57 sats \ 14 replies \ @siggy47 9 Feb \ parent \ on: Does the Economy Need Migrants? and related discussion econ
I was just about to reply. I'll look for more details, but the other night I was watching local news and there was a story of an NYC school (maybe Brooklyn?) that cancelled classes for a few days to use the building to house migrants. This caused outrage for obvious reasons, but also because resident property taxes fund NY school districts. I wonder if they will be issuing tax refunds 😀
The accommodation problem is real, it's very bad, but this is only the tip of the iceberg.
I think what's usually not easily seen is how unchecked migration
- affects the quality of life of the native populations: House prices, school places, doctor appointments etc,
- how it can destabilise small rural communities that often rely on seasonal tourism, for example when struggling local hotel owners are being made very lucrative offers with tax payers money to repurpouse their accommodations into migrant centres to house hundreds of new foreigners,
- how it can affect the local culture and disrupt the political landscape (Germany has recently passed a law to allow dual citizenship and will give the right to vote to ~2.5 million new citizens)
- how it gives governments many other opportunities for printing even more money.
This has been the reality in Europe for a decade now.
I also feel the need to say this: the problem is not the people, migrants or natives, but the governments/the EU/the system that orchestrates and incentivises this whole mess.
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I remember when Europeans were super judgemental towards Americans for being concerned about illegal immigration. You don't see that view quite so often anymore.
I agree with you that it's more about the types of effects you highlight than the direct taking of jobs and that the governments are to blame.
What is the incentive? Charity? Cheap labor? Rig elections?
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I'm no economist, and admittedly, I could be wrong, but it seems to me that, to remain competitive, Europe doesn't only need cheap (Russian) energy, but also cheap labour from the third world. Nothing is done to stop the migration, on the contrary!
What i know for sure is that in my country of origin, you're more likely to become rich, or even just live decently, by working for the government, and as the government grows, it gets increasingly difficult to make it as an entrepreneur. What do capable people do? They emigrate. First they went to the big cities (rural exodus), but since the mid 90s, they're increasingly leaving the country.
But what happens to the country when more and more capable people emigrate? The less capable get in charge and nothing works anymore. Good luck with finding a plumber, an electrician, a doctor etc, who knows what the fuck he's doing, and is honest and trustworthy! It's kind of a death spiral, the government grows even faster, everything becomes expensive, the country becomes increasingly dependant on foreign aid (remittance, EU aid, etc) then a civil war erupts...
I'm not sure if I actually answer your question but the point I'm trying to make is that even if migration is good for western economies etc. It has terrible long-term consequences for third world countries. Will Syria recover from the massive exodus of all these people that have fled the civil war, and are now living in Germany? Same for many African countries.
What are the long-term global consequences?
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Great reply, thanks.
Good luck with finding a plumber, an electrician, a doctor etc, who knows what the fuck he's doing, and is honest and trustworthy! I
Did you live there long enough to witness this drain? The logical flow of it makes sense, but I'm wary of too-simple explanations. For instance, in my place of origin we face a similar problem, and there are definitely forces at play that have hollowed the region out so that skilled tradespeople are few and far between, but I don't think you could make a case for it being because those people went to take cush government jobs.
It's kind of a death spiral, the government grows even faster, everything becomes expensive, the country becomes increasingly dependant on foreign aid (remittance, EU aid, etc) then a civil war erupts...
I know of a number of cyclical accounts of history or of development; I wonder if this particular one has been explored anywhere? Seems pretty easy to do empirically.
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Did you live there long enough to witness this drain?
Oh Yes! Look at what's happening in Mayotte, or Lampedusa, etc... it's like at the us southern border. It's been happening slowly and gradually since the mid 90s, and then suddenly since 2015.
The first drain was actually in the early 60s, when tens of millions of settlers, mostly Europeans, were forced into exile. Several of them, especially in Algeria, had lived on the continent for many generations, side by side with natives.
I mentioned it here: #419496
Completely different times!
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What’s happening at the Mexican border is not a brain drain. Many if not most are illiterate.
Mexico is not sending us their best.
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What is Syria biggest export, crude oil?
What caused mass migration in 2015? Civil war? ISIS?
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All of these things adjust and balance out when markets are allowed to operate.
The problem in Europe is that the government is crowding out private employment and stifling economic activity with regulations. Europe doesn't need 3rd world immigration to stay competitive, per se. That's mostly a result of how distorted your economies are.
On the flip side, if Syria had free markets, the result of the mass exodus would be much higher wages. High wages would attract people back, naturally.
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I'm inclined to think you're technically right, but I'm less sure about how practically right you are. E.g., "if everyone would just be chill and not attack each other, there would be much less conflct." True, but not really helpful. Specifically:
if Syria had free markets, the result of the mass exodus would be much higher wages. High wages would attract people back, naturally.
Logic seems reasonable. But there's a lot buried under the surface of "if Syria had free markets." Like, free markets are a result of good governance, at some level; and political freedom; which itself is bound up with lots of other things, and feeds back on itself in complex loops.
Put another way: the minimal viable practical solution to getting Syria the free markets you're describing might still be a giant lift. Which doesn't make you wrong, but I think it changes the tactical prescription of how that (or similar things) might be helped along.
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All of that is totally fair. I'm just pointing out that there's something going on other than an organic need for third world labor.
An analogy in my mind would be whether someone with a preventable and reversible illness needs medication to survive. If they don't fix their illness, then yes, but they also don't need to be sick.
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If they don't fix their illness, then yes, but they also don't need to be sick.
It's a good analogy. Good esp to make salient the difference btwn things that are impossible due to physical laws of the universe, vs things for which there is an obvious solution that cannot be practically reached. Making this explicit on occasion changes the environment.
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Organic need for third world labor?
Psyop
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