Posted on 09/28/2016 5:50:44 AM PDT by oblomov
Leading libertarian thinker Charles Murray is now urging a halt to the immigration of lower-skilled workers, because the cutoff of extra labor may persuade employers and political leaders to revive declining communities of lower-skilled Americans.
“I have had to undergo a great deal of rethinking on all of this this year… [now] I want to shut down low-skill immigration for a while,” Charles Murray told a D.C. event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies.
“The thing that has gotten to me over this year … has been the very simple idea that the citizens of a nation owe something to each other that is over and above our general obligation to other human beings” outside the United States, Murray said Sept. 26.
A temporary end to low-skill immigration will allow a national test of various proposals to help the many Americans at the bottom end of the economic scale, Murray said. For example, amid high immigration, several million Americans “prime age” employable men are not even trying to work, at great long-term cost to themselves and society.
Once low-skilled immigration is ended, society may react in favorable directions to help lower-end Americans workers, he said. For example, the girlfriends of young men will be better able to prod their boyfriends into taking low-skill, low-paid jobs if their employers can’t hire illegals, Murray said.
But Murray says he only wants a temporary moratorium on low-skill immigration in case the new policy proves counterproductive. “I want to shut if down for a while because it may not work … [currently] we will have no good way of knowing how employers will respond until the spigot is cut off,” he said.
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Good for Charles—make it a hundred year pause and then we check the results!
We need to limit low IQ immigration. They will most likely be ‘Rat voters.
One hundred years might not be long enough...
I believe this is the Charles Murray who co-authored “The Bell Curve.” He has long been aware of the effects of indiscriminate immigration.
He is also a Libertarian, who in general, have a tough time arguing for borders and stronger enforcement. This is a big league departure for him. I too have come around on this question.
Who will do the “jobs Americans won’t do”? I mean, we pay our indigenous low skilled population welfare to NOT work, and then complain there’s nobody to do the job. This isn’t something new. We’ve been paying people to sit on their sorry butts and do nothing but breed more of the same for decades now. Those people don’t want a job. They however, expect EBT cards.
The Cheap Labor Express expressing doubts?
Yes, we should end low skill immigration. But our native low-skills need to do their part by changing their destructive lifestyles of drugs, illegitimate kids, divorce, no education, more tattoos than work ethic, etc.
You can cut off low-skill immigration, but you still have to convince low-skill Americans to work.
There are something like 90 million working-age Americans out of the labor force, who are able to stay there because of government support. There’s a very high “welfare cliff” in this country.
What will it take for these Americans to take jobs picking apples, driving trucks or sweeping floors?
“The thing that has gotten to me over this year … has been the very simple idea that the citizens of a nation owe something to each other that is over and above our general obligation to other human beings” outside the United States, Murray said Sept. 26.
How could it not have occurred to Murray that it is in the vested self-interest of ALL citizens not to nurture an underclass of the permanently unemployed, who at best depend on government, and often descend into crime? Limiting immigration helps citizens who pay the welfare costs for both the new immigrants and the displaced Americans? It is in everyone’s self-interest except large employers who want to keep their own labor costs low but shift the costly effects onto others. The oversupply of unskilled labor drives the price down below a subsistence level. The only solution is to stop flooding the market with supply.
For years, Murray has presented outside-the-box facts and analysis with high intelligence and courage. That he has only just figured this one out show how blinding Ideology can be.
Low skills?
LOL!
How about no skills pertinent to a 21st century culture and production.
Interview with Somali:
So, you know how to stand in line for UN relief supplies, hide weapons for your pirate relatives, gather dung for fires, torture, mutilate, and dismember Christians, ulalate loudly, and scream death to the infidels in large crowds. Oh, and prostrate yourself five times a day and wash your feet. How about washing the rest of yourself with soap? Soap? Well soap is...
We can be idealists, and deny the role of government in public welfare, but until there is a change of heart among the people, the welfare state is with us.
In “The Unheavenly City”, sociologist Edward Banfield observes that there are two types of poor people:
1) Those who are poor by accident, i.e. job loss, injury, divorce, etc. They are industrious people who have been dislocated and dispossessed. They are not happy about their condition and want to get back to work and relative prosperity as soon as possible.
2) Those who don’t want to work, and who simply want to get by on the welfare system.
The two groups are not mutually exclusive. Depending on the structure of the program, welfare programs may give incentive for people to move from group 1 to group 2.
The challenge is how to design welfare programs to provide a safety net for very temporary assistance, so that a shock does not put people on the street, while not giving incentives for people to move from group 1 to group 2.
In other words, embody the moral intent of the program, without encouraging deterioration in other morals.
As long as we have affirmative action, we shouldn’t take in new folks (eg Hispanics) who would get to go ahead of the line of Americans).
In my view, it’s a matter of incentives.
The returns to labor must be sufficient to encourage honest work, picking apples or whatever.
Second, there should be stronger social incentives to work. The welfare system needs to be radically redesigned. And no, I don’t mean radically cut. In my view, that isn’t practical in the near term.
I suppose there are people who don’t respond to incentives. They would probably end up in prison or in the fringes of society in any age, not just ours.
After his travel around fledgling America, de Toqueville observed that approximately one in seven families chose to live in squalor -- denying the opportunity all about them.
They seemed satisfied with their limited circumstances and were unwilling to take the steps necessary to improve upon them -- which would've required nothing more than some effort.
That same proportion persists today in the welfare-dependent. Some people are just wired to prefer dependency over self-reliance. As a nation, we shouldn't be rewarding that impulse.
Patriotism springing up among libertarians ...
“I have had to undergo a great deal of rethinking on all of this this year… [now] I want to shut down low-skill immigration for a while,” Charles Murray told a D.C. event hosted by the Center for Immigration Studies.
“The thing that has gotten to me over this year … has been the very simple idea that the citizens of a nation owe something to each other that is over and above our general obligation to other human beings” outside the United States, Murray said Sept. 26.
[snip]
One possible solution would be a genuine safety net with a window for those industrious who have fallen on hard times, and a stipend to help care for those who genuinely can’t work, and remove, or at least reduce the generational dependency on the dole. My Grandpa said “Anyone can be broke, but poor is a way of life.”
What "social incentives", exactly?
IMHO, welfare should be cut, dramatically, along with many entitlements. Many people see that as politically impossible, but how else do you incentivize people to work? But also eliminate payroll taxes, so that low-wage workers can keep all their earnings.
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