Then it follows that 4 million, hell, 400 million hands are better than 2. In fact, I’ll be thrilled when the whole place is a giant anthill.
You can’t just claim “capital aside”. In reality we have scarce capital, and 1,000,000 hands working the same capital as 1000 will get much lesser pay and less work, if they are not outright unemployed.
I’m not sure what you mean. What do you mean “it” continually “imports new constituents”? Do you mean how do we get rid of the welfare state with immigration? I’m not sure how the two are connected. I’m also not sure why the question matters. If you think it is unrealistic that the welfare state is abolished then that’s one thing, but my original comment had to do with why Ron Paul may not support free immigration given the fact that we do live in a welfare state. Then Stephen started to comment that immigration is bad even without the welfare state, which is patently false.
Arguing whether removing the welfare state is plausible is completely tangential and really irrelevant.
Theoretically, in a free market with no minimum wage and other regulations, the argument is that there will always be entrepreneurs looking to establish new businesses or expanding existing businesses, and so marginal profitability per worker will always be increasing or at least not decreasing (over the long-run). So yes, while 1,001 hands working on X capital may be less efficient than 1,000 hands, the amount of capital is never static (it should continue to increase, as that is a general definition of an increase in wealth) and so an increasing pool of labor promises more productivity.
Thats true, but we are talking about a situation where labor is in demand, not in withdrawal. Not sure if you noticed that.
If we are overpopulated however that would place further pressure on the entrepreneur and creativity of man to further economize what we have. Ultimately I am not sure what point your trying to make. You arn’t refuting or promoting ricardo’s law. Your statements are really besides the point of the OT. I am not sure if your just fishing for a dispute or what.
None of this requires immigration to achieve, as capital is mobile and can be moved where the labor is.
Living space on the other hand is much more difficult to accumulate, in some mountainous regions like Switzerland, for example, all of the land is intensively inhabited. You can’t add more land, hence every additional immigrant puts more pressure on it. This creates social tensions, requiring more police and controls, and reduces the living standard.
The welfare state enlarges itself through immigrants. More people = more tax fodder or, what is actually the case, more net tax consumers. Also, more vehicular traffic, utility loads, inter-ethnic conflict, etc., all of which the government uses to justify its continued existence
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Your statement begs for qualification. Not all immigration is good, because your new neighbors could be an itinerant criminal gang or carry communicable diseases.
If it had been more efficient to move capital to labor then that is what would had happened. But again what point exactly are you making?
No welfare enlarges itself with or without immigrants. The drive to achieve socialism in this country is not being spearheaded by immigrants. They are leaving an economically oppressed state in most situations and politically apathetic. Socialism and it’s welfare is being pushed by middle income america. You have asserted this several times now, that immigrants are the soul reason we have welfare. It is entirely false and quiet frankly makes you look desperate for making such an outrageous claim.
Fallacy of composition. Not all people are good in general. It has nothing to do with whether or not your an immigrant. There are domestic criminals to, or did you forget?
Not true. Government-sponsored immigration enables the immigrants and their sponsors to socialize costs. Take away welfare, public roads, public education, civil rights laws, birthright citizenship, etc., and you’ve got a whole different ballgame.
It is true. Praxeologically speaking. If it had made more sense for capital to move instead of people in general we would have observed that. Since it’s the other way around we have to assume the owners of that capital thought differently.
What?
I would say that welfare enlarges itself without immigrants to the extent its native tax base can support it. With immigrants, the welfare state is further emboldened, both by additions to the tax rolls and the government’s propagandizing.
And no, I never said immigrants are the sole reason we have welfare. You are getting hysterical.
You need to address the rest of my post.
As has been pointed out, immigration is decided by the bureaucracy, and capitalists exploit their decision to socialize the costs from an influx of millions of people into a social democratic polity.
It doesn’t make sense. And I’m not to worried about it tbh. FYI I found some articles to share in a bit showing the correlation of immigrant numbers subsiding after the housing bubble burst. I’ll post it in a bit.
I don’t know of anyone getting hysterical. I am just trying to understand your choice of wording in some of your statements.
It is made less efficient, artificially, through trade restrictions.
And labor can move where capital is. Immigration bases itself on the availability of opportunities in different geographical locations, which is dependent on the movement of capital, so this statement has no bearing on what I said.
Areas in which productivity is decreasing will not attract immigration, so I’m not sure how this is even a problem. Immigration is not arbitrary, and nobody here (I don’t think) ever argued it was.
Okay, but again, we are assuming an end to the welfare state, so I’m not sure how this comment is relevant.
Unless it infringes on your property rights, I’m not sure you would have a moral right to deny someone else of occupying property near you. And, border security cannot efficiently scan for these type of “undesirables”, so the idea that controlled borders can efficiently secure against “undesirables” fails to hold.
Totally incorrect. Immigration will continue as long as productivity in destination area is higher than origin area, no matter how fast productivity is dropping.
This is not going to be much consolation to the inhabitants whose productivity is collapsing while their country is being ruined.
Average living standards depend on productivity per capita, not total productivity (edit). And from the law of returns, there is some optimal level which maximizes this all other things being equal.