Sitting on an Ocean of Talent
econlog.econlib.org
econlog.econlib.org
In addition to the economic argument, I think there is a compelling moral argument to opening borders. Why should we deny equal rights (the right to work or move freely) to human beings based on their national origin?
If someone today told you the Jim Crow laws were economically justified in modern America - "we can't allow desegregation, blacks will compete with whites for jobs" - you'd see them as a disgusting, backwards racist. And yet in the US, foreign nationals are denied basic rights that US citizens take for granted. Does anyone believe these laws are actually just, or do we just support unjust laws we (mistakenly) think are to our economic advantage?
It is a proxy. Most likely if you were born in X you were born by parents born in X. Most likely if your parents grew up in X they will raise you to fit into X.
And once again it is between etnical groups. (The previous that I can think of where mostly Northern Ireland and Northern Spain with a few lone wolves in between.)
Not arguing here that immigration shouldn't be simplified but be ware that it isn't just rainbows and unicorns.
> foreign nationals are denied basic rights that US citizens take for granted
I'd say at least modern US is skeptical to everyone, regardless of race, religion, color, ethnicity etc - don't we regularly complain here about how TSA even stops US citizens with US passports at the US Border? : )
That's not really an answer to you; rather, it seeks to provide rhetorical relief for the native pondering whether he is morally obligated to throw open his borders. He or she is not. Their survival, and even comfort, are legitimate goods. They may calculate utility differently than their would-be neighbors, and that's OK. Vote, let them vote, converse; but don't attempt to dialectically back them into a corner. Friends don't criticize each others' utility functions.
Certainly, but the feeling I get from the original comment is: "There are no reasons to act selfishly ever." I'm not arguing in favor of 100% selfishness; I'm arguing against a zero-tolerance policy towards it.
Further, the form of the whole thing is troubling. If someone asked you, "How should we help the impoverished citizens of X?" My first response would likely be foreign aid of some sort, or perhaps free trade. But I don't get the feeling that proponents of open borders would be satisfied with those (assuming for the sake of argument that they would indeed help). Beggars can't be choosers; the focus on one method makes it feel more like a shakedown than a plea for help.
[0] http://alphagameplan.blogspot.de/2015/12/culture-and-civiliz...
Why should we deny equal rights (the right to work or move freely) to human beings based on their national origin?
Why should we prevent a woman from off the street from coming in your house and eating your family's food?
Sure we are all born on this and of this planet, but it is human nature to form alliances such that our groups are stronger than any one of us, these alliances and groups exist at multiple scales, from families to nations. Most political nations have a very high overlap with an ethno-nation, which are basically really big families.
Dear average HN reader — I assume you're a software developer in US and often from Bay area. You realize that after this happens, your wage will reduce, may be twofold, right?
Edit: added "I saw"
I merely observe how the popular opinion on HN contradicts itself.
[0]: old, mostly stable language that I have used a lot on my spare time in between
If you allow unlimited immigration, you will be flooded with millions of programmers. There will be a tremendous reduction in wages.
>My wages will go up as I will have a larger team to manage.
Why do you think you'll still have a job, surely in the millions of people who are clamoring to come to your country there will be many who are willing to do your job much cheaper. Managers aren't immune to competition.
>I think western workers are overpaid and third world workers are underpaid, so it seems fair to see a natural adjustment here.
Do you think you are overpaid, or just the people working below you?
I don't think this looks at the whole picture. Programmers aren't commodities. If there are indeed programmers skilled enough to take high paying jobs, why haven't they already been hired and brought into the country? Or are you trying to say that the majority of companies hiring developers will lower their standards in order to reduce their expenses? (I can't see AmaGoogFaceSoft doing this, however.)
Immigration caps. You don't think that there are millions of programmers in less developed countries capable of handling high paying jobs in developed countries? China and India alone have over 2 billion people. They have plenty of competent programmers who want to move to the west.
Why do you think big companies like google are pushing to lift the H-1B visa cap--it's because they want to do exactly what you propose hire them and bring them into the country.
Yes I am overpaid on a global scale. Underpaid on a local scale heh. Now what we need is millions of people here earning less than me.. That should put prices down...
There was a poll recently that estimated about 30 million people from India and China alone want to move to the US permanently (the number of people willing to relocate temporarily is much higher).
