> It’s not just the rich, but the average American who benefits from having an immigrant underclass. They enjoy cheaper food prices, more attentive and polite service in restaurants, etc.
I agree. And I wonder if this is talked about enough.
> But I think focusing on the economics is short termism.
I'm inclined to say economics is the root cause of immigration, and should be talked about more.
Would everybody be in favor of decreasing immigration if they knew if might mean a 10-15% lower standard of living for all citizens? I assume the net effect would be more jobs for poor people, higher prices for everyone, and less profits for the rich. Would the richest ten percent allow that to happen?
We're already seeing some of that as we roll into another year of inflation, with service worker wages and food prices leading the way. Every year three million boomers are leaving the work force. Other countries are having big problems with the lack of young workers. Latino immigrants have been a boon to the U.S. in this regard the past couple of decades.
> The most successful country in the history of the world, that’s the product of a singular British culture, should be really skeptical about importing huge populations of people from a different cultural background
The U.S. has already imported huge populations from different cultural backgrounds, and prospered at the same time. We absorbed more immigrants, as a percentage of population, in the 19th century than we are now [0] (a bit more, for over 60 years, slavery goes back earlier than this reference shows).
Would the U.S. have replaced that singluar British culture as the most powerful nation on earth if it were not for immigrants? What if the U.S. as a new country wasn't making money exporting cotton? What if the civil war never happened? What if we took longer to settle the west and push out the Spanish? What if we didn't industrialize at the scale we did before the world wars?
> Fundamental cultural dispositions are extremely sticky over generations.
I grant this. We don't stay isolated in small homogeneous groups any more, we have national media and cheap international travel mixing us all together. We agreed that opinions vary as to whether this is a good thing or not. One could also wonder how much of the problem is the animosity that some people feel towards immigrants, as opposed to the immigrants themselves.
Gosh, as far as culture go, I'm more concerned that so many of our civic and social institutions that tied communities together, things like clubs, leagues, and third places, have deteriorated over the last 50 years, than I am about immigration.
In general I do share many of your concerns, to some extant, but am opposed to only talking about the cultural component of this, which we both agreed is a matter of opinion. Changing demographics, the geography of long borders with disparate neighbors and cheaper transportation may make much of this inevitable, not just in the U.S., given human nature, politics and economics. They are people like us. Can't just shoot them all, right? The world is a changing place, and we are along for the ride sometimes.
[0] https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm...