Internet Commentator

The problem with skills-based immigration

Great piece in The Economist [subscription required], on the British government's new immigration plan, which explains concisely the problem I have with proponents of skills-based immigration restrictions:

Under the new rules, fewer low-skilled workers will be allowed in, while those with plenty of qualifications and experience will be welcomed, particularly if their skills fall into categories believed to be in short supply. A committee of experts will be assembled to determine exactly what those skills are.

This way of managing immigration has a respectable pedigree - sensible people such as the Australians and Canadians do it - but that does not mean it makes economic sense. Employers are better than governments at knowing what jobs are in short supply (as Australian employers discovered a while ago when the government got its sums wrong and left them with a critical shortage of doctors). If governments think that immigration is running at politically unacceptable levels, they should limit total numbers. Micro-managing the labour market is not the answer.

Until now, the government has been quietly and commendably liberal on economic migration, but now it is worried. It hasn't started building dykes, but is trying to channel the flow. That is a mistake: it risks ending up with a flood in one place, a drought in another and a policy up the spout.

Those who argue for such entry requirements simply assume it to be the case that such restrictions represent the most effective method of identifying the most suitable immigrants. It never seems to occur to them how this particular centrally planned system manages to get around the problem of information identified by Hayek. Such a system could no more predict the demand for, say, plumbers for the next year than it could the weather.

Intrinsicism and Immigration

In response to some comments by Peter Nolan on the "reconquista" post below, I composed what turned out to be a sufficiently long comment to warrant posting up here on the main page instead, beginning thus:

Peter, you've raised a few points I'd like to address. I fear that you don't actually appreciate the implications of some of these:

I'd also add to my last comment that there is nothing racist or nativist about insisting on monolingual education and English as the only official language. Such policies do seem, in my opinion, as justified and valid responses to a multi-culturalism supported only by academics and a few ethnic activists.

I suggest that you miss the point here. For what it's worth, I agree with you that there is nothing "racist" about insisting on monolingual education, but it isn't really "worth" all that much. The objection to enforcement of a national language is to do with that enforcment per se. National languages thrive on their own merits and if National language A withers and becomes replaced by another language B - as has happened in our country - it means that more people now voluntarily speak language B than A (note that from the point of view of "now", it doesn't really matter whether the original switch of several generations ago was voluntary or coerced). If the government proposes to enforce A at the expense of B, I am perfectly entitled to ask in whose interests this enforcement is carried out? Because by definition it ain't the people the government purports to serve. The nationalist might answer, "why the interests of the nation of course" which begs the question that "the nation" has intrinsic interests over and above the people who comprise it. This is a serious point and you should be aware that if you support "intrinsic" interests (of a nation or a language) which not only override the interests of atomised individuals but also the interests of a majority of individuals defined by that nation or language you really have no basis upon which to defend any kind of individual liberty.

In the case of the USA the point is moot because English is still the majority language and will in all likeliness thrive without assistance from the state. If it does wither, it will only be because the competing language offers greater overall utility. In such a hypothetical scenario nobody's interest is served in upholding the "intrinsic" interests of "Anglophonics".

I think that a philosophical disagreement on the role of the state and of collective identities, as in our extended discussion on Gilbraltar, underlies some differences in opinion.

Perhaps, but let's just spurn the handwaving - Do you assert that nations have intrinsic interests over and above the interests of their component individuals? If, say, the overwhelming majority of Slovaks wake up one morning and decide that they are fed up with Slovak-ness and fancy trying on Czech identity for size. I suggest that you intuitively feel that the interests of the Slovak nation ought to take precedence over the interests of these former Slovaks and a velvet remarriage under the banner of the Czech republic ought to be opposed on that sole basis. If this is how you feel, you don't really have any basis on which to oppose any coerced collectivism.

Two things are relevant here. First, that immigration is in many senses an elite social engineering project.

Not so. This is an oft-repeated canard. Immigration is not social engineering but is the result of voluntarily action - The engineering is in restricting such voluntary action. Now, you are perfectly entitled to feel that a bit of engineering is justified on a utilitarian basis but it makes no more sense to claim that voluntary immigration is engineered than it does to claim that free trade is protectionist. Your tacit assumption, and that of many an immigration-restrictionist, is that "the people" have a right of consent to immigration. Many times I have read the complaint that "mass" immigration took place without reference to the expressed desires of the electorate. Nonsense. One might as well say that the people ought to have a veto on individual tarriffs, or a say in the price of cheese. If I decide to employ an immigrant, that decision is between the two of us - "the people" have no "right" to interfere in that voluntary action. The reason immigration takes place is that there are opportunities available for the immigrations in the host country. The reason there are opportunities is because there is a demand for immigrant labour - i.e. enough people "want immigrants".

[At this point I should note that I am generally in favour of welfare reform and do not support provision of welfare to immigrants, at least for some period after entry. I am aware that generous welfare provision can act as an incentive for immigration, "distorting" the market. But, a casual observation of Ireland's economy, or indeed that of the US, ought to evince that the demand for immigrant labour is not a phantom artefact of a welfare-incentive.]

