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Which Tyler

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On 5/16/2018 at 2:16 PM, mormont said:

We're going back to the chauvinistic argument, though, where immigrant workers are portrayed not as members of the working class but as threats to it: where the only 'working class' that is held to matter consists of people born in the country under discussion.

No. If wages are stagnating, they stagnate for everyone within the country, whatever their origin.

I see what you're hinting at, but I don't think we're at the point where we're talking about the "working class" as in "workers throughout the world" just yet (the Soviet Union kind of lost the Cold War ^^). This was originally a discussion about the UK ; the global benefits of immigration (real or imagined) are a separate thing, and I don't think one should reasonably expect the citizens of a given country to care much about them.

On 5/16/2018 at 2:16 PM, mormont said:

As for the last sentence, what is surely uncontroversial is that the free movement of capital without corresponding free movement of labour is definitely beneficial to corporations. Under those circumstances, corporations are free to play governments off against each other to supply them with jobs.

The thing here being, of course, that it's almost impossible to have "free movement of labour corresponding to free movement of capital" since we're talking about people here, many of which presumably have families.
In fact, I kind of doubt this is even a desirable goal. The vast majority of human beings are content to move a limited number of times in their lifetime. Genuine free movement of labour could turn out to be a nightmare for everyone involved. I don't see how it couldn't benefit the employers primarily.

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24 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

No. If wages are stagnating, they stagnate for everyone within the country, whatever their origin.

But even if we accept (and I don't think we need to) that wages stagnate because of immigration, if those wages are higher than the immigrant would earn in their country of origin, they are better off as a result of freedom of movement. Forcing those workers to stay in their home country, earning lower wages, in order to achieve wage growth is a chauvinistic argument. There's simply no getting away from that, no matter how hard you try. 

24 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

This was originally a discussion about the UK ; the global benefits of immigration (real or imagined) are a separate thing, and I don't think one should reasonably expect the citizens of a given country to care much about them.

I care about them. I don't think it's unreasonable. But reasonable or not, if the arguments you're making are about UK workers only they are, as I say, chauvinistic and we can, and should, describe them as such. 

24 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

The thing here being, of course, that it's almost impossible to have "free movement of labour corresponding to free movement of capital" since we're talking about people here, many of which presumably have families.

Labour will never be as easy to move as capital. But that doesn't change the fact that laws that allow the latter free movement but deny the same privilege to the former are inherently bad for workers, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise. Note that this doesn't have to mean that free movement for workers is a paradise with no drawbacks. Migration of labour isn't going to solve the power imbalance on its own. But that isn't an argument for restricting immigration. I've seen no arguments in favour of restricting immigration advanced here that don't amount to pulling up a drawbridge. 

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One point that is conveniently left out of the debate: Of course, migration will put a certain pressure on the labour market. But so does the absence of migration: if the workers don't come to the factory, the factory will relocate to the workers - that's free movement of capital without free movement of labour. Instead of just accepting any local price of labour, the owner will relocate the entire production to where the labour is cheap or threaten to do so.

We are not talking about an airtight system in the UK where we just add more supply to the labour market and then ceteris paribus, wages stagnate or fall. The system is dynamic and open within the borders of the EU. So if you just lock one part of it in (labour), while allowing everything else to move around without barriers, those who are locked in are screwed.

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1 hour ago, mormont said:

But even if we accept (and I don't think we need to) that wages stagnate because of immigration, if those wages are higher than the immigrant would earn in their country of origin, they are better off as a result of freedom of movement. Forcing those workers to stay in their home country, earning lower wages, in order to achieve wage growth is a chauvinistic argument. There's simply no getting away from that, no matter how hard you try. 

Yeah, I'm sure middle class voters would happily vote for policies that would stagnate their wages, otherwise they'd be racist, right? Most people vote in line with their personal economic interest. 

It's hard to argue moving to Western Europe isn't going to be generally in an Eastern Europeans personal interest, but it's certainly debatable whether it's in the interests of Eastern European countries. People never really seen to think about the effect on these countries when they lose their workers- at least in the west. It's a big issue in the east, especially in Lithuania- https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/437qgg/lithuanias-emigration-crisis

 

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11 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

Yeah, I'm sure middle class voters would happily vote for policies that would stagnate their wages, otherwise they'd be racist, right? Most people vote in line with their personal economic interest. 