Even with depressed wages, developed countries have many quality of life benefits that will immediately attract many more people than you seem to think. Yes millions may be a bit hyperbolic for your own country, but for US that's likely accurate.
>Wages would raise there as the supply drops below demand.
Wages would likely not rise there because a huge fraction of software created in developing countries is done as outsourced work from developed countries. The demand for offshore work will dry up as wages drop in developed countries. That will encourage even more workers to immigrate to developed countries.
>Long before a small fraction of these "millions" get around to leaving and moving to the west, the market would have stabilized a bit.
You have no evidence for this. It's just wishful thinking.
>Eventually we will see "millions" of western developers taking a small paycut to move to Romania or Maruitius or wherever for lifestyle reasons.
How long is eventually? There's no way to know, it could be decades before labor markets stabilize.
>I hope someone will come here to replace my job for much cheaper, I am sick of it.
That makes no sense. Why don't you just quit?
It's a style of small-minded nit-picking that shows a desire to defeat a conflicting point of view at all cost, by pulling at threads, without really engaging in the debate at hand.
It is quite a lot of effort to reassemble any relevant points and so to respond in less disrespectful fashion.
I won't be doing that, but I will respond on your single position that the parent post has "no evidence" for their postulation, and that it's "just wishful thinking". TFA was entirely in such a vein (a fanciful pipe dream), and your arguments in support are but notional, based on a wished for outcome that would suit yourself.
I'm all for management, and "good management" at that - as a business owner I would welcome increased competition for management positions also. All to often you just have to take the people you can get for these roles, and all to frequently they're just guys with "business degrees" (or worse, failed engineers - the "Peter Principle" comes to mind) with little management talent.
The point that western workers are overpaid is particularly grandiose, since I've seen a number of statistics recently that describe how management grades in particular have enjoyed a fine increase over the last ten years or so, relative to the rest of the workforce.
- https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/on-leadership/wp/2015/03...
- http://www.cnbc.com/2015/03/03/pay-gap-between-bosses-and-wo...
- http://www.haygroup.com/en/press/pay-gap-between-senior-mana...
- http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-04/not-so-fast-those-r...
This affects me because I compete in a market where a substantial portion of my colleagues are modern-day indentured servants. This affects my working conditions, compensation and opportunities.
With respect to your point, I think it's valid but I don't think it's as simplistic as more local engineers == less pay. For one thing, we're already competing in a global environment -- software crosses borders easily. For another, the labor pool is never zero sum because more people consume more resources and demand labor. OTOH I don't think unilaterally throwing open American borders would work very well and I think the position of this article is naive and idealistic.
My point is merely observing how the public opinion on HN contradicts itself. I would actually want to get H1B some time later in life.
"By allowing anyone in the eight relatively poor new members of the EU to come and work freely, Britain, Ireland and Sweden are putting these claims to the test. All seventy-five million people in Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are now free to move to Britain and work. Since wages in Poland are typically only a fifth of those in Britain, Poles have a big incentive to come and work here. If opponents of immigration are right, Britain should now be deluged with East Europeans and unemployment should be soaring.... But it isn’t. In fact, only 427,000 East Europeans have so far applied to work in Britain (many of whom were already in the country illegally) – and most stay only briefly: net migration from eastern Europe was only 48,000 in 2004.5 Unemployment remains at thirty-year lows, tax receipts are up and jobs that British people no longer want to do are being filled."
-- Philippe Legrain
Second, I'm sure there are some wonderful people in cultures where women (for example) are considered second class citizens. If I travel there and return with some feel-good anecdotes, I fail to see how that changes anything.
Another thing I wonder if they can take advantage of welfare? Can a polish person get UK welfare and NHS services indefinitely if they just move there?
Pensions on the other hand, I'm not sure about. I'm getting tax relief for my pension contributions, but maybe there will be a withholding tax if I leave without naturalising.
"The Flood that Never Arrived: German Open Borders Too Late for Polish Workers"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/the-flood-that-ne...
It says:
"Since May, Polish workers have had the freedom to seek employment in Germany without restrictions. But the expected onslaught of laborers never materialized. Many Polish view jobs in the neighboring country with disdain, with Germans suffering from a reputation for stingy wages and lousy working conditions."
Here you had completely open borders between a poor nation and a rich nation, and most Poles decided to stay home or go to some other country, such as Britain, where they felt more welcome.
So there are many variables at work. It's not a simple invasion of the poor moving into the rich country.
