>From: Kevin Kelly <kevin@wired.com>
>Reply-To: extropians@extropy.com
>To: extropians@extropy.org
>Subject: opening up immigration
>Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2000 15:32:59 -0800
>
> >
> >One project is to convince one relatively rich economy
> >somewhere to completely open its borders to immigration,
> >even setting up a loan program to pay for transportation
> >costs. This might do more for the world's poor than most
> >anything I can imagine. And that one country could
> >benefit immensely.
> >
>
>
>Robin,
>
>I like this idea.
I am not sure I do like this idea. You see, I sell my labor for a living.
The location of my " business," such as it is, gives me a substantial
competitive advantage over competing laborers in other countries. These
competitive advantages attract capital to my business location, that being
the United States of America. A partial enumeration of these "competitve
advantages" are as follows:
1. great stability relative to other "business locations" such as Asia,
South America, etc.
2. No history of massive "nationalization" of business assets, aka theivery
by government.
3. A massive market for consumer goods linked by an excellent infrastruture.
4. A national culture that tends toward order and away from anarchy
(consider our propensity to form lines at public counters, etc. This is not
the case in many countries).
I could go on and on, but you get the idea.
To consider an analogy, 20 of us Extropians decided to open a business at a
great location (at a busy intersection here on the west side of Houston). We
find a great building with great improvements, etc. We each have an
office/wokshop in the building. We are all owners. The benefits of joint
ownership accrue toeach of us individually as owners. We may give away or
sell all or part of our individual interests.
But then suppose three of us have a friend who isn't doing so well. These
three Extropians decide to cut their mutual friend in on the deal, for
reasons of their own (maybe the "friend" gives them sexual favors, who
knows? :-)). Anyway, they cut this friend in on the business. But as it
turns out, this "friend" competes directly with several of the other owners.
Therefore, the addition of the friend steals the benefits of the business
ownership from the other owners.
So, this is something to think about. Those partial owners in the USA who
accrue benefits from immigration (i.e., those who obtain significant
financial benefit from *buying* labor-- relatively "wealthy" people &
business interests) would ostensibly want more immigration, while those who
sell labor-- all the rest of us--would wnat less immigration, unless we all
accrued benefits rom said immigration. I can think of one such example:
immigrant medical doctors; we all directly benefit from these immigrants.
Otherwise, a cost-benefit analysis would be in order.
Unfortunately, those who benefit from immigration (wealthy & business
interests) have managed to "propagandize" this issue. But I am sure everyone
on this forum will deal with this issue in a completely rational fashion.
Uh-huh...
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