Anti-Immigration: Immigrants hurt us in lots of ways. [not intended facetiously]
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Pro-Immigration: Immigrants are so much worse off than we are that even if immigration does hurt at least some Americans some, it helps the immigrants by so much so as to be obligatory. Let in 1 extra Hatian...and the Hatian's income moves from $1/day to $40/day, while 1 native-born American's income drops from $50/day to $48/day (incomes are not zero-sum) [UPDATE FOR FAIRNESS]: What if the American loses value equivalent to $10/day? $15/day? [/UPDATE] How is this not massively good, and morally obligatory? Only possible answer is to discount the impact on the immigrant to near zero. [UPDATE]One person's standard of living drops by 4-30%...the other person's standard of living goes up by 4000%[/UPDATE]
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Seems like magic. Just let a person cross a mystical line in sand and he becomes 40 times rich.
Let's employ this magic to benefit all 6 billion humans outside this line.
I'd love to...except the bastards with guns who rule the places won't import the rules, practices, and standards that would make their populations richer, and the rulers poorer.
And since we can't convince those bastards, our choices appear to be: watch them suffer, avert our eyes, and pretend, or let them come our way.
Didn't we already have this in your discussion of free trade with Foseti? You seem to be assuming a spherical immigrant on a frictionless border, and skimming very quickly past "hurt us in lots of ways" before settling on -4% income as the only hurt to be mentioned or compared.
Personally I think I'd rather pay 4% additional taxes to a border enforcement bureau if it could prevent and reverse the loss of trust, loss of community, increased regulation and bureaucracy, diversity seminars, race riots, political correctness, and hiring quotas that we've suffered and will continue to suffer.
Lurking,
Welcome.
Diversity Seminars, Political Corectness, and Hiring quotas are horrid...and a result of too much power to the political class.
I'll update my post to be less snarky.
I failed to make my point clear.
I was not talking about exporting our values, but on letting whosoever wants to come.
Say one billion people want to enter US.
So you think the magic will continue to work?
It is not only the rulers that are the problem. Suppose my laws let me marry multiple times and I like it fine. Should I support you imposing your monogamous virtues on me?
Gyan,
Our SYSTEM works to create wealth. The system that works is some combination of property-rights, rule of law, freedom of association, and few rules for starting new businesses.
Is there a limit on the short-term quantity we could handle importing without chaos? Yeah. Do we have a limit on annual flow that would be insurmountable? For sure. Do we have a limit in the longer term? I don't know.
If we limited welfare benefits to citizens and children of citizens, we'd be pretty good, with strong limits on the downside.
Fundamentally, the issue is: If someone comes to American with the willingness to work, from almost anywhere in the world, they can increase their welfare massively, and by a substantial multiplier on any costs to the rest of us.
So you accept an annual limit.
But Caplan is against any limit in principle.
And that is besides the futher point that the flood of Third-World immigrants dilutes the US values, thereby causing the magic to lose its efficacy.
1. I'd be careful saying what BC believes. He's awful smart, and his positions are usually somewhat more subtle than is apparent from first readings.
2. I'm suspicious of whether the US "Magic" survived (a) the civil war, (b) 1913. On the other hand...our values do not seem to have been destroyed by the waves of polish, irish, jewish, etc. immigrants, each of which was huge. I'm worried that our anti-integration policies are likely to cause problems...but not that the immigration itself will.
Added some thoughts over at my place.
Seriously? Seriously? You are making a "tragedy of the commons" argument FOR immigration?
i expect better.
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