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I agree, the base of the Democratic party has pursued a self-congratulatory image of inclusivity and righteousness to the point that many working-class whites think they're an afterthought to the Dems. I remember watching the 2016 DNC, seeing a procession of speakers who represented cities and minority communities, and thinking "if I were a poor white person and I thought the Democratic party had forgotten me, this would play right into that belief."

Ironically Democratic policies regarding education, environment, and labor would give a better deal to working-class folk of any background, and Republican posturing about education has more to do with image than with preventing unskilled work from entering the country (after all, business loves Republicans and business loves low wages). But so much of politics is an image game, and once Nixon pioneered (ew) the implicit politicization of race, the Dems never controlled their narrative again. They more or less embraced the role defined for them by their enemy, which is a classic strategic blunder. I'm not sure how they can reclaim the narrative upper hand.

And yes, I agree. By sticking too moral principles in the immigration fight, Dems are losing that too. But the alternative is to be logical, which doesn't tend to work with a loosely informed electorate that votes on feelings. Curious if anyone has thoughts on a better strategy there. It almost seems like the left needs an orator who can precisely walk the line between acknowledging and speaking to lower-class white outrage and also acknowledging all peoples' humanity.

> It almost seems like the left needs an orator who can precisely walk the line between acknowledging and speaking to lower-class white outrage and also acknowledging all peoples' humanity.

I’m going to sound like a broken record on my HN comments and he may end up being completely full of shit, but right now I think that description fits Pete Buttigieg to a tee. You can find plenty of flattering coverage of him if you Google, so I won’t link to any of that. Instead I’ll link to a take down of Buttigieg that you can contrast against the flattering coverage of him.

https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/03/all-about-pete

> But whenever people talk about the 'good old days' they're racist, right? /s

Why can't we have a more nuanced discussion and acknowledge both: a. that globalism, free trade, and automation have negatively impacted blue collar workers b. that much of blue collar quality of life in good old days did come at the explicitly racist policies, starting with slavery and continuing through federally enforced redlining in which has been the main source of wealth accumulation [1]

It's also worth noting that many working class gains in the "good old days" excluded black workers due to historical racial divisions in labor movement and unions explicitly opposed economic liberties for racial and ethnic minorities. [2] MLK was murdered while working to unify the racial and labor struggles. This division continues to be exploited by populist politicians.

> If people truly cared about the plight of the uneducated working class, there'd be taxes on wealth, incentives against rentiers, far higher minimum wages FWIW, I agree with these items and grew up on a farm in the white american heartland

The GI bill is another good example of economic support for the working class from the "good old days" that like much of the Jim Crow era primarily benefited whites at the expense of other racial groups [3]

1. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/the-unf...

2. https://racial-justice.aflcio.org/blog/est-aliquid-se-ipsum-...

3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/African_Americans_and_the_G.I....

Blue colar workers did not profited from slavery. The interests of free labor were one of reasons for slavery opposition. Blue colar worker can't compete with slave (or ther slaveholder using slave).

White blue collar workers benefited (or believed that they benefited) from racial exclusion. That's why many labor unions in US were white-only, and supported segregation:

https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/labor-unions-and...

(note the date)

There is massive difference between racial exclusion (where blacks cant perform work) and slavery (where they are forced to perform the work for zero compensation and thus are cheaper).

I wanted to disagree with that one specific point.

You're compressing history; "blue collar" didn't exist during slavery.

I took it as labor people - those who do manual work for compensation. Field, work, carpenter, etc. It did existed during that time period in states where slavery was not legal.

There was much less of it in states where slavery was legal.

Blue collar workers in the North definitely benefited from slavery in the form of lower cost of living as many items were imported from the South to the North. Also cheaper imports for northern manufacturing increased the value of norther labor.

> If people truly cared about the plight of the uneducated working class, there'd be taxes on wealth, incentives against rentiers, ... and maybe even basic income.

Maybe there would be those things in certain countries now, if the uneducated working class focused intently on voting for parties calling for those things instead of being distracted by political forces that wish to blame immigration for their problems. If I were a lower-income person, I would much rather live on basic income (and have the time to seek training and employment for better prospects) while letting gastarbeiter do all the shit work, than to have to do the shit work myself.

If you have an ever wider empathic perspective, maybe immigration hurts poor Americans but helps poor foreigners even more.

Should it really be economic policy to fuck part of your own population so that another countries' migrants can make more money?

