Is there a security crisis at the Southwest border?

[HondurasKeiser]

I don't consider the boost I'm talking about as a boost from a healthy standpoint to a excellent standpoint. It's more of a boost needed to simply stay healthy. At this point we aren't trying to raise all ships, a boost needed simply to keep the boats off the sea shore because the tide is moving out.
As far as the past 40 years, I don't know who benefited most but I suppose the richest did the most. If that is true, my solution or blame isn't the immigration, but rather taxes and other reasons.

I'd like to see immigration made easier for both low wage immigrants and high wage immigrants. Even if most are low wage that come, I think that is fine. Let them come. It's normal for a first generation to have it tough and then the second generation thrives. I'm guessing if I moved to Central America, even with my larger pile of money, my lack knowledge of the culture and nuances and business, would make it tougher for me to make a living there. But I suppose my children would grow up their and take to it like a fish to water. There are thousands of second generation Americans who became well to do in ways their immigrant parents only dreamed.

I'll try to expand on my thinking.
I don't see the US birth rate being able to keep up with the demand for dependable employees. American businesses are scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to employees. Much of the time we are down to decidedly unqualified people. A large part of this is because of the decline in normal families and values. The American society doesn't properly raise and teach children anymore how to think or work. With a high unemployment rate, business simply doesn't employ these people, they sift them out. In a tight job market like we have now, we have no choice but to hire 10 people for 2 jobs, hoping to find two that will work out long term. That is not a figurative number, that is actually what we have done. Unqualified employees are terrifically inefficient, which in turn is not good for the countries industry. How do you compete globally with expensive, inefficient people?

Also, with our tilt toward more government benefits, a growing social security deficiency, who will pay for all this? I think it is not realistic to think that this direction is ever going to change in any sort of meaningful way. So, with more people on government programs, and a flat or perhaps eventually falling birth rate, what's the solution? I think for good reason countries are concerned when their population growth is flat or falling.

I think you identify well many of the interrelated social catastrophes that are coming to bear in American society. I do not think it's hyperbole to use that word catastrophe either, what we're witnessing is nothing short of the coming apart of the social compact that heretofore has bound disparate and disagreeable Americans together; in particular the elites to the commoners but also owners to workers, families to each other and citizens to the future members of the republic. Your solutions though, or ethical stances towards workable solutions, are where I take issue with your analysis. They are, it seems, a doubling-down on the very neo-liberal consensus that brought us to this point in the first place and would thus serve to only exacerbate the problem. Mass, low-skill immigration, similar to the "legal, flexible and generous" standard that you advocated, is of a piece with a larger program of 'freedom of movement' that has been propagated by the neo-liberal establishment for the past 50 years. Members of that establishment, whether they have been Progressives, Centrists or Conservatives (particularly the Neoconservatives), while disagreeing on social issues, foreign policy and the size and influence of government, have nevertheless managed to maintain consensus on the basic fundamentals of the economy. Namely, that lower taxes, tariffs and regulations coupled with a tightly managed monetary policy will drive the economy to new heights of prosperity while a generous welfare state will be there to support those that get left behind. Republicans and Democrats have become remarkably adept at pretending that their ideological differences are vast and irreconcilable but with respect to the economy, they are merely two sides of the same coin; they may fight over the size of tax cuts, the amount of regulation and the kind of welfare offered but it would be anathema to them to upset the establishment consensus in any meaningful way. Sohrab Ahmari says it most succinctly, writing in the April issue of First Things:

The consensus is characterized by a desire to maximize freedom and usher in a new global culture in which individuals are emancipated from tradition, culture, and community....The liberal, technocratic consensus has lent America a dynamic economy, world-winning entertainment, famously irreverent mores, and sundry technological marvels. People around the world have admired and shared in the material rewards it has brought. But the downsides are ­increasingly hard to ignore...Without a shared vision of the common good, society devolves into consumerist cliques and warring tribal factions. With the eclipse of the metaphysical ideals that underlie their conception of reason, America and the West can barely address other civilizations, much less win them over...I wish the mainstream parties and politicians had been more alert to these and other discontents associated with technocratic liberalism. But the “responsible” center wasn’t up to the task, not least because journalists and intellectuals jealously guarded every element of the consensus and treated any deviation from it as heretical...raising a peep about unrestricted mass migration was treated as phobic....economic growth, interconnectedness, and openness were treated as the only ideals worthy of the name.

Beginning in the 1990's especially, this economic neo-liberalism took on a global dynamic as we began to see the opening up of free-trade zones, first in the Western Hemishpere and then in Asia and Europe. Since the era of NAFTA, the American public has been told repeatedly by the elites of both parties that the free movement of people, goods, ideas, currency and cultures will be wholly beneficial not only to our country but to any country that has the good wisdom to participate in free-trade. Jobs and whole sectors of the economy may be lost, communities dislocated, cultures denatured and currencies devalued but in the final analysis market competition will reward winners, punish losers and slowly raise all ships. We will all, and by degrees, benefit economically if we just ride this wave. Thus, if you don't like what's happened to your town, move. If you are unwilling to follow the jobs or are a low-skilled, inefficient product of the failed families and schools that this economy helped breed, we will simply import hard-working, foreigners willing to work for less and displace you. You are now a global citizen and disposable.

I see echoes of that sentiment in your post - the rationale that you offer is purely economic in scope. "Why have a generous immigration policy? Because our birth rate is dropping, we need low-skilled workers to fill the gap in entry level positions, we need new sources of taxation to pay for our ever-burgeoning welfare state, we need to remain globally competitive, our own fellow-citizens are lazy". This has been the rationale and justification for the neo-liberal endorsement of mass immigration since the 1980's and it's rotten. The economy has been rigged by many in the establishment to create massive new amounts of wealth at the expense of families, communities, civic organizations, and stable jobs. Thus we find ourselves with the spectacle of being at once, fabulously wealthy and living at a level of comfort that no other society has ever even imagined, while at the same time producing a growing underclass of under-employed, under-educated and maladjusted, poorly developed man-children that find themselves adrift in a sea of endless, meaningless, plastic, wish-fulfillment who manage to make a living by gigging. The subtext of your post is that your fellow citizens are of no use to you in any economic sense, so let us import some efficient human resources that have not yet been exposed to the vicisitudes of liquid modernity, late-stage capitalism and radical individualism so that our economic engine can keep on churning. What happens then when the children of these immigrant work-horses become acculturated by twitter, the Kardashians and the American educational system into the failed and extended adolescence of many American youth? What then, do we simply import more?

I am not opposed to immigration tout court and the economic health of a country is manifestly important for a host of reasons. The neo-liberal establishment though, and in particular the Republican Party, has reduced the standard for the well-being of the country and its citizenry to the vitality of Wall Street, the GDP and the price index. It's no wonder then that such a shallow calculus, implemented in the form of economic and monetary policy, has helped to eviscerate the sustaining institutions of middle America. What's particularly galling though is to see establishment types like Bill Kristol, Kevin Williamson and Ben Shapiro stand up and either mock their fellow citizens or offer them trite and platitudinous tropes about personal responsibility and the importance of education.

I do not mean to attack you or ascribe to you neo-liberal thinking, rather I see the failed economic consensus coming through in both your and Appleman's posts. In short I disagree with the economics of your rationale, I do not think it is simply a question of what best drives the economy for such reductionistic explanations inevitably degrade the humanity of the people we're writing about. Many, many people are clearly being ground into fodder so that this economy can keep on growing. Finally, I really think the economics of immigration, positive or negative, is a secondary consideration to the larger issue of how mass immigration affects society at a more basic, cultural and legal level. That's a conversation that is not being had here and it strikes me as odd that it hasn't been raised.

[temporal1]

HK:
.. “Finally, I really think the economics of immigration, positive or negative, is a secondary consideration to the larger issue of
how mass immigration affects society at a more basic, cultural and legal level.

That's a conversation that is not being had here and it strikes me as odd that it hasn't been raised.”

Lead it.

[HondurasKeiser]

I messed up my editing, this is what I wanted to post originally. The additions have been bolded.

I don't consider the boost I'm talking about as a boost from a healthy standpoint to a excellent standpoint. It's more of a boost needed to simply stay healthy. At this point we aren't trying to raise all ships, a boost needed simply to keep the boats off the sea shore because the tide is moving out.
As far as the past 40 years, I don't know who benefited most but I suppose the richest did the most. If that is true, my solution or blame isn't the immigration, but rather taxes and other reasons.

I'd like to see immigration made easier for both low wage immigrants and high wage immigrants. Even if most are low wage that come, I think that is fine. Let them come. It's normal for a first generation to have it tough and then the second generation thrives. I'm guessing if I moved to Central America, even with my larger pile of money, my lack knowledge of the culture and nuances and business, would make it tougher for me to make a living there. But I suppose my children would grow up their and take to it like a fish to water. There are thousands of second generation Americans who became well to do in ways their immigrant parents only dreamed.

I'll try to expand on my thinking.
I don't see the US birth rate being able to keep up with the demand for dependable employees. American businesses are scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to employees. Much of the time we are down to decidedly unqualified people. A large part of this is because of the decline in normal families and values. The American society doesn't properly raise and teach children anymore how to think or work. With a high unemployment rate, business simply doesn't employ these people, they sift them out. In a tight job market like we have now, we have no choice but to hire 10 people for 2 jobs, hoping to find two that will work out long term. That is not a figurative number, that is actually what we have done. Unqualified employees are terrifically inefficient, which in turn is not good for the countries industry. How do you compete globally with expensive, inefficient people?

Also, with our tilt toward more government benefits, a growing social security deficiency, who will pay for all this? I think it is not realistic to think that this direction is ever going to change in any sort of meaningful way. So, with more people on government programs, and a flat or perhaps eventually falling birth rate, what's the solution? I think for good reason countries are concerned when their population growth is flat or falling.

I think you identify well many of the interrelated social catastrophes that are coming to bear in American society. I do not think it's hyperbole to use that word catastrophe either, what we're witnessing is nothing short of the coming apart of the social compact that heretofore has bound disparate and disagreeable Americans together; in particular the elites to the commoners but also owners to workers, families to each other and citizens to the future members of the republic. Your solutions though, or ethical stances towards workable solutions, are where I take issue with your analysis. They are, it seems, a doubling-down on the very neo-liberal consensus that brought us to this point in the first place and would thus serve to only exacerbate the problem. Mass, low-skill immigration, similar to the "legal, flexible and generous" standard that you advocated, is of a piece with a larger program of 'freedom of movement' that has been propagated by the neo-liberal establishment for the past 50 years. Members of that establishment, whether they have been Progressives, Centrists or Conservatives (particularly the Neoconservatives), while disagreeing on social issues, foreign policy and the size and influence of government, have nevertheless managed to maintain consensus on the basic fundamentals of the economy. Namely, that lower taxes, tariffs and regulations coupled with a tightly managed monetary policy and increasingly oriented towards the service and technology sectors, will drive the economy to new heights of prosperity while a generous welfare state will be there to support those that get left behind. As the education system herds more and more of the middle and lower classes towards university degrees for positions in the service economy; cheap, renewable and low-skilled sources of labor will be required to fill the gap in non-degree-requisite jobs. Republicans and Democrats have become remarkably adept at pretending that their ideological differences are vast and irreconcilable but with respect to the economy, they are merely two sides of the same coin; they may fight over the size of tax cuts, the amount of regulation and the kind of welfare offered but it would be anathema to them to upset the establishment consensus in any meaningful way. Sohrab Ahmari says it most succinctly, writing in the April issue of First Things:

The consensus is characterized by a desire to maximize freedom and usher in a new global culture in which individuals are emancipated from tradition, culture, and community....The liberal, technocratic consensus has lent America a dynamic economy, world-winning entertainment, famously irreverent mores, and sundry technological marvels. People around the world have admired and shared in the material rewards it has brought. But the downsides are ­increasingly hard to ignore...Without a shared vision of the common good, society devolves into consumerist cliques and warring tribal factions. With the eclipse of the metaphysical ideals that underlie their conception of reason, America and the West can barely address other civilizations, much less win them over...I wish the mainstream parties and politicians had been more alert to these and other discontents associated with technocratic liberalism. But the “responsible” center wasn’t up to the task, not least because journalists and intellectuals jealously guarded every element of the consensus and treated any deviation from it as heretical...raising a peep about unrestricted mass migration was treated as phobic....economic growth, interconnectedness, and openness were treated as the only ideals worthy of the name.

Beginning in the 1990's especially, this economic neo-liberalism took on a global dynamic as we began to see the opening up of free-trade zones, first in the Western Hemishpere and then in Asia and Europe. Since the era of NAFTA, the American public has been told repeatedly by the elites of both parties that the free movement of people, goods, ideas, currency and cultures will be wholly beneficial not only to our country but to any country that has the good wisdom to participate in free-trade. Jobs and whole sectors of the economy may be lost, communities dislocated, cultures denatured and currencies devalued but in the final analysis market competition will reward winners, punish losers and slowly raise all ships. We will all, and by degrees, benefit economically if we just ride this wave. Thus, if you don't like what's happened to your town, move. If you are unwilling to follow the jobs or are a low-skilled, inefficient product of the failed families and schools that this economy helped breed, we will simply import hard-working, foreigners willing to work for less and displace you. You are now a global citizen and disposable.

I see echoes of that sentiment in your post - the rationale that you offer is purely economic in scope. "Why have a generous immigration policy? Because our birth rate is dropping, we need low-skilled workers to fill the gap in entry level positions, we need new sources of taxation to pay for our ever-burgeoning welfare state, we need to remain globally competitive, our own fellow-citizens are lazy". This has been the rationale and justification for the neo-liberal endorsement of mass immigration since the 1980's and it's rotten. 'The economy cannot survive without cheap, immigrant labor'. The economy has been rigged by many in the establishment to create massive new amounts of wealth at the expense of families, communities, civic organizations, and stable jobs. Thus we find ourselves with the spectacle of being at once, fabulously wealthy and living at a level of comfort that no other society has ever even imagined, while at the same time producing a growing underclass of under-employed, under-educated and maladjusted, poorly developed man-children that find themselves adrift in a sea of endless, meaningless, plastic, wish-fulfillment who manage to make a living by gigging. The subtext of your post is that your fellow citizens are of no use to you in any economic sense, so let us import some efficient human resources that have not yet been exposed to the vicisitudes of liquid modernity, late-stage capitalism and radical individualism so that our economic engine can keep on churning. What happens then when the children of these immigrant work-horses become acculturated by twitter, the Kardashians and the American educational system into the failed and extended adolescence of many American youth? What then, do we simply import more?

I am not opposed to immigration tout court and the economic health of a country is manifestly important for a host of reasons. The neo-liberal establishment though, and in particular the Republican Party, has reduced the standard for the well-being of the country and its citizenry to the vitality of Wall Street, the GDP and the price index. It's no wonder then that such a shallow calculus, implemented in the form of fiscal and monetary policy, has helped to eviscerate the sustaining institutions of middle America. What's particularly galling though is to see establishment types like Bill Kristol, Kevin Williamson and Ben Shapiro stand up and either mock their fellow citizens or offer them trite and platitudinous tropes about personal responsibility and the importance of education while at the same time threatening to replace them with masses from south of the border.

I do not mean to attack you or ascribe to you neo-liberal thinking, rather I see the failed economic consensus coming through in both your and Appleman's posts. In short I disagree with the economics of your rationale, I do not think it is simply a question of what best drives the economy for such reductionistic explanations inevitably degrade the humanity of the people we're writing about. Many, many people are clearly being ground into fodder so that this economy can keep on growing. Finally, I really think the economics of immigration, positive or negative, is a secondary consideration to the larger issue of how mass immigration affects society at a more basic, cultural and legal level. That's a conversation that is not being had here and it strikes me as odd that it hasn't been raised.

[Josh]

Finally, I really think the economics of immigration, positive or negative, is a secondary consideration to the larger issue of how mass immigration affects society at a more basic, cultural and legal level. That's a conversation that is not being had here and it strikes me as odd that it hasn't been raised.

This is a question I’ve raised a few times. In particular, those who are pro-immigration really avoid talking about the effect mass immigration has on the societies and countries where people are leaving.

[Neto]

Some would argue that the current upheaval is a part of the shift from a national economy to a world one, because of the increasingly globalization of the interrelated aspects of business in general. I wonder if anyone has specifically looked at or compared this time with the era of nationalization of economies when industrialization and improved transportation expanded local economies into regional & national ones.

My own people came to this country at such a time. The serfs were being freed in the Russian Empire at just the time when the landless problem in the (Mennonite) colonies was bringing the economy there to the point of near collapse. Wars were becoming increasingly global, and the Christian faith had declined (in the Mennonite colonies) to the point that when revival came, the 'establishment' persecuted those who had found new life, through both religious & economic policies. (I'm referring only to life within the colonies in this regard.) The social pressure coming from an increasingly nationalized political environment in Russia also put pressure on the long-standing 'rights' given to the Mennonites at the time of emigration, so a new place was found - largely the American central plains, an area that had recently been opened up to better access through the expansion of the railroad. I'm saying all of this (perhaps a bit more long-windedly than necessary) to make a comparison of sorts. We were farmers, and made our own way, and our own economy in a place where there was very little of anything like it. At the same time, though, Russian Jews poured out of Russia, but even though they also had lived in colonies, village settings there (just like the Mennonites), they chose the larger American cities as their new homes. I have never understood why, but they seem to have made it here as well.

But now there are no large tracts of land up for settlement, and the trend in Latin America is decidedly toward the largest cities. I have seen the effects of this on poor Brazilians - their economic and social status (within their community of choice) goes down drastically. They go from a largely self-sufficient subsistence culture to one in which they are dependent on the mercy of the rich, one in which a small upset in their financial situation can plunge them into abject poverty. The only advantages are the opportunity (however limited it is) for their children to get an education, and more accessible medical treatments. Otherwise, look at it - they go from a place where there is pure water and plenty of land in which to hunt and plant food products, to a small plot of squatters land just large enough for a small house, in a 'community' of other poor people where the sewer runs in the 'streets', and the water is contaminated.

The issue of population growth (or lack of it) has also been mentioned. One Banawa family stands out to me because all of their children have survived, and there are 10 of them. Aside from two boys who have severe visual impairment (due to extreme loss of blood at birth), all of their children have the same opportunity for success as their parents. There is a vast area allotted to the Banawa people. But American families (my own Mennonite people included) have largely chosen to limit their families to only two or three children. It may be argued that this choice was forced upon them by the economic environment in which they chose to live, and that, to some degree, was forced on them by increased industrialization, etc.

[appleman2006]

I messed up my editing, this is what I wanted to post originally. The additions have been bolded.

I don't consider the boost I'm talking about as a boost from a healthy standpoint to a excellent standpoint. It's more of a boost needed to simply stay healthy. At this point we aren't trying to raise all ships, a boost needed simply to keep the boats off the sea shore because the tide is moving out.
As far as the past 40 years, I don't know who benefited most but I suppose the richest did the most. If that is true, my solution or blame isn't the immigration, but rather taxes and other reasons.

I'd like to see immigration made easier for both low wage immigrants and high wage immigrants. Even if most are low wage that come, I think that is fine. Let them come. It's normal for a first generation to have it tough and then the second generation thrives. I'm guessing if I moved to Central America, even with my larger pile of money, my lack knowledge of the culture and nuances and business, would make it tougher for me to make a living there. But I suppose my children would grow up their and take to it like a fish to water. There are thousands of second generation Americans who became well to do in ways their immigrant parents only dreamed.

I'll try to expand on my thinking.
I don't see the US birth rate being able to keep up with the demand for dependable employees. American businesses are scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to employees. Much of the time we are down to decidedly unqualified people. A large part of this is because of the decline in normal families and values. The American society doesn't properly raise and teach children anymore how to think or work. With a high unemployment rate, business simply doesn't employ these people, they sift them out. In a tight job market like we have now, we have no choice but to hire 10 people for 2 jobs, hoping to find two that will work out long term. That is not a figurative number, that is actually what we have done. Unqualified employees are terrifically inefficient, which in turn is not good for the countries industry. How do you compete globally with expensive, inefficient people?

Also, with our tilt toward more government benefits, a growing social security deficiency, who will pay for all this? I think it is not realistic to think that this direction is ever going to change in any sort of meaningful way. So, with more people on government programs, and a flat or perhaps eventually falling birth rate, what's the solution? I think for good reason countries are concerned when their population growth is flat or falling.

I think you identify well many of the interrelated social catastrophes that are coming to bear in American society. I do not think it's hyperbole to use that word catastrophe either, what we're witnessing is nothing short of the coming apart of the social compact that heretofore has bound disparate and disagreeable Americans together; in particular the elites to the commoners but also owners to workers, families to each other and citizens to the future members of the republic. Your solutions though, or ethical stances towards workable solutions, are where I take issue with your analysis. They are, it seems, a doubling-down on the very neo-liberal consensus that brought us to this point in the first place and would thus serve to only exacerbate the problem. Mass, low-skill immigration, similar to the "legal, flexible and generous" standard that you advocated, is of a piece with a larger program of 'freedom of movement' that has been propagated by the neo-liberal establishment for the past 50 years. Members of that establishment, whether they have been Progressives, Centrists or Conservatives (particularly the Neoconservatives), while disagreeing on social issues, foreign policy and the size and influence of government, have nevertheless managed to maintain consensus on the basic fundamentals of the economy. Namely, that lower taxes, tariffs and regulations coupled with a tightly managed monetary policy and increasingly oriented towards the service and technology sectors, will drive the economy to new heights of prosperity while a generous welfare state will be there to support those that get left behind. As the education system herds more and more of the middle and lower classes towards university degrees for positions in the service economy; cheap, renewable and low-skilled sources of labor will be required to fill the gap in non-degree-requisite jobs. Republicans and Democrats have become remarkably adept at pretending that their ideological differences are vast and irreconcilable but with respect to the economy, they are merely two sides of the same coin; they may fight over the size of tax cuts, the amount of regulation and the kind of welfare offered but it would be anathema to them to upset the establishment consensus in any meaningful way. Sohrab Ahmari says it most succinctly, writing in the April issue of First Things:

The consensus is characterized by a desire to maximize freedom and usher in a new global culture in which individuals are emancipated from tradition, culture, and community....The liberal, technocratic consensus has lent America a dynamic economy, world-winning entertainment, famously irreverent mores, and sundry technological marvels. People around the world have admired and shared in the material rewards it has brought. But the downsides are ­increasingly hard to ignore...Without a shared vision of the common good, society devolves into consumerist cliques and warring tribal factions. With the eclipse of the metaphysical ideals that underlie their conception of reason, America and the West can barely address other civilizations, much less win them over...I wish the mainstream parties and politicians had been more alert to these and other discontents associated with technocratic liberalism. But the “responsible” center wasn’t up to the task, not least because journalists and intellectuals jealously guarded every element of the consensus and treated any deviation from it as heretical...raising a peep about unrestricted mass migration was treated as phobic....economic growth, interconnectedness, and openness were treated as the only ideals worthy of the name.

Beginning in the 1990's especially, this economic neo-liberalism took on a global dynamic as we began to see the opening up of free-trade zones, first in the Western Hemishpere and then in Asia and Europe. Since the era of NAFTA, the American public has been told repeatedly by the elites of both parties that the free movement of people, goods, ideas, currency and cultures will be wholly beneficial not only to our country but to any country that has the good wisdom to participate in free-trade. Jobs and whole sectors of the economy may be lost, communities dislocated, cultures denatured and currencies devalued but in the final analysis market competition will reward winners, punish losers and slowly raise all ships. We will all, and by degrees, benefit economically if we just ride this wave. Thus, if you don't like what's happened to your town, move. If you are unwilling to follow the jobs or are a low-skilled, inefficient product of the failed families and schools that this economy helped breed, we will simply import hard-working, foreigners willing to work for less and displace you. You are now a global citizen and disposable.

I see echoes of that sentiment in your post - the rationale that you offer is purely economic in scope. "Why have a generous immigration policy? Because our birth rate is dropping, we need low-skilled workers to fill the gap in entry level positions, we need new sources of taxation to pay for our ever-burgeoning welfare state, we need to remain globally competitive, our own fellow-citizens are lazy". This has been the rationale and justification for the neo-liberal endorsement of mass immigration since the 1980's and it's rotten. 'The economy cannot survive without cheap, immigrant labor'. The economy has been rigged by many in the establishment to create massive new amounts of wealth at the expense of families, communities, civic organizations, and stable jobs. Thus we find ourselves with the spectacle of being at once, fabulously wealthy and living at a level of comfort that no other society has ever even imagined, while at the same time producing a growing underclass of under-employed, under-educated and maladjusted, poorly developed man-children that find themselves adrift in a sea of endless, meaningless, plastic, wish-fulfillment who manage to make a living by gigging. The subtext of your post is that your fellow citizens are of no use to you in any economic sense, so let us import some efficient human resources that have not yet been exposed to the vicisitudes of liquid modernity, late-stage capitalism and radical individualism so that our economic engine can keep on churning. What happens then when the children of these immigrant work-horses become acculturated by twitter, the Kardashians and the American educational system into the failed and extended adolescence of many American youth? What then, do we simply import more?

I am not opposed to immigration tout court and the economic health of a country is manifestly important for a host of reasons. The neo-liberal establishment though, and in particular the Republican Party, has reduced the standard for the well-being of the country and its citizenry to the vitality of Wall Street, the GDP and the price index. It's no wonder then that such a shallow calculus, implemented in the form of fiscal and monetary policy, has helped to eviscerate the sustaining institutions of middle America. What's particularly galling though is to see establishment types like Bill Kristol, Kevin Williamson and Ben Shapiro stand up and either mock their fellow citizens or offer them trite and platitudinous tropes about personal responsibility and the importance of education while at the same time threatening to replace them with masses from south of the border.

