Posted on 05/30/2006 2:40:17 PM PDT by A. Pole
Despite the endless blathering and squirming to the contrary on the part of Wired Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, the Cato Institute and other institutions that normally proclaim the truth of free-market economics, the Law of Supply and Demand applies to labor as much as to any other thing that is bought and sold. That is to say, if one increases the supply of labor relative to demand, its price will fall. That price is your salary, friend. And mass immigration is inexorably driving it down. Well, maybe not your salary personally, if you are lucky enough to work in a sector of the economy that is sheltered, for some reason, from the effects of immigrant labor, as lawyers are by the fact that few immigrants have American law degrees. But it is the salary of your neighbors, and it is being depressed by an influx of cheap labor. There is just no way around this basic economic fact. If there is, then free-market economics is a lie.
Yes, immigrant labor expands the economy as a whole by adding more producing workers. But a big aggregate GNP isn’t prosperity: just compare Switzerland, which is tiny but rich, with India, which is huge but poor. Per capita GNP, which produces per-capita income, is prosperity, and immigration does nothing to increase that. True, it might, if immigrants were on average more productive than native Americans. But they’re not. Every measure – by the Census Bureau and others – shows them as being massively poorer, less educated, and less likely to attain middle-class status than native Americans.
America was founded on the concept – well understood by Alexander Hamilton and the other economic sophisticates among the founders – of a middle-class society, i.e. a society organized to minimize the number of people who constitute cheap labor. Cheap labor was the proletariat which drove Europe’s class-ridden and undemocratic politics, the nightmare of revolution and reaction America was founded to escape.
Contrary to libertarian myth, America’s economy was never, ever, based on a totally free market in labor. It was based on a labor market constricted by limited immigration and a small population relative to national resources, and a free market in everything else. This was designed to produce high wages. We have always been an explicitly high-wage nation relative to other societies, and this did not happen by accident. (This is the key story in Pat Buchanan’s book The Great Betrayal, and he is right about this, even if he is wrong about other things.)
Labor is the one and only area in which no rational society should want to construct a free market, because free markets make things cheap, and high wages equal a high standard of living. Before anyone pounces, I realize you have to define this a real, not nominal, wages and that there are all sorts of technicalities to this issue. But the principle is rock-solid. Labor is fundamentally different from all other commodities because its well-being is an end in itself, not a means to other ends. And before anyone pounces again, I am advocating controls on the influx of foreign labor, not unions or limits on which jobs Americans can hold.
We used to have a commitment to a middle-class, bourgeois society. We have now lost that commitment at the moment when we are busy congratulating ourselves on how supremely capitalist we have become. We are importing a proletariat when we should be abolishing poverty.
Rather than making a profit through superior technology and management, as American business has surpassed the entire world in doing for 200 years, an increasingly large sector of corporate America just wants to take the lazy road of importing cheap labor to work for them. This is not economic progress; it is retrogression. It is a formula for becoming Brazil.
Some of cheap labor’s biggest lobbyists:
1. The high-tech industry. Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, the pre-eminent figure in the high tech industry, is a passionate and vociferous supporter of cheap labor, primarily because overseas-trained engineers from India, China and Pakistan are cheaper than American tech workers.2. The meat packing industry, especially pig and chicken slaughtering. This industry, of course, has a long and storied past of using cheap immigrant labor. Read Upton Sinclair’s novel The Jungle from 100 years ago.
3. Clothing manufacturers. Despite the efforts of the Ladies Garment Workers Union to eliminate sweat shops some 60 years ago, they are still alive and thriving in the states, employing mostly Asian women who work in terrible conditions.
4. Unions. These supposed advocates of the American worker and longtime opponents of importing immigrant labor are now part of the cheap labor lobby because they primarily serve the interests of union bosses, not workers. Bosses want more poor workers so they can have more members. They don’t want to see their members graduate to the middle class, where people generally don’t feel the need to belong to a union.
5. The hotel and restaurant industry. Another big business interest whose employees are primarily cheap labor from Latin America.
6. The ultra-wealthy – both liberals and nominal conservatives. They believe that only foreign workers are willing to work as their nannies, landscapers, and housekeepers.
7. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, led by Grover Norquist, formerly a vocal spokesman for many conservative issues. This group has led the charge in convincing Congress to expand the awful H-1B visa program. They argue that more H-1B visas granted to foreign workers will alleviate a mythical shortage of skilled technology workers. The H-1B visa program allots 115,000 foreign worker visas annually, but the Chamber of Commerce said that isn’t nearly enough.
8. The governors of certain rural, Midwestern states (such as Iowa) whose populations are shrinking, prompting a cry for an influx of new residents. Of course, these governors do not consider attracting native Americans by offering a growing economy a better solution.
Cheap labor is not real capitalism, it is corporatism, for cheap labor is subsidized by the government, which ends up paying the health and welfare costs of these workers. All taxpayers bear the cost.
Let’s get clear about one thing: there are no jobs that Americans “won’t do.” There are jobs that Americans won’t do at the wage being offered. If you offered me enough money, I would bus tables or clean bathrooms. When I was younger and without work experience, I would have done so gladly. If employers can’t fill these jobs, this is their own fault for not offering enough. They have no intrinsic right to be able to fill positions at the price they feel like paying, any more than you or I have the right to buy a car or a TV at the price we feel like paying. I will concede there is a shortage of labor in this country when the cheap labor lobby concedes there is a shortage of Lear Jets, which I would dearly like to own.
Who’s fighting the cheap labor lobby? For one thing, the 235,000 members of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.-USA and the American Engineering Association. Last summer they chastised Congress for facilitating the cheap labor lobby when there were so many unemployed American engineers with training in high-demand skills such as C++ and Java. According to the IEEE-USA, the unemployment rate for electrical and electronics engineers was up to 4.8 percent by last summer, compared to 4.1 percent for the first quarter of the year. In addition, the jobless rate for computer scientists was 5.3 percent, up from 4.8 percent in the first quarter. Among older engineers, who can easily be scrapped for new foreign workers, the rates are much worse.
At the time, LeEarl Bryant, president of the IEEE-USA, told the Boston Globe:
"It is time for Congress to take a closer look at the problem of engineering unemployment and eliminate the government subsidies and incentives that encourage corporate management to treat US engineers as a disposable labor commodity rather than an essential investment in our nation's future.”
It is not simply laid off workers who see the problem. Norman Matloff, a computer science professor at the University of California at Davis, has studied hiring at high-tech firms. Using hard data, he has concluded that companies overwhelmingly hire cheap foreign labor over American engineers applying for the same jobs. He debunked the myth of a “desperate software labor shortage” when he appeared before Congress several years ago.
One of the cheap labor lobbyist’s most devious tactics is supporting immigrants rights groups. This is a practice favored by Bill Gates, who contributes large amounts to “open borders” and immigrants rights groups.
One irony is that many of the immigrants who are harmful additions to the American economy would actually be beneficial back home, where the level of economic development is much lower. The Indian government isn’t that happy about seeing its best and brightest end up in Silicon Valley. We should sympathize entirely with their desire to have them back home where they can do some good.
But in Iowa last year, that state’s residents risked the retribution of the left by speaking out against a plan by Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat and cheap-labor lobbyist. His “New Iowans” proposal to bring immigrants there to fill jobs caused a swift and strong backlash, with many Iowans complaining that immigrants would take their jobs and drive wages down. Indeed, liberals and the cheap-labor lobby quickly attacked, citing Iowa’s overwhelmingly white population and accusing its citizens of racism and fear-mongering. However, once his constituents voiced their opposition, Vilsack quietly reversed his position on mass immigration to the state, emphasizing instead the part of the plan that encourages former Iowa residents to return to the state.
Ironically, cheap labor will ultimately be the undoing of American unions, one of cheap labor’s newest devotees. In the hotel and restaurant industry, a new set of workers has collectively negotiated lower wages and worse working conditions for its rank and file members, an inevitable consequence of a shift in the supply-demand balance with respect to labor that unionization cannot abolish. The same pressure, more or less intense in some industries, in some regions, and at different points in the economic cycle, is inexorably at work against the rest of the labor force.
And that includes you.
