Posted on 06/10/2013 1:05:14 PM PDT by jazusamo
One of the most common arguments for allowing more immigration is that there is a "need" for foreign workers to do "jobs that Americans won't do," especially in agriculture.
One of my most vivid memories of the late Armen Alchian, an internationally renowned economist at UCLA, involved a lunch at which one of the younger members of the economics department got up to go get some more coffee. Being a considerate sort, the young man asked, "Does anyone else need more coffee?"
"Need?" Alchian said loudly, in a cutting tone that clearly conveyed his dismay and disgust at hearing an economist using such a word.
A recent editorial on immigration in the Wall Street Journal brought back the memory of Alchian's response, when I read the editorial's statement about "the needs of an industry in which labor shortages can run as high as 20 percent" — namely agriculture.
Although "need" is a word often used in politics and in the media, from an economic standpoint there is no such thing as an objective and quantifiable "need."
You might think that we all obviously need food to live. But however urgent it may be to have some food, nevertheless beyond some point food becomes not only unnecessary but even counterproductive and dangerous. Widespread obesity among Americans shows that many have already gone too far with food.
This is not just a matter of semantics, but of economics. In the real world, employers compete for workers, just as they compete for customers for their output. And workers go where there is more demand for them, as expressed by what employers offer to pay.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
This article from Sowell is gonna rankle his Free Trade Globalist supporters.....but it is good that Sowell realizes the ramifications of cheap immigrant labor....you pay for it on the other end
In fact, a major reason for the shortage of seasonal agricultural workers is because we've made it so easy and attractive for them to move into construction or even live on the dole than it once was.
For some reason all of these “Captains of Industry” are at a loss to explain why interfering in the free markets by importing cheap labor is good but interfering in the free market for everything else is bad. We are the ones left holding the tax bill for their “cheap imported labor”.
Most Captains of Industry these days are more dependant on govt than welfare queens. Carnegie, John D Rockefeller, and the other industrialists are probably rolling in their graves over todays industrialists
He is discussing the concept of “need” and uses immigration and wages as an example. Is there a labor shortage or are wages too low? Employer’s in any endeavor will tell you that wages are already too high so more workers are needed. Worker’s will tell you wages are too low and less workers are needed.
Immigration is just one way of increasing the worker pool and putting downward pressure on wages. To increase wages by reducing the pool of workers put restrictions on who may work such as minimum age, minimum wage, unions, licensing, affirmative action, and education requirements.
Immigration just happens to be about the only thing liberals will allow that increase the pool of workers.
Peru lost a large chunk of her territory and natural-resources patrimony to foreign-flag workers. Mining companies brought in hordes of Chilean miners who, when a dispute arose, hoisted the Chilean flag in revolt, Chile came to their assistance, and the war was on.
Chile won the war, and Peru lost the Tacna District and what were to become some huge metal mines of the northern Atacama Desert. The loss was permanent, and irretrievable.
They should have imported Koreans or Japanese!
Bump for the market for labor.
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