Let Haitians Vote with their Feet | Hacker News Reader

Let Haitians Vote with their Feet

volokh.com

12 pointscwan20 comments

The problem I see with this is that if all the Haitians who are motivated to help themselves leave, who's left? Haiti's problems don't solved and you've eliminated anyone who aspires to a better life.

What often happens is that those who end up making a better life for themselves in a foreign country tend to send money back to their relatives who couldn't make it out, thus helping to raise the standard of living. Also, a lot of them would probably want to return someday or will see ways to bring business to their home countries that would have otherwise never come about.

Why is that a problem? If I aspire to a better life, why should I be prevented from doing it so that my fellow countrymen, who by your admission do not aspire to a better life, can have a better life? People should have the liberty to improve their situation. If they happen to be born in a poorly governed country with little or no chance of success, they shouldn't be forced to stay there just because they were born with aspirations.

There may be problems with the OP's argument but that's not one of them.

> "voting with your feet" is a powerful tool for helping the poor and disadvantaged improve their lives

Trouble is what happens to the poor and disadvantaged already in the destination countries. Wages are suppressed and other resources are spread thinner. Call me crazy but I think a country should be run for the benefit of the people already in it.

So you're saying that it's not right for us to let people move from, say, 1 on a "quality of life" scale, to 80, because some people in the rich country might be lowered from 81 down to 80 for their sake?

I just made up the scale, but that seems to be the jist of the argument, and if that's what you're saying, then I think you're wrong. I think we can help those people more than we'd hurt anyone at home.

I think you have the concept right, the real dispute comes down to your numbers.

I think that the united states could absorb the entire population of Haiti without much impact (ie., from 81 to 80), and eventually we'd probably benefit. But how about all the desperately poor people everywhere else in the world? At some point, I think we're going a lot further down than just one point on the scale.

Right now, this reality is reflected in our (remarkably badly run) immigration system, where the United States takes about 1.2 million immigrants legally into the country every year, by far the most in absolutes and high up there in percentage of population, but still faces a surprising amount of criticism for being anti-immigrant because we don't take in even more. Much of this criticism comes from people who live in countries that are remarkably stingy with their immigration systems.

Cite this, because it sounds like BS.

Would you let me know what I need to cite? Immigration stats, along with national policies, are readily available on the web.

I guess he's talking about "At some point, I think we're going a lot further down than just one point on the scale."

I doubt that statement, too.

Fair enough to disagree... I'm just confused that someone would ask for a citation, since it's clearly just a projection or opinion. Maybe he just wanted me to defend it, rather than just claim it...

That said, do you really think that "unrestricted" immigration (excluding border cases of known criminals, etc...) in the US (or Canada, Australia, etc) would not have a substantial negative impact on quality of life? It seems obvious to me that it would, but if you have any good arguments, studies, links to the contrary, feel free to post - I will read them.

Thanks for taking out the obvious straw man with "(excluding border cases of known criminals, etc...)". Yes, a defence preferably with some data would have been good.

Yes, I do believe that unrestricted immigration would not have a substantial negative impact on quality of life for the resident population. And would have an enormous positive impact on the migrant population.

People from the poorer parts of the US are already allowed to migrate to the richer parts. Why stop there? Also as poorer nations joined the Schengen-Area (related to the EU) there have not been qualitify-of-life-decreasing mass-migrations.

You may argue that there can be quality-of-life degradations when the immigrants are not properly integrated. But the US seems to do a pretty good job in this respect. (My home country, Germany, much less so.)

Sorry, I do not have enough time to write down a real argument, but if you are really interested, I can perhaps prepare a blog post or so.

I think that's the wrong argument to make. Generally speaking, I think it's wrong for others to force you to be charitable (in the very least, a tax break would be nice if it's about charity) but immigration shouldn't be and isn't about charity.

In fact, most studies point to the positive economic impacts of immigration over time (though there are a number of studies that also point to the short term costs).

> Wages are suppressed and other resources are spread thinner.

Sources? Any studies on that?

Yes, there have been some studies on that.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supply_and_demand

Christ almighty, people. Also 1+1=2.

Here's another clue: Haiti is poor because it's full of Haitians. The latitude and longitude of your feet isn't what makes you successful.

When people join an economy they add supply to the labour market and with the money they earn they add demand to other markets like the one for consumer goods.

If we are throwing around Wikipedia entries, I might as well post http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Says_law as a counter.

Reason has an interesting article about why poor countries are poor (http://reason.com/archives/2006/03/01/why-poor-countries-are...). The efficiency and honesty of the governments (or the lack of those qualities) play a large role.

Amongst other things, this is the 'lump of labor' fallacy - that there are only a certain amount of jobs to go around, and that none of those people from a poor country, when given a proper place to live, learn and work, will actually turn out to be good entrepreneurs, inventors, scientists, engineers or whatever.

Edit and of course you're ignoring that having a failed state next door is probably a fairly negative thing, in that they're great places for drug gangs, terrorists, etc... and end up costing lots of money in any case.

I don't know about any lumps, but common sense and history dictate that when 100,000 low skill laborers show up in a city inside a few years it will cause a lot of problems. Especially when they are not culturally assimilated. School budgets alone are a catastrophe.

> [...] but common sense and history dictate [...]

I can't argue with your version of common sense. But how about some examples from history?

Are you a bot? It's like eliza wants a citation.

How about the city of Los Angeles, for starters.

Sorry, I am not familiar with American history. What happened Los Angeles and when?

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