Dunno, when I did my econ degree economic development was still talked about. It seems that everyone has given up on economic development and would rather plunder a nation's workforce to benefit their own capitalist class.

Or would incentivize investing in said foreign countries with lower labor costs?

> If you have an ever wider empathic perspective, maybe immigration hurts poor Americans but helps poor foreigners even more.

This is actually a case of toxic empathy: that view isn't the one that leads to the best outcome, because it destroys your capacity to help for short term improvements, leading to long term negative outcomes and an increased number of victims. Tempering raw empathy with rational evaluation increases your capacity to help and leads to a greatly improved outcome.

To use a cliche: during a rescue, don't become a victim.

An overabundance of immigration disrupts the host culture, which is the feature of the world that is causing the good outcome -- that the host culture causes more human thriving than the culture being emigrated from. When you draw too much from the resources of healthy cultures to try and fix systemic problems in other cultures, you end up damaging the healthy cultures, not fixing the problem. This simply degrades the situation, whereas a slower rate of change would remain stable, and lead to a genuine improvement in the world.

It's a cancerous idea, caused by failing to regulate your emotions: you're not being genuinely empathetic, you're shirking responsibility to get high on good feelings because look at how woke.

I described a scenario where more foreigners are helped than Americans are hurt.

You're criticizing the opposite scenario.

The manipulation that allowed slavery to exist it pretty similar to the immigrant rhetoric.

In the civil war era, “Johnny Reb” was a poor white devalued by slavery. Racial superiority and disdain was the bread and circus that kept the system going. In the north, the Irish and other immigrants were often virulently racist as their labors threatened by it. That’s a big part of why you had riots in New York that escalated to the point of near insurrection.

I am sympathetic with your broad POV, but in fact there is precious little evidence that immigration has harmed workers wages. For reviews see e.g.

Kerr, S.P. and Kerr, W.R., 2011. Economic impacts of immigration: A survey (No. w16736). National Bureau of Economic Research. Dustmann, C., Glitz, A. and Frattini, T., 2008. The labour market impact of immigration. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 24(3), pp.477-494.

By contrast, there is plenty of evidence that trade with China harmed US workers' wages, starting with:

David, H., Dorn, D. and Hanson, G.H., 2013. The China syndrome: Local labor market effects of import competition in the United States. American Economic Review, 103(6), pp.2121-68.

I don't say academics are guaranteed to be right, but they have looked pretty hard for labour market effects of migration, and not found them. There may be some specific groups of workers who have suffered a lot - but you don't see broad overall effects.

The fact that IBM (and others) insist on the continued flow of H1-B workers shackled to their visa is evidence enough that it harms workers' wages.

That wouldn't prove it harms workers. It would prove it benefits IBM. What benefits IBM may also benefit the rest of the US - for example, by lowering the cost of IBM's services.

Labour economists have spent thousands of hours analysing data to understand the effects of migration. There are thirty years of papers. Some are quite good. It would be better if the public debate were more informed by this effort.

> There may be some specific groups of workers who have suffered a lot

And that's the point. Obviously plenty of people in the US are very well off, that won't make poor people any happier.

Also, outsourcing labour and bringing in migrants have similar effects on wages because in both cases domestic labour is being replaced with lower-cost labour.

You may think that poor people have suffered from migration - but it is very hard to see in the data. That is my point.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w3761

No, the data supports it, especially over the time period outlined by the original article.

That paper is interesting but it was published in 1991, and it predates the modern use of exogenous shocks to get clear evidence on causality. In particular, it doesn't directly estimate effects on wages - it calculates them from an economic model. Whereas this paper looks directly for wage effects, in the context of a big local labour supply shock, and doesn't find them:

Card, D., 1990. The impact of the Mariel boatlift on the Miami labor market. ILR Review, 43(2), pp.245-257.

Borjas is an interesting guy and I respect him, but I don't think the overall literature supports his negative view of migration's effects on wages.

I stand by my claim, not because I'm a huge expert, but backed up by the two literature reviews mentioned above.

Your paper is literally cited and explained by the one I posted...

Seems like this would have made for a great dialog with the working class rather than refusing to engage and painting them all racists and deplorables. Imagine how different the political landscape might look if we tried to bring people into the fold instead of looking for ways to implicate them as closet Nazis.

Agreed!

