"A higher rate of global migration is desirable for four reasons: It is a source of innovation and dynamism; it responds to labor shortages; it meets the challenges posed by rapidly aging populations and it provides an escape from poverty and persecution. By contrast, limiting migration slows economic growth and undermines societies’ long-term competitiveness. It also creates a less prosperous, more unequal and partitioned world."No. The most important reason why immigration controls ought to be dismantled is because freedom is a natural born right of people everywhere. Those other listed reasons are merely consequences, which though very good, cannot constitute the ethical pivot of a pro-migration position.
Of course I am aware that immigration is tied up with other problems. In the U.S. for example, Mexican immigration is tied up with the dangers posed by the drug cartel conflicts spilling over across the border. Even were the U.S. government to end its stupid "war on drugs", the ending of its closed border policy would only be replaced with private efforts to that effect whose major worry, in addition to the drug cartels, would be the predations of the ATF trying to set them up as a pretense for the further criminalization of firearms - as in Project Gunwalker*. Dismantling restrictions to migration therefore, cannot be accomplised in isolation from the complementary dismantling of other aspects of State interference with society. The authors of this piece, however, do not seem to agree...
"As countries’ populations age and their fertility rates collapse, more migration will be necessary to ensure economic competitiveness and finance pension and health-care systems."That's the Pragmatist streak running through the entire article at its' point of greatest exposure. The implicit premise here is of the cattle farmer: new immigrants are good because their surplus productive value can be farmed in order to sustain the State run pension and healthcare systems.
Outrageous.
You should be reading this Goldin.
That is f*cking outrageous.
It is outrageous because the authors thereby invoke the principle of slavery applied to a degree arbitrarily considered small enough so as not to count as "real slavery" to all "normal" people infected with the Pragmatist inability to trace consequential effects back to principles of human action.
What this article reminds me of is something which has been creeping me out for a long time. When I was in my mid-teens I held various part-time jobs at supermarkets and wholesale stores (a bit like Costco) while I was getting ready to make the mistake of going to University. I remember that, in each of the places I worked at during that time there was always something called a "Personnel Department" - a name which instantly made perfect sense to me as a reflection of its function in dealing with employee matters, since the term "personnel" is a derivation of "person", which is what all employees are. At some point some years later, that changed. I don't know when exactly it changed, but the name of this function of companies changed to "Human Resources".
Reflect on that word... "resources".
That name change creeps me out because it appears to signify the reduction of people to mere objects to be ingested by a productive system misapprehended with Dickensian machine-metaphors propagated by nearly all wings of the Left. I regard this name change as one of the high-exposure points of the cultural pervasiveness of the Left's bullshit. A whole generation of kids has now been raised with no awareness that people just like them were once explicitly regarded by employers as people rather than mere "human resources". The corruption of the language consequent to the philosophical suppression of Liberal ethics (and the metaphysics underlying it) is a large part of why people - adults even, much less kids - cannot always be expected to think and recognize the Left's evil gibberish about financing "healthcare and pensions" when they see it.
A free labour market is politically good in all aspects, but it is not a goddamn "resource".
* I note as an addendum here, that Turton's response to Okami's mention of the ATF Gunwalker scandal here is exaggerated to the brownth degree: the Daily Kos had the story, true, but even they admitted the "notable lack of attention paid to this scandal by progressives and the left-wing blogosphere". The reason for this of course is that most of the Left cannot bring themselves to admit that freedom includes the freedom to own the most effective means of self-defense.
'I regard this name change as one of the high-exposure points of the cultural pervasiveness of the Left's bullshit. A whole generation of kids has now been raised with no awareness that people just like them were once explicitly regarded by employers as people rather than mere "human resources".'
ReplyDeleteWell, Mike, I doubt an unarmed union activist or some such fighting Henry Ford's bullets (okay, his police collaborators) would have agree with you in the 1930s. But then maybe I, too, have been fed the Hollywood version of events back then. But remember, I'm sure that even the idea that Henry Ford was a deep admirer of Hitler is highly unlikely to be a fabrication.
From Marx to Baudrillard (and possibly Marx's contemporaries, like Adam Smith, too), we have seen labour referred to as a resource. I think you are kind of getting a little bit snarly with regard to your demand for purity of language (and now I am reaching agreement - as of your last two posts here, with justrecently's references to political correctness on such matters). It is true that we should try to resist referring to labour is merely a resource, for countries, nations, governments, economists, banks, or even companies. It is, however, a near impossibility, in this day and age, not to view labour as a form of commodity/collateral/resource for the simple reason that, if a government borrows money, then a bank needs to know pretty much all of the "resources" that the government's country has at its disposal. Ideally, this should not be the case. Governments should not be borrowing money (except perhaps once every 20 centuries!). Companies, however, have perfect legitimacy to borrow money from banks, or from other companies. The question of labour as a "resource" here, however, might find some reasonable grounds for regulation. There's that ugly word. A simple law allow an employer to sue a company in case his/her labour is unfairly exchanged for another company's capital, commodities, shares, or what have you. What do you think? I know I am not talking out my behind, because I am thinking carefully about this - however, there are always loose ends in everyone's thought, so if you observe such a situation, let us know.
You might find this recent article in the CSM extremely interesting: http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Mises-Economics-Blog/2011/0708/Subjective-value-and-pricey-jeans?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+feeds%2Fcsm+%28Christian+Science+Monitor+|+All+Stories%29
It mentions...or all things, Austrian economics! It is, after all, titled von Mises Blog...
"The question of labour as a "resource" here, however, might find some reasonable grounds for regulation... A simple law..."
ReplyDeleteNo.