It's hard to argue moving to Western Europe isn't going to be generally in an Eastern Europeans personal interest, but it's certainly debatable whether it's in the interests of Eastern European countries. People never really seen to think about the effect on these countries when they lose their workers- at least in the west. It's a big issue in the east, especially in Lithuania- https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/437qgg/lithuanias-emigration-crisis

Many people in the Baltic States also have another, Putin-shaped reason for wanting to leave their home countries as well.

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2 hours ago, mormont said:

But even if we accept (and I don't think we need to) that wages stagnate because of immigration, if those wages are higher than the immigrant would earn in their country of origin, they are better off as a result of freedom of movement. Forcing those workers to stay in their home country, earning lower wages, in order to achieve wage growth is a chauvinistic argument. There's simply no getting away from that, no matter how hard you try.

Oh, I wasn't trying. I was just being tongue in cheek: you're saying immigrants are seen as a threat to the working class rather than a part of it, so I countered that on the contrary they are also affected by wage stagnation.

We can call this chauvinism or nationalism. I tend to call it xenophobia. There are other names.

2 hours ago, mormont said:

But even if we accept (and I don't think we need to) that wages stagnate because of immigration, if those wages are higher than the immigrant would earn in their country of origin, they are better off as a result of freedom of movement.

Yes, *they* may be. But I'm playing devil's advocate here and reminding you that voters don't give a damn about this. You can reject xenophobia (or chauvinism) but you can't ignore it. Nor can you fail to see its appeal.

2 hours ago, mormont said:

Labour will never be as easy to move as capital. But that doesn't change the fact that laws that allow the latter free movement but deny the same privilege to the former are inherently bad for workers, and it is dishonest to pretend otherwise.

1 hour ago, Alarich II said:

One point that is conveniently left out of the debate: Of course, migration will put a certain pressure on the labour market. But so does the absence of migration: if the workers don't come to the factory, the factory will relocate to the workers - that's free movement of capital without free movement of labour. Instead of just accepting any local price of labour, the owner will relocate the entire production to where the labour is cheap or threaten to do so.

For better or for worse it's not that simple. There's are limits to relocation and some industries can do it far easier than others. So the absence of migration would only hurt some industries and help others.
Also, according to the analyses I've read this argument is about a couple of decades old already, because the time when relocation to developing countries was a direct threat to workers ended around the early 2000s. The reason why factories close today are more diverse, and of course, automation (or digitalisation) is far more important today. But service jobs can be much harder to relocate (obivously you can have customer support in India, but your delivery man has to be in the same area.
 

40 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

It's hard to argue moving to Western Europe isn't going to be generally in an Eastern Europeans personal interest, but it's certainly debatable whether it's in the interests of Eastern European countries. People never really seen to think about the effect on these countries when they lose their workers- at least in the west.

I was also about to make this argument - or something similar to it.

But it's like the fact that wages may be prevented from rising: it's hard to assess all the adverse economic of immigration, so it's often not done.

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

But service jobs can be much harder to relocate (obivously you can have customer support in India, but your delivery man has to be in the same area.

But the drones taking over for the delivery man (or woman, about them?) can be produced in India.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

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13 hours ago, Rippounet said:

For better or for worse it's not that simple. There's are limits to relocation and some industries can do it far easier than others. So the absence of migration would only hurt some industries and help others.
Also, according to the analyses I've read this argument is about a couple of decades old already, because the time when relocation to developing countries was a direct threat to workers ended around the early 2000s. The reason why factories close today are more diverse, and of course, automation (or digitalisation) is far more important today. But service jobs can be much harder to relocate (obivously you can have customer support in India, but your delivery man has to be in the same area.

