Three cheers for Arnold Kling:
“Where would you prefer that people be poor?” That is, do we want to insist that poor Hispanics should remain in their native countries, because we want to make our own national statistics on health insurance coverage and poverty look better?
…
In my view, economists have to be relatively favorable toward immigration, just as we have to be relatively favorable to free trade in general. It’s our job to lean against xenophobia.
But does Kling realize that immigration will destroy the market system (not)?
Framing apartheid
Dev Purkayastha, riffing on two of my recent posts, writes:
[Close-the-borders-protect-the-jawbs] is clearly winning out over intellectualized arguments by economists. I’ve mulling a strong counter-message that has more of an intuitive and emot…
Economists should concentrate on removing all trade barriers and corrupt corporate subsidies. Then Hispanics and others would have other ways to get rich than by abandoning their families and cultures and coming to the west. I’m not against immigration, but I’m against reluctant immigration.
We only have 100 years to live. The earth is a wonderful place. All humans should be able to see the whole world without borders just like our ancestors were able to do.
A nation without borders is not a nation.
Our ancestors have lived in a world with political borders ever since civilization began. I see it as not a fear of Hispanics, nor a concern for better health care and poverty statistics. I see it as a concern for our government’s ability to care for any and all of the poor from other nations, when our governments at all levels are struggling to care for all of its own poorest of the poor.
Ronald Reagan,
Good! I don’t like nations.
Descendent,
Your concern for the “poorest of the poor” is disingenous considering that the poorest of the poor by orders of magnitude live exclusively outside the U.S. and immigration is one of the most effective anti-poverty policies. Location of birth is not a valid category. Step out of the fog of jurisdictionism!
[…] Long overdue reply to a comment (nearly identical comment, even older) left here by Ronnie Horesh: I see totally free trade in goods and services as a higher priority than unrestricted immigration. The west needs willing immigrants, not those compelled by poor prospects at home to leave their cultures and (in m any cases) families behind. […]