But the people advocating this usually aren't advocating for truly open borders, they are usually advocating for more IT workers, so they can reduce the costs to their companies.
Let's imagine for a moment what would happen if we allowed just the small subset of unlimited immigration that people are really pushing for--an unlimited number of immigrants who have CS degrees. What do you think would happen to programmer salaries when 10 million new programmers arrive next year?
Probably, in the long run. In the short term they will depress wages, and we don't know how long that short term will last--could be decades.
If you allow 10 million programmers into the US, it will severely depress wages for programmers already living here. For those people wages will likely not recover in their lifetimes.
Imagine that people could NOT move between various states in the United States. Do you think this would improve the GDP of the US? Hey, the SF programmers would no longer need to put up with those pesky developers immigrating from the midwest and reducing their 300K salaries to 140K. However this'd be true for the guy working in the grocery store as well for 120K a year - since he'd also not compete with anyone else and gladly take his share of your 300K salary.
People hate monopolies until they are the monopoly. Then they defend it tooth and nail. Native-born citizens, due to the chance event of where they're born, extract monopoly rents to the detriment of the global GDP.
The global economy isn't a free market system, it's not even close enough to a free market system to make modeling it that way useful. The entire argument that treating what isn't remotely a free market system, slightly more like a free market system will necessarily produce some result is completely misguided.
But let's assume that we can actually model it this way and that completely opening borders will eventually increase overall global productivity.
Even in this case, there is still an enormous problem here, the increase in productivity will take time. The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
Imagine 2 countries Richland and Pooria. Richland has a GDP per capita of $50,000, Pooria's is $500. Richland has a population of 10 million people, Pooria 50 million. Richland has expansive public services, good schools, and a fantastic infrastructure. Pooria has none of that.
Now lets say that we open the borders between the 2 countries, and 10 million people from Pooria decide to live in Richland. Now eventually in this hypothetical situation, Richland and Pooria may reach an equilibrium where the average GDP of both was higher than it was before.
However, this could take decades and during that time Richlands resources will be strained to the breaking point. During those decades the people of Richland would be much worse off, and the people of Pooria might not be any better off in a failing Richland than they were in Pooria.
And what if Richlands entire system of government breaks down under the weight. In that case the complex sytem that allowed Richland to produce so much could collapse completely and there is no guarantee that it would ever recover.
Please read the article and see re: opening up the Eastern European labor market, and how the feared outcomes did not materialize in Britain, including the scenario you've outlined.
Yet, when a part of the world is hurting bad enough, migration happens despite legal restrictions.
Also, pick your argument - are you claiming that the causal result of mass immigration an overburdening of the social systems, or are you claiming that markets will magically stay irrational and the benefits due to this magical irrationalism will not materialize? I think your argument is stronger if you claim that local governments cannot stay solvent, not due to markets being irrational, but due to a causal chain of events as a result of immigration.
Your argument breaks down again as we consider the intra-US case: People will not move to a more expensive neighborhood unless they can afford the bills, thus people making the move will have jobs, or failing to get jobs, would prefer if the cost of goods were lower like it is in their place of origin and stick to the lower-cost locations. Thus the distribution of people in wealthier and poorer regions self-regulate, just as it currently does in the United States. Why don't we have poor people overwhelming the school systems of wealthy neighborhoods? Because they can't afford the houses and taxes. They'd like to move in, but they can't. Economic reality still applies.
Allowing small groups of (mostly skilled) people to move into a country in a controlled manner over time, has a net economic benefit. Ergo allowing an unrestricted number of people into a country must have a greater benefit. That just doesn't follow.
>Please read the article and see re: opening up the Eastern European labor market, and how the feared outcomes did not materialize in Britain, including the scenario you've outlined.
What article are you talking about? The one at the top of the thread didn't mention that at all.
It also isn't a fair comparison, Bulgaria, Romania and Poland are the countries that people in Britain and other EU countries were most worried about in regards to immigration. The populations of those countries aren't that large in relation to the population of the more well off countries.
Now compare the number of people living in developing vs developed countries globally. Depending on the source only about 15% of people worldwide live in developed countries.
Do you think those countries will be able to handle the mass influx of immigration? There was a poll done recently that estimated that about 100 million people want to permanently relocate to the US (many more want to do so temporarily), and that's knowing that it would be difficult. Imagine how many more would be willing if immigration were unrestricted.