No? It seems, then, you advocate anarchy, if an employee can't see one's boss for any abusive or inappropriate treatment. You can't go without any laws. There is a big difference between libertarianism and anarchy...but then I'm sure you know that. You're afraid of approaching these questions. Otherwise, you wouldn't wave aside my comment with such a simplistic and banal response. I'm not saying laws or regulations should get terribly specific - it's the "specific-ness" which has gotten us into trouble.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, this is a subject I might further pursue if I get around to it, on my own blog.
"You're afraid of approaching these questions."
ReplyDeleteThat's not even funny: I just decline to discuss them with you because your comments are like tangled balls of string that would take me longer to disentangle than I care to spend. I'm tired.
Alright, patience of an angel and all that...
ReplyDelete"I doubt an unarmed union activist or some such fighting Henry Ford's bullets (okay, his police collaborators) would have agree with you in the 1930s."
I wasn't talking about the 1930s, so the example is not germane to the point I was making (if it is even true in the first place; I was certainly not aware of the accusation that Ford got police to shoot union activists).
"But remember, I'm sure that even the idea that Henry Ford was a deep admirer of Hitler is highly unlikely to be a fabrication."
I don't know. I find it more likely that Hitler was a "deep admirer" of Ford than the other way around.
"From Marx to Baudrillard (and possibly Marx's contemporaries, like Adam Smith, too), we have seen labour referred to as a resource."
Again, mentioning authors from the distant past is not germane to the point I was making.
"I think you are kind of getting a little bit snarly with regard to your demand for purity of language."
Yes, but that can't be helped. It annoys me no end; the conservatives are supposed to conserve "liberty" yet they can't even keep hold of the word itself.
"It is true that we should try to resist referring to labour is merely a resource..."
That "we" doesn't belong. I think that there are certain contexts (e.g. economic theory) where the concept denoted by the term "resource" may be used to encompass labour. In the example I gave in the post above, the context was all important and your remark completely drops this.
"It is, however, a near impossibility, in this day and age, not to view labour as a form of commodity/collateral/resource for the simple reason that, if a government borrows money, then a bank needs to know pretty much all of the "resources" that the government's country has at its disposal."
ReplyDeleteNo - on several counts. The terms in which labour is "viewed" are both volitional and context-dependent. Your phrasing makes it seem that you think governments are at the mercy of banks, which is a bog-standard trope of the Left.
"The question of labour as a "resource" here, however, might find some reasonable grounds for regulation."
The question is not a fucking person, Thoth. It cannot "find" anything. You think it is "reasonable" to have some State-imposed regulation and thus violate the non-aggression principle. This makes me think that you are unaware of how social problems may be resolved according to libertarian principles (see e.g. the comments at this post). A goddamn "regulation" is not necessary to solving the problem of unscrupulous employers screwing their employees, and will only make the problem worse.
More generally, here is where you need to correct your ignorance Thoth:
"You can't go without any laws. There is a big difference between libertarianism and anarchy..."
To oppose State regulations is not the same as advocating lawlessness. If the State tends towards corruption and incompetence, then this will also be true of a State-monopolized legal system (witness the indictments of exactly how many KMT legislators on corruption charges here, whilst indictments of Chen and Lee are transparently motivated by partisan politics). Most anarchist theory centres on the question of how a polycentric legal system would function and sustain itself. Even under a minarchist system of a minimal, unitary State, labour regulations on businesses would still be unnecessary as employees would be free to quit or exercise other civil-society based sanctions against their (former) employers.
On your CSM reference... that's pre-entry level stuff for people unfamiliar with economic theory in general. I have some recent posts on economics for example this one on unemployment and this one on Taiwan's banking sector.
"I just decline to discuss them with you because your comments are like tangled balls of string that would take me longer to disentangle than I care to spend. I'm tired."
ReplyDeleteFair enough. But your writing gets pretty tangled-up, too, and I say it gets occasionally much more tangle up than mine (and not even merely in your replies, to my comments or others. But again, fair enough.
"It annoys me no end; the conservatives are supposed to conserve "liberty" yet they can't even keep hold of the word itself."
I suggest that this is not the problem with conservatives, but with so-called "liberals," who have themselves to blame. Who invented the concept of Political Correctness? Anyway, to speak of they, is to speak of some monolithic morass called Conservative Person. I used to have the same problem as you had with American conservatives constantly referring to their enemies as liberal. I choose to be more elastic. Yes, words mean something. But words do change their meaning over time. The word "liberal" has stuck to those PC, left-winger moonbats who don't have any principles but to throw out all principles. Or something of the sort. :) But then I could talk all day about this particular matter.
"That "we" doesn't belong. I think that there are certain contexts (e.g. economic theory) where the concept denoted by the term "resource" may be used to encompass labour. In the example I gave in the post above, the context was all important and your remark completely drops this."
I think this retort alone would have shut me up. I wasn't aware of this parsing of contexts. A thousand pardons. ;)
"But your writing gets pretty tangled-up, too..."
ReplyDeleteExample?
"I suggest that this is not the problem with conservatives, but with so-called "liberals," who have themselves to blame."
But that's the point: the commies stole this word and either do not recognize their own use of it as a corruption or they don't care. The conservatives then go right along and validate this theft by referring to anti-liberal commies as "liberals". Ann Coulter and Jonah Goldberg are the worst high-profile culprits, but wherever it occurs it's a disgrace - and I will challenge it every opportunity I get.
"Who invented the concept of Political Correctness?"
PC was one outgrowth of the Frankfurt school of Marxism's work on strategy and tactics. There are plenty of conservatives who use it too, some (but not all) without even realizing what it is they are doing.
"But words do change their meaning over time."
And certain people change their allegiances over time. Some of these people are known - accurately - as traitors.