In this post I'll examine several crucial economic realities and their bearing on the complex and interrelated issues of low-skill jobs, maintaining manufacturing industries, globalisation, corporatism, and immigration, and I'll attempt to extract from them simple abstract aims which can guide our economic and foreign policy.
##### *Economic gravity*
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Low-skill jobs are going to find their way to low-skill workers who will take the job for lower pay. If we want those jobs to be employees of American companies, either we export those low-skill jobs to a country with low-paid workers or we import people who will do the job for lower pay. If jobs don't cross borders, people will. It's a simple law of economic gravity. The question is; which of these options will we encourage with our economic and immigration policy?
First, let's be clear; if we must export those jobs, it's on balance better to export those low-paying jobs to people in countries which are not hostile to us. It's better to lift our friends out of poverty than enrich our enemies. This, to me, encapsulates the Nixon mistake of opening ourselves with China, and giving them most-favoured nation trading status. It would have been far better to work with our poor southern neighbours than a communist regime. While it's true that we now have better relations with a long-time enemy, we must admit there have been some terrible trade-offs that might still blow up or cough in our face. But let's shelve that question for now and focus on the low-skill jobs and the retention of American manufacturing.
##### *Some dangerous assertions*
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We must stop trying to believe that all low-paid, no-skill jobs are something we must fight to keep, because in doing so we perpetuate the delusion that workers can live comfortably in America without ever acquiring any useful skills. Suggesting the minimum wage should also be a 'living wage' ludicrously asserts that one should be able to have a high standard of living without ever learning anything valuable. This disastrously incentivizes the wrong things. If we subsidise failure, irresponsibility and corruption, we'll only produce more of it all. This is another simple law of economic gravity our progressive friends try vehemently to deny.
Wages increase with additional skills and increased productivity. The more valuable what you do is, the more you will be paid. This is another simple law of economic gravity. Many high-skill, highly productive manufacturing jobs pay very well, and as manufacturing becomes more complex, there will be more high-skill manufacturing jobs. Additionally, there are lots of low-skill manufacturing jobs that require a surrounding support structure comprised of high-skill workers in an industry that also requires a highly developed infrastructure and legal structure. Those kinds of low-skill jobs will remain here, because most of those high-skill workers on which they depend don't want to move to third-world countries. But we need to realise that there is no great future for the American worker by remaining in an unskilled job. Instead of hoping for a job on the assembly line, our workers need to realise that their better future lies in assembling, or better yet creating, a more productive assembly line.
##### *Creating a business friendly environment*
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So what should our economic and immigration policy be? If keeping as many low-paying and high-paying jobs here as possible is our aim, we must make America the best place to do business. Like a field of dreams, if you build a friendlier business climate, the businesses will come. The best way to begin doing that is to totally eliminate the corporate tax altogether. The corporate tax is a form of double taxation anyhow and only gets passed along to the consumer in the price of the good or service anyway, and the consumer is already taxed on his income. Eliminating the tax burden from the cost of doing business would make future profitability more likely and attract capital investment and spur enterprise. This is another simple law of economic gravity.
Furthermore, regulations are, like taxes, a cost of doing business, and often it's more expensive for a company to adhere to regulations than pay their taxes. We cannot entirely deregulate our marketplace because then companies will be incentivized to act irresponsibly and externalise their costs (pollution is a perfect example, as is work-place safety) but we need to realise that much of the most costly regulation was written into law by legislators who wished to favour their donors' companies over their competition. Worse, most regulation isn't even written into law by lawmakers, but rather written by un-elected, unaccountable bureaucrats who are even easier to buy than lawmakers.
The driving principles of our economic policy should then be twofold; eliminate crony-capitalism (that is; corporatism or fascism) and encourage responsible competition. The more competition our marketplace has, the better it is for everyone except the people engaged in buying and selling political favours and regulatory advantages.
Trump's huge corporate tax cut and tremendous reduction in regulations has made profitability more likely and therefore it's more likely American companies can and will keep more jobs here in America. Our economy is booming and across the board incomes are increasing (especially low-paid workers), but many low-skill jobs are still being outsourced abroad to low-skill workers for low wages.
##### *What immigration policy is best?*
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So what should our immigration policy be? It is a perfect time to examine this question, now that we have reached 'full employment', or the highest levels of employment in our lifetimes. I would suggest that it is now very clear that we should export all of the low-paying jobs we can to our friendly neighbours, and import as many of our friendly neighbours as are needed to do the low-paying jobs Americans won't do. As our economy expands, as our citizens become more skilled, more productive, more valuable, and better paid, we have a greater desire to pay people to do things we couldn't before, like housekeeping, lawn care, and other low-skill jobs. Bring in friendly immigrants who are eager to do the work we're willing to pay a little more for. This is a win-win for all parties.
