Why is it that Capital can freely move but labor can't?
Immigration, diversity and ability to have at least some "melting pot" has been a US superpower for over a century. So many of our scientists, engineers, entertainers and the people who built the railroads, cities and just about everything else was from the huge pool of immigrants.
We should be celebrating, promoting and turbo-charging immigration. We should have programs to teach English, help people find (and build) housing (Mexican immigrants are already the backbone of construction). We should open up H1B visas for engineering and science with fast tracks to green cards and citizenship.
At the same time we need to change our education system with alternatives to College are available for all our Citizens and immigrants to learn job skills needed for manufacturing and everyday life (plumbers, electricians, HVAC, Solar, etc). At the same time make college affordable again and make being Educated something that people want to be.
Thank you for writing this. The positives of immigration seem so obvious to me, and it's one of the policy areas where the hard-nosed economic arguments line up with my own warm and fuzzy feelings (as the child of an immigrant myself) about how anyone can become an American and how, despite everything, countless people around the world still want to. I really wish we had a vocal contingent of the public debate championing immigration, but it feels like ever since Trump it's been hard to find many besides than Matt Y making that case. All the pushback you're getting in your own comments here is pretty disheartening, so I wanted to throw in my two cents on your side of the issue!
The anti-Chinese state land-buying restrictions do not IMO pass the constitutional smell test from due process to the 14th amendment and beyond. Just another anti-woke GOP political game.
I'm on board with more immigration if you show me 2 things:
1) We are capable and willing to assimilate immigrants into the historical, Enlightenment culture of America. Note, that doesn't mean libertarian capitalism, Noah; it means Judeo-Christian / Greco-Roman / Lockean / Smithian / Burkean Western civilization. As Teddy Roosevelt said, "no hyphenated Americans".
2) We choose who to let in based only on the best interest of our current citizens (all of them, not just the laptop class who needs cheap gardeners, roofers, and nannies).
I see no evidence that we are capable of either today. We don't believe in our own culture enough to assimilate people, and we are intentionally making immigration decisions based on the needs of the top 20%.
Other countries have policies on immigration that are enforced. Ever try to get into Australia or Canada or New Zealand? Strict quotas and special needs of the country are applied. Very organized. No crony capitalism by opportunistic corporations looking for cheaper labor to undercut natives. There is respect for those who filled out the forms and got in line. By the same token, those who were lucky enough to meet the challenge are supported with social benefits, housing, and education as needed to help them fit into society. Things are the way they are in America because the powers in place like the way it is .
a smaller population would be good for the country. We are short 5 million homes/apartments already and a larger population means destroying more open land for apartments, condos, houses, etc. Social Security has a major design flaw being that is assumed there will always be more workers than retirees - having kids in excess of the death rate. FDR ignored the fact that over time, people will live longer. You want a young population? Try Pakistan, how is that working out?
Could not agree with this more! More support for immigration from the public almost paradoxically requires stronger enforcement of borders as well as work and public service access. Without that, trust between all groups breaks down.
The immigration-asylum seeking fuzzy boundary is a knotty problem. My hometown hosted Kosovan refugees back in late 1990s. Several of the children joined classes in our school. Their stories of being driven out by armed soldiers are exactly what most people imagine when you say refugee. And it seems to be what the laws and conventions on refugees have in mind. Fortunately, they were able to return home after a couple of years. The problem is that for most people seeking to enter as refugees in USA or Europe it is not so clear cut and simple. We don't have good ways to assess whether those arriving were really under threat, nor whether they will stay temporarily or permanently, or whether legal immigration is a better route for them. No political parties seem willing to try to draw clear lines because they wish to avoid blame from all sides. Meanwhile people arriving are left in limbo and discontentment grows.
