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March 29, 2005

THE MORE THE MERRIER PART I: OPEN UP THE BORDER

If one thing alone irks me about Britain's right (including otherwise sane folk like UKIP), it would be the near-universal hostility to immigration.

Fallacies which the right rejected long ago have been resurrected by them in the immigration debate. For example, "immigrants are taking our jobs". It is unlike the right to say that anyone has a right to a job when someone else can do it cheaper. Economics says it is a good thing when this happens, since it means resources are going to their most valued uses and the money saved from hiring cheaper workers will be used somewhere else (which will create jobs).

But there's an even greater fallacy here: that there is only a fixed quantity of jobs available that must be divided up somehow, and adding more people will only make that competition more intense -- so we have to prioritise, and it's a choice between "us" and "them". This, or rather the closely-related fixed quantity of wealth fallacy, is what motivates socialists, population control advocates, and other far-left dingbats. Yet all the evidence suggests that immigrants themselves create jobs just as much as natives do. When regulatory barriers to entrepreneurship are eliminated (something the right should support) immigrants are as willing to start up new businesses as natives, if not more so.

Another certified, prime piece of Silly that right-wingers have put forward is that the government should only allow in immigrants who have the skills Britain most needs. This has even become part of the Me-Too Party's platform. Yet Hayek, von Mises, and others showed long ago that the government cannot make efficient use of the dispersed knowledge in markets, and the labour market is no exception. It is impossible for the government to know what skills Britain needs for the same reason it cannot know what of anything else it most needs. The knowledge problem is central to the right's opposition to all kinds of central planning, from government-run industry to price controls. It is saddening to see so-called conservatives pretending to be ignorant of it in the immigration debate.

Is there a problem with housing new immigrants? If the government keeps out of things, no. Rising demand will lead to higher house prices in the short term, which will stimulate demand and lead to more housing being built -- if "urban sprawl" laws, the planning permission system, and other restrictions do not get in the way. Which of course, they do today -- but the right should work to scrap such restrictions, rather than halting immigration.

What about the "strain on public services". Most immigrants do not want government hand-outs (and if that is your concern, then work to scrap benefits to immigrants). Instead, most of them will go out, get jobs, and pay taxes just as natives usually do. Any expenses which they incur on public services will, therefore, be offset by the fact they are paying for them. Arguing otherwise, as the Me-Too Party still do, is transparently stupid.

Finally, there is the problem of assimilation -- and unlike any of the other objections to immigration, this one really is a problem. In both attitude and policy, there needs to be an emphasis on integration. But a little historical perspective is needed. During the 19th and early 20th century, America assimilated millions of immigrants. Britain dealt with many more immigrants in the 1960s and '70s than it supposedly has a problem with today (and it is mainly the children of these immigrants that are becoming radicalised, not new immigrants).

What are the social conditions for effective integration? I'm not sure, but abolishing barriers to work (such as the minimum wage) and entrepreneurship (such as licensing requirements and the absurd amount of EU regulations on pretty much anything) should be repealed. It's silly to expect immigrants to assimilate when they are not even let into places where they would come into contact with natives. There's also a case to be made for compulsory English lessons. But there's no good case to be made for halting or drastically slowing immigration.

So if the case against immigration does not hold up to scrutiny, is there a case to be made for it? Yes. It is two-fold, moral and pragmatic.

The moral case is this: Immigrants are moving to Western nations from poorer nations because they want to better themselves. It is immoral for government to stand in the way of this, given that "their" interests and "ours" do not conflict. The more pragmatic case is similar to the atheist's "million monkey theorem": bringing more people into free market nations from poor ones means that we are more likely to come up with new innovations and solutions for our old problems. When it comes to people, the more the merrier.

Posted by Lewis at March 29, 2005 01:23 PM