But while we are importing labourers to do work we cannot export (they can't mow our lawn from Mexico City) let's simultaneously export our low-skill jobs to Mexico City where many people are eager to do them despite the low pay. If a potential illegal immigrant considers his likelihood of getting a job in Mexico City that pays the same as an illegal job in America, he'll stay home and grow his own economy. Therefore the other side of the coin is to not only open wider our gates for legal immigration, but to clamp down on legal immigration and penalise Americans who employ illegal aliens.
Eventually, and surprisingly quickly, by using these principles as our guiding lights, all of Mexico will have risen to the level of prosperity America enjoys today, and they will be exporting their low-paid jobs and importing low-skill workers. Even coastal China is now viewed as too expensive [for American enterprise to find cheap labour]. There is always a lower cost farther down the Silk Road someplace.
##### *A nation of immigrants?*
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But let's take an important tangent; despite what we so often told by the Left, America is NOT a nation of immigrants. The vast majority of people who live here were born here. This is the only home they've known. Now while it's true that most of us have descended from immigrants, almost all of our Founding Fathers were native born American. Nevertheless, Americans historically welcome with more or less open-arms anyone who wants to become an American. To be clear, that means not just moving to America, but BECOMING an American. The history of hostility toward Irish and Italian and even German Americans shows that these immigrants weren't truly accepted until they shed most of their previous nations' ways and assimilated into America's distinct culture. Frank Sinatra' family, for example, even adopted Irish names in order to be more accepted in Hoboken where Italians were disliked. Sinatra became the voice of urban America by first 'becoming' American, then he could be celebrated as an Italian American.
We are a melting pot, not a stew. We don't want an America which is merely a loosely tied collection of enclaves of disparate and perhaps even hostile cultures. We are not a new country anymore. We are settled and established and our distinct culture has a right to be cherished and defended. So our immigration policy should be one which takes care not to supplant our distinct and established American culture, but rather remains open to all who wish to come and BE productive Americans. So how do we translate that into policy? We need to be open to lots of legal immigration, fiercely closed to illegal immigration, and our legal immigration should have as its criteria productivity and assimilation.
If you are just going to come here with 800,000 other Somalian refugees and set up a little Somalia right in the midst of our American culture and then be hostile to our customs, conventions, and culture, you are not welcome. Period. People with half a brain will see you for what you are; hostile invaders and barbarians within the gates. If, on the other hand, you are going to come and join in our culture, become one of us, learn our language and our respect our heritage and help enhance it, well, you'll be welcome with open arms.
The third person plural 'we' is by nature exclusive. When it stops being exclusive, it stops being a 'we' and instead simply becomes an unrelated amalgamation, connected by nothing shared, with no demands or motives for loyalty and common civility. And that kind of cultural fragmentation and alienation is the assembly line for anomie and destruction. This, we might say, is a law of societal gravity.
In contradistinction to this principle, we should be careful that our companies don't exploit legal vacuums and destroy the cultures of the countries into which they go and do business. In our pursuit of economic profit, we should not be devouring the social capital of countries and turning them into enemies, but rather we should be helping lift them out of poverty, not through government aid (although many of them need help setting up the kind of governments which can protect property rights and social capital), but rather through enterprise.
##### *Capitalism and free enterprise*
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Capitalism is often a revolutionary force and revolutions are rarely good and usually devour their own people in the process. Respectful reciprocity should be our aim in dealing with the global marketplace. When we export our low-paid, low-skill jobs to a nation of people who are glad to have them, we should be careful to ensure we don't demolish their cherished customs and culture when we do. Although much of life is the balancing of trade-offs, capitalism and liberty work best when they are a win-win for everyone involved.
In conclusion, we should have policies which help make America the shining city on the hill; a place where our guiding lights attract people who want to come and be like us, but we should also beware of those who want to come and remain as they are but wish to conquer us from within. America's economy is a colossus and can help to forge friendships and eliminate poverty abroad, but it should not be a weapon to conquer the world. When guided by these humane principles American capitalism helps the world be a better, freer, more prosperous and peaceful place for an infinitely proliferating variety of life. And that gives people great hope that we're going to make it after all.
