In a Just World...

It is probably worth stating that no researcher was likely fired for commenting on IQ or human rights relating thereto…a researcher was fired (in all probability), because an organization in the midst of PR damage control needed cover.

I don’t think that makes either of your above statements untrue, but I’d be interested in your take on whether or not PR-related firings would take place in a just or unjust world.

Crimson Reach,

I think Caplan is referring to illegal immigrants who are already here. After all, immigration reform swirling in DC is in no small part to deal with the millions of illegals currently living here.

Responding to what people mean is usually easier than not. 😉

The notion that the U.S. Government has an obligation to citizens of other countries is the problem with all that Prof. Caplan advocates. For the U.S. Government to prefer its citizens over people from other countries is not monstrous.

It’s what they are, in fact, hired to do.

Crimson Reach is right, it is not about job offers.

It is about culture. There are people of certain cultures that we (U.S. citizens) don’t want here. There is also the need/requirement/desire that we take care of our own poor people. Regardless of where our poor rank against the poor of the rest of the world.

One step we can take to care for our poor people is to not let in more poor unskilled workers.

What is the IQ cut-off, below which it *is* proper not to attribute rights to a living being? Is it proper to draw the line so that all chimpanzees fall below it? (It would appear that intelligence is the factor that leads us to attribute rights to [most] human beings and not to [any] non-humans.)

Obviously we should exclude low IQ migrants.

National income is highly correlated with average IQ, individual income is weakly correlated with individual IQ, indicating that IQ has enormous externalities – that being smart is largely a benefit to those around you, and being stupid largely a cost to those around you.

And, if we exclude low IQ migrants, are we not forbidding them to accept a job offer from a willing employer?

The externality of intelligence takes effect partly through welfare and redistribution, but largely through bad governance. Countries where the population is stupid tend to be badly governed.

In general, one gets better results if one prevents externalities – if the cost of stupidity is largely suffered by stupid people, they will smarten up amazingly.

Policies of segregation, white rule, and apartheid, had the effect of controlling externalities.

High IQ countries with bad government, for example communist China back when it was actually communist, tend to have African incomes. Conversely, African countries that are largely governed by whites and a high IQ black aristocracy, tend to have incomes that substantially above African incomes. This is consistent with the major externality being that low IQ leads to bad governance.

“Is my impression about the mainstream nature of these findings wrong?”

Of course not.

So in a just world, only people with approved opinions can be researchers? Got it.

We’re almost there, by the way.

“In a just world, however, researchers would be fired for arguing that people with below-average IQs should be denied their basic human right to accept a job offer from any willing employer.

Despite their correlation, the two views are worlds apart.”

Agreed. So why don’t you explicitly argue only for unlimited guest worker status as opposed to unlimited citizenship?

One interesting thing you overlooked in your otherwise excellent analysis of Singaporean democracy is that 40% of the population of Singapore are not citizens. There is no guaranteed path to citizenship even for legal permanent residents and being born in Singapore does not grant citizenship. The criteria for obtaining citizenship basically exclude most of the people who would vote for a social democratic opposition party. In this way Singapore perpetuates the ‘democratic’ rule of the PAP despite free immigration.

So do you support this model for the US? If not, do you accept that admitting a lot of low IQ voters who will form a permanent citizen underclass that bloc-votes left is going to impose a significant externality via taxes and regulations on other people, which is unjust for the same reason as denying people the right to contract with an employer?

I have a question for Crimson Reach, who (if I interpret him or her correctly) is skeptical that most immigrants come to the U.S. seeking gainful employment: Why is so much effort, and why are so many resources, spent every day in the U.S. trying to prevent undocumented immigrants from working?

Prof. Boudreaux,

“Seeking gainful employment” is a much different status than having a “job offer”, as anyone with recent experience of both could attest. It’s as S said, that is a misleading rhetorical flourish, and you evidently know this, because when Caplan said “job offer” and was challenged you retreat to “seeking”.

For the record if I had my druthers I don’t think I’d make it illegal to hire anyone. My point though is that such employment laws are separate issues from immigration laws themselves (who can enter, and stay) and should not be conflated with them, especially not for rhetorical flourish.

best

“Apologize if I have read you incorrectly.”

Sorry! Meant “I apologize if I have read you incorrectly”..

[I’ve now fixed this in your original comment. For the record, I think it was clear that you were apologizing–just probably mistyping “Apologies”–and not issuing a command. But your clarification is helpful lest there be any confusion.–Econlib Ed.]

Caplan isn’t actively trying to get anyone fired, unlike a lot of other people during the last week. That he is willing to publicly agree with the empirical findings, unlike the actual dissertation committee members and even knowing that acceptance of them would make many people less willing to support his preferred policies, is a fairly big deal.

