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Comment by starspangled | Hacker News Reader

But industry cries out for more immigration to suppress wages because they don't have enough workers (or at least, not enough leverage in the labor market as they would like), so I'm not sure if that tracks.

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They will keep crying that, no matter the actual labor market situation. My country has low wages, high unemployment, and yet businesses similarly cry for more immigration, as they always want to find the most desperate worker who accepts the lowest wage possible. That's the reality of modern capitalism.

Have you considered that those foreigners are humans, too?

Or do you believe in out-of-sight-is-out-of-mind?

Of course they are humans like everybody else. But I do not support mass migration as a tool for bringing the wages further down and exploiting workers. I think the rich should be taxed much more, and that money used to reduce poverty & improve education globally. It's not migration itself that is the problem, but the fact many migrants are in a position where they can be exploited more easily than native workers.

In ideal world businesses would have to pay a fair livable wage, no matter where they build factories, or receive migrants from.

Mass migration would bring their wages _up_, not down. That's why they would migrate.

> It's not migration itself that is the problem, but the fact many migrants are in a position where they can be exploited more easily than native workers.

Well, if you let people migrate easily and legally, they wouldn't be easier to exploit than native workers.

You can't possibly be earnestly misunderstanding what GP meant when they said wages would get suppressed, right?

Obviously the migrants wages would be relatively higher, and the locals' wages would be suppressed. Typically locals' needs are the (reasonably) top priority for elected officials.

Hence my insistence that foreigners are also humans.

Why would the locals' wages be suppressed?

In any case, we could try to figure out how much locals' wages would be suppressed, then tax the migrant workers that amount, and pay the locals. Seems pretty straightforward.

Why wouldn’t you want cheaper labor to the extent you need it at all?

Nobody would be investing in labor intensive industry because it doesn't return as well, so there would be a huge oversupply of labor, so prices would already be at their floor.

That doesn't seem to be what's happening though.

Economic systems aren't typically describable with terms like "nobody." There's an equilibrium in investment levels between capital- and labor-intensive sectors, and that equilibrium is moving. If there was a huge oversupply of labor, then it'd make it more compelling to invest in labor-intensive sectors, which would both shift the equilibrium and eliminate the oversupply (which is what has already happened/is happening every hour of every day, thus there's no massive oversupply).

Right, you're replying to my hypothetical which does not describe reality. You contradict the post I first replied to, so it supports my point.

What

Let me echo back what I understand to be your argument: “If there were accelerating returns to capital moving the equilibrium of labor/capital-intensiveness mix, then there would be no demand to further reduce the cost of labor”

My argument is: regardless of where that equilibrium is at any given point in time, it will almost never be 0% labor-intensive, and anyone engaged in labor-intensive production would always have a preference for even lower-cost labor.

So the answer to the question of, “why do businesses want immigration despite a more capital-intensive mix of production” is “because cheaper labor is better regardless of how much labor you need.”

> What

You're replying to basically a strawman I wrote. I didn't say that is what's happening, I said that's what would be happening if investment was all going into capital and not labor intensive industry as OP said.

Good lord you are confused. Nobody anywhere said “all” capital is flowing into capital. You’re trapped in your own straw maze! ;)

Not confused at all, the person with the fallacy that wage intensive activity is insignificant in importance is. Clearly as you say returns are balanced, and the balance that has been arrived at is desperately crying out for more and cheaper labor.

EDIT: Oh, OP is you! No wonder you're getting touchy. Your original comment is wrong.

Can you point me to where I said it’s “insignificant in importance”?

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