Robert Book wrote:
>Do any of these studies take into account the effect of immigrants on
demand? It would see these people have to eat.
>
Judging from the article below ("Note carefully what Professor Borjas is
saying here. Sure, those immigrants who work do raise overall GDP. But the
bulk of that increase goes to the immigrants themselves, in the form of
wages. The benefit to native-born Americans, after everything is taken into
account, is infinitesimally small."), the effect of immigrants on demand
does appear to be taken into account.
What I want to know is whether the labor economists' studies take into
account the cost of the immigrants' crime rates (which are above the native
born average), their welfare dependency (again, above the national average),
and the higher transaction costs and ethnic friction and rivalry that comes
from high rates of immigration. Most immigrants also come from cultures
that are more socialistic than the United States and, upon gaining
citizenship, vote heavily for the more socialistic of the two major parties.
(An exception here may be the relatively small East Asian/Oriental
population, which seems to straddle the fence, although the large Chinese
element seemed to lean toward the Democrats during Clinton's second term,
when he was perceived as China-friendly, even though it may have been at the
expense of US national security. Miami's Cubans are also an exception,
perhaps because most Cuban refugees were from Cuba's more well-to-do classes
and also tend to be vehemently anti-Communist. But exceptions are rare and
relatively small.) It always struck me as odd that contemporary
libertarians (although not von Mises or the "objectivist" Ayn Rand) are the
strongest supporters of open borders, even though most of the people who
would enter under such an arrangement would be hostile to libertarian
political thought.
~Alypius Skinner
http://www.vdare.com/pb/cc_times.htm
Contra Costa Times
December 4, 1999
Immigration policy stupid, evil and hurting Americans
By Peter Brimelow
IN AMERICA, WE have a two-party system," a Republican congressional staffer
is supposed to have told a visiting group of Russian legislators some years
ago.
"There is the stupid party. And there is the evil party. I am proud to be a
member of the stupid party."
He added: "Periodically, the two parties get together and do something that
is both stupid and evil. This is called -- bipartisanship."
Our current mass immigration policy is a classic example of this fatal
Washington bipartisanship. It is a stupid policy because there is absolutely
no reason for it -- in particular, Americans as a whole are no better off
economically because of mass immigration.
It is an evil policy because it second-guesses the American people, who have
shown through smaller families that they want to stabilize population size.
Unfortunately, our current immigration policy is consuming the environment
with urban sprawl, hurting the poor and minorities with intensified wage
competition, and ultimately threatening the American nation itself -- what
Abraham Lincoln called "the last, best hope of earth" -- with cultural and
linguistic fragmentation.
And, of course, the current mass immigration policy is bipartisan. Both
major party leaderships have tacitly agreed to keep the subject out of
politics. No single figure is more responsible for this than Sen. Spencer
Abraham, R-Mich., chairman of the Senate's Immigration Subcommittee.
Abraham was a key figure in sabotaging the most recent chance of reform, the
Smith-Simpson immigration bill, in 1996.
Ironically, this was a truly bipartisan measure, proposed by Republicans but
based on the work of the Jordan Commission, headed by the former black
liberal Democratic Congresswoman Barbara Jordan. She recommended almost
halving immigration, in part because of its impact on the poor.
The economic stupidity of current mass immigration policy is illustrated by
a brilliant new book, "Heaven's Door: Immigration Policy and the American
Economy" (Princeton University Press).
The author, Professor George Borjas of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy
School of Government, is widely regarded as the leading American immigration
economist. And he is an immigrant, arriving here penniless from Castro's
Cuba in 1962, when he was 12 years old.
Borjas has every reason to favor immigration. He writes movingly about his
own early experiences, and compassionately about the immigrant waves that
have followed him.
But, as a scholar, he recognizes what he calls "accumulating evidence" that
immigration has costs as well as benefits. "My thinking on this issue has
changed substantially over the years," he admits.
Professor Borjas' devastating findings:
The current wave of mass immigration is not benefiting Americans overall.
"All of the available estimates suggest the annual net gain is astoundingly
small," writes Professor Borjas, "... less than 0.1 percent of the Gross
Domestic Product." Roughly: less than $10 billion in a $7 trillion economy.
Note carefully what Professor Borjas is saying here. Sure, those immigrants
who work do raise overall GDP. But the bulk of that increase goes to the
immigrants themselves, in the form of wages. The benefit to native-born
Americans, after everything is taken into account, is infinitesimally small.
Current mass immigration is not benefiting Americans overall -- but it is
transforming their country. For nothing.
Least-skilled Americans are being hurt. Borjas estimates that almost half of
the increased wage gap between high school dropouts and high school
graduates can be attributed to immigration.
Again, note carefully what Professor Borjas is saying. Mass immigration is
not making Americans richer overall. But it is, in effect, redistributing
income between Americans. Specifically, because immigrants tend to be
unskilled, they compete with American unskilled workers and have forced
their wages down.
Of course, profits for employers of unskilled workers have correspondingly
gone up. But the employers' gain, according to Professor Borjas'
calculations, does not cancel out the workers' loss.
And it's not just unskilled American workers. Any group of workers could be
displaced. It's already happened in the computer software industry.
Employers prefer to import cheap young immigrant programmers rather than
retrain and pay older American programmers.
Current mass immigration is hurting key states badly. Because immigrants
tend to be unskilled, and because we now have a costly social safety net,
immigrants cost taxpayers money in the half-dozen states where they
concentrate.
A lot of money. For example, immigration has raised the taxes of native
households in California by a stunning $1,200 a year. Overall, this fiscal
loss easily cancels out any small benefit immigration brings to native-born
Americans.
Not only are Americans seeing their country transformed, they are actually
paying for the privilege.
Oh, in case you're wondering: The amazing fact is that Borjas' views are the
consensus in his profession -- see the National Research Council's 1997
report "The New Americans."
Evil? Or stupid? Either way, immigration policy is broke. And it needs
fixing. Now.