Noah, I am a bit perplexed that someone who has written extensively about AI and automation would fail to mention that factor in the argument for human labor resources. If what we're being promised (and the advancements I have seen in my lifetime) are fairly accurate, a smaller population can support a proportionally larger total population. A huge increase in productivity is certainly achievable and the need for human capital will diminish. We are already seeing that in general wage stagnation and a massive shedding to high tech workers recently.
Yes, population will continue to decrease as automated productivity increases. As the Industrial Revolution shifted labor from humans to machines, a new revolution is brewing that will hasten the demise of human labor requirements. What I think folks are missing is how the tax system has to evolve to meet this transition from taxing human income to taxing automated production.
Your comment: "Without immigrants, our population will grow older and older on average. Each worker will need to work more days out of every year just to support the growing ranks of the elderly." Currently almost one quarter of Americans receive some form of social assistance benefits. As automation shifts away from the need for human labor, this percentage will naturally increase. Our current tax system is a Ponzi scheme based on shorter lifespans and an abundance of younger workers. AI and automation may hasten the crumbling of this pyramid unless changes happen.
During the Industrial Revolution, a hand-me-down from feudal society meant that workers were taxed a portion of their 'yield' and the landlords received incentives to purchase more machinery and hire more taxable 'serfs.' An industrial robot can do the work of dozens of humans yet the company owning the robot is given a tax write-off rather than taxing the robot a the same rate as a dozen humans. It is not just a declining birthrate that is threatening social support programs, but a disparity of taxation between individuals and corporations. We are all aware of multi billion dollar corporations and individuals who pay no or minimal taxes while the burden continues to increase on a diminishing number of middle class workers feeling the growing burden. Meanwhile corporate coffers expand at exponential rates due to increased productivity and beneficial tax rates and loopholes.
The future is shaping up to be all of us doing more with less. The world's population needs to decrease and our tax system needs to change from the old feudal system of taxing serfs to benefit an elite aristocracy to a new system based on supporting human life by taxing technology rather than the other way around. We need a new Teddy Roosevelt, a digital 'trust buster', to lead a new fight to curb the wealth disparity and give the power back to humans rather than the Robber Barons. Tax the 'bots'!
“Immigration has always been a problem. Ask any Indian.” -- Will Rodgers
The advanced countries/economies have an immigration problem. More people than ever before in history are migrating as refugees and the reasons are manifold: climate change leads to lack of food and water, leads to civil wars or populist-driven autocracies . . .
“Show me a 12-foot wall and a I’ll show you a 14-foot ladder.” -- former Secretary of Immigration.
There is no greater incentive to migrate as a refugee than starvation or death via civil war or gang violence. There isn’t an immigration policy that can stop the worldwide rising tide of refugees. The root cause of the Arab Spring was failure of the Ukrainian wheat harvest, which caused a bread shortage in the Mideast. An empty stomach is an angry stomach.
I have no idea how to mitigate worldwide migration, but I don’t think an immigration policy will stop this increasing trend.
How about we just do something? Nothing doesn't seem to be working. The 2013 bill plus revised Amnesty rules seems like a good start. There has to be a way to process preliminary Asylum requests before they leave their home country by using mobile phones to validate their claim and complete a background check. We need to put left and right idealogies aside, use technology, and innovate ourselves out of the problem.
"Research continues to show that immigration of manual laborers doesn’t hurt the wages or the job prospects of the native-born." - probably true in general, but no doubt not true in lots of specific and geographic instances. Thinking of construction industry.
Why when people talk of immigration/border problems don't we talk more about the problems in the countries the immigrants are coming from? If you live in a country where the 1-5% own and control 95% of the land and the economy, nothing you can do except try to immigrate to a better place when things go sideways. thinking of "How Asia Works" and the primal need for land reform before any wide spread economic growth.
Why is it that Capital can freely move but labor can't?
Immigration, diversity and ability to have at least some "melting pot" has been a US superpower for over a century. So many of our scientists, engineers, entertainers and the people who built the railroads, cities and just about everything else was from the huge pool of immigrants.
