How do I pick book topics? On reflection, I usually start with what appears to be a big blatant neglected fact. Then I try to discover whether anything in the universe is big enough to explain this alleged fact away. If a laborious search uncovers nothing sufficient, I am left with the seed of a book: One Big Fact that Overawes All Doubts.
Thus, my Myth of the Rational Voter starts with what appears to be a big blatant neglected fact: the typical voter seems highly irrational. He uses deeply flawed intellectual methods, and holds a wide range of absurd views. Twist and turn the issue as you please, and this big blatant neglected fact remains.
Selfish Reasons to Have More Kids, similarly, begins with a rather different big blatant neglected alleged fact: Modern parenting is obsessed with “investing” in kids’ long-run outcomes, yet twin and adoption researchers consistently conclude that the long-run effect of nurture is grossly overrated. Yes, the latter fact is only “blatant” after you read the research, but once you read it, you can’t unread it.
What’s the One Big Fact that Overawes All Doubts in The Case Against Education? This: education is highly lucrative even though the curriculum is highly irrelevant in the real world. Yes, it takes a book to investigate the many efforts to explain this One Big Fact away (“learning how to learn,” anyone?). But without One Big Fact, there’d be no book.
Finally, the big motivated fact behind Open Borders is that simply letting a foreigner move to the First World vastly multiplies his labor earnings overnight. A Haitian really can make twenty times as much money in Miami the week after he leaves Port-au-Prince – and the reason is clearly that the Haitian is vastly more productive in the U.S. Which really makes you wonder: Why would anyone want to stop another human being from escaping poverty by enriching the world? Giving this starting point, anti-immigration arguments are largely attempts to explain this big blatant neglected fact away. Given what restrictionist arguments are up against, it’s hardly surprising that they don’t measure up.
On reflection, my current book project, Poverty: Who To Blame doesn’t seem to fit this formula. The book will rest on three or four big blatant neglected facts rather than one. Yet perhaps as I write, One Big Fact that Overawes All Doubts will come into focus…
READER COMMENTS
Floccina
Nov 6 2019 at 12:00pm
To me poverty seems to be a thing that because it seems impolite to frankly discuss, people use tortured reasoning to explain poor people performance even though there are simple explanations, which looks like a big blatant neglected fact to me
Like many poor people are overweight (even though they are also more likely to be underweight also) because:
They cannot afford healthy food though many healthy food s are cheap and they just have to eat less.
Of stress, though most people eat less when they are nervous/stressed.
Or poor people divorce more because they are poor though 2 can live together cheaper than separately.
Or poor people do bad in school due to poverty despite the fact that one would think they would be more motivated than the children of the rich and there is no clear path from poverty to doing bad in school and the children of poor immigrants from China seem to do fine.
Robert EV
Nov 11 2019 at 2:14pm
Of stress, though most people eat less when they are nervous/stressed.
Based on personal experience I’d propose that a U or ∩ curve on eating vs stress (depending on the person). Acute, significant stress would have an opposite effect on eating habits as chronic and/or less acute stress.
Or poor people divorce more because they are poor though 2 can live together cheaper than separately.
Yeah, However there is an additional stress of being responsible for another person on limited funds though – people probably feel more okay living in crappier situations by themselves than with another who depends on them, not to mention to interpersonal dynamics stressors.
Or poor people do bad in school due to poverty despite the fact that one would think they would be more motivated than the children of the rich and there is no clear path from poverty to doing bad in school and the children of poor immigrants from China seem to do fine.
Poverty means different things in terms of stress and coping mechanisms if it’s considered temporary (you’re on an upward trajectory), chronic (steady-state), or all-heck-breaking-loose (downward trajectory). Poor immigrants would universally see themselves on an upward trajectory (assuming they weren’t trafficked), and would communicate this to their children.
Robert EV
Nov 11 2019 at 2:14pm
The formatting ate the bullet points.
Joemac
Nov 6 2019 at 1:48pm
Immigration restrictionists all understand that simply moving to a rich country makes one more productive and higher earning.