It's never THAT simple. I don't really have the time to write a book here, so there's that. However I don't like how the arguments are switched around. A couple of posts ago, the argument was "well, labour isn't as mobile as capital anyway", now it's "well, capital isn't that mobile anyway". Maybe we can agree that not all workers will make use of free movement and not all capital will make use of free movement. Although I've not yet come across an industry where the absence of migration actually helps.

The problem with relocation is that it mostly comes in waves, because once the competitive advantage of lower wages is established and a few early movers made their experiences, maybe bloodied their nose a bit, the rest of the industry will follow quickly so as to not get left behind. And of course labour cost is not the only factor for relocation of capital investments, just as wages aren't the only factor for movement of workers. And the service industry is a weak argument. Yes, you cannot go to Poland to cut your hair. Or have a pizza delivered from Romania. At least when you live on an island (the arguemt is weaker already if for example you live close to the Polish border). But the point is: if a factory with 2.000 workers relocates from Sheffield to Timisora, the demand for services will also drop and at the same time, the supply of pizza delivery guys will increase. To pretend that somehow service jobs are "safe" when industrial production relocates is naive. So yeah, we can hope that the big relocation waves are over because the next big thing is robots (and those will of course never move to Poland, god forbid!) or we can conclude that because of free movement within the EU, relocation has become comparatively less attractive because now those 27 nation states have somehow managed to find a way to let competition not turn into a race to the bottom with regards to labour conditions.

Anyway: the argument that freedom of movement is bad for the workers only works if

a) you consider the workforce not as self-determined humans but as a nationalized production resource. And the argument, that free movement of workers will weaken the countries they come from, really comes from that mindset. As if a worker has somehow the responsibility to endure shitty wages and bad working conditions for the greater good.

b) if you look at your national economy as some sort of closed system that needs protection from Outsiders.

And both arguments are essentially chauvinistic positions.

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2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

It's never THAT simple. I don't really have the time to write a book here, so there's that. However I don't like how the arguments are switched around. A couple of posts ago, the argument was "well, labour isn't as mobile as capital anyway", now it's "well, capital isn't that mobile anyway".

Sorry about that. When we started talking about capital I focused on simple transfer of funds. Relocation has a cost so it's a specific movement of capital in my eyes.

Ironically though, in a way you're the one who switched the arguments. By saying employers can simply relocate to where wages are cheaper, or threaten to do so, you're basically admitting that free movement of capital is bad for wages as a whole.
Besides, such threats are precisely why working class people are opposed to globalisation in the first place. People are sick and tired of the "there is no alternative" argument and its bazillion variations.

2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

Although I've not yet come across an industry where the absence of migration actually helps.

I meant "help" as in "allow wages to increase with time."

2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

And the service industry is a weak argument. Yes, you cannot go to Poland to cut your hair. Or have a pizza delivered from Romania. At least when you live on an island (the arguemt is weaker already if for example you live close to the Polish border). But the point is: if a factory with 2.000 workers relocates from Sheffield to Timisora, the demand for services will also drop and at the same time, the supply of pizza delivery guys will increase. To pretend that somehow service jobs are "safe" when industrial production relocates is naive.

Well, I didn't say "safe." I just said they would be much harder to relocate. If we're talking about relocation per se.

2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

Anyway: the argument that freedom of movement is bad for the workers only works if

a) you consider the workforce not as self-determined humans but as a nationalized production resource. And the argument, that free movement of workers will weaken the countries they come from, really comes from that mindset. As if a worker has somehow the responsibility to endure shitty wages and bad working conditions for the greater good.

This argument is perfectly reversible. Freedom of movement is good for workers only if you see the global labour force as a giant pool of rootless individuals who don't care about moving from place to place for economic reasons.
You talk about it as if economic pressure was a choice for workers. It can be seen as a constraint.
Of course, truth is there are different kinds of immigrants and some have more choice than others.
But you're saying immigrants should be free to choose their welfare over their original community's as if this was a choice. You don't seem to consider the possibility that they don't abandon their community willingly, but because the economic pressure leaves them *no choice.*

2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

Anyway: the argument that freedom of movement is bad for the workers only works if

b) if you look at your national economy as some sort of closed system that needs protection from Outsiders.

