Let Anyone Take A Job Anywhere
Giving Control of Labor to Employers
Clip: Kathleen Newland and Vivek Wadhwa disagree over the role of employers in the immigration process and how international employees integrate into the culture.
What If the U.S. Partnered with the E.U.?
Kathleen Newland describes how Europe has handled freedom of movement when accepting newer nations that were poorer. Bryan Caplan counters that the most gains come from open immigration with poorer countries.
Keep the World's Poor Out or Hurt Ordinary Americans?
Clip: Bryan Caplan and Ron Unz dispute the effects of open borders, specifically whether or not wages would be driven down by the influx of immigrants from poorer countries.
Debate Details
If we value a free market in goods and free movement of capital, should we embrace the free movement of labor? Reciprocal treaties would allow citizens of the U.S. and other countries to work legally across borders. Would the elimination of barriers in the labor market depress wages and flood the marketplace with workers? Or would the benefits of a flexible labor supply be a boon to our economy, all while raising the standard of living for anyone willing to work?
The Debaters
For the motion
Bryan Caplan
Bryan Caplan is Professor of Economics at George Mason University and Senior Scholar at the Mercatus Center. He is the author of The Myth of the Rational... Read More
Vivek Wadhwa
Vivek Wadhwa is Vice President of Innovations and Research at Singularity University; Fellow, Arthur & Toni Rembe Rock Center for Corporate Governance... Read More
Against the motion
Kathleen Newland
Kathleen Newland is the co-founder and a trustee of the Migration Policy Institute, where she directs policy programs on Migrants, Migration and Development... Read More
Ron Unz
Ron Unz, the publisher of The