The merely deny that…
1. There is any kind of automatic moral right to cross borders, no more than would apply to private property
2. That letting in millions of low skilled workers provides benefits to the host nation.
3. That immigration policy should be based on whether or not it benefits the immigrant, as opposed to if it benefits the host country or not
Thaomas
Nov 6 2019 at 2:10pm
There is nothing inconsistent between wanting more Hatians, and Chinese, and Salvadorans and Indians, and …. to move to the US for the good of current residents (I do) even if one “nationalistically” discounts the improved lives of the immigrants (I do not) AND not being persuaded that there should be NO restrictions on immigration. According to many arguments marginal costs and marginal benefits go dawn with the number and rate of change of immigrants. How can we know that the next x million will be as net beneficial as the next x million?
I really want to know what evidence Caplan has that he believes supports not only much higher immigration but unlimited immigration?
The difference with the others is the children and rational voter do not make policy recommendation and education does not recommend a specific amount of higher education
john hare
Nov 6 2019 at 6:57pm
Unlimited immigration is indeed a sticking point or me. I don’t draw the line at high skill or high education. Low skilled or motivated unskilled I don’t have a problem with. Bryan seems to not be aware that an enormous number of people are not productive no matter where they are. Many are even a detriment to society, any society.
One caveat is that there is a strong element of responsibility in how a society handles the counterproductive people, roughly like there is a strong element of government responsibility for drug violence. Allowing much more immigration is a totally different discussion from unlimited access to all, even with good management.
Thaomas
Nov 7 2019 at 8:15am
Wait, I think this is not a good criticism of Caplan. I do understand him to mean unlimited immigration of those who can function economically. I presume that he does assume that disincentives for immigration in order to receive transfers will remain in place.
My question is why we should assume that unlimited (not just much greater) immigration of non-transfer seekers is beneficial?
john hare
Nov 7 2019 at 5:42pm
My interpretation of Caplan posts is that there are no restrictions whatever. I do not assume that he intends there to be disincentives for anybody.
I do not think a society can function by giving a free ride to all and sundry regardless of birthplace and efforts. I think we agree on this point. Economically viable people should be more welcome, and the legal hurdles (read lawyer fees) should be sharply reduced for those trying to make it by their own efforts.
Eric B Rasmusen
Nov 6 2019 at 3:17pm
Very good post. Not all is correct– your latest book is totally wrong— but nonetheless a good post. Bob Ellickson in his Yale Law class said that what people most bitterly fight about are “facts”. They’ll let you have your opinion— at least back in 1992— but if you claim facts are wrong, that’s a fight to the death.
Kevin Jackson
Nov 6 2019 at 9:30pm
I think you need to express the immigration idea differently. It’s lacking the “A, yet B” format of your other points. And honestly, I don’t see the greatly increased productivity of immigrants as likely to make an anti-immigrant take a second look at open borders. Indeed, the idea that an immigrant can come into a country and be far more productive is likely to increase the fear that immigrants will steal jobs from natives!
I’m not sure the right way to express the idea, but I’m quite sure you aren’t there yet.
Thaomas
Nov 7 2019 at 8:32am
The problem is that people do not understand that the output from the immigrant is additional. There are not a fixed number of jobs so current residents in the aggregate benefit from immigration.
It is true that some workers whose skills most resemble the immigrants can be made worse off, but that’s the same political economy problem as arguing for freer trade: how do we run a economy in which “everyone” shares in the gains from reducing restrictions on mutually beneficial transactions and so prevent the perceived “losers” from any specific reform blocking it.
john hare
Nov 7 2019 at 5:58pm
I could make the argument that I personally am worse off because of illegal immigration. Not because they are immigrants, but because they are illegal. And not directly the fault of the immigrant, but the companies that will hire them for low cash wages with no overtime, insurance, or taxes paid. Which they can get away with for some period of time because the illegals don’t have reasonable access to alternate work or legal recourse. It is difficult to compete with a company paying half the wages that I pay, which becomes third when my people are on overtime, and about a quarter when there is no workmans comp or social security either.
For harder numbers, an illegal at $8.00 an hour times 60 hours is $480.00 for the week. My $20.00 an hour man grosses $1,400.00 for the same week and my overhead (taxes, insurance, office,etc) brings the cost to a bit over $1,800.00. There are markets I can no longer serve because of the prevalence of this type exploitation. The solution I would prefer is to make it easily possible for those current illegals to work legally so I could hire them at decent wages or the exploiters would have to pay enough to keep them.
