"Free Immigration" vs "Free Trade"

[pampango]

I am fascinated by the discussion that we have at DU about immigration and trade. I know that there are two sides, at least, to both of these issues, but what I would like to see if the opinions on both of individual posters.

The pro-immigration (you may characterize it differently) point of view seems to be that immigrants a net plus for our economy, our history is one of immigration, no one else will do the work, they are poor people and need our support. I am sure I am missing something, so feel free to add your position. The anti-immigration (or controlled immigration, if you prefer) point seems to be that immigrants take American jobs, lower the wages of blue collar workers, are by definition breaking the law, etc.

The anti-free trade people believe that free trade enables foreigners to take American jobs, lowers the wages of blue collar workers and others, allows corporations to run roughshod over countries, gives US corporations too much influence in other countries, gives other countries too much influence over the US, etc. The pro-free traders believe that everyone benefits economically in the long run, poor countries develop faster, our competitive nature will favor Americans, etc.

While comments about one or the other of these ideas is welcome, I would particularly be interested in posters briefly addressing both. The effects of both on the US economy and workers seems somewhat similar to me, but perhaps not to others.

[sabbat hunter]

1. my views

we need to cut down/eliminate illegal immigration. do so by going after businesses that hire illegal aliens and heavily fine, jail time. at the same time increase legal immigration so the people that want to come here, can do so, and they can get jobs pay all the taxes due. and get a better pay rate to boot.

[pampango]

2. How about the free trade argument?

Any strong opinion on that? I only ask because I am interested to see if there is a pattern of support or opposition to both.

[Deja Q]

3. No one else will do the work?

I've no idea where that line is coming from...

The rest is true.

Probably.

The fact is, the honky ancestors left England to escape religious persecution combined with taxation without representation, came to America, then burned people they deemed were witches and kept slaves because THEY didn't want to do the work. (Washingon, Jefferson, Franklin, et al, are said to have been progressive for their time, but I am no historian so I'm not going to judge them either way for the Constitution.)

I am for controlled immigration and I want to see people come in to help America. Not help themselves at the needless expense of everybody else. That's sick. We're still a community, whether we want to admit it or not. I am not anti-capitalism, a communist, or anything else. I am something akin to a JFK democrat, the mantra here being "Ask not what your country can do for you". And there is nothing wrong with that.

Tribalism is inevitable. But only a tribe that gives a damn will prosper. And I'm seeing little of that. BY people who were born here, by people being shipped here via H1B (a sheer disuse of taxpayer funds), or by jobs being shipped out of here.

Before anyone starts with the 'native Americans' rebuttal, riddle me this: When do we look at the future instead of wallowing in the past, which will change nothing? After all, ask any Mexican who didn't give up his religion for Cortez. That's right, Cortez invaded a country, uprooted their society, then shoved his religion down the native Mexicans' throats while slicing the throats of the Mexicans who refused. :think: (Columbus too was Spanish, Cristóbal Colón... but the venture he took at the time was impressive, risky, and brave; but I do not know if it was true he had a field day slaughtering the natives...)

[pampango]

5. "No one else will do the work?"

I have seen posts to the effect that growers or other employers can't find Americans willing to do the work that immigrants do. (I know that the level of wages factors into whether any American worker will do the work, so "no one else will do the work?" is an oversimplification.

[leveymg]

4. Trade and immigration are part of the same equation

Net national wealth = human capital + net exports + rents (includes value of equities, patents and R&D)+ relative currency valuation + national savings.

By this rough measure, we need all the human capital we can get, because we're falling behind in the other factors. Of course, if we invested our remaining resources into areas of potential competitive advantage, such as alternative energy technologies and manufactured the resulting goods here, we could correct the current trade and savings imbalances, and put a lot of Americans back to work.

[pampango]

6. Great equation. Sounds like an argument for "free immigration"

How about free trade? Obviously, the net exports and other factors in your equation are a part of trade.