This can leave some significant externalities for other people, though - more competition for public services, introducing populations of impoverished migrant workers, increased fear of crime - that overwhelmingly affect the working class. Opinion surveys now show that African-Americans notably hostile to further immigration, and even Hispanics as a whole (55%+) favour further restrictions

So what? Does some font of wisdom reside in the African-American and Hispanic communities? I'll bet a majority of both of those communities favour legal sanction of homosexuals. A majority probably favour the teaching of Creationism in schools. Does that make such policies ok? In any case, these "fears" to which you refer are phantom fears. Public services and crime stand independent of immigration. It is of cold comfort to a burgled pensioner to be told that, "Hey, look on the bright side, at least you weren't robbed by an immigrant". Whichever is the optimum policy of welfare provision or enforcement of law and order remains the optimum policy under open or closed borders. Again the immigration-restrictionists are guilty of instrinsicism - they imagine that, say, USA is "intrinsically" attractive to immigrants, independent of the actual opportunities offered by the USA. Rubbish. If there were no opportunities for immigrants there would be no immigration - America would no longer be attractive.

Second, immigration does have costs that go beyond these factors. I've noticed this a lot in east London in way invisible in more affluent parts of the city, where you get a kaleidoscope of the manifestations of many different culture, which I think many people find overwhelming and leaves society very atomised.

Yeah, well this is what's called "hoist on your own petard". Might I remind you that you are an immigrant. On what basis do you assert your interests ought to supercede the interests of other immigrants? Is there an intrinsic "good immigrant" quality about Irish immigrants which is lacking in others? (By the way, in case you imagine that I'm somehow detached from the gritty reality you describe, I am quite familiar with East London, probably more so than the "more affluent" parts of the city). In any case, let's stipulate that there are some "negative externalities", if so there are also "positive externalities". If you are concerned with externalities it is insufficient to just harp on perceived negative externalities* rather you must demonstrate that those negative externalities outweigh the positive externalities. This is not a straightforward task.

*or indeed the positive - I maintain that the positive externalities associated with cosmopolitanism far exceed negative externalities but this is merely a happy observation and not the basis on which I support liberal immigration.

Homogeneity

I cannot agree with Tony Allwright on immigration:

As a fundamental principle, I am entitled to invite into my home anyone I want, for as long as I want and not invite those I don't. Moreover if someone is, say, being flayed alive on my front doorstep, I have a moral obligation to bring him in and provide refuge even if he is no friend of mine. Second principle.  Once I have invited someone in, I am obliged to treat him as respectfully as everyone else in the house for as long as he is with me.  He/she is my guest, not a freeloader and not a slave. Whether my household is improved or disimproved by these arrangements is my responsibility, no-one else's. I must live with the results. And so it should be with countries. 

Not so. A home is private property, a country isn't. This a distinction we lose at our peril because such an argument is a justification for tyranny. The government of any country doesn't "own" it and cannot presume to dictate to its populace in the way that a houseowner can to that house's occupants.

Under such principles, Australia had every right to run a whites-only immigration policy up to the 1970s, just as today it has every right to allow only young, wealthy, educated people to immigrate.  Both are discriminatory but so what, it's their country. Australia's whites-only policy crumbled under international pressure, which it eventually felt was doing more harm than the policy was supposedly doing good, but the policy itself was not morally wrong. 

Australia certainly has the prerogative to determine whichever immigration policy it presumes is in its interest. That is not the same as saying that it is impossible for such choices to be morally wrong. It is not inaccurate to say that the whites-only policy was racist. This policy was wrong in practical terms, it did more harm than good, but also in moral terms, the simplistic, reductionist notion that one's skin colour is more important than any other characteristic.

 And when you look at civil conflicts around the world, it is notable that warring parties nearly all divide along ethnic, tribal or religious lines. And even when civil war is absent, there is usually civil tension between groupings - in America, most Latin American countries, Malaysia, England. By contrast, you never hear of civil conflict or tension within (almost) ethnically-pure Japan or South Korea, or for that matter predominantly white Catholic southern Ireland.

This isn't really much of an argument. Tony begs the question, assuming that by asserting his belief that ethnically homogeneous societies are superior to ethnically heterogeneous societies that somehow this is magically proven. One might just as well state that cosmopolitan societies are more dynamic than monocultural societies. Indeed, the white, catholic, "southern" Ireland Tony celebrates doesn't really exist any more. If stability is all that matters you might prefer the stagnant, impoverished, conformist Ireland of 50 years ago to the freer, more confident and more economically vibrant Ireland of today.

In the course of Tony's entire argument he ignores a very important factor in immigration: incentive. Any country should welcome the enterprising immigrant who seeks opportunity. This is not a zero sum game. The country benefits and the immigrant benefits. There is, however another incentive, the level of welfare available in most European countries. If there is no welfare available, there can hardly be any complaints about "freeloaders".