Well sure it's not a closed system, but it's not completely open either.
When you talk about the demand for services being linked to other kinds of jobs for instance, you're basically admitting that there is a geographical component that can't be ignored. Places (countries, regions, cities... ) are competing to attract companies and investment ; but conversely, if a company can attract workers from everywhere, it's silly to argue that it won't adversely affect wages in the geographical area(s) where it operates. And if you look at a given city for instance, if too many people start competing for the same jobs, it will have a disastrous effect on the local community as a whole (unemployment will lead to various social and economic problems).
It's perfectly natural for people to vote to protect their financial situation.

2 hours ago, Alarich II said:

And both arguments are essentially chauvinistic positions.

You say this as if it mattered.

I think I got into this when people were wondering how someone from the left could be anti-European, as in against freedom of movement specifically.
Then we got into this argument about the economic benefits of freedom of movement / immigration.
Fact is, freedom of movement really benefits very few workers, the ones for whom movement is a genuine choice. For others it's either seen as extra-competition from abroad or as the result of economic pressure.
When you're from the left, it's tempting to think the root problem is freedom of capital and that freedom of movement is just an extra problem on top of it.
 

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17 hours ago, mankytoes said:

Yeah, I'm sure middle class voters would happily vote for policies that would stagnate their wages, otherwise they'd be racist, right? Most people vote in line with their personal economic interest. 

It's hard to argue moving to Western Europe isn't going to be generally in an Eastern Europeans personal interest, but it's certainly debatable whether it's in the interests of Eastern European countries. People never really seen to think about the effect on these countries when they lose their workers- at least in the west. It's a big issue in the east, especially in Lithuania- https://www.vice.com/en_uk/article/437qgg/lithuanias-emigration-crisis

 

It's certainly asking quite a lot of people to place strangers' interests above their own or their families'.

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1 hour ago, SeanF said:

It's certainly asking quite a lot of people to place strangers' interests above their own or their families'.

Not sure what you're talking about here?

Immigration almost never involves anyone being asked to do this. It involves pitting the interests of strangers with whom they have something in common that they're told is important, against the interests of strangers they're told are of less worth and virtue. 

Asking people to care equally about strangers that live 1,000 miles away as strangers that live 100 miles away does not seem to me a big thing to ask. 

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2 hours ago, mormont said:

Not sure what you're talking about here?

Immigration almost never involves anyone being asked to do this. It involves pitting the interests of strangers with whom they have something in common that they're told is important, against the interests of strangers they're told are of less worth and virtue. 

Asking people to care equally about strangers that live 1,000 miles away as strangers that live 100 miles away does not seem to me a big thing to ask. 

No doubt there are exceptions, but generally I think people do care more about people who are fellow nationals than they do about people who are not. I don't think such an outlook is either right wing or left wing, but is common across the political spectrum.

 

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1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Sorry about that. When we started talking about capital I focused on simple transfer of funds. Relocation has a cost so it's a specific movement of capital in my eyes.

Ironically though, in a way you're the one who switched the arguments. By saying employers can simply relocate to where wages are cheaper, or threaten to do so, you're basically admitting that free movement of capital is bad for wages as a whole.
Besides, such threats are precisely why working class people are opposed to globalisation in the first place. People are sick and tired of the "there is no alternative" argument and its bazillion variations.

First: I never made the argument that free movement of capital is good for wages per se.

Second: An argument could be had about the question wether free movement of capital is good for growth, employment and wages or not. But this is not the debate at hand.

I will remind you: this debate is about the free movement of labour in the context of Brexit and the contentious statement (I will paraphrase here, so correct me if I'm wrong) is that being against free movement of labour is a chauvinistic right-wing position that some people on the left have adopted as well and that this makes no sense. I agree with that, you disagree.

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

Well, I didn't say "safe." I just said they would be much harder to relocate. If we're talking about relocation per se.

Nice play on the semantics here, but the effect is the same: the jobs are fewer, the competition higher.

