For a while I’ve wondered what supergenius Thomas Sowell would say about a particular argument that some might make regarding immigration.
It could be argued, and some have argued, that an open borders or open borders-like policy could be justified on the same grounds as a free trade agreement.
Free trade agreements between nations remove protectionist barriers between them so that their economies can work more efficiently and grow, to the mutual enrichment (literal enrichment) of the populations in both nations. The more efficient the market is allowed to be, the more it can generate value for those who participate in the market.
For example: Suppose that the nation of Freedonia is really good at making computers but really bad at making DVD players. It can make high quality computers really cheap, allowing purchasers to get a good product at a low price. But it’s home-grown DVD players are shoddy and expensive.
Now suppose that the nation of Sylvania is the reverse: It has lots of high-quality, inexpensive DVD players but makes shoddy, expensive computers.
The market-efficient solution is to allow Sylvania’s DVD players to get sold in Freedonia and to allow Freedonia’s computers to get sold in Sylvania. That way both populations get high-quality products at low prices, and they can either spend the rest of their money on something else (growing their economies further) or take extra time off from work to spend with their family since they don’t need to make as much money to purchase the things they want to buy.
(NOTE: If computers and DVD players are too frivolous for you, replace them with carrots and potatoes or other commodities that you find meaningful.)
(NOTE 2: If Freedonia and Sylvania are too frivolous for you, replace them with Tomania and Osterlich or other countries that you find meaningful.)
A market that allows commodities to freely flow from where they are abundant to where they are not thus improves the lives of people in both places.
Until original sin gets involved.
Original sin makes us want to do things like protect our interests at the expense of others.
For example: Suppose that you’re a maker of DVD players in Freedonia. You make substandard, expensive DVD players, so it’s not in your interest to have to compete with the DVD player makers in Sylvania, who crank out better, cheaper DVD players than you do.
So you start lobbying your legislators to pass protectionist measures like tariffs and import caps to keep you from having to compete with the DVD players makers in Sylvania. You don’t want there to be many Sylvanian DVD players on the market, and you want them to be as expensive as possible for the consumer so that customers will buy yours instead.
After all, you don’t want to have to retool your manufacturing process so that your players are as good and as inexpensive as those from the other country, and you certainly don’t want to have to get out of the DVD player making business and learn how to make something else useful. You want to maintain the nice, comfortable status quo that existed before Sylvanians were able to compete with you.
The fact that protecting your interests by limiting the supply and jacking up the price of Sylvanian DVD players hurts both the people in Sylvania and your fellow Freedonian citizens/customers is beside the point. You just want to make sure that your interests are protected, even at the expense (literal expense) of others.
And that’s normal for humans in a fallen condition.
It’s a real act of maturity to be able to say, "Y’know, those folks are just better at this than I am. I should either improve myself or find something else productive I can do. That way everyone’ll benefit."
But if this free-trade principle benefits people in both countries by allowing commodities to move to where they’re most needed, what about applying it to labor markets?
Should we have an open borders policy, too, so that workers can move with as little impediment as possible from where the jobs ain’t to where the jobs are?
Even if that meant some displacements of natives from positions in some jobs, so that they’d need to get retrained for other fields, wouldn’t a long-term, mature view of the situation mean that the people of both countries would ultimately benefit in the end?
There’s certainly a measure of truth in that, but how much truth is there? On balance, would it be a good thing or a bad thing?
What would Thomas Sowell say about this?
Interestingly, what he says is the same thing that many who favor closed markets say. Have you ever heard opponents of free trade insisting on how evil it is to treat people like commodities?
Sowell’s answer to the open borders question is the same: People are not commodities.
Until original sin gets involved.
Original sin makes us want to do things like protect our interests at the expense of others.
Fantastic Jimmy!
Best post ever.
I don’t quite follow the analogy with the free market. Would it be that Freedonia is great at making jobs, while Sylvania is great at making people? When Sylvania sends people over to Freedonia, does Freedonia reciprocate by sending jobs over to Freedonia? It’s difficult for me to hash out the details.
Interesting, though!
Jimmy, I enjoyed your post. Isn’t it true that sometimes protective trade measures can be used justifiably and positively to allow a native industry or industries to develop and grow without the potentially growth-stunting “interference” of free trade? I’m thinking in particular of some 3rd world economies where it would be nice to see new local industries emerge and grow, bringing with them employment opportunities for the natives and a more diversified local economy. That type of thing can be impossible if the local industry must compete on a level playing-field with a mature, finely-honed foregin business and its products.
Jimmy, I wasn’t as impressed with Sowell’s opinion in this matter as normally am with his arguments, such as those in support of an open market.
Within the US, people *are* free to move around to any city they want, and yet no one sees that as a basis for saying that people are being treated as commodities in that case.
In fact, it is in the countries where people are treated as commodities, where people are not free to move around and require special permits (such as in the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union, North Korea, etc.)
Money quote:
“Commodities are used up and vanish. People generate more people, who become a permanent and expanding part of the country’s population and electorate.”
I think that illustrates perfectly why people are not commodities.
