You really can’t get someone more left-wing on the American political spectrum than Ralph Nader – that is, without going to communism or Marxism.
And yet here he is below giving us a badly-needed left-wing perspective on why open borders and mass immigration are a bad idea. And he is perfectly right too. I put forward a similar case here.
Yet another thing to add is this: with open borders, Keynesian fiscal policy and policies to create full employment are badly thwarted and disrupted, because as your economy booms your open borders just allow more people to flood in and create more unemployed and more competition for jobs.
Well he's not perfectly right. He's wrong about the "brain drain" and its consequences, and I think the minimum wage law too. He's partly right.
ReplyDeleteOne objection.
ReplyDelete"Open borders" is speaking as an abstract concept or a theoretical idea, because it does not exist in any of the major Western countries (the context in which this is being discussed).
I mean, immigration to the US is extraordinarily difficult, and not something achieved easily. At least through the legal channels. And otherwise, the ones arriving illegally often have to cross a hostile desert environment.
""Open borders" is speaking as an abstract concept or a theoretical idea, because it does not exist in any of the major Western countries "
DeleteNot true. The Schengen area is an open borders territory.
I stand corrected.
DeleteIn the Schengen area, you do have many many languages and dialects, which means you can not immigrate for jobs as easily.
A Portuguese person could migrate to Germany, but will not be able to work there (at any level) without very good knowledge of German.
This is actually one of the factors keeping European unemployment so high, since unlike US, people can not migrate from one European country to another for jobs as they do from one American state to another.
"This is actually one of the factors keeping European unemployment so high"
DeleteNot really. Mostly it is the Euro and the neoliberal policies of the ECB.
There are no language barriers or movement barriers between Ireland and the UK. Yet the Irish unemployment rate is still 203,000 - as required by the NAIRU theories to maintain inflation rates.
True. But if Ireland were to pursue fiscal policy and create full employment, that would just encourage waves of immigrants from the EU to come in, proving exactly my point: open borders are a threat to full employment policies.
Delete"You really can’t get someone more left-wing on the American political spectrum than Ralph Nader"
ReplyDeleteMaybe so. But you do realize that a sizable portion of the US left -- I'd guess an overwhelming majority -- loathes Nader for acting as a spoiler in the 2000 presidential election, yes?