 

1 hour ago, Rippounet said:

This argument is perfectly reversible. Freedom of movement is good for workers only if you see the global labour force as a giant pool of rootless individuals who don't care about moving from place to place for economic reasons.
You talk about it as if economic pressure was a choice for workers. It can be seen as a constraint.
Of course, truth is there are different kinds of immigrants and some have more choice than others.
But you're saying immigrants should be free to choose their welfare over their original community's as if this was a choice. You don't seem to consider the possibility that they don't abandon their community willingly, but because the economic pressure leaves them *no choice.*

What I said: As if a worker has somehow the responsibility to endure shitty wages and bad working conditions for the greater good.

You then say: You don't seem to consider the possibility that they don't abandon their community willingly, but because the economic pressure leaves them *no choice.*

Sorry, but this is a really dishonest debating stile. You are ascribing positions and arguments to me, that I never made. Of course I recognize that its the economic pressures that lead to movement of labour. I would have thought that describing the circumstances that make them leave as "shitty wages and bad working conditions" would be clear enough.

That aside: economic pressure is the reason why capital relocates as well; I mean this is basically the whole gist of any economic choice. And my position is that given the fact that within the EU, capital will move freely, goods and services as well, it makes no sense at all to withdraw that choice from the labourforce. You say that economic pressure leaves them no choice but to relocate and your solution is: don't let them relocate. How is that a solution that anyone on the left could support?

2 hours ago, Rippounet said:

Well sure it's not a closed system, but it's not completely open either.
When you talk about the demand for services being linked to other kinds of jobs for instance, you're basically admitting that there is a geographical component that can't be ignored. Places (countries, regions, cities... ) are competing to attract companies and investment ; but conversely, if a company can attract workers from everywhere, it's silly to argue that it won't adversely affect wages in the geographical area(s) where it operates. And if you look at a given city for instance, if too many people start competing for the same jobs, it will have a disastrous effect on the local community as a whole (unemployment will lead to various social and economic problems).
It's perfectly natural for people to vote to protect their financial situation.

Of course there is a geographical component. But it makes no sense to allow free movement of capital investments, goods and services from London to Tallin but restrict free movement of labour to just Britain. Unless you are a Tory, I suppose. You are basically taking drawing curves like you would in a first semester course on neo-classical economics: here's a given level of demand, now increase supply, the curve moves, new equilibrium, price goes down. But it's never that simple: employers have different alternatives, they could relocate to another community, they could simply close shop etc. Employees also have different choices, they could go elsewhere for example: how do you think the NHS would cope if all their Eastern European employees decided today that they prefer Germany over Britain? Or they can stay and rely on the local social security and wait for better times: a lot of people do that as well, I mean we have in many industries and services a lack of qualified workers, but it's not like the unemployed masses of Spain or Greece are flooding to Germany, although in theory they could. They could also decide that even though, they have lower wages, they will not relocate because they prefer staying where their families are. And if you look how local wages for example in Poland or Slovakia have developed, that choice becomes more and more attractive.

In the end, I ask myself where the alleged desastrous effects of mass immigration from Eastern Europe are? Because I don't really see them. And if you look at countries like Germany where wages have been stagnating for a long time and then consider that Germany closed its labour market against Eastern European countries for a long time, using the transitional agreements after they joined the EU, I think that "immigration lowers wages" argument is shaky at best.

3 hours ago, Rippounet said:

You say this as if it mattered. 

I think I got into this when people were wondering how someone from the left could be anti-European, as in against freedom of movement specifically.
Then we got into this argument about the economic benefits of freedom of movement / immigration.
Fact is, freedom of movement really benefits very few workers, the ones for whom movement is a genuine choice. For others it's either seen as extra-competition from abroad or as the result of economic pressure.
When you're from the left, it's tempting to think the root problem is freedom of capital and that freedom of movement is just an extra problem on top of it.

It matters if chauvinism becomes the left wing position.

And what you so boldly proclaim as fact, is at best an opinion. In economic terms, the EU is not "abroad", it is a single market, that's the whole point. 

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14 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

I will remind you: this debate is about the free movement of labour in the context of Brexit and the contentious statement (I will paraphrase here, so correct me if I'm wrong) is that being against free movement of labour is a chauvinistic right-wing position that some people on the left have adopted as well and that this makes no sense. I agree with that, you disagree.