OT: Jimmy, I’m glad you added this “(NOTE: If computers and DVD players are too frivolous for you, replace them with carrots and potatoes or other commodities that you find meaningful.)” I wouldn’t want to think that you are promoting materialism. 🙂
“Immigrants in past centuries came here to become Americans, not to remain foreigners, much less to proclaim the rights of their homelands to reclaim American soil, as some of the Mexican activist groups have done.”
I this sentiment a lot in immigration debates, but the fact is it’s not entirely true. 20-30% of Italians that came to the US in the late 19th / early 20th centuries returned to Italy. In fact when WWI broke out 1 million Italian men returned to Italy to fight for Italy. I know I’ve heard my share of elderly people who said they came here hoping to make money in the US and go back home, only to realize the opportunities here were better and that they would have to stay in order to provide better for the families.
“… poclaim the rights of their homelands to reclaim American soil, as some of the Mexican activist groups have done.”
I would like to know more about what percentage of Mexicans support this position. I would also like to see the US bishops address those that hold this position.
What happens when one country sends its jobs making DVDs and most other goods to another country which makes DVDS and other goods cheaper.
Doesn’t the first coutry suffer because it has no jobs to buy DVDs etc. and the second suffer because it gluts its own market with DVDs etc.
Concerning free trade, what happens when a poor Peruvian farmer cultivating traditional breeds of potatoes suddenly has to compete with big, cheap American potatoes? Should we not concern ourselves with the poor peasent farmer more than the American factory farms or the American GDP or the whether the potatoes Peruvians eat are a little bigger and cheaper?
Concerning immigration the sheer difference between people and material commodities makes the analysis of how the situation should be handled very different. That is how I interpret the “people are not commodities” idea. We should be thinking more about the actual individuals and families, as well as social concerns including Al T.’s concern about how most immigrants seem to identify much more with their birth contry, even sometimes being anti-American even long after becoming a citizen in my experience.
I suspect the Catholic Church in America is particularly pro-immigrant because of the historically (and still somewhat currently) immigrant nature of the Church in the America. The Church in Europe, judging just from some things I have heard and some European Catholics I have talked to, seems to lean more in the other direction.
Why do you want to punish all Peruvians by making them pay for more expensive, smaller potatoes?
What makes the Peruvian farmer–as opposed to all Peruvians–the object of your affections?
I take it you’ve seen the Marx Brothers in Duck Soup. You seem to be forgetting that Freedonia and Sylvania were at war.
Yes, but that was back in the 1930s when they had crushing economic burdens (which was why His Excellency Rufus T. Firefly was declared Leader of Freedonia–to address the financial crisis).
Today Freedonia has a flourishing computer industry, and Sylvania has a flourishing DVD player industry.
The challenge at present is to keep a trade war from breaking out between them, possibly leading to tensions between them that existed in the 1930s and led to the great war between the two.
“Immigrants in past centuries came here to become Americans, not to remain foreigners, much less to proclaim the rights of their homelands to reclaim American soil, as some of the Mexican activist groups have done.”
Contrary to Al’s experience, my encounters with immigrants from the early 20th century reinforced this.
I remember stories my mom used to tell me about my grandfather when he came to the US as an immigrant. Growing up, my mom and uncles used to get the belt if grandpa caught them speaking Polish. They were American and they better speak English like an American. He didn’t come halfway across the world for his American kids to speak like Polacks.
Benedict,
That is why I included the unreferenced statistic. I’ve googled up some references, mostly because its something I learned from lecture as a History undergrad. But these soources see reasonable.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAEitaly.htm
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/historyonline/italian_immigration.cfm
Even the Catholic Encyclopedia mentions the Italians returning to Italy. http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08202a.htm
Now, I’m sure that many immigrants have been willing to shed much of their culture, but it is clearly not nearly as universal as some would have you believe.
This immigration issue is hardly anything new. Many Americans were lamenting the German enclaves in Penn. where a third of the population was German. “On January 13, 1795, Congress considered a proposal, not to give German any official status, but merely to print the federal laws in German as well as English. During the debate, a motion to adjourn failed by one vote. The final vote rejecting the translation of federal laws, which took place one month later, is not recorded.”
http://www.watzmann.net/scg/german-by-one-vote.html
Rebel One,
I don’t want to punish Peruvians at all, or Americans. However we must have a preferential option for the poor. The inconvenience of having inferior, more expensive potatoes seems to me trivial compared to the welfare of a poor farmer who could loose his farm.
An argument could be made that ultimately economic benefits from free trade would add up so that even the poor who immediately suffer from it will end up better off. I am not an economist though, and will not take this on faith while many disagree. It seems more like big business, and government that (unfortunately?) uses GDP as such an important measure of economic success, have an interest in Free Trade and will rationalize it however they can. Perhaps the truth includes aspects of both of these views.
And Benedict, sorry to sound like such a Nativist. I’m sure many immigrants are quite patriotic. Many are not, though, today at least. MSN for instance reported that in a recent protest in California (LA I think) a protestor held a sign saying “This is our continent you stupid Americans.”