>Also, pick your argument
You'll find that when making hypothetical arguments you can quite easily make 2 or even 3 simultaneously.
1. Modeling the global economy as a free market is absurd.
2. (When I gave that quote about markets being irrational, it wasn't meant as an example of what was going to happen, but as example of how even though something can be globally true--markets will eventually behave rationally--depending on the time span we care about they can be locally false.)
Anyway, back to 2. Let's assume you can model the global economy as a free market and assume that all labor markets will eventually adjust and reach an equilibrium where the global GDP is higher than it was before.
The amount of time this adjustment takes is unknown. There could be decades of depressed wages in developed countries before any benefit is realized.
3. Is related to 2. Mass migration brings with it problems that could collapse local governments lowering overall GDP permanently.
We're also ignoring what happens to developing countries when anyone who wants to can leave. Those countries may stop developing at all and devolve into even worse states. After all Pseudo-free markets still have problems with blighted neighborhoods.
>Why don't we have poor people overwhelming the school systems of wealthy neighborhoods? Because they can't afford the houses and taxes. They'd like to move in, but they can't. Economic reality still applies.
And yet this doesn't work when comparing countries because you're ignoring the relative differences in standard of living. Living as a homeless person in the US with absolutely no possessions is preferable to being poor in many countries. People are willing to walk across half a continent (and many have) to come to the US with no possessions just on the hope that they can get in.
You're also acting like you don't see migration like this inside the US all the time. There is a reason you see a much higher amount of homelessness in inner cities than you do in rural area (even adjusted for density). Social services, and public transportation attract them. A homeless person has a higher quality of life living in San Fransisco than he does living in rural Iowa, so he makes his way to San Fransisco even though he can't "afford" to live there.
The impact on developed countries from the enlargement of the EU is probably the best "open borders" experiment we can look at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_enlargement_of_the_Europe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enlargement_of_the_European_Un...
edit:
European union countries share similar populations both culturally and biologically.
If you moved the populations of Catalan, Cameroon, Kuwait, Cambodia, Korea and Kiribati to the same geographic area, that would be a different experiment.
"There is a significant variance for GDP (PPP) per capita within individual EU states, these range from €11,300 to €69,800 (about US$15,700 to US$97,000). The difference between the richest and poorest regions ranged, in 2009, from 27% of the EU27 average in the region of Severozapaden in Bulgaria, to 332% of the average in Inner London in the United Kingdom. On the high end, Inner London has €78,000 PPP per capita, Luxembourg €62,500, and Bruxelles-Cap €52,500, while the poorest regions, are Severozapaden with €6,400 PPP per capita, Nord-Est with €6,900 PPP per capita, Severen tsentralen with €6,900 and Yuzhen tsentralen with €7,200."
There are just too many variables.
Under free migration, labor would relocate to more productive regions, massively increasing total production.
He thinks it is a given that open borders would be overall beneficial, because it would "massively increase total production."
So is he totally unaware that the basic commodity of human labor is rapidly diminishing in value?
What massively increases total production, and what drives economic gains is human creativity.
And for whatever reason, creativity, of the world changing sort is concentrated in relatively small areas on the globe.
The knowledge that we're sitting on an ocean of talent should haunt great minds day and night.
What the hell? Where is the evidence of all this talent? Why would these magic immigrants just start demonstrating this talent after they migrated? Why aren't they demonstrating the talent in the countries they are currently in?
This reminds me of a funny story. Bear with me.
My brother is about to graduate with a physics degree. In an interview with an engineering firm, they asked, "You have a metal that expands/contracts with heat according to such-and-such relationship. How do you keep a room at such-and-such temperature?"
He answered, "Oh, just wire things up such that when the metal does blablabla, it heats the room, and when it does the opposite, turn off the heat."
"Could you explain what you mean by "wire things up?""
"Oh, I don't know. That's an engineering problem."
My brother did not get hired, to everyone's (including his, ha) relief.
Keyhole solutions seem like bullseye-on-head clusterfucks of political engineering. They are (by definition) complex and involve many interest groups. Proponents (correctly, I think) point out that they are designed for that environment, in that they may gain support from all parties, but for different reasons. But is there any guarantee that the bill remains integrated? What about a last minute addendum/removal of a clause? We can't seem to stop SOPA and cousins; is anyone confident that the legislative process is their friend?