We should be celebrating, promoting and turbo-charging immigration. We should have programs to teach English, help people find (and build) housing (Mexican immigrants are already the backbone of construction). We should open up H1B visas for engineering and science with fast tracks to green cards and citizenship.
At the same time we need to change our education system with alternatives to College are available for all our Citizens and immigrants to learn job skills needed for manufacturing and everyday life (plumbers, electricians, HVAC, Solar, etc). At the same time make college affordable again and make being Educated something that people want to be.
immigration is a (proven) pillar of sustainable economic growth.
1. Our population density is much lower than most countries
2. Immigrants drive domestic innovation
3 immigrants are the only real super power the US has
This topic needs to be much much more prevalent. It’s so important.
We need 1B Americans. Ask Matty.
Thank you for writing this. The positives of immigration seem so obvious to me, and it's one of the policy areas where the hard-nosed economic arguments line up with my own warm and fuzzy feelings (as the child of an immigrant myself) about how anyone can become an American and how, despite everything, countless people around the world still want to. I really wish we had a vocal contingent of the public debate championing immigration, but it feels like ever since Trump it's been hard to find many besides than Matt Y making that case. All the pushback you're getting in your own comments here is pretty disheartening, so I wanted to throw in my two cents on your side of the issue!
The anti-Chinese state land-buying restrictions do not IMO pass the constitutional smell test from due process to the 14th amendment and beyond. Just another anti-woke GOP political game.
I'm on board with more immigration if you show me 2 things:
1) We are capable and willing to assimilate immigrants into the historical, Enlightenment culture of America. Note, that doesn't mean libertarian capitalism, Noah; it means Judeo-Christian / Greco-Roman / Lockean / Smithian / Burkean Western civilization. As Teddy Roosevelt said, "no hyphenated Americans".
2) We choose who to let in based only on the best interest of our current citizens (all of them, not just the laptop class who needs cheap gardeners, roofers, and nannies).
I see no evidence that we are capable of either today. We don't believe in our own culture enough to assimilate people, and we are intentionally making immigration decisions based on the needs of the top 20%.
Hear, hear!
Other countries have policies on immigration that are enforced. Ever try to get into Australia or Canada or New Zealand? Strict quotas and special needs of the country are applied. Very organized. No crony capitalism by opportunistic corporations looking for cheaper labor to undercut natives. There is respect for those who filled out the forms and got in line. By the same token, those who were lucky enough to meet the challenge are supported with social benefits, housing, and education as needed to help them fit into society. Things are the way they are in America because the powers in place like the way it is .
David Schneider raises a very valid point, IMO.
It is plain flat obvious that US population growth cannot continue FOREVER.
The US population WILL stop growing at some point. The only question is how pleasant or unpleasant that stoppage will be.
This piece does not address that issue at all.
a smaller population would be good for the country. We are short 5 million homes/apartments already and a larger population means destroying more open land for apartments, condos, houses, etc. Social Security has a major design flaw being that is assumed there will always be more workers than retirees - having kids in excess of the death rate. FDR ignored the fact that over time, people will live longer. You want a young population? Try Pakistan, how is that working out?
Could not agree with this more! More support for immigration from the public almost paradoxically requires stronger enforcement of borders as well as work and public service access. Without that, trust between all groups breaks down.
The immigration-asylum seeking fuzzy boundary is a knotty problem. My hometown hosted Kosovan refugees back in late 1990s. Several of the children joined classes in our school. Their stories of being driven out by armed soldiers are exactly what most people imagine when you say refugee. And it seems to be what the laws and conventions on refugees have in mind. Fortunately, they were able to return home after a couple of years. The problem is that for most people seeking to enter as refugees in USA or Europe it is not so clear cut and simple. We don't have good ways to assess whether those arriving were really under threat, nor whether they will stay temporarily or permanently, or whether legal immigration is a better route for them. No political parties seem willing to try to draw clear lines because they wish to avoid blame from all sides. Meanwhile people arriving are left in limbo and discontentment grows.
