I must say that I mostly agree with what Max Sawicky has to say about immigration. I do have a few quibbles, however. For example when Max writes:
A welfare state focused on contributory social insurance and work-conditioned benefits can afford immigrants, since properly structured these programs are self-financing: workers pay for them.
it concerns me because it’s circular. Is the welfare state we have now self-financing? Certainly today’s workers don’t pay for today’s workers’ benefits—they pay for the benefits of previous workers and non-workers. Is that properly structured or not? I don’t think that the trends of world demographics favor this generational shifting approach to paying for benefits. Or when he writes:
There is good evidence of negative wage effects for less-skilled workers. This speaks to the uncontrolled nature of the present situation, combined with weakened enforcement of worker rights. This can be fixed.
Does he mean it’s technically possible to fix the situation or politically possible? I see no evidence whatsoever of any particular interest in really controlling the present situation with respect to immigration or strengthening the enforcement of worker rights. And these things should certainly be “fixed†before implementing any regime which would encourage an acceleration of immigration. We’ve tried the other way around and it just doesn’t work. And I think that this
Immigrants have always been the most dynamic, progressive social force in the U.S., including the U.S. labor movement. Their alleged cultural conservatism — Catholicism and evangelical Christianity — is not different from the outlook of previous immigrant groups who later modernized.
shows a fundamental lack of understanding about immigrants and immigration. Immigrants arrive with values and ideas—presumably the ones that prevail in their homelands. The Northern Europeans who settled in the Upper Midwest in the late 19th century brought the social reform ideas that were current in northern Europe in the late 19th century with them. Today’s Russian, Mexican, or Chinese immigrants bring Russian, Mexican, or Chinese social, political, etc. ideas with them. What else would you expect? They’ll be “progressive†or conservative to the extent that those ideas are themselves progressive or conservative (and to the extent that whatever ideas they hold benefit themselves, of course).
