What would happen if the U.S. opened its borders?

Great Debates
21

The rich will get richer and the poor poorer.

A giant sucking sound of people swooping in from Mexico.

As in post WWII immigration into Canada when various ethnic groups developed dominance in the various trades and associated unskilled labour, Mexicans will gradually dominate the building trades and service industries with cheap labour displacing both undereducated blacks and whites who will not have the social bonds to help their ethnic brothers get jobs to get ahead. You sort of lose drive and community spirit when your economic outlook is on a downward trend.

Bigotry and ethnic hatred will come to the fore.

Short term, the economy will improve with cheap labour.

22

That’s true. If the Libertarians ever take over, they’ll mess up the country enough that the flood of immigrants entering will be balanced by the flood of emigrants leaving.

23

Well, Canada’s doing all right now . . . isn’t it?

24

So in other words, too many Mexicans for your tastes, eh?

I know this isn’t a debate about whether but if we opened the borders, I’m just having a hard time understanding how people coming into this country who want to be here are supposedly going to ruin everything. I mean, arguments against immigration, when they aren’t blatantly racist or bigoted, seem like they’d apply equally well to procreation. “All these damn kids are going to take our coveted burger-flipping jobs away! We got to stop letting people have babies!” But sometimes I just miss the obvious, so if somebody wants to explain to me in simple words (or point me to a thread that does) why we should keep people out of our country who want to be here, I’m certainly open to being persuaded.

25

Yes, but immigration is way more restricted today to the professional class who do not undermine the economic power of the lower skilled elements of our society.

26

I definitely agree the rich will get richer and the poor will get poorer. A little Macroeconomics is a bad thing, folks. Until we live in a would where the economy is as efficient as in Milton Friedman’s wet dreams, it will always devolve into increasing income disparity. And even then I’m not so sure. Ever have a look at the increasing salary to executives? It’s an outright shame, actually. Of course the argument there is that they are simply being paid market price for their services, but human nature has a way of preventing things from working so simply. As far as immigration is concerned, I haven’t got the slightest idea but it doesn’t sound good. Even if the economy were to somehow function like those Econ 101 models, the shock to the transition would lead to a severe backlash. Unfortunately we have to overcome the physical limitations of our environment. Oh and the environment gets screwed too. There’s a reason why civilization has created government. It can’t be a gigantic free-for-all. If you are born into a rich family, why would you care in the least bit about the plight of the poor?

27

Minor point: I’ve never been poor and I don’t ever expect to be, but I do care deeply about those who suffer from deprivation.

28

You would end up with all these tired, these poor,

These huddled masses yearning to breathe free,

The wretched refuse of another teeming shore.

29

It took me awhile to get the gist of this sentence, but I think you are saying that Canadian immigration policy restrict entrants to professionals, thereby not taking away jobs in low skill areas.

That’s utterly preposterous. Have you taken a taxi recently? Visited a warehouse or a factory in the Toronto area? I know one business with about 120 employees on the factory floor working unskilled assembly work and virtually every single one of them is from China, Southeast Asia, or Eastern Europe - there were maybe four or five native-born Canadians there. I’ve worked with labour placement agencies throughout Canada and they’re swamped with immigrants seeking any work they can get.

The percentage of immigrants to Canada who take professional jobs is a small one. Indeed, about half of immigrants aren’t even on skilled worker visas; half are family visas, refugees, or nannies. And many of those who get in on skilled worker visas are doing low skill jobs.

Personally, I’m just tickled pink with it. Obviously, if they could find the work, it was wise of the government to let them in, as they filled a labor need. I’m all for more immigrants. The most valuable resource in the world is a human being. If the U.S. doesn’t want so many Mexicans, I say offer them a free bus ticket to come here. There’s plenty to do and lots of room. Bienvenidos a Canada!

30

And how do you know this? Is everyone who advocates limiting illegal immigration a racist? Or has he done something specific to earn this badge of dishonor? Please be specific. Or is it just a word you throw around loosely?

31

With open immigration, the U.S. would become much richer, as it did in the last century. Immigrants would work for less, which would lower the prices of goods and services, benefiting us greatly. Labor is another commodity, like steel or wheat. If free trade is good for the latter two (which it is), it is good for the former.

I’m rather disturbed at the number of people who assume that immigration just makes things worse, without even attempting to provide an explanation. The only person who has even attempted is Merkwurdigliebe, who seems to argue that things are more complicated than Econ 101, without going into much further detail.

Are there negative externalities from immigration? Of course. I don’t think they’re enough to balance out the positive effects, but they exist. The environment is one, although I doubt it’s a major issue. Many people around the world today live without plumbing, clean water, and other things we consider essential. Overall, the environment would probably improve (at least in regard to how it affects humans), since more people would be living in less toxic environments. There might be some job turnover, but that happens with all sorts of changes–it’s the creative destruction critical to economic growth.

The big one is crime–I doubt immigrants are particularly more criminal than natives, but being poorer, they might be. At any rate, even at the same crime rate, natives would disproportionately bear the brunt of incarceration costs since we have higher incomes and thus pay more taxes.

