Permitting immigration to relieve wage pressures is not liberal

[el freako]

Originally posted by Kuciwalker
Eh, it's nothing new. We went through all that over 200 years ago. Get with the times, Europe

No it isn't - you formed a Nation State.
Just forming a centralized nation-state for the whole of europe (let alone the world) is not really feasable or even desirable - you will have the same disconnect that applies with ever-larger states seeming to be ever-more remote from those governed.

What is happening in europe is not the formation of a new nation-state out of the smaller states, but something genuinely new and different - probably as different as the nation-state was from the feudal and imperial systems it replaced.

[Kuciwalker]

No it isn't - you formed a Nation State.

No we didn't. We evolved into one. The issue of where sovereignty actually resided was not resolved until the Civil War. Leading up to that many of the states did conceive of themselves as States in the sense of nation-states. In fact, de Tocqueville refers to the states as a collection of nations.

[Odin]

What Kuci saud.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Provost Harrison
I quite agree with you El Freako, the nation is such an outmoded concept, yet it is still efficiently used as a political tool.

And I see Stew has returned...I was hoping I had seen the last of him...

Hello.

[Lawrence of Arabia]

allowing immigrants to relieve wage pressure is totally free market. it allows:

(1) keeps the prices of goods down, allowing more consumption.
(2) people with the lowest oppertunity costs get the lowest paying jobs = efficient
(3)keeps costs down, allowing more production

[Solly]

Originally posted by Park Avenue Our nations would be targetted even more by terrorists if they could just waltz in and out.

Oh well.

[Kidlicious]

Re: Permitting immigration to relieve wage pressures is not liberal

Originally posted by Park Avenue
Allowing immigration to relieve wage pressures is not a free-market or liberal thing to do. It is akin to the government choosing which labour areas they want additional labour provided for: central state planning of wages and prices.

The free-market, liberal thing to do would be to allow wages to adjust and reach an equilibrium.

Discuss.

Which word do you not understand, "free" or "market."

[Seeker]

Pretty much with Imran on this one. Let the barriers fall!

There should never be an artificial state imposed barrier to a person bettering their situation, within fair rules of course.

If you're going to allow the goods to flow, than isn't it hypocritical not to allow the much more life affecting commodity of labour to flow as well?

[Solly]

If you're going to allow the goods to flow, than isn't it hypocritical not to allow the much more life affecting commodity of labour to flow as well?

Goods don't try to blow you up because they don't like your lifestyle.

[Seeker]

??

I'm assuming that the nations would still arrest known/suspected criminals under any immigration policy regime. Why would that change?

[MikeH]

Don't feed the troll.

[Solly]

Originally posted by Seeker
??

I'm assuming that the nations would still arrest known/suspected criminals under any immigration policy regime. Why would that change?

TRUE home-grown terrorists are incredibly rare compared to foreign terrorism (which is effectively what Britain's attacks were). They didn't consider themselves English so why should I.

[dannubis]

eum PA, did you already forget the IRA ?

[Caligastia]

Originally posted by DaShi
Thank you for your contribution. We'll add it to the pile.

DaShi

[Mr. Harley]

Maybe somebody should listen to UR. "Free markets" are a myth, an ideal if you grant that premise. THERE ARE NO FREE MARKETS IN THE WORLD. Freeing up immigration to "relieve wage pressures" if you do not leave businesses in a similar state will create an unequal power dynamic, resulting in artificially lower salaries while the businesses themselves to not suffer any kind of similar reduction in their economic well-beingas a result of the free markets.

One of the reasons the US is doing so poorly on the Global Marketplace is due to the fantasy of free markets. I stopped believing in free markets in the 1980's, when the Japanese refused to buy 80 or so F16's from the US and instead insisted on technology transfer and domestic manufacturing. Note, under the so-called Free Markets - Japan wanted a product, the US made the best one in the world for the price and capabilities, and Japan had the money to purchase it from it's asymetric trade with the US.

At the time the US trade deficit with Japan would have paid for all the aircraft in one, at most two months. We finally had a quality product they wanted, and the trade balance was heavily in their favor. For a contextual note, at the time even French aerospace experts would admit, off the record, the F16 was the best military aviation bargain in the world, given cost and capabilities.

Similiar disparaties continue today. Whether it is Chinese currency manipulation and interest free loans to businesses, European government interventions in Aerospace (Eurocopter and Airbus) with massive subsidies, both direct and indirect, and US and European agricultural subsidies - there are no free markets.

Now some markets in some goods are largely free. But to talk about sticking labor into a world wide free market, while businesses get their various government interventions, is absurd. One is talking about such a massively asymetric power relationship as to produce - the US job market.