Rishab Aiyer Ghosh <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > On Sun, 2008-07-20 at 20:00 -0400, Perry E. Metzger wrote: >> Unfortunately, bigotry and xenophobia, and the insane belief that >> immigrants "take jobs away from locals" will prevent this from ever >> happening. > > that's not an insane belief, it's just insanely expressed. immigrants > drive labour prices down directly, or indirectly through competition.
Not really. It is true that immigrants expand the labor pool, but they also expand demand for goods and services so one does not expect long term reductions in labor prices. The important effect of the immigrants is to permit increased division of labor/specialization and thus increased productivity -- it is a net win for everyone involved. Perry > but saying they take jobs away from locals sounds nicer than saying they > make locals have to work hard(er) to compete than they would have to > otherwise. you don't have to be xenophobic not to want to admit to > laziness :-) -- Perry E. Metzger [EMAIL PROTECTED]
