly feel this is pretty much what a large part of the immigration debate boils down to. I don't think anyone questions that in the short term immigration from lower socioeconomic classes has slightly negative effects, but it's not really an anti-immigration argument for me.

larzang 11y ago

It's absolutely absurd to try to assert that overpopulation is the root problem with a straight face when you're dealing with a system with such radical inequality. Yes, piling more people into the box of fighting for a single-digit percent of a single-digit percent of the wealth in the US is rarely great for anyone, but the root problem is not the people being added but the minuscule scraps they're forced to fight for while the rich get richer. Barring outliers like NYC, the US is centuries away from even population density _parity_ relative to most of the rest of the world.