How's this for a provocative title?
Want Less Immigration? Embrace Free Trade by Ryan McMaken
When capital cannot move to labor, labor will move to capital, and so protectionism acts as an impetus to greater migration. The answer is free trade.
This struck me as a really interesting topic because of the ongoing migrant crisis. No doubt that's also why the article was written.
I was thinking about how the global supply chains were damaged so badly during the pandemic. Some of that started a few years earlier, with Trump's stupid trade wars.
Might that destruction of global supply chains be contributing to the migrant crisis on America's southern border?
What did I do to deserve 10% equity in this fine post?
I mean I will take it but I can't zap it now. Or can I?
I just decided to start tithing people semi-randomly. You probably can't zap it, since that would create an infinite feedback loop.
I used my connections with the deep state to get around the zapping rules and zap it.
In the ranking of the most protectionist countries, I observed that they are those that have an enormous source of natural wealth. Given how the political game is currently going, I don't blame them, however, I must point out that the state is a terrible manager. Free trade is indeed a great solution, but when we look at reality, everyone seeks to defend their national sovereignty.
Good post. Wonder if there's empirical evidence for this. Bet there is
I'm not aware of any, but you're probably right.
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The way I think about it is that trade enables people everywhere to focus their energy on their comparative advantages. That reduces the potential benefit of moving to another economy that benefits a more different set of skills.
One way to think about it is that westerners are going to lose those jobs either way (and to more or less the same people), because it is more efficient for the low-skill low-wage workers to do them. The difference between free trade and protectionism is whether the low-skill workers move to the western economies or stay where they are.
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