I’m really disappointed that we middle/upper class liberals who used to advocate for free speech and rational debate and compassion/inclusivity (esp of the disenfranchised) find it much easier to demonize and misrepresent this group rather than empathize or engage with their arguments. For all the criticism we levied at conservatives for their hypocrisy, utter lack of self-awareness, and authoritarian instincts, we are determined to outdo them.

Well, since it seems like you stating that illegal immigration disproportionately hurts the working class comes across as a right wing talking point - and I thought so too for the longest. My mind was changed by NPR of all things....

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/632/transcript

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/633/transcript

Companies do in fact discriminate against Americans for low wage workers because they can pay them less and some companies do skirt worker verification requirements when hiring low skilled workers.

Of course seeing that I am a minority, I don’t approve of the demonization of foreigners. They are using the same tactics that use to be called the Southern Strategy.

An unemployed person wannabe-immigrant on the far side of the border is still suffering. They don't pop into existence when they immigrate.

What about their own country? Unless you're calling it a shithole?

"immigration disproportionately affects uneducated workers by dramatically increasing the supply of labour"

Can you back these arguments with some evidence? Otherwise they are just empty claims.

"Otherwise they are just empty claims."

No, it's basic economics actually.

All other things equal, if you increase the supply of labour, you're going to see lower prices.

Of course, the economy is not 'all things equal' i.e. more bodies means more consumers etc. but the logic is fairly sound.

In Northern Alberta, for the Oil sands, the lingo they use to push for more migrants is 'labour input costs': "We're seeing risks due to labour input costs" etc.. It's a slightly extreme case given the isolation up there but it's real.

So in the 'long run' things might work better out but the short run economics are pretty straightforward.

How are we accommodating growth of the economy in this argument? Or even growth in a particular industry with a high demand for labor?

That's 'long run' economics. So yes, as soon as you get outside the short run it gets hard to calculate.

But it's really hard to argue in any circumstance that 'more workers = higher wages' because wages will be a function of available labour.

The 'rub' in the data really is the fact it doesn't take into consideration the black market. Wages paid under the table are 100% part of the real economy, and those are wages, but they generally don't go into the equations.

Imagine if the 'average us wage' were calculated with a few million extra people earning below minimum and with zero benefits?

When there is full employment though, and not tons of undocumented workers, one could argue that economic expansion could pick up the slack, surely.

Assuming we are talking low skill illegal immigration:

https://www.usccr.gov/pubs/docs/IllegImmig_10-14-10_430pm.pd...

Highly skilled, educated, legal immigrants are going to be a net positive.

Here: https://www.nber.org/papers/w3761

Tldr is that immigration can explain 40% of the effects on relative earnings for non-educated workers.

Lots of people with litte money are a dramatic increase in the labor supply, pretty much by definition?

I’m not sure what other evidence you’d be looking for.

Imagine an island with 100 people and let's make a reasonable assumption that everyone's occupation contributes positively. Everybody works and is able to live comfortably by trading their products and services.

Now imagine an island with 100 million. On this island, some huge fraction of jobs dont contribute positively, or at least value is not > pay. A lot of this comes from anticompetitive markets or from highly regulated ones.

Then imagine on that big island, a central bank prints out a significant portion of that island's GDP in cold hard cash and trades it only with Wall St (they could at least buy healthcare, education, housing or food, but they buy bonds or "toxic assets"). Or maybe they make a sneaky argument and claim to buy housing by buying CMOs, MBSs, etc, as a way to hide the fact that they are paying Wall St.

Now are the problems anything but obvious?

This island also has a group of privileged and unprivileged people, and one of the privileged ones fucked it up so badly that everyone was like, ok let’s see what this other group has got. They talk about universal healthcare and redistribution of wealth to serve everyone better. But it would mean a lot of the traditionally privileged group would have to accept a lower status on the island. So they give a final Hail Mary in the attempt to prevent this, because ultimately, if you’re entire self-worth is based on your privileged status, it doesn’t matter how healthy you are or how good of an outcome you may have. Social hierarchy is powerful.

The article only studied whites, for homogeneity. Maybe the good ole days for some, but the world is drastically better today for most of the people living in it than it was in the 40s, or 60s.

It might help the entire situation of pride and social hierarchy if people who wear dickies and work with their hands weren’t getting constantly shit on, for no other reason than they wear dickies and work with their hands. Plenty of people in liberal white-guilt circles too whose entire self-worth is built around race - let’s call these people racists.