I do not mean to attack you or ascribe to you neo-liberal thinking, rather I see the failed economic consensus coming through in both your and Appleman's posts. In short I disagree with the economics of your rationale, I do not think it is simply a question of what best drives the economy for such reductionistic explanations inevitably degrade the humanity of the people we're writing about. Many, many people are clearly being ground into fodder so that this economy can keep on growing. Finally, I really think the economics of immigration, positive or negative, is a secondary consideration to the larger issue of how mass immigration affects society at a more basic, cultural and legal level. That's a conversation that is not being had here and it strikes me as odd that it hasn't been raised.

A well written piece and I do not disagree with all off it
However it does raise a few questions for me. What exactly is your solution? I hear you say what you think will not work but I do not really see a solution in what you suggest here.

For example. If you are suggesting no immigration than may I also suggest that means no trade. And I think we all understand that will mean we all pay a lot more for most of the goods we now use. Especially our food supply.

One obvious solution would be to simply import our food or at least the major part of it. I would argue that the country that totally gives up it's local food production is a country that is putting it's future at great risk. Which brings us back to the issue of why immigration or at the very least a migrant workforce is so necessary in Agriculture. And that is that most of agricultural work is very seasonal. I have always maintained that Canadian's as a whole are not lazy. But the Canadian that would be capable of doing the labour necessary for food production already has a full time job and is not looking for seasonal labour that my only be available for 2 or 3 months. Perhaps mechanism will eventually take care of this issue but we are still a few generations from that happening totally.

Immigration is not a new concept. Our countries were almost entirely built on immigrants.
Again what is you solution?

[MaxPC]

I'll try to expand on my thinking.
I don't see the US birth rate being able to keep up with the demand for dependable employees. American businesses are scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to employees. Much of the time we are down to decidedly unqualified people. A large part of this is because of the decline in normal families and values. The American society doesn't properly raise and teach children anymore how to think or work. With a high unemployment rate, business simply doesn't employ these people, they sift them out. In a tight job market like we have now, we have no choice but to hire 10 people for 2 jobs, hoping to find two that will work out long term. That is not a figurative number, that is actually what we have done. Unqualified employees are terrifically inefficient, which in turn is not good for the countries industry. How do you compete globally with expensive, inefficient people?

Also, with our tilt toward more government benefits, a growing social security deficiency, who will pay for all this? I think it is not realistic to think that this direction is ever going to change in any sort of meaningful way. So, with more people on government programs, and a flat or perhaps eventually falling birth rate, what's the solution? I think for good reason countries are concerned when their population growth is flat or falling.

I think the Holy Spirit is moving. RZehr, your thoughts above echo a conversation I have been having with my colleagues are are now retiring. They are a part of the baby boomer generation who are at least 20 years my junior. They don't know what to do with themselves and are hoping to find a job somewhere (not in academia) that will let them supplement their meager pensions and SSI. They are still healthy. With medical advancements many can expect to reach their late 80s and 90s.

RZehr, have you thought about hiring from this group? They have a well developed work ethic and sense of responsibility. They might not be able to lift heavy things but two are three together and move items or use forklifts.

[HondurasKeiser]

A well written piece and I do not disagree with all off it
However it does raise a few questions for me. What exactly is your solution? I hear you say what you think will not work but I do not really see a solution in what you suggest here.

For example. If you are suggesting no immigration than may I also suggest that means no trade. And I think we all understand that will mean we all pay a lot more for most of the goods we now use. Especially our food supply.

One obvious solution would be to simply import our food or at least the major part of it. I would argue that the country that totally gives up it's local food production is a country that is putting it's future at great risk. Which brings us back to the issue of why immigration or at the very least a migrant workforce is so necessary in Agriculture. And that is that most of agricultural work is very seasonal. I have always maintained that Canadian's as a whole are not lazy. But the Canadian that would be capable of doing the labour necessary for food production already has a full time job and is not looking for seasonal labour that my only be available for 2 or 3 months. Perhaps mechanism will eventually take care of this issue but we are still a few generations from that happening totally.

Immigration is not a new concept. Our countries were almost entirely built on immigrants.
Again what is you solution?

Good questions Appleman, I am not sure if I have the answers to them but I'll do my best. I do have a question about one of your assertions though. You wrote: "If you are suggesting no immigration than may I also suggest that means no trade." I am no sure I see the axiomatic connection between the two. Why is one contingent upon the other?

[RZehr]

I think the Holy Spirit is moving. RZehr, your thoughts above echo a conversation I have been having with my colleagues are are now retiring. They are a part of the baby boomer generation who are at least 20 years my junior. They don't know what to do with themselves and are hoping to find a job somewhere (not in academia) that will let them supplement their meager pensions and SSI. They are still healthy. With medical advancements many can expect to reach their late 80s and 90s.

RZehr, have you thought about hiring from this group? They have a well developed work ethic and sense of responsibility. They might not be able to lift heavy things but two are three together and move items or use forklifts.

We have hired older people, and we do have them. We typically let them work as long as they like, and try to accommodate them where possible. However there was one man we asked to retire. If I remember right he was mid to upper eighties and was operating a piece of equipment in a declining fashion. They are more dependable in many ways for sure. But obviously the more physical the job is, the less likely they can do it.

