The thing is, I don’t think a lot of illegal immigrants are unqualified for a modern economy. If they were unqualified, there wouldn’t be so many laws trying to keep them from working.
Although hypotetically here could be two independent interests that just happen to be strategically aligned. Some people want to stop unqualified immigrants, other people want to stop qualified immigrants who would compete with them on the job market.
Also there are of course concerns other than economical, such as people bringing with them some nasty habits from their cultures. These were not included in the thought experiment, which perhaps makes it irrelevant for real-world situations.
Also having slaves has the risk of those slaves rebelling later.
I wasn’t kidding when I said one of the motivations was a desire to not live with large numbers of strangers. One issue might be cognitive load—the strangers have unfamiliar customs (is a sincere apology accompanied by a smile or a serious expression?) and possibly an unfamiliar language.
As far as I can tell, the economic side of not wanting immigrants is a sort of merchantilism—a belief that all that matters is where the money is, so that new people showing up and getting paid for work just seems like money getting drained away. Weirdly, rich people who show up and spend money without working locally may be disliked, but they don’t seem to be as hated as poor people who do useful work. I don’t think it’s just about competition for jobs.
Even without that, there’s a lot of issues about giving them welfare. We could allow them entry as second-class citizens who have no minimum wage or access to welfare but still need to pay taxes. We’ll avoid having to give them welfare, but we’ll need to admit that we have second-class citizens, which is something we pretend to be against.
That depends on the degree to which the two groups compete for jobs. There are also positive secondary effects which reduce the impact (immigration reduces inflation and increases the overall market size). The employment impact of immigration on low-skilled workers is somewhere between slightly negative and slightly positive.
The thing is, I don’t think a lot of illegal immigrants are unqualified for a modern economy. If they were unqualified, there wouldn’t be so many laws trying to keep them from working.
Great point!
Although hypotetically here could be two independent interests that just happen to be strategically aligned. Some people want to stop unqualified immigrants, other people want to stop qualified immigrants who would compete with them on the job market.
Also there are of course concerns other than economical, such as people bringing with them some nasty habits from their cultures. These were not included in the thought experiment, which perhaps makes it irrelevant for real-world situations.
Also having slaves has the risk of those slaves rebelling later.
I wasn’t kidding when I said one of the motivations was a desire to not live with large numbers of strangers. One issue might be cognitive load—the strangers have unfamiliar customs (is a sincere apology accompanied by a smile or a serious expression?) and possibly an unfamiliar language.
As far as I can tell, the economic side of not wanting immigrants is a sort of merchantilism—a belief that all that matters is where the money is, so that new people showing up and getting paid for work just seems like money getting drained away. Weirdly, rich people who show up and spend money without working locally may be disliked, but they don’t seem to be as hated as poor people who do useful work. I don’t think it’s just about competition for jobs.
https://hbr.org/2015/04/emotional-intelligence-doesnt-translate-across-borders
A few examples of people from different cultures misreading each other.
Even without that, there’s a lot of issues about giving them welfare. We could allow them entry as second-class citizens who have no minimum wage or access to welfare but still need to pay taxes. We’ll avoid having to give them welfare, but we’ll need to admit that we have second-class citizens, which is something we pretend to be against.
It also means that the people who are currently working at minimum wage jobs are likely to lose their jobs to the cheaper competition.
That depends on the degree to which the two groups compete for jobs. There are also positive secondary effects which reduce the impact (immigration reduces inflation and increases the overall market size). The employment impact of immigration on low-skilled workers is somewhere between slightly negative and slightly positive.