Medical care and schooling are also big issues. While liberals and libertarians would disagree on how to deal with this, the analysis is relatively simple. Libertarians would say that govt should not provide either for immigrants. Liberals would be aghast at this, and demand that the govt provide such benefits. However, it is the liberal position that such benefits have significant positive externalities–society is better off helping out the poor and ill, or educating children. If, say, providing free K-12 education for every person in the U.S. is a good thing, then we should continue to do it no matter how big the population gets due to immigration. Costs may increase at first, but after 1 generation they will be recouped and then some. Voters can decide for themselves which political position they endorse and choose accordingly. Either way, there’s not really a problem.

32

Lower wages isnt going to help things. People working full time for min wage and still having to use food stamps to survive is only going to mean more and more deficiet spending and how long can we keep that up?

Higher wages does mean an increase in the cost of goods and services, but it also means more consumers able to buy those goods and serivices. It also means more people who dont have to have assistance just to live.

I already know quite a few people in construction who cant get jobs becaue they are having to bid against people who are using illegal labor. Opening the borders would be a disaster.

33

Lower wages helps things dramatically. It means consumers get goods for less, thus creating an increase in real wealth. I’m assuming that we’re not giving food stamps to all these immigrants, but even if we do, food stamps are a minute part of the federal budget. Even multiplying the amount the govt spends on them by 100 pales in comparison to things like SS and the war in Iraq.

Your focus on jobs rather than consumption displays an unfortunate line of thinking which is common among non-economists, and which leads to many bad policies like subsidies, tariffs, and closed borders. Construction workers who can’t get jobs are the “seen” effect of immigration; what you don’t mention is all the people who get buildings cheaper as a result, and thus have more money to spend elsewhere, again creating real wealth (the “unseen”).

Providing the same good at a lower cost constitutes economic progress. It doesn’t matter whether it’s through innovation, immigration, offshoring, or any other process. To take the example to the extreme, if free appliances started raining from the skies, we would all be much better off, since we would all be getting thousands of dollars worth of goods at no cost. Those currently in the business of making appliances would be worse off, but they would eventually get new jobs doing other things that people need.

No one would suggest that if TV’s poured down like manna from heaven that we should destroy them on the spot to save the jobs of those who manufacture TV’s, but people do suggest that if TV’s get cheaper due to making them in Japan rather than the US, or having them made by immigrants in the US willing to work for less than natives, that we do things to stop such progress, such as building fences and putting up tariffs (a virtual fence). Presumably this is because the increase in wealth in the latter situations is less clear cut than in the former, and also because concentrated interests (manufacturers) tend to do better at getting their way in the political arena than diffuse interests (consumers).

I suggest Bastiat’s Candlemaker’s Petition, or Hazlitt’s Economics in One Lesson for further analysis.

34

But what your are doing is taking a portion of those companies payrol and making the taxpayer pay for it. It isn’t really costing less for the labor, its just costing the company less.

Yes…a few people have more money to spend, but the overwhelming majority of the population have such a low wage that they cant buy anything but cheap housing in food. Its starts a downward spiral.

A far oversimplified way of looking at it. It provides a short term benifit and a long term detriment when that lower cost is produced at the cost of wages.

The idea of destroy one industry…there will always be more is short sighted as well. Eventually it becomes hard to ignore all those masses of unemployed and on welfare working poor.

The bottom line is that without consumers able to purchase stuff, making stuff cheap doesnt help. There has to be balance. In order for the economy to be truely healthy people have to be able to make a decent living and have money left over to buy goods and services…and if they dont, then you become a third world country. You have to have someone to sell those cheap goods to.

35

What’s with the assumption that everyone who wants to move to the US is some kind of disreputable Mexican or from the Subcontinent?

I’d love to move to the US- but since there’s no practical way to get a green card, my legally available options consist of:

A) Stay here

B) Get my own country, with Blackjack, and Hookers!

C) See if I can move to Canada. They look like they’ve got the whole “Remnants of Britain in North America” thing going. Plus I can go Moose Hunting. :smiley:

Seriously though, why don’t you guys in the US just come out and admit you don’t want Mexicans and Ethnic people moving there?

The White Australia Policy may be one of the more… unfortunate aspects of Australia’s history, but at least the Government of the day was being honest with everyone about its immigration policies- even if they were unconscionably racist.

36

A couple of points.

Immigration would not just be from Mexico and Eastern Europe

  • you would see hordes streaming in from Africa

I don’t agree that lower wages make for a thriving economy, it can help fill jobs that the natives don’t much want to do, but if all wages go down one runs a serious risk of a depression - we had that in the UK when people were given pay cuts, overall demand went down …

In the UK there is some debate about the value of immigration, the ‘immigrants’ tend to send money home (which is fair enough) and that is not an asset to the economy.

Personally I think that pro-immigration supporters take a rather odd view of things. If someone decided to live in my front room, uninvited, I would be distinctly miffed.