Note: My thanks to Diana Hull, of the group Californians for Population Stabilization, which has done extensive research on the detrimental effects of immigration on that state. Also, thanks to David Simcox, chair of the Policy Board of the Center for Immigration Studies, who wrote an excellent article on the subject of labor and the role of unions in The Social Contract.
So, a bus boy would earn $31,000+/year.
If that's the case, what should a more skilled kitchen worker...say a cook make per hour?
Mind you, being a bus boy requires no training, and no skills, while being a cook requires training, skills, and even State certification.
How much per hour for that cook?
Illegal illegal illegal. There. You happy?
Most Americans are concerned by illegal immigration because they recognize the kind of immigrants we're getting with our open borders not only put a strain on our social services
So why not spend all this political effort to end welfare. At least end it for new immigrants (theoretically legal immigrants, if we politically trade eliminating their welfare for giving them legal status).
Wouldn't you rather end welfare than keep out ILLEGALS? Ending welfare for one group of people is a good start to ending it across the board. Wouldn't that be a better idea?
an administration which is waging a war on terror but leaves our Southern border unprotected.
If we were allowing LEGAL immigration through the front door, with security checks required, then the problem is solved.
And even better, when LEGAL immigrants are coming through the gates, you can bet that anyone sneaking across the border is a genuine bad guy. It would be easy to pick out the solitary rare bad guy in the sonoran desert than pick out the bad guy among thousands of ILLEGALS.
I will note that this movement of labor only flows one way since it's not possible for me or you to get a job in Mexico
So go campaign to work in Mexico. Don't try to fool anyone with an argument that looks like you're just trying to be fair. You want mexicans out, not to go to mexico and work.
Your point about making the illegal immigrants America loving english speaking conservatives is laughable.
So how did we win the hearts of the Italians, or the Irish, Germans, Eastonians, etc.? Answer: We insisted they speak English, and when they did we welcomed them and our sons married their daughters.
Conversely, talking about fences and deporting people is guaranteed that they won't want to be American like you.
poor immigrants naturally tend towards the party that will give them the most benefits (at the expense of taxpayers). Guess which party that is. There never was a scenario wherein these immigrants will become Republicans.
I think Bush's original goal was to have Republicans seen as the party that welcomed Latinos into the American dream. If that isn't "giving them something" then I don't know what is. With the Catholic religious conservative background of mexican ILLEGALS it should have been a natural for them to go to the Republican party. That certainly won't happen now that many Republicans are leading the attempt (that will fail) to keep them out.
One final point. The employment rate is not based on the number of people eligible to work, it's based on the number of people in the workforce and those actively pursuing work.
If you're implying that there is a huge number of workers that have "given up" finding jobs because they don't exist, I think you're dreaming. I'm sure you can find one Buchanonite that still dreams of getting his old union steel mill job back. But reasonable people have moved on and found other work. The economy is booming, and that's a fact.
So, just in the unskilled labor aspect of picking lettuce, your $10/hour translates into a 6% increase in the cost of that case, and a decrease in the profit margin on all plates that include lettuce.
If those pickers were paid an additional $10/hour, then their supervisors would demand an equal increase in pay, as would the packers, processors, and all related personnel who touch that head of lettuce.
Eventually, all wages would move up to stay relative to the level of skills required for the job, and price of goods would move up to accommodate the increase in labor costs, and the business's need to maintain a profitable bottom line placing the pickers right were they started...at the bottom of the economic barrel, and that lettuce would be the exact same percentage of their wages as it is today,
What is bus boy? I take bus sometimes and I see only bus driver. Do you think that it is wrong to pay bus driver $31,000+/year?
Well, from your reaction, it's one of those jobs Americans don't know about.
Illegal illegal illegal. There. You happy?
Your recognition of the proper status of these border crossers makes me neither happy or sad. If it represents a genuine change in your views as to their status then I suppose that's progress.
Ending welfare is a good idea but we both know that's not going to ever happen. Too many people who wear their hearts on their sleeves will ensure it won't. Those very same people insist that illegal aliens are entitled to the same benefits as any citizen. The only way to control that is to control the border.