[...]

It matters if chauvinism becomes the left wing position.

Ok. So what we're actually disagreeing on is how one defines "the left."
As far as I'm concerned the left is mainly about social justice. But whether it's social justice on a national, trans-national, or global level is for me an open question.
I think it would be great if everyone felt empathy and solidarity for people across national borders. But we're seeing that this is not the case, to say the least. I agree that it's a pity, but that's the way it is, and that's as hard a fact as any you can think of.
So we're left (ha ha) with this question about whether one can be a "leftist" if they only look at social justice in their country and favor the economic welbeing of their fellow citizens. That's one thing we might disagree on. I'm reluctant to reject people who identify as leftists just because they want to focus on the economic situation of the people they most relate to (even if that means they might be accused of xenophobia on some level or the other).

Now, the other question is even whether the trans-national project that is the EU is even good for social justice anyway.
When France voted on the European Constitution some years ago I was in the "yes" camp and most of my fellow leftists were voting "no," trying to convince me that Europe would be built on economic neo-liberal principles - that is, austerity, privatizations... etc -, and thus would be a disaster for social justice.
Thirteen years later and I find myself in agreement with my friends. And I think both freedom of capital and freedom of labour have been instrumental in lowering wages -or having them stagnate- throughout the EU, though of course, this is a proposition that is near-impossible to prove. Though in actuality, I'm the only one in this discussion that has actually provided a scientific article from a very reliable source that pretty much says just that.

14 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

And what you so boldly proclaim as fact, is at best an opinion. In economic terms, the EU is not "abroad", it is a single market, that's the whole point. 

Yes, and it's something people are rejecting, with good reason imho.
At some point I think you need to wake up and realize this isn't *only* about "chauvinism." Europe is bad for social justice, period. It's been terrible for the Greeks, and now the EU commission is threatening Italians because their elected leaders are tempted by anti-austerity programs. The Germans are the ones who truly benefit from the EU, and there are many reasons for this (Varoufakis's writings on the subject are quite illuminating). Ironically, Britons were also benefitting from the EU I'd say, but I understand that British leftists would be suspicious of a trans-national organisation that's essentially committed to economic neo-liberalism (or "ordoliberalism" since this is the German version of it, according to my readings).

14 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

You are basically taking drawing curves like you would in a first semester course on neo-classical economics: here's a given level of demand, now increase supply, the curve moves, new equilibrium, price goes down. But it's never that simple: employers have different alternatives, they could relocate to another community, they could simply close shop etc.

As far as I know, there is no consensus among economists about whether it's "that simple" or not. The problem is that because of the multiple factors involved we don't know what the exact impact of immigration on wages is. This doesn't mean there is no effect. We could both speculate on this I guess, but the bottom line is that no one knows for sure. However, because the mecanism *is* rather simple, I find it hard to believe that there is no adverse effect, and I think the extraordinary proposition would be that it doesn't have any.

Now, of course, if you can prove to me that I'm wrong and that economists actually agree that immigration has no adverse effect on wages... But that would be proving a negative I guess, so I doubt that's possible. So we're left with one proposition that is logical but difficult to prove, and another which is counter-intuitive but almost impossible to prove. Tough.

14 minutes ago, Alarich II said:

In the end, I ask myself where the alleged desastrous effects of mass immigration from Eastern Europe are? Because I don't really see them. And if you look at countries like Germany where wages have been stagnating for a long time and then consider that Germany closed its labour market against Eastern European countries for a long time, using the transitional agreements after they joined the EU, I think that "immigration lowers wages" argument is shaky at best.

Germany has had huge masses of second, or third, or fourth-generation immigrants from Turkey, everyone knows that. And just when there seemed to be a labour shortage in the making (which, if I've been paying attention well enough, was starting to give unions some bargaining power), they welcomed several millions of refugees. So, not a great example imho.

 

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4 hours ago, mormont said:

Not sure what you're talking about here?

Immigration almost never involves anyone being asked to do this. It involves pitting the interests of strangers with whom they have something in common that they're told is important, against the interests of strangers they're told are of less worth and virtue. 