37

You’re assuming the entire difference is made up through govt subsidies. If so, then you’re correct, and this is a bad idea. I doubt this would happen though. First, I imagine few people would be willing to give govt aide to immigrants. Even if they were willing, I doubt that the entire difference of wages would be made up by govt aide.

You mistakenly assume that displaced workers simply end up unemployed or working at McJobs. In reality, as has happened throughout history, people move on to new jobs where they can employ there skills providing new goods that create more wealth. Consider the first mass downsizing in human history: the agricultural revolution. Everyone on earth was employed as a hunter-gatherer. When humans learned to farm, all but a small percentage had to find new jobs. Remarkably, this led to an increase in wealth, not a decrease. The pattern repeats itself throughout the next 10,000 years. Whenever humans are able to do a previous task more cheaply–either because of innovation or finding people who will labor for less–wealth is created and society progresses.

I disagree. Immigration provides a long term benefit, as it has throughout history, by increasing efficiency. It does not “destroy” industries, but rather streamlines them. A job that can be done cheaper due to immigration is no different than one that can be done cheaper due to a new technology.

All true, but irrelevant. Immigration will not drive down wages to subsistence levels. In certain fields, it will lower wages, harming those who currently work in those fields, but creating a more than offsetting benefit to everyone else.

Go back to my analogy of TV’s falling from the sky. Imagine cars start falling as well–oops, there goes the whole auto industry! Then food–bye bye agriculture! At what point do we start destroying the manna to save jobs so that we can have a balance? As any good economist will tell you, never! Those previously employed in those industries are certainly in worse shape, but eventually they will go on to grow the economic pie by providing new goods and services, much like the agricultural revolution allowed man to finally do something other than stave off starvation.

38

It has already been demonstrated by places where walmart has become the primary emloyer. There is no reason to think that it would be differant with a new wave of cheap labor coming in. People need to eat, and food is at about as cheap as it is going to get because it is already produced by cheap labor.
These are PEOPLE afterall…not ust some cheaper machine.

Problem is we are out of new goods. The newer things on the block require less and less labor to produce. In your examples there was usually a big new thing to progress to…and that new thing is what caused the progression not hte other way around. There isn’t now. Destroying the income source for your population under the assumption that some new magical thing will come along and take care of those people is irresponsible and silly.

its a lot differant. When you have a huge influx of of cheap labor, the labor rate for the entire country goes down. when a new technology comes along it usually effects only a small part of the country and there is more time to adapt.

unchecked immigration provides a long term benifit if we want to be that country where the marjority of our citizens live in poverty and sew shoes for a dollar a day to sell to outher countrys. I don’t think we want to go that direction and I dont think there are enough richer countrys to sell those shoes to.

I disagree. It will only create an offsetting benifit to the very wealthy.

again…you are assuming there is some magical new batch of jobs to replace the ones that are gone. It is ust as silly as the tvs falling from the sky analogy.

Speaking of autos… although I dont particularly admire ford on a personal level,

"“There is one rule for industrialists and that is: Make the best quality of goods possible at the lowest cost possible, paying the highest wages possible” Henry Ford

Is something that the current batch of short term thinking business leaders could learn from. When wages are up, the economy is better off (to a point)…Because higher wages for everyone means more people are spending money. Lower wages means only a few business owners are better off.

I own my own business and I cant wait till min wage gets increased. I wish they would bring it up to 10 bucks an hour. A drop in the lowest wage would kill me

To make things easy…say my labor is 25 percent of my expense that go into my product cost. None of my other product cost is going to be effected by a min wage increase because the goods I sell are not produced by min wage labor. So I wind up having to up my prices by about 5 percent to compensate. But now my customers…a huge number of them make very low wages…have more money in their pockets. My competitors who now pay considerably less than I do per hour now have to pay as much as I do per hour. everyone benifits.

39

I want to move my coffee shop to Coober Pedy. I wonder if there is some sort of immigration trade that could worked out.

You dont understand. Its not the ethnic people I dont want here…Living in Texas I want to be able to trade our closed minded ignorant white folk on a one to one basis…for every one we get in from Mexico we ship out one of those people who kept re-electing Tom Delay. I’ve got my kid learning spanish because he’s going to need it by the time he’s an adult and I think thats not a bad thing…that and as much as I want Cherokee to be made the official language it isn’t going to happen.

I think Texas would be a better place if it were more culturally diverse…and I see that as one of the benifits of illegal immigration problem. The effect it has on our economy is the only thing that concerns me.

40

The idea that we are “out of new goods” is so ludicrous I don’t even know where to begin. Human ingenuity is the ultimate resource, and there will always be new goods and services demanded.

As far as depressing wages, I still think my point isn’t coming across: some wages will probably go down. As a whole, however, real wages will not decrease. Imagine what would happen if a plague came along and killed everyone in America without a high school diploma. Would us survivors be better off, since a source of cheap labor would be gone? Of course not! And yet some people would have us believe that cheap labor is a problem, rather than a benefit.

Here are some excellent essays on the economics of immigration, which demonstrate the mainstream economists’ viewpoint that immigration is a giant benefit to an economy, the same as any other free trade.