Immigration, the Economy, and Globalization

I have been avoiding writing about the topic of immigration into the United States of America. I have found most political people, the kind who would be reading a relatively obscure blog like mine, have set views that they do not want challenged by the many facets of the issue. Left and right, people want a simple position they can get their emotions behind. To differ from your crowd risks social rejection. As we have seen in the recent federal funding debates, factions digging into their positions and not seeing an overview (which would give some validity to opposing views) leads to paralysis. Which is great if you want to be frozen into the dysfunctional status quo. I believe that truly understanding all aspects of an issue leads to the best possible (though not necessarily ideal) solutions. So here we go, starting with a legal dissection.

There are two types of immigrants into the United States: legal and illegal (allowing for a handful that occupy gray areas). While many anti-immigrant sentiments, and arguments, may apply to legal immigrants, most Americans seem to be okay with legal immigration, to the extent that it currently exists. Legal immigration can be addressed by Congress, and most people are willing to let the issue be fought out there. Illegal immigrants provoke different reactions. These two types of immigration get tied together when there are proposals to legalize illegal immigrants who have become long-term residents, something also in the power of Congress. I will start with an initial look at illegal immigration, since this is where greatest controversy has been.

One common attitude towards illegal immigrants, the welcoming one, is usually rationalized on a civil rights basis. If all people are created equal, as it says in the Declaration of Independence, then an illegal person is still a person, and standing on American soil should be treated as an equal person, with a path to official citizenship.

There are typically three main reasons many American citizens want illegal immigrants to be removed and to have no pathway to a legal status. One is economic: in effect such immigrants are scabs who lower wages and take jobs from citizens. The second is a dislike of the cultures (or ethnicity) of illegals. The third is based on the act of entering the country illegally: there are legal ways to enter, and illegal entry is a criminal act. This initial act of defiance of U.S. law puts them at odds with those who style themselves as law-abiding citizens.

For me only the racist or ethnic argument is easy to dismiss. I like for new spice to be added to the American melting pot. I don't like narrow-minded or racist culture. The other criticisms, however, are not so easy to dismiss.

There are two good, yet contradictory arguments about the economic effects of illegal immigrants. One is that they take jobs that no one wants, and like any other paid persons, spend their pay mostly on local goods and services and so help keep the wealth creation cycle intact. The others is that they lower wages and use taxpayer funded services to which they contribute nothing or little. I have seen that both of these phenomena exist (ideology bound thinkers refuse to notice one or the other), but the question is, to what extent? The reality is that no single snapshot gives the whole picture. The economic impact varies according to whether the U.S. is in a boom or a recession, and it varies by locality and economic sector. It can be subtle too: according to contractors, for the same rate of pay, many illegals will work harder, with fewer breaks. That benefits the construction corporations, but does it benefit the general economy is nearly-as-productive workers are idled?

To the extent that illegal immigrants do benefit the economy, the obvious solution would be to bring them in legally, either through temporary work programs or by expanding quotas. Then, to the extent that some people focus on the illegality of immigrants, that can be separated from economic impact arguments. The Republican Party has had quite a problem with this aspect of the immigration issue. Capitalists want cheap labor, and love the union-busting tendencies of illegal immigration. Rank and file conservative Republicans feel threatened economically and culturally, and so oppose increasing quotas and temporary work programs. Bachmann, Perry, Romney and crew have to balance the need for big campaign donations from their bosses against the need for the votes of the little people.

I am for maximizing economic benefits to the downtrodden American worker. That means I favor temporary work visas only when there really are no workers already present in this nation who want the jobs available. That means the law would have to be flexible, letting more workers in during booms, maybe excluding them during recessions. Also, such work should really be temporary. If a worker is needed most of the time for a period of say, over two years, they should be given the opportunity to choose to become first a permanent worker and then a citizen.

If this rational policy were followed, illegal immigrants would only be here for their own benefit. They have made a choice to not go through the quota system or temporary labor programs. They have, in effect, stolen someone else's place in line. I think the civil rights argument is inappropriate in this context. I don't believe scabs have a civil right to lower other people's wages or take their jobs. I want to emphasize that I admit to thinking narrowly here, within the context of a national economy box that I think is outmoded. My problem with applying the civil rights argument, in its present context, is that it provides a giant loophole for American capitalists to maximize their own profits while starving working people. We don't need that kind of help.