[RZehr]

I think you are making unfounded assumptions in what I'm not saying. I think you are arguing past what I'm actually saying, to what you think I am thinking or something like that. This makes it difficult for me to understand if and where we actually may agree or disagree.

I messed up my editing, this is what I wanted to post originally. The additions have been bolded.

I don't consider the boost I'm talking about as a boost from a healthy standpoint to a excellent standpoint. It's more of a boost needed to simply stay healthy. At this point we aren't trying to raise all ships, a boost needed simply to keep the boats off the sea shore because the tide is moving out.
As far as the past 40 years, I don't know who benefited most but I suppose the richest did the most. If that is true, my solution or blame isn't the immigration, but rather taxes and other reasons.

I'd like to see immigration made easier for both low wage immigrants and high wage immigrants. Even if most are low wage that come, I think that is fine. Let them come. It's normal for a first generation to have it tough and then the second generation thrives. I'm guessing if I moved to Central America, even with my larger pile of money, my lack knowledge of the culture and nuances and business, would make it tougher for me to make a living there. But I suppose my children would grow up their and take to it like a fish to water. There are thousands of second generation Americans who became well to do in ways their immigrant parents only dreamed.

I'll try to expand on my thinking.
I don't see the US birth rate being able to keep up with the demand for dependable employees. American businesses are scrapping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to employees. Much of the time we are down to decidedly unqualified people. A large part of this is because of the decline in normal families and values. The American society doesn't properly raise and teach children anymore how to think or work. With a high unemployment rate, business simply doesn't employ these people, they sift them out. In a tight job market like we have now, we have no choice but to hire 10 people for 2 jobs, hoping to find two that will work out long term. That is not a figurative number, that is actually what we have done. Unqualified employees are terrifically inefficient, which in turn is not good for the countries industry. How do you compete globally with expensive, inefficient people?

Also, with our tilt toward more government benefits, a growing social security deficiency, who will pay for all this? I think it is not realistic to think that this direction is ever going to change in any sort of meaningful way. So, with more people on government programs, and a flat or perhaps eventually falling birth rate, what's the solution? I think for good reason countries are concerned when their population growth is flat or falling.

I think you identify well many of the interrelated social catastrophes that are coming to bear in American society. I do not think it's hyperbole to use that word catastrophe either, what we're witnessing is nothing short of the coming apart of the social compact that heretofore has bound disparate and disagreeable Americans together; in particular the elites to the commoners but also owners to workers, families to each other and citizens to the future members of the republic. Your solutions though, or ethical stances towards workable solutions, are where I take issue with your analysis. They are, it seems, a doubling-down on the very neo-liberal consensus that brought us to this point

What point is this?

in the first place and would thus serve to only exacerbate the problem. Mass, low-skill immigration,similar to the "legal, flexible and generous" standard that you advocated,

I'm fine with low-skill and high skill. I'm not looking for a certain skill level, I think from an economic standpoint, we need more people period.

is of a piece with a larger program of 'freedom of movement' that has been propagated by the neo-liberal establishment for the past 50 years. Members of that establishment, whether they have been Progressives, Centrists or Conservatives (particularly the Neoconservatives), while disagreeing on social issues, foreign policy and the size and influence of government, have nevertheless managed to maintain consensus on the basic fundamentals of the economy. Namely, that lower taxes, tariffs and regulations coupled with a tightly managed monetary policy and increasingly oriented towards the service and technology sectors, will drive the economy to new heights of prosperity while a generous welfare state will be there to support those that get left behind. As the education system herds more and more of the middle and lower classes towards university degrees for positions in the service economy; cheap, renewable and low-skilled sources of labor will be required to fill the gap in non-degree-requisite jobs. Republicans and Democrats have become remarkably adept at pretending that their ideological differences are vast and irreconcilable but with respect to the economy, they are merely two sides of the same coin; they may fight over the size of tax cuts, the amount of regulation and the kind of welfare offered but it would be anathema to them to upset the establishment consensus in any meaningful way. Sohrab Ahmari says it most succinctly, writing in the April issue of First Things:

The consensus is characterized by a desire to maximize freedom and usher in a new global culture in which individuals are emancipated from tradition, culture, and community....The liberal, technocratic consensus has lent America a dynamic economy, world-winning entertainment, famously irreverent mores, and sundry technological marvels. People around the world have admired and shared in the material rewards it has brought. But the downsides are ­increasingly hard to ignore...Without a shared vision of the common good, society devolves into consumerist cliques and warring tribal factions. With the eclipse of the metaphysical ideals that underlie their conception of reason, America and the West can barely address other civilizations, much less win them over...I wish the mainstream parties and politicians had been more alert to these and other discontents associated with technocratic liberalism. But the “responsible” center wasn’t up to the task, not least because journalists and intellectuals jealously guarded every element of the consensus and treated any deviation from it as heretical...raising a peep about unrestricted mass migration was treated as phobic....economic growth, interconnectedness, and openness were treated as the only ideals worthy of the name.

Beginning in the 1990's especially, this economic neo-liberalism took on a global dynamic as we began to see the opening up of free-trade zones, first in the Western Hemishpere and then in Asia and Europe. Since the era of NAFTA, the American public has been told repeatedly by the elites of both parties that the free movement of people, goods, ideas, currency and cultures will be wholly beneficial not only to our country but to any country that has the good wisdom to participate in free-trade.