I know, I know, it's a political engineering problem, not an economic one. Hence the story about my brother. Sometimes you need an engineer.
Yeah, so just create a society with an underclass with no political power, sounds like a great way to create a healthy thriving nation...
So, what makes some places more effective at turning talent into wealth than others? Could be a lot of things, for sure. But, my guess is that it's mainly 'culture'. And, once all those new people come, that culture is no more.
Besides, what better "culture" do you want than people who are leaving family and friends to seek work? Sounds like valuable work ethic to me.
Or perhaps it's human capital that can't be moved: customers and devs need to be close, so putting the devs on a cheap tropical island with a good fibre connection won't cut it.
Of course, many wealthy countries do this already (including the United States).
> Getting Leonium is a great benefit for mankind, period.
I don't think it is good for humans to live longer. Sure, I'd love it if 80yr olds were as healthy as 50-60yr olds. But I don't want 150yr olds hanging around in any capacity, especially not the ones who own and control 95% of the wealth of the world.
"Science advances one funeral at a time." - Max Planck.
I don't want 2100 to be run by people who believe things discredited or refuted in 1950.
All Economists are universally indoctrinated into the same basic classical theories of economics. Using inaccurate mathematical models and pseudo-math to map the world as one big series of supply/demand curves.
What's worse. They delude themselves into believing there's a divergence of thought by using Keynes vs Smith as counter-examples. There's no divergence, both schools of thought are minor variations of the same basic fundamental concepts. Economic theory is -- and has been -- stunted for decades by Ivory Tower theorists who gave up on self-reflection decades ago.
Supply/demand do a decent job of mapping basic short-term fiscal trends at the expense of evaluating the impact of long-term trends and/or secondary/tertiary influences.
For example. If immigration limits were eliminated, logic dictates that high skilled labor would migrate en masse to developing countries with a low cost of living. ie maximize profit gains by reducing costs of living.
In reality high-skilled laborers act contrary to Econ theory. The vast majority of individuals who earn enough to cover their costs + future savings are more likely to migrate to western countries where they have a less purchasing power.
Social stability and professional opportunity present a value that transcends the assumptions of traditional Econ theory. It requires a long-term sociological investment (ie measured in centuries) to stabilize a multi-cultural society enough to break down the barriers of tribalism, xenophobia, caste, prejudice, etc.
Economists love to argue that the US recovered from the Great Depression due to the increase in industrialization following WWII. I'd argue that the US became an international super power because of the massive number of high-skilled exiles who migrated the US in search of safety/stability.
Decreasing the limits on immigration will only increase the 'brain drain' from developing countries. Further stunting their growth and competitive standing in the international community.
On the lower-skilled end of the spectrum, people who can't match the high standard of intelligence/talent will be priced out. For instance, I currently live in San Diego not far from the border with Mexico.
Most low-skilled Mexicans that move here either: permanently survive with a lower standard of living (ie for at least a generation); live here temporarily and send money back to their family in Mexico; or commute across the border temporarily for work.
I have a lot of respect those who sacrifice to stay permanently. The rest live a parasitic, transient existence. It's sad to see but I can't really blame them. Mexico is an unsafe, destitute, overpopulated, shithole; run rampant with corruption and extreme economic inequality. Given the choice, I'd probably do the same.
Illegal immigration doesn't hurt the US. We receive an abundance of cheap labor freeing up citizens to pursue higher-skilled professions or work in privileged positions managing low-skilled laborers. It hurts Mexico because -- by subsidizing their failing socio-economic structure -- we're delaying the inevitable watershed effect that would happen when a poverty-stricken populace is absent any alternative.
Instead of addressing the corruption, restructuring the government, and focusing on developing policies that lead to a more safe/stable society; Mexico defaults to a public policy of blaming the US for all of their problems while exporting their poorest/underprivileged underclass as cheap labor to the US.
The most intelligent and/or hardest working of those stay in the US, raise kids who are born naturalized citizens, receive a good education, rise above low-skilled labor, and prosper bringing more long-term benefit to the US overall.
The rest go as the wind blows. When the US economy contracts, opportunities for low-skilled laborers (ie construction, landscaping, etc) are cut and they immigrate back go Mexico.
The hidden impact from looser immigration laws is the potential for overpopulation. It's no good for anybody when a populace increases in size dramatically over a short period of time. Cultural stability depends on some semblance of identity.