Global Development: Views from the Center
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October 02, 2007
Do We Have A 'Right' To Be Richer Than Mexican Immigrants?
Posted by Michael Clemens at 03:56 PM
Kennedy School economist George Borjas today ridicules Mexico's President Calderón for affirming a person's "right to work wherever one can make the greatest contribution." Borjas says that the hapless president listens too much to his "disingenuous" staff and has unjustifiably "invented a new 'right.'"
"One could easily argue about why it is that only those who want to migrate have 'rights,' " writes Borjas. "After all, maybe those who are in the receiving areas also have rights to decide what the receiving area should be like."
It is not helpful to set the migration discussion in terms of opposing "rights." Once one starts down that road, one quickly confronts the fact that the vast majority of people "in the receiving areas" got here by being born here, not through any merit whatsoever—myself included. And in this case, "deciding what the receiving area should be like" means actively ensuring that the vast majority of the extremely high-paying jobs in this country should be available only to ourselves and others who happened to win the birth lottery. Who exactly decided that we have that "right?" Flatly asserting that we have a "right" to average incomes eight times the developing countries' average does not mean that we indeed have that right, but only that Borjas and others enjoy asserting that we do.
At the same time, it is equally unhelpful to say that everyone on earth has a 'right' to a job in the United States, since it would be impossible for all who held such a right to instantly exercise it, and speaking of impossible rights is dead palaver. Instead of staunch but empty assertions that we have a 'right' to be richer than everyone else or that everyone else has a 'right' to be as rich as we are, it is much more useful to speak of what steps we could take to bring somewhat more opportunity to somewhat more people.
Keep the big picture in sight. International movement can bring much more opportunity to others without substantial harm to anyone. The population of the United States in 1900 was around 75 million. That was a time of intense concern about immigration: A New York Times headline on April 15th of that year warned of an unprecedented "army" of immigrants at our doorstep. Then, the fraction of our population that was foreign-born was much higher than today. The Census of 1890 had officially declared that the frontier no longer existed, and many felt that the country was simply full.
Imagine going back in time and telling the American public that, over the course of the 20th century, roughly 60 million more people were going to come and stay—that is, 80% of the population at the time, in new immigrants—plus tens of millions more who came for a while and did not stay. People would have been terrified of what that would mean to the privileged position in the world they enjoyed. Yet that's precisely what happened, and here we are today: the richest nation on earth, in the history of the earth. In the rush of paying bills it is easy to forget the enormous opulence we enjoy. All those tens of millions of immigrants have not sapped our strength; America is better than that. Rather, they have been part of that strength.
Whether I or others have a "right" to have been born here is a useless question. The more interesting question is whether or not there are ways to continue America's proud tradition of giving enormous opportunity to large numbers of people who aren't here now, without doing serious harm to ourselves. History shows conclusively that there are.
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Comments
It seems to me this was exactly Borjas' point - framing the discussion in terms of rights is not very helpful. Social and economic rights have proved again and again to be thought exercises that keep people employed in academic faculties and at the United Nations, but have very little impact on those currently not experiencing those rights.
Posted by: paul at October 2, 2007 10:25 PM
Thanks for your thoughtful comment, Paul. I disagree that this was Borjas's point. President Calderón asserted a certain right held by Mexicans, and Borjas responded by claiming that such a right is nonexistent, plus asserting that a conflicting right held by Americans *does* exist. He doesn't say "Americans have a conflicting right, but it's not useful to discuss this subject in those terms". Instead, he simply asserts that Americans have a right to keep other people out, implies that this quickly and simply negates Calderón's point, and moves on.
My point is very different from that. I don't see any reason why an American plumber fixing a toilet has a "right" to five times the real income as a Mexican plumber fixing an identical toilet in Mexico. That is an immediate and inevitable consequence of Americans' having the "right" to tell Mexican plumbers that they cannot come here, which Borjas asserts we do have. Consequences are part of the right; it would not make sense to say "we have the right to keep out foreign workers *but* we don't have the right to higher incomes than they." That would be as incoherent as saying, "I have the right to fire a bullet into your brain, but I don't have the right to kill you." If I have a right to the cause, I have a right to the effect.
Borjas is saying that Mexicans' right to work where they want to does not exist (Calderón "invented" it), but that Americans' right to keep people out does exist (and therefore we have a right to earn vastly more than Mexicans do for the exact same work). At great variance with this, I am saying that Mexicans' right to work where they want does not exist (because it would be infeasible for everyone who held that right to simultaneously exercise it), and that Americans' right to keep people out does not exist either (because it means with absolute necessity that we have a 'right' to earn more than others do for identical work -- and who exactly decreed that, God?).
See the difference? Borjas ridicules the concept that Mexicans have rights to move, and asserts that we have the right to stop them, meaning we don't need to do a darn thing for Mexicans since presumably our real rights trump their "invented" ones. I argue rather that thinking in these terms -- Borjas's terms, of asserting that some people have more rights than others -- is not useful.
Do we have a responsibility to give other people opportunity when we have vastly greater advantages and it does very little harm to us? I say: yes. Many people who would answer this question in the negative are Americans whose very poor ancestors happened to arrive here before the US ended open immigration in the 1920s. Someone who would say that is claiming, in essence, that Americans a hundred years ago had no responsibility to give his/her own ancestors (and therefore him/herself) opportunity either. That's a view that's tough for me to understand, as a sixth-generation descendant of poor immigrants. I think Americans back then *did* have a responsibility to give my great-great-great grandfather the opportunity for a better life, if it wouldn't do much harm to them. They did give him that chance, and I think that's one of the best things about this great country. That responsibility is still with us, and if anything it's greater today: Our economy is vastly wealthier and stronger than it was when we gave so much opportunity to my European immigrant ancestors.
Posted by: Michael Clemens at October 18, 2007 03:31 PM