The Quote Below—More Misinformation form the Media
“On Labor Day last year and in 2021 in 2021, I wrote posts explaining how breaking down barriers to labor mobility can help many millions of workers around the world. Virtually everything in last year’s post is just as relevant today. So I am reprinting it with some updates and modifications:
“Today is Labor Day. As usual, there is much discussion of what can be done to help workers. But few focus on the one type of reform that is likely to help more poor and disadvantaged workers than virtually anything else: increasing labor mobility. In the United States and around the world, far too many workers are trapped in places where it is difficult or impossible for them to ever escape poverty. They could better their lot if allowed to ‘vote with their feet’ by moving to locations where there are better job opportunities. That would also be an enormous boon to the rest of society.
“Internationally, the biggest barriers condemning millions to lives of poverty and oppression are immigration restrictions. Economists estimate that eliminating legal barriers to migration throughout the world would roughly doubler world GDP —in other words, making the world twice as productive as it is now. A person who has the misfortune of being born in Cuba or Venezuela, Zimbabwe or Afghanistan, is likely condemned to lifelong poverty, no matter how talented or hardworking he or she may be. If he is allowed to move to a freer society with better economic institutions. . . .
“The vast new wealth created by breaking down migration barriers would obviously benefit migrants themselves. But it also creates enormous advantages for receiving-country, as well. They benefit from cheaper and better products, increased innovation, and the establishment of new businesses.. . . .
“Workers of the world, unite to demand more freedom of movement!”—Help Workers by Breaking Down Barriers to Labor Mobility, Ilya Somin, 9/4/23 [Link]
Fact Check of Above Quote: This writer expresses the libertarian ideology that human beings are interchangeable cogs of economic production. If that were true, the idea of shifting people around the globe for employment might make some sense. But it isn’t true. This shallow ideology ignores the complexity of people, their faiths, cultures, loyalties—as well as their varying talents. This complexity means that unrestrained movement will maximize conflict and discourage the cooperation necessary for economic improvement.
If mass immigration is the economic elixir that this writer claims, just where is the evidence? Certainly you won’t find it in California, the state with the highest number and percentage of immigrants. Before mass immigration, it was the country’s leader in progress, development, and prosperity. Now it is becoming a Third World backwater, with a few very rich people at the top and lots of poor on the bottom.
For the country as a whole, mass immigration hasn’t worked any economic miracles. Since it took off after the 1965 immigration act, our middle class has shrunk and wages have generally stagnated. Immigration advocates seldom mention the negative impact it has on wages, particularly on the wages of our low-skilled and low income workers.
The writer implies that we owe the citizens of places like Cuba, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe a free admission because they will never have economic opportunity. It’s interesting, though, that all of these countries were once relatively prosperous. They are poor now because they imposed socialism on their economies. Perhaps they could prosper again if they rejected socialism. But that won’t happen if the people who want change simply run away. We really do other countries no favor when we encourage their citizens to flee their problems rather than deal with them.
Libertarians often talk about people having freedom of movement, but they seldom consider the right and freedom of people to maintain their homelands as places where their cultures and national identities are secure. People have the right to move—as long as they don’t trespass on other people’s property.