Asking people to care equally about strangers that live 1,000 miles away as strangers that live 100 miles away does not seem to me a big thing to ask. 

I'd love to see politicians actually campaign honestly about this- "our immigration proposals will stagnate your wages, but really help us make greater profits, and help these people send money back to their families! Vote for me!". 

But seriously, it's a global truth that most people will vote for what they perceive to be their personal economic interest. Would you honestly vote for something that you thought would benefit the world but harm you personally? If so, that's very noble, and there are people like that, but the majority, from whatever demographic, would not. 

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1 hour ago, mankytoes said:

I'd love to see politicians actually campaign honestly about this- "our immigration proposals will stagnate your wages, but really help us make greater profits, and help these people send money back to their families! Vote for me!". 

But seriously, it's a global truth that most people will vote for what they perceive to be their personal economic interest. Would you honestly vote for something that you thought would benefit the world but harm you personally? If so, that's very noble, and there are people like that, but the majority, from whatever demographic, would not. 

I do think altruism exists.  People make donations to charities that work in the Third World;  they're willing to see the government help out when disasters strike in foreign countries, and so on.  But, I think generally people feel greater degrees of empathy for families, friends, neighbours, and fellow nationals than they do towards people who fall outside of those categories.  People will support substantial transfer payments from richer regions to poorer regions in their own countries, but would baulk at similar payments being made to poorer countries.  For example, West Germans were prepared to take on the cost of rebuilding the East German economy, but are very hostile towards the idea of giving the Greeks debt relief.

 

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23 minutes ago, SeanF said:

I do think altruism exists.  People make donations to charities that work in the Third World;  they're willing to see the government help out when disasters strike in foreign countries, and so on.  But, I think generally people feel greater degrees of empathy for families, friends, neighbours, and fellow nationals than they do towards people who fall outside of those categories.  People will support substantial transfer payments from richer regions to poorer regions in their own countries, but would baulk at similar payments being made to poorer countries.  For example, West Germans were prepared to take on the cost of rebuilding the East German economy, but are very hostile towards the idea of giving the Greeks debt relief.

I'm not a downer on human nature, but specifically when voting, I don't think it's generally seen as an outlet for altruism. People say they're voting for who is best for the country, but they tend to judge that by how they're doing personally. I can't remember which President said a recession is when your neighbour loses their job, a depression is when you lose yours, but it sums it up well. 

That's a really good point, and it gets to the heart of the fundamental problems with political union. For political union, you need a demos, a group of people who feel this common identity. And that doesn't exist across Europe- not in Britain, but not in Germany or Greece or anywhere in between either. 

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17 minutes ago, mankytoes said:

That's a really good point, and it gets to the heart of the fundamental problems with political union. For political union, you need a demos, a group of people who feel this common identity. And that doesn't exist across Europe- not in Britain, but not in Germany or Greece or anywhere in between either. 

Well to be fair, there once was something of a European spirit, but the EU hasn't exactly been great at fostering it.

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Obviously, workers from country A have to suffer a little unemployment for the greater good of workers from country B being separated from their families for most of the time, living 6 to a room and working considerably cheaper than the local (A) workers which they (B) can afford because living 6 to a room in A and what they make in A has far more purchasing power in B.

All is well, both morally and economically, it's not a race to the bottom, it is only improving the wealth of the B-workers (and especially the wealth of the entrepreneur employing the B instead of A) with a small decline in utility for the A-workers.

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15 hours ago, mankytoes said:

But seriously, it's a global truth that most people will vote for what they perceive to be their personal economic interest. Would you honestly vote for something that you thought would benefit the world but harm you personally? If so, that's very noble, and there are people like that, but the majority, from whatever demographic, would not. 

I would, but being in favour of immigration is not an example of that. Immigration is not against my personal economic interest. In fact, it's rather in favour of my economic interests. My country needs immigrant workers. Which means that yours does too, so immigration is in your economic interests. Which makes the issue you voting against your personal economic interests for ideological reasons, because you've been sold a false prospectus. Which is not uncommon at all, actually. 

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