I do have one issue with the dissertation. In the linked article, it said that the lower IQs of immigrants are likely to persist over several generations. I was surprised to read that.

Maybe I’ve been biased by all the stories of immigrant kids being greatly successful, because of they retained the immigrant tenacity yet fit into American culture. Does anyone know the data on this? Was Richwine going beyond the data in this, or is this commonly accepted?

Mike I-Favor-A-Free-Society,-I-Just-Don’t-Want-HIM-In-It says, “The notion that the U.S. Government has an obligation to citizens of other countries is the problem with all that Prof. Caplan advocates.”

But that’s clearly not true. Perhaps even Mike would raise concerns if the US government nuked Quebec and by way of explanation Press Secretary Jay Carney offered, “The notion that the U. S government has an obligation to citizens of other countries is, we have been assured by Mike, problematic.”

“The problem with all that” Mike “advocates” is an inability or refusal to understand the difference between not offering benefits and refusing to allow others to offer mutually beneficial contracts.

I find the approach of The Crimson Reach and those who take a similar tack (“I don’t oppose letting people take jobs if they have offers, but I do oppose letting them seek those offers out”) bizarre.

It remains that we wouldn’t ask someone migrating from Detroit to Phoenix or Venice to Milan to have a job offer in hand before they move (though we might strongly advise them to). What’s so special about someone making the move from Ottawa or Addis Ababa to Phoenix or Milan then? Is it because foreigners are such incompetent people that they can’t be expected to have forethought without the government forcing them to?

If the real concern is that these people are moving to abuse the social safety net or that their movement will be socially disruptive, then let’s discuss that instead of discussing a blanket ban on movement without job offers in hand.

It was my impression that Bryan’s reference about people with below-average IQs being denied their basic human right to accept a job offer from any willing employer is about minimum wage in general and touches on immigrants only with respect to those who are coincidentally denied the right to accept a wage lower than what the government deems to be “fair”.

Well of course I would just point out that you’re now just committing a similar fallacy, equating (1) crossing the border with the intent of permanently immigrating with (2) ‘seeking job offers out’.

Why not? Both are crossing an arbitrary line that doesn’t exist outside the minds of human beings.

Immigration policy should be open to human movement as much as possible. Whether you have a job offer in hand or you are seeking work, as long as you don’t pose a threat to public order, you should be allowed to move. Whether immigrants should get the vote, and under what conditions, is a separate discussion from movement.

We wouldn’t ask someone moving internally to have job offers in hand because, being citizens and here legally, we don’t restrict their movement. But that is obviously and by definition not the case for foreigners attempting to cross the border and so the matter is different.

So in other words, it’s morally acceptable (if not a moral obligation) for governments to prevent foreigners seeking an honest wage or to live with their families from doing so. The question is, why?

Vicki Hearne’s take (in _Bandit_) was that IQ tests measure how quickly you can believe things.

A career in communications, for example, requires quick believingness, she said.

So, Mestizos have a comparative advantage in mugging, living on welfare, and flooding emergency departments with short fat pregnant single women and their bastard spawn, while whites have a comparative advantage in being mugged, providing welfare, and providing emergency departments that are too busy to deal with real emergencies.

Thus, in the optimally efficient economy, mestizos should pursue their comparative advantage, and whites their comparative advantage.

And anyone who doubts that this is efficient should be fired.

Steve Sailer writes:

> Dear Bryan:
>
> Eventually, they’ll come for you, too, for the crime of knowing about IQ, and your Open Borders rhetoric won’t save you.

Also his bubble is steadily shrinking, so it will be a tossup whether the nonwhite underclass mugs him before the white overclass fires him.

My bubble is further from the problem than his bubble.

National income is highly correlated with average IQ,

False. Doesn’t China has high IQ and low national income.

It seems that this false correlation between national income and IQ has been got by ignoring that one must weigh nations by population..
So you have China and Andorra given equal weights.

Both are crossing an arbitrary line that doesn’t exist outside the minds of human beings.

Like the lines which define the bounds of the lot your house sits on?

Immigration policy should be open to human movement as much as possible.

I look forward to the unhindered movement of many, many people onto what you might believe is “your” property inside those “imaginary” lines.  Let them be unwashed homeless, ghetto people with a number of violent felons, Arab jihadis or any combination.  I would love to see your position on this question after a year… or even a day.

Bryan,

The views may be “worlds apart” based on your philosophical priors, which others may not share. Are you really comfortable drawing a line that enjoins censure for those who draw conclusions with which you disagree? I prefer my intellectual freedom crystal clear. Let the light in.