I don't know what the elites have promised the American public. But I believe it is a fact that free trade has lifted vast amounts of people globally out of poverty in a way that they aren't complaining about. Until there is a better system proven, I'm happy with just tweaks and adjustments to the system we have. Last Sunday I visited my wifes cousin from Guatemala who grew up with dirt floors and animals power for carts and transportation. Now they have factory jobs, and their standard of living in that community is much higher. Just made me think of this thread.

Jobs and whole sectors of the economy may be lost, communities dislocated, cultures denatured and currencies devalued but in the final analysis market competition will reward winners, punish losers and slowly raise all ships. We will all, and by degrees, benefit economically if we just ride this wave. Thus, if you don't like what's happened to your town, move.

I'm not sure it will raise all ships, but if it raises ten third world people from abject poverty at some cost to one persons first worlds entertainment budgets, then so be it.

If you are unwilling to follow the jobs or are a low-skilled, inefficient product of the failed families and schools that this economy helped breed, we will simply import hard-working, foreigners willing to work for less and displace you. You are now a global citizen and disposable.

I see echoes of that sentiment in your post

Yes and No. I'm not sure that it is a human right per se to not have to move physically for economic reasons. Life isn't obligated to supply my location of birth and heritage or the location of my choice with a high level of economic opportunity. And yes, I wonder if we are more or less global citizens and disposable in some sense. Maybe that is partly why I'm not against immigration.

- the rationale that you offer is purely economic in scope.

Pretty much, yes. I think I am approaching this as a speculating American, and not necessarily from an W.W.J.D. perspective. If I was to change perspectives, I'm not sure what all would be different in my thinking.

"Why have a generous immigration policy? Because our birth rate is dropping, we need low-skilled workers to fill the gap in entry level positions, we need new sources of taxation to pay for our ever-burgeoning welfare state, we need to remain globally competitive, our own fellow-citizens are lazy". This has been the rationale and justification for the neo-liberal endorsement of mass immigration since the 1980's and it's rotten. 'The economy cannot survive without cheap, immigrant labor'.

The economy has been rigged

Rigged? That sounds like a conspiracy and self defeating. We are currently in an economy that is has many jobs going empty and the economy is rigged against labor? I can go agree that due to trade groups lobbying for certain protections and regulations, it is more difficult than ever to start a new business, but that isn't what you are talking about , is it?

by many in the establishment to create massive new amounts of wealth at the expense of families, communities, civic organizations, and stable jobs. Thus we find ourselves with the spectacle of being at once, fabulously wealthy and living at a level of comfort that no other society has ever even imagined, while at the same time producing a growing underclass of under-employed, under-educated and maladjusted, poorly developed man-children that find themselves adrift in a sea of endless, meaningless, plastic, wish-fulfillment who manage to make a living by gigging.

I agree with this assertion. I don't hear what your solution is. My optimistic thought, is that gigging may turn into a self-employment/new business incubator for some of them who are able to do so.

The subtext of your post is that your fellow citizens are of no use to you in any economic sense, so let us import some efficient human resources that have not yet been exposed to the vicisitudes of liquid modernity, late-stage capitalism and radical individualism so that our economic engine can keep on churning.

I don't know what late-stage capitalism is. The fact that someone is not of economic use to me, doesn't mean they are not use or value to me. I simply was approaching the economics of the matter.

What happens then when the children of these immigrant work-horses become acculturated by twitter, the Kardashians and the American educational system into the failed and extended adolescence of many American youth? What then, do we simply import more?

Well, I was asked that at work yesterday by a immigrant who came here about 20 years ago. He was raised in Mexico with solid Catholic family values and today he is in the middle class here. He sees his children and nephews have lost their Catholic values and have little work ethic and attention span and their friends are not good either. He was asking what we do differently. I told him that we recognize that cancer of this society and we discussed the need for church communities and our private schools.

I am not opposed to immigration tout court and the economic health of a country is manifestly important for a host of reasons. The neo-liberal establishment though, and in particular the Republican Party, has reduced the standard for the well-being of the country and its citizenry to the vitality of Wall Street, the GDP and the price index. It's no wonder then that such a shallow calculus, implemented in the form of fiscal and monetary policy, has helped to eviscerate the sustaining institutions of middle America. What's particularly galling though is to see establishment types like Bill Kristol, Kevin Williamson and Ben Shapiro stand up and either mock their fellow citizens or offer them trite and platitudinous tropes about personal responsibility and the importance of education while at the same time threatening to replace them with masses from south of the border.

I do not mean to attack you or ascribe to you neo-liberal thinking, rather I see the failed economic consensus coming through in both your and Appleman's posts. In short I disagree with the economics of your rationale, I do not think it is simply a question of what best drives the economy for such reductionistic explanations inevitably degrade the humanity of the people we're writing about. Many, many people are clearly being ground into fodder so that this economy can keep on growing. Finally, I really think the economics of immigration, positive or negative, is a secondary consideration to the larger issue of how mass immigration affects society at a more basic, cultural and legal level. That's a conversation that is not being had here and it strikes me as odd that it hasn't been raised.

Is it maybe fair to say that you are attempting some measure of salvage of this system, while perhaps myself and appleman have already written it off? I don't think salvage is possible, only at best postponement. But I may be wrong.

I'd like to hear your ideas for a solution.