So far I have kept the argument in a national context, and I think that is part of the problem. We live in a regionalized economy where capitalists think nothing of packing up a plant in Rhode Island and reassembling it for production in Wuchou. NAFTA unites the economies of Canada, the United States, and Mexico, but our freedom to work where we choose in these three nations is excluded from the deal.

Mexico is the Godzilla of the immigration debate. Often illegal immigrant is synonymous with illegal Mexican immigrant. Anti-immigrant sentiment sees Mexico as a horde of people seething to inundate the U.S., held back only by immigration and anti-immigration laws.

This is absurd. Open the borders and there would be some brief acceleration of immigration from Mexico, but it has never been all that hard to get into the U.S., despite tragic deaths in the deserts near the border. There just are not that many people in Mexico. The population of Mexico is about 112,000,000. The U.S. population is about 312,000,000.

If anything, open borders would be a problem for Mexico. Remember, the Mexico used to include Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California. American birth rates and illegal immigration into those states in the 1840s were a precursor of their theft by the U.S. government. I believe that given the lower cost of living in Mexico today, a lot more Americans would move there if they were free to come and go, buy housing, and work there. 10% of the American population moving to Mexico would have a far greater impact there than 10% of the Mexican population moving to the U.S. The failure of Canada and the U.S. to arrange for mutual citizenship is even more absurd.

What is true regionally is true globally. While I believe there would be enormous cultural and economic benefits to having global citizenship, to everyone being able to live and work where they choose, in the short run I would want the transition to be well-managed. The gates should come down slowly. If someone is coming to America, they should have a plan, basically a job lined up, and the same for Americans emigrating to greener pastures.

Another big context is overpopulation. I believe it is a fact that the world is overpopulated with humans. I believe the global number of humans needs to be substantially reduced over time if the environment that supports us all remains healthy. Therefore I support a two-child maximum policy in the U.S., and think that is appropriate in much of the rest of the world as well.

I don't think my immigration ideas are likely to be implemented by the U.S. anytime soon (even though they have been implemented within the European Union). To allow for mutual immigration between the U.S. and any other country, notably Mexico, I would like to require that the partner country recognize women's rights to birth control and abortions, and implement a two-child maximum policy. Of course if every nation did that, less people would feel compelled to emigrate from their native lands.

Two Free Trades

I am reading Gaveling Down the Rabble by Jane Anne Morris. It is an important book; I'll review it when I am done reading it [buy it already: Gaveling Down the Rabble].

Jane uses the word "free trade" a lot, and so do other people. This word might seem to have a precise definition, but it does not. It can mean many things, and that causes confusion.

The obvious meaning of "free trade" is to trade for free. This actually happens to some extent in the United States. When a train or truck with goods passes between two states, there is no tax (aka tariff) on the goods. No, they wait to charge the tax until you buy the goods retail. There is no free trade between me and Walmart; I am taxed on the transaction.

The less obvious meaning of free trade is what Jane Anne Morris decries in her book. It is really about preventing local communities, states, and even nations from having regulatory control of their economies. This also means no local control of our way of life. Usually this kind of free trade involves negotiating low tariffs when goods pass between one nation and another, but it almost never reduces tariffs to zero. Instead its main goal is to allow global corporations to maximize profit by manufacturing goods (or growing food) where labor and other costs are lowest. These trade policies, which should be called trade deregulation, not "free trade", are encompassed in the World Trade Organization (WTO), NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement), and similar treaties and organizations.

One effect of both types of "free trade" is to shift tax burders from corporations to consumers, which means from the relatively rich to the relatively poor. Back in the ancient days of the United States there was no income tax. How was this done? True, there was a tax on alcohol, tobacco, and firearms. But the main tax was the tariff on goods entering and leaving the country. That tax was paid by the merchants who engaged in international trade. Of course there was no massive Pentagon budget back then either.

