Robin Wilton's esoterica

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28 Apr · Thu 2005

The Politics of Immigration...

As chrisg just noted, we're days away from a General Election here in the UK, and as in so many other European countries, the question of immigration is high on the list of contentious election issues. Here's what has been taxing my thoughts (well, I'm being taxed on just about everything else, so why leave thoughts out of it!): how acceptable is it for a country to set immigration quotas based on the desirable skills an applicant brings with them ? Let's make a couple of assumptions explicit:

That what I'm talking about here does not include that subset of immigration applicants who are seeking asylum;
That the potential immigrant sees the UK as preferable to where they are coming from;
That they have some skill which is'economically valuable'.

Presumably, by imposing such a policy, we are leaching skilled workers out of other economies to benefit our own. Point (2) above implies that migrants are more likely to be arriving from less dynamic/successful economies than our own; in other words, exactly those economies who would benefit from the skills we are 'poaching' from them. Such a policy might seem rational on the surface, but in the longer term surely creates a self-perpetuating brain-drain which permanently reduces the chances for 'struggling' economies to improve relative to the established "G8" nations. I don't subscribe to the argument that 'the best way for achieve progress is for there to be some strong economies out front, leading the pack'. It's *a* way, certainly, but I don't see the evidence of a sustainable 'trickle-down' policy from those strong economies to genuinely benefit the rest in the long term. There must be a better way...........

Posted by racingsnake @ 01:23 PM GMT+00:00 [ Comments [5] ]

Comments:

Your arguement is based on the supposition that these skilled migrants become naturalized citizens. Such an outcome does indeed occur, consider the asian (especially south asian) diaspora in the U.S and U.K and the western part of the Commonwealth. Next thing to consider the fact that U.S and U.K are two of the largest investors (both business and aid) in south asia, particularly India. If looked at a little closer, you will find that there is a direct correlation between the size of an immigrant community in a country and the amount of aid and investment that flows from that country to the the immigrants native home.
The nations of the world are part of a network today, capital is fluid and mobile and flows in both directions. The same is true of people. South asians have never had a policy of forbidding skilled people from migrating. Instead of thinking of such a phenomenon as brain drain, its more apt in todays environment to think of them as a brain trust, what goes around, comes around. Which in the end enriches both sides of the equation.

Posted by Suhail M. Ahmed on April 28, 2005 at 02:36 PM GMT+00:00 #

In this specific instance, I think there's <em>some</em> evidence that it "trickles down."

One of the biggest chunks of Mexico's economy is money wired from workers in the United States. Every grocery store has signs "para enviar dinero a mexico..." I imagine it's much the same for Indian guest workers.

Granted, this isn't a capital flow, but it's still better than a one-way, "self-perpetuating brain drain." Developing economies simply can't provide enough jobs for these people.

The thing that really bothers me about immigration is the fact that there needs to be quotas at all. I don't think it's quite as true in the UK, but here in the U.S., our borders are extremely permeable. Immigration quotas are not genuine quotas, but rather a way to keep wages down for immigrants, for both skilled and unskilled workers. (There is a special class of visa for skilled workers which only permits them to stay in the United States as long as they are exercising that skill.)

Posted by name withheld on April 29, 2005 at 02:12 AM GMT+00:00 #

Hi - and thanks for your comments, Suhail and Anon... You certainly see more positive aspects that I did, which is reassuring. I agree, too, that at the individual level, there is often capital flow back to the 'home' country (I think it's what used to be called 'remittance men'...).

However, Anon raises the interesting point that "developing economies ... can't provide enough jobs...". The way I see it, though, inward investment would be a far more sustainable way of growing those economies than having expatriates send cash home.

But I am also conscious that to date, that kind of investment mechanism (e.g. by the World Bank) has been used as a not very subtle tool to oblige the recipient to do stuff like denationalise industries and (effectively) sub-contract them to the only viable alternative: corporations from... you guessed it... non-developing economies.

So essentially the World Bank ends up channelling funds through developing economies and back into the rich countries.
At risk of saying something contentious, that seems not so far from what is happening in Iraq with huge slabs of the reconstruction funding...
Yikes.. who would have thought I would end up with a geo-politically engaged blog???? ;^)

Posted by Robin Wilton on April 29, 2005 at 09:41 AM GMT+00:00 #

I've just been reading Francis Wheen's How Mumbo-jumbo Conquered the World - a very entertaining look at how the rational enlightenment is under attack from astrology, creationism, supply-side economics, alternative medicine and more. One of the interesting points that Wheen makes is that before 1914 there was no restraint on migration anywhere. You could just up sticks and, assuming you could pay (or blag) your passage, go anywhere, find work and lodging, stay there as long as you liked, move on when you liked.
With all the focus on free movement of capital, why not free movement of labour? What would the world look like? Presumably repressive regimes would have to close their borders (think Iron Curtain), the USA, UK and Western Europe would have a massive influx of people from around the world, but what then? We are already seeing Indians returning home with the skills they gained elsewhere. Freedom of movement might even magnify this - if you weren't afraid of losing the all-important green card, you might be more tempted to return home.
All in all, it does seem bizarre that controls on immigration, and even passports, have been around for less that 100 years, and it's a fascinating thought experiment to imagine a world without them.

Posted by Superpat on May 02, 2005 at 07:36 PM GMT+00:00 #

Thanks, Pat -
The EU (and particularly the Schengen signatories) already have free movement of labour. Since the new accessions, you might be surprised at the Central European accents you would find in the sandwich shops around Monument... ;^)
You might also like to read "Straw Dogs" by John Gray... it challenges as many assumptions as 'Mumbo Jumbo'.
Yrs., Robin

Posted by Robin Wilton on May 04, 2005 at 11:05 AM GMT+00:00 #

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