The Soapbox

hoodeyo

Joined: 09/29/2013 Posts: 6446
Likes: 3410


That's what the Neoclassical 101 textbook says, and it's true in theory.


True in reality as well that there is not a fixed number of jobs in the economy, and jobs that become outmoded free up labor for use elsewhere.

Not sure what you mean in this instance by "grow the job market", but immigrants definitely grow the labor supply, which puts downward pressure on wages for the existing workforce to the benefit of other constituencies.

Labor fungibility is something to consider here- a low-skilled immigrant is not able to shift from the service sector to nanotechnology. A similar issue exists for the famous rustbelt worker whose job has been replaced by the robots, or even skilled workers like computer programmers who now compete with workers from afar due to teleworking.

This doesn't mean we should have a reactionary immigration (or anti-technology) policy, or that implementing such a policy would even make much of a dent in the problematic aspects of labor arbitrage and technological advances in the globalized economy. Just that the issue, while not complicated, is more complicated than the libertarian argument takes into account. It also invites the question of how we define "good for the economy". And of course there are also the moral and cultural dimensions to immigration beyond economics.



[Post edited by hoodeyo at 04/16/2017 3:24PM]

(In response to this post by Hoo05Dave)

Posted: 04/16/2017 at 3:14PM



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Current Thread:
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