So keep in mind: when you see or hear the phrase "free trade," be sure to find out which definition is being used.

Nancy Price v. 10,000 Demon Lawyers

My wife, Jan Edwards, was talking to an activist friend today, Nancy Price of the Alliance For Democracy. Nancy is known (and should be better known) as a water activist. So she gets asked to speak about water issues (especially who owns it and how it should be distributed). But what she really wants to speak about, she says is an extension of NAFTA called the SPP (Security and Prosperity Partnership).

Basically, the SPP is going to globalize parts of the United States. Globalize in the sense of ridding these areas of local control, including environmental and labor regulations. Apparently workers who are not U.S. citizens will be brought to these zones to work for sub-minimum wage.

SPP sounds horrible for people and the planet. It is based on the principle that economies must always expand. It was created with no input from 99.9% of the citizens of the U.S., Mexico, or Canada. It is corporate rule, international corporate rule, pure and simple.

So why don't people know about this? Sure, citizens in the U.S. are used to being ruled like sheep without consultation, but usually once something this big is set up, the New York Times and other hyenas that pretend to be a free press in this country gloat about it, if only in the Business section.

I read the financial pages every day. I have for years. I don't read every article, but I look at the headlines at the New York Times and CNN/Money online. I read The Economist, in the paper edition, every week.

Not only did I know little about SPP (though I did know about the Canada to Mexico superhighways they are building), I did not even know that in 2006 Congress passed, and George W. Bush signed, a law allowing the Federal Reserve to pay interest to banks for the money they are required to keep in reserves. I found this out yesterday because the Fed is thinking of actually implementing this option. It is an outrageous scam. But I'll have to write more about this later, because I want to present an even larger scale picture of our social-economic-political-environmental problem.

The rich people and their corporations have an army of lawyers, lobbyists, consultants and their demonic helpers to pass treaties and legislation, and to litigate in the courts. We have Nancy, an unpaid, volunteer activist. Nancy is a formidable person. In a fair fight I'm sure she could take on 10 spawn of Stanford Law School and defeat them. And there are a few more Nancies in the U.S., and even some paid activists in groups like Public Citizen.

But my side loses, over and over again, because of the Armies of Hell. The campaign donations. The phony "progressive" candidates for high office. Highly paid lawyers who can scare the brave and creep quietly like deadly fungi into the very fabric of American government.

We need to take their money away, first and foremost. By any means necessary. Money has always been the root of their power. Leave them with their money and nothing is safe.
I am tired of hearing from aging ex-corporate lawyers, generals, CIA agents and politicians that the system is bad and they wished they had not done the dirty deeds they did.

If we are going to save this planet and a scrap of dignity for ordinary human beings, it is time to declare war. We seem to be incapable of seizing the government; the two-party system is designed to prevent that. I suggest that we make America ungovernable by the parasitic elite.
You don't have to be a lawyer to disrupt a lawyer. You just have to put in the effort.

People have hopes for Barack Obama. Let us use that hope. Let us give Barack, or Ms. Clinton if she wins, and even John McCain if we wins, a to do list with some deadlines. And if they can't meet the deadlines, let's fire their asses. The whole lot of them. Let's burn their wicked laws and issue new law that is healthy and wholesome.

Six months, I think, is sufficient to dash any reasonable hope. So here is what I demand, and suggest that you demand, that Barack Obama and Congress sign into law within 6 months of Barack's inauguration:

1. All U.S. troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan (except the customary guards at U.S. embassies).
2. A single-payer health insurance plan for all Americans.
3. A required 40 mpg highway fleet average for new non-commercial automobile/SUV sales.
4. Repeal of NAFTA and the WTO trade agreements.
5. An 80% income tax on all persons' income of over $50 million a year, with all securities held by people in this category marked to market for tax purposes.

Of course my list could be longer and more detailed, but if they achieve those five things, I'll be very impressed and have to shut up for a while about what a bad lot the Democrats are.

If I were a betting man, I'd bet 5 to 1 that not a single one of these goals will be achieved by the deadline, and 2 to 1 that none of them will be achieved during Barack's four years in office.

For more of my opinion, visit my Politics page.

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