Thaomas
Nov 8 2019 at 8:35pm
I agree that owners and other employees of a firm that employs lots of people who are close substitutes for immigrants (whether gardening, construction, or software development) would also be among those who lose from immigrants or at least undocumented immigrants. That’s part of the “substitution effect” on wages. But in the aggregate, I think existing residents benefit from current numbers and rate of change of immigrants. Since I can imagine some non-economic cost from much higher numbers, however, I’m not persuaded that unrestricted immigration is the best policy
Tim Makarios
Nov 7 2019 at 12:30am
William Booth (co-founder of the Salvation Army) in In Darkest England and The Way Out:
dlr
Nov 8 2019 at 11:13am
Your contention that the Haitian makes 20x more in Florida strictly because of his increased productivity ignores the fact of minimum wages. As long as minimum wages apply to immigrants, immigration can’t be unlimited. Your contention also ignores the many costs (externalities) an immigrant imposes on his host society: usually his tax rates fail to cover even a tiny portion of the benefits he receives from government spending (existing residents have to pick up the tab for the costs associated with his presence in the host country). These costs range from his use of emergency room care, schooling for his children, use of streets, libraries, parks (competition for resources), police and court costs associated with him being involved in crime, either as a victim or a criminal, etc. What right has anyone to impose such costs on others? I see no moral right to anyone external to a society claiming a right to all the benefits generated by the hard work and continuing efforts of those in the society what are creating those group benefits. You can claim that many of our group benefits are inherited, but surely
Since IQ is highly heritable, all of the low skill immigrant’s expensively educated children will most likely be a drag on society as well: probably none of them will ever generate as much tax revenues as they consume in services either, thus allowing him to migrate to this country imposes a tax on it’s current inhabitants in perpetuity. This problem is especially acute for low skilled workers, as the need for them seems to be declining, and no doubt will, relatively quickly become nonexistent.
Another cost to the existing society associated with immigrants coming in, is their willing to work in low skill jobs, often times put existing residents out of a job– residents who have to be supported by the rest of us, again, in perpetuity, via unemployment, welfare, sham social security disability and sham retraining. No foreigners should be allowed to come into the country and work until the unemployment levels of the people they will be competing against is scraping negative numbers and upward pressure on wages exists. Even then, allowing in immigrants has a negative impact on all the existing residents they will be competing against– by eliminating that upward pressure on wages.
If and when any foreigners are allowed into the country one should also consider carefully the levels of disfunctionality in the countries from which they originate: someone from a country with high levels of crime and corruption, such as, for instance, Haiti, will no doubt bring many of the social attitudes and behaviors with them that led to high levels of crime and corruption in Haiti, and, no doubt, will contribute to rising levels of crime and corruption in Florida as well.
Robert EV
Nov 11 2019 at 2:24pm
Leave the dark enlightenment home.
Sure, IQ is highly heritable, but that means that if you find a comparatively bright person in a place such as Haiti, imagine what they would have become in a rich nation with ample public spending on the inputs to intelligence. Now imagine a typical person from that background. Odds are their children will end up pretty okay.
“residents who have to be supported by the rest of us, again, in perpetuity, via unemployment, welfare, sham social security disability and sham retraining.”
Some of those residents may decide to relocate to areas of the country in which the cost of living is lower, and it’s easier for them to live a decent lifestyle without the government dole. Or they may decide to get some more credentials under their belts. Or they may decide to go in with family members and make a business. Or they might work a side-gig.
Why would people just give up and resign themselves to handouts? The immigrants aren’t. They’re trying to get work.
Robert EV
Nov 11 2019 at 2:27pm
Additional:
The best upward pressure on wages is to have as great a percentage of the world population as possible making a decent wage already. If that happens, even the relative slackers can get decent wage increases.
Robert EV
Nov 11 2019 at 4:27pm
And yes, our government should be negotiating bilateral immigration policies. So that if we open our borders to a nation such as Haiti, then Haiti correspondingly opens its borders to our nationals.
Comments are closed.