Who is the Cheap Labor Lobby?

FrontPageMagazine.com ^ | January 24, 2003 | Ellen Almer

[Bernard Marx]

If you've wondered why nothing seems to get done in the White House/Congress about illegal immigration, this article supplies most of the answers. Welcome to the Third World, America.

[Billy_bob_bob]

Great article. Thanks for posting it.

[RippleFire]

BUMP

[AEMILIUS PAULUS]

Money, votes and power. Damn everything else!

[Willie Green]

Bump and bookmarked.
Thanks for a great post!

[proxy_user]

I'm afraid this is a kind of weaselly argument. First the author complains that poorly educated emigrants are dragging down the per-capita GNP, and impoverishing the nation. Then it turns out that her real beef is with highly educated immigrants who are paid significantly above the national average, and are in fact raising the per-capita GNP.

I personally know many Indian guys who have come here on H1Bs, and then gotten green cards. They are more skilled and better educated than the average American competing with them, and they get higher, not lower, salaries. They also behave properly, save their money, buy houses, and generally act like good citizens. I would think we could use more immigrants like this, and less of the other kind.

If American workers can't compete with them, perhaps we will have to reform schools so that they actually provide a solid education for our children. Either that, or we could send the educators we've got to India as a form of sabotage.

[A. Pole]

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.

Free Market Fundamentalism bump.

[Bernard Marx]

Then it turns out that her real beef is with highly educated immigrants who are paid significantly above the national average, and are in fact raising the per-capita GNP.

It seems to me she addresses both ends of the economic scale logically and carefully. I know many immigrants, legal and illegal, who are fine people. That doesn't alter their impact on the law of supply and demand...and salaries.

[A. Pole]

If American workers can't compete with them, perhaps we will have to reform schools so that they actually provide a solid education for our children. Either that, or we could send the educators we've got to India as a form of sabotage.

For retraining you mean? So are you saying that American schools should be patterned on Red China? Well, at least it will mean free tuition and less financial risk for chosing engineering or science over law.

[Willie Green]

Then it turns out that her real beef is with highly educated immigrants who are paid significantly above the national average, and are in fact raising the per-capita GNP.

No, even they pull down the salaries of equally skilled Americans, resulting in a net decline of the overall average.

[lewislynn]

Not being a writer I've been trying to find the words to say this:

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.

The same could be said for those corporations who cooked their books, gave false reports or the energy (power/nat.gas) companies who tried every way they could to price gouge or use trickery to manipulate the market rather than earn an honest profit from their commodity.

[EVO X]

I'm afraid this is a kind of weaselly argument. First the author complains that poorly educated emigrants are dragging down the per-capita GNP, and impoverishing the nation. Then it turns out that her real beef is with highly educated immigrants who are paid significantly above the national average, and are in fact raising the per-capita GNP.

H1B bashing is popular with a few fellow Freppers. I happen to think their energy is misdirected, but it is a free country.

[proxy_user]

This is a zero-sum argument, Willie.

Let's suppose an American could do a job. He works at that job, producing 100 units of output. An Indian guy comes along, and takes over this job, and does a better job, producing 120 units of output. He does such a good job, in fact, that he gets a raise. The American is forced to take a job at a lower salary, but since he is better qualified to do it, he still produces 100 units of output.

Well, what has really happened? The economy is better off, because now we have 220 units of total output instead of 100. The American has a lower salary, but the Indian has raised the salary for his job, producing on average two jobs with the same salary as before, both significantly above the average. This should raise, not lower, the average salaries in the whole country.

The real problem with this is the guy at the bottom, who can't go any lower in job or salary. He's the one who has to compete with the unskilled immigrants. This is why we would be better off if we stopped the immigration of the unskilled, and encouraged immigration by the highly skilled.

[proxy_user]

I said sabotage and I meant sabotage. If we sent the teachers in America to India to teach, the students in India would soon know as little as American students.

[dennisw]

You never would have seen this on David Horowitz's radar a few years back. Judging by his Frontpage Magazine website, his big issues now are Islam, Israel and immigration. So are mine.

[Willie Green]

This is a zero-sum argument, Willie.

No it's not. Nor does it make the absurd counterassumption of perpetual growth as you propose. The economy is capable of both expansion AND contraction. And oversupply of labor causes wages and compensation to decrease, period.

[x]

Thanks for posting this. It's very much worth reading. Though it's certainly debatable whether importing and exploiting cheap labor is capitalism or just a deformation or abuse of it. It's not the only or inevitable form of a free enterprise, private property economy. It's not essential to the functioning of market economies, but one can't assume that everything about capitalism or the profit motive is going to be or look good.

[A. Pole]

If we sent the teachers in America to India to teach

Why do you think India would give them visas to work over there?

[Bernard Marx]

You never would have seen this on David Horowitz's radar a few years back

I'm not so certain of that. If he has truly accepted the concepts of a strong middle class and free market economics, it's hard to see how this conclusion could be avoided. Maybe he had more important things on his radar back then.