A Look at a Libertarian Theory on Economics and Immigration

A Look at a Libertarian Theory on Economics and Immigration

Thomas Allen

One reason that some libertarians give for supporting open borders and unrestricted immigration is that it results in an economic boom for the country receiving the immigrants. That massive unrestricted immigration is economically beneficial is questionable. Most of the time it benefits most of the immigrants until they become so numerous and diverse that they bring the country down. That unrestricted immigration benefits the natives is questionable. To the extent that it benefits the natives, its benefits are more on the macro-level (economics on the national and global level) than the micro-level (economics on the individual and family level). Ironically, libertarian economists generally prefer the micro-level while the statist and central planning economists generally prefer the macro-level.

Libertarians assert that unrestricted immigration of aliens is a great economic benefit for the United States. Is it a great benefit to the natives who are not hired because the aliens will work cheaper? Doubtfully, the natives who are not hired would consider it a great economic benefit.

When the employees of Disney had to train foreigners, who worked for less pay, to do their jobs or forgo severance pay, did they consider the importation of these foreigners an economic benefit? Doubtfully, any of them replaced considered it a great economic benefit.

Some workers do not receive a pay raise or even receive a pay cut because of the large supply of workers resulting from unrestricted immigration. Do they consider unrestricted immigration an economic benefit? Doubtfully, any of these native workers would consider the large influx of aliens as a great economic benefit. (Henry George, whom Edward Harwood, the founder of the American Institute of Economic Research, esteemed, argued that Chinese immigrants during the nineteenth century pushed wages down.)

(Objecting to the great economic boom resulting from massive immigration just proves that these native workers are racists [but who is going to call a Negro racist when he objects to a Mexican replacing him], short-sighted, and selfish. Yet, according to the Randian Objectivist libertarians, selfishness is a great virtue.)

To these objections, libertarians counter that a growing population leads to an increase in demand for goods and services, which results in driving up wages and the standard of living. If a country were an autarky, this argument may have merit. However, since most goods are imported into the United States and many services are outsourced, this argument is weak.

If the libertarian theory that a large and growing population equals economic prosperity and, thus, a large per capita income and per capita wealth, then China and India should have the largest per capita income and per capita wealth. Yet, they do not. Many countries with much smaller populations have much higher per capita income and per capita wealth. (To the common man, per capita income and per capita wealth are more important than the country’s absolute income and wealth.)

Also, if the libertarian theory that immigration equals economic prosperity is true, then the opposite must also be true: A declining population reduces the demand for goods and services and, thus, reduces wages and increases poverty. Yet, the Black Death, which killed 30 to 50 percent of the population of Europe, greatly reduced the workforce and cause wages to rise sharply instead of devastating wages. Wages rose so much that governments fixed maximum wages.

Based on its theory of immigration equaling economic prosperity, libertarians must hate third world countries because they want to transfer a large number of their people to the United States. As a result, these third world countries become ever more impoverished. (This is especially true if the immigrants are highly educated and skilled.) Based on the libertarian argument, if libertarians really cared about the economic well-being of third world countries, they would be at the forefront demanding the prohibition of third-world immigration.

If the libertarian assertion that immigrants are a great economic benefit for the country to which they migrate, and if they really cared about nonwhite countries, then libertarians should be in the forefront demanding that all nonwhites be deported and repatriated to the countries of their ancestors. This great influx of immigrants should greatly improve the economies of these countries. Moreover, if the libertarian assertion is true, the mass exit of people (about 40 percent of the population of the United States) would cause an economic collapse of the United States and, consequently, giving the despicable, evil Whites left behind their comeuppance. Such a mass exit of people from the United States would plunge the economy to such a low level that even Haiti would look like the land of prosperity as the United States become a fifth world country. Moreover, if nonwhites left the United States and other White countries, they could quarantine the horrible, debilitating disease of whitism and protect themselves from it while bringing White countries to economic ruin.

Libertarians are not the only ones who preach that unrestricted immigration is a great economic benefit for the United States. Neoconservatives also use this economic argument to support unrestricted immigration.

Liberals and progressives do not believe this libertarian malarkey about unrestricted immigration being economically beneficial. Unlike libertarians, they are well aware of its destructive effects, which is the primary reason that they support unrestricted immigration. Moreover, as a side benefit, liberals and progressives use these immigrants to enhance their political power — just as the Republicans used freedmen to enhance their political power. (For the most part, Blacks supported the Republican party until Franklin Roosevelt and, especially, Lyndon Johnson bought them with the welfare state and civil rights.)

Many libertarians object to political borders. Consequently, they are globalists at heart. Therefore, they support the objective of the Rothschilds, the Rockefellers, the Bushes, the Clintons, Kissinger, Brzezinski, and other globalists to destroy political borders and, by that, reduce the world to one. However, libertarians do oppose the political and economic policies of these globalists.

Although many libertarians object to national borders, they do not object to all collectives controlling their borders. If one collective can take action to control its territory, then why cannot other collectives do likewise? Libertarians have no problems with corporations, which are governmentally created collectives, a fact that most libertarians like to ignore, taking action to prevent outsiders from entering their territory. Yet, most libertarians object to countries, which are also collectives, from taking action to prevent outsiders from entering their territory.

Addendum
Nearly all economists believe in the economic law of supply and demand: If supply increases faster than demand, prices decline. However, some economists make an exception with labor. They argue that as the supply of workers rises, wages, the price of labor, rises because workers are also consumers. These additional consumers increase the demand for goods and services and, by that, the prices of goods and services, which increases their supply. This increasing supply of goods and services leads to an increase in wages.

When labor is scarce, more capital is invested in machine to do the work of labor. Thus, productivity rises. With the rise of productivity, wages and the standard of living of workers rise.

When labor is plentiful, little incentive exists to substitute machines for labor. More labor is used to increase the supply of goods and services. To substitute machines for labor is not economical. Thus, wages and the standard of living stagnate. If wages do rise, they rise much more slowly. However, they are likely to decline because of the high competition for jobs resulting from the large supply of labor.

Consequently, a small labor pool or a decline in workers leads to a rise in wages and the standard of living of workers. Machines are substituted for labor, which increases productivity per unit of labor and, by that, increases the wages of labor. A large labor pool leads either to a decline in wages or to no increase in wages, and therefore, a decline or stagnation in the standard of living for workers. For example, where labor is plentiful, hiring more workers to dig a canal with shovels is more economical than paying a worker ten times as much as a man with a shovel and hiring his capital, a power shovel, to dig the canal. Yet, the power shovel operator may do the work of 100 or more workers with their shovels.

Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Allen.

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