Monday, September 1
Immigration
There aren't many topics that prove one's political orientation more than immigration. Strangely enough, it usually raises emotions instead of calm voice of reason, and it can easily tore people apart, causing wounds and confusion.
The common policy is to regulate immigration to the maximum extent. This is clearly visible in the U.S., a country of immigrants, hesitating to welcome newcomers for a long time now. Other countries sometimes employ even stricter policies.
To find out why it is so, we must examine possible arguments against immigration, however false and void they might be.
There are 3 types of immigrants, all being equally unwelcome. There are refugees who escape from countries ruled by dictators or totalitarian regimes. There are economic immigrants, trying to find a land of new opportunities for a new beginning. Finally, there are criminals who seek to disrupt and destroy society they enter.
Apart from terrorists and criminals who are a minority (yet a dangerous one), the first two groups are being greeted coldly because:
- They might consume our welfare resources, giving nothing in return (especially the refugees)
- They might take our jobs, accepting lower wages than us
- They won't assimilate into our society, causing confusion and anger
The first argument should be adressed by welfare reform, not by overregulating immigration, as the welfare resources tend to be consumed by people not willing to work when they can avoid it. Especially true in Red Europe.
What about jobs, then? Many Americans fear talented Indian programmers who are willing to work 24/7 for a meager wage. If there is such a thing as "unfair competition", wouldn't this be it?
This kind of competition is indeed very unpleasant, to have seen your job taken over by foreigners who speak funny and have terrible manners. And yet it helps at the same time. People are lazy, and if there is no outside force to coerce them to work hard, they might as well rot in their cubicles.
Immigration is beneficial in this one aspect alone: it raises competitive value of the country and its people. It forces innovation. It creates new opportunities, new beginnings not only for newcomers, but for the rest of us as well.
It all comes down to liberty and free markets, doesn't it. The immigration laws are prime example of the bias against the markets, and hurt both the prospective immigrants and the people who were lucky enough to be born in the desired country.
There are lessons we just ain't gonna learn.
An excellent piece, Tomas.
One would have thought that the issue of immigration and immigrants 'exploiting' a country's welfare system would have alerted populations in Western nations to the problems with massive welfare programmes and other government attacks on free markets such as minimum wage laws and restrictions on working hours, which make workers from regions like East Asia, who do not tend to demand so much interference in labour markets, attractive to employers.
The problems of immigration tend not to stem from immigrants themselves but rather from the systems which allow some immigrants to do so much damage to the societies and economies they move to.
Unfortunately, whilst many in the West demand 'minimum wages' or a variety of state hand-outs like 'child benefit', 'housing benefits' or 'unemployment benefits' for themselves, they have a different attitude when they realise that people who have never 'paid in' can take vast amounts of money out of the system - something which is highlighted by recent immigrants making claims on taxpayers' money through welfare systems.
It's amazing that whilst immigration and asylum promote a widespread understanding of the flaws of state welfare systems and the harm they do to economies and individuals Western populations, particularly in Europe, continue to vote for governments that promise to increase hand-outs or offer 'wealth redistribution' schemes.
Economists often speak about the benefits of competition for consumers but when it comes to competition for jobs, a lot of people are not prepared to embrace competition and its ultimate benefits. Globalisation means competition in labour markets is increasingly tougher for workers in the West, who have to fit their work around government restrictions and excessive taxation, which smashes their income and increases the cost of living dramatically.
Until Western nations find a way of building giant walls around their countries to keep immigrants and imported goods out they may be forced to liberalise their economies and embrace free markets and free trade, something Europe, under the direction of the EU, will find incredibly difficult to do.
posted by Stephen Hodgson on 02.09.2003, 12:31