Noah, I am a bit perplexed that someone who has written extensively about AI and automation would fail to mention that factor in the argument for human labor resources. If what we're being promised (and the advancements I have seen in my lifetime) are fairly accurate, a smaller population can support a proportionally larger total population. A huge increase in productivity is certainly achievable and the need for human capital will diminish. We are already seeing that in general wage stagnation and a massive shedding to high tech workers recently.
Yes, population will continue to decrease as automated productivity increases. As the Industrial Revolution shifted labor from humans to machines, a new revolution is brewing that will hasten the demise of human labor requirements. What I think folks are missing is how the tax system has to evolve to meet this transition from taxing human income to taxing automated production.
Your comment: "Without immigrants, our population will grow older and older on average. Each worker will need to work more days out of every year just to support the growing ranks of the elderly." Currently almost one quarter of Americans receive some form of social assistance benefits. As automation shifts away from the need for human labor, this percentage will naturally increase. Our current tax system is a Ponzi scheme based on shorter lifespans and an abundance of younger workers. AI and automation may hasten the crumbling of this pyramid unless changes happen.
During the Industrial Revolution, a hand-me-down from feudal society meant that workers were taxed a portion of their 'yield' and the landlords received incentives to purchase more machinery and hire more taxable 'serfs.' An industrial robot can do the work of dozens of humans yet the company owning the robot is given a tax write-off rather than taxing the robot a the same rate as a dozen humans. It is not just a declining birthrate that is threatening social support programs, but a disparity of taxation between individuals and corporations. We are all aware of multi billion dollar corporations and individuals who pay no or minimal taxes while the burden continues to increase on a diminishing number of middle class workers feeling the growing burden. Meanwhile corporate coffers expand at exponential rates due to increased productivity and beneficial tax rates and loopholes.
The future is shaping up to be all of us doing more with less. The world's population needs to decrease and our tax system needs to change from the old feudal system of taxing serfs to benefit an elite aristocracy to a new system based on supporting human life by taxing technology rather than the other way around. We need a new Teddy Roosevelt, a digital 'trust buster', to lead a new fight to curb the wealth disparity and give the power back to humans rather than the Robber Barons. Tax the 'bots'!
It's not xenophobic to enforce a orderly imagination policy
“Immigration has always been a problem. Ask any Indian.” -- Will Rodgers
The advanced countries/economies have an immigration problem. More people than ever before in history are migrating as refugees and the reasons are manifold: climate change leads to lack of food and water, leads to civil wars or populist-driven autocracies . . .
“Show me a 12-foot wall and a I’ll show you a 14-foot ladder.” -- former Secretary of Immigration.
There is no greater incentive to migrate as a refugee than starvation or death via civil war or gang violence. There isn’t an immigration policy that can stop the worldwide rising tide of refugees. The root cause of the Arab Spring was failure of the Ukrainian wheat harvest, which caused a bread shortage in the Mideast. An empty stomach is an angry stomach.
I have no idea how to mitigate worldwide migration, but I don’t think an immigration policy will stop this increasing trend.
How about we just do something? Nothing doesn't seem to be working. The 2013 bill plus revised Amnesty rules seems like a good start. There has to be a way to process preliminary Asylum requests before they leave their home country by using mobile phones to validate their claim and complete a background check. We need to put left and right idealogies aside, use technology, and innovate ourselves out of the problem.
"Research continues to show that immigration of manual laborers doesn’t hurt the wages or the job prospects of the native-born." - probably true in general, but no doubt not true in lots of specific and geographic instances. Thinking of construction industry.
Why when people talk of immigration/border problems don't we talk more about the problems in the countries the immigrants are coming from? If you live in a country where the 1-5% own and control 95% of the land and the economy, nothing you can do except try to immigrate to a better place when things go sideways. thinking of "How Asia Works" and the primal need for land reform before any wide spread economic growth.