Allowing legal immigration through the front door is a fine idea. A properly monitored and legal guest worker program is desirable but not until we close the back door of illegal immigration. Why would anyone stand hat in hand at the front door and say please may I when they can walk through the back door and bypass the hassle. Not to mention the kind of people who don't really want to come through the front door. Without a secure border a guest worker program is just eyewash.
Whether I personally want to go to Mexico and work is completely and totally irrelevant. If it's fair for Mexicans to come here and work it's fair that Mexican law should allow reciprocity.
Go to your nearest government office and/or school district in a Latino area and insist that they only conduct their business in English and explain to them that you only harbor the noble purpose of wanting all those who participate in this society to speak English and it's for their own good. Then let me know which county lockup I can forward your correspondence to.
If putting up fences and deporting people makes them not want to be American frankly I could care less. Those who are illegals by and large don't want to be Americans anyway. The event that woke me up in this regard were the marches with Latino groups proclaiming loudly that we were the invaders and in fact they planned to reclaim portions of the Southwest. Until that happened I was generally ambivalent on the issue. If the Latino groups had sat down and tried to devise a strategy to turn most Americans against them they could not have come up with a better plan.
Social Engineering the USA is no answer, it just makes things worse and destroys what our ancestors sacrificed to create.
I am all for deportation, even if it takes us 20 years.
Rarely have I seen a woman write with such intelligence about illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
illegal immigration
Don't try to weasel out by simply calling it "immigration' or "migration"
But if guys like you manage to change US into Latin America we will have a lot of "bus buys" paid $2 per hour.
Dodging the question?
Just answer it...how much do you pay a higher skilled worker, such as a cook, if the unskilled labor is paid $15/hour?
That part right there says a lot about you.
"This guy is all over the place...nuts."
Ellen is a guy?
No change. I don't like ILLEGALS either. You and I just disagree on the proper fix for the problem. If you did not understand that already, then either I am a bad communicator, or you are a bad reader.
Ending welfare is a good idea but we both know that's not going to ever happen.
Not overnight. But there's a shot at ending it for new LEGAL immigrants. And when it's noted that nobody starves, because they'll work, then it's possible to end the rest.
A properly monitored and legal guest worker program is desirable but not until we close the back door of illegal immigration.
That sounds so just and fair. The problem is it won't work. There will always be ways for motivated people to sneak into this country and work. The only hope of making this a "front door" thing is to make it easier for them to come here legally than illegally. That precludes "closing the door first". This truly must be carrot and stick, at the same time, or it will fail.
Go to your nearest government office and/or school district in a Latino area and insist that they only conduct their business in English
You miss my point, again. If all the people wasting their time agitating for border fences instead spent their time agitating for English Only, there would be some real movement that direction. Many latinos actually *want* their kids taught english only, but the PC crowd won't allow it.
The event that woke me up in this regard were the marches with Latino groups proclaiming loudly that we were the invaders and in fact they planned to reclaim portions of the Southwest.
That's a very small leftist element that has highjacked the latino cause to elevate their own. They've been saying that crap for decades. Actually, I think they *want* to create a backlash against illegals, because then they can tell them "see, the Americans hate you, you must join us in the revolution". The left has always used ingenious angles to organize and stir up trouble that elevates their power. Getting emotional about this issue because some bozo got on TV with a stupid statement won't solve anything.
If that's the market rate, yes.
If that's the case, what should a more skilled kitchen worker...say a cook make per hour?
Once again, the market rate. Easy questions.
Not if it's higher quality labor.
The only problem with opening the front door before you close the back door is that the politicians who have written this latest bill have no intention of closing the back door. If we allow them to pass a bill that allows a guest worker program and citizenship in the offing without a strong border fence first we'll never in my lifetime see the end of illegal immigration. Since the Washington insiders don't want a fence or any border controls at all for that matter, unless we as voters insist on that as a prerequisite for a guest worker program we can look forward to an influx of illegals that will dwarf current trends.
As for the Latino groups that agitate for reconquista, I haven't seen any Latino groups disavow those sentiments. It's like waiting for those moderate muslims to speak up and prove Islam really is the religion of peace. Where are those Latinos who don't agree with those radical leftists who are poisoning their message and why aren't they speaking up?
I would live it to the market.
I do not see anything wrong with the situation in which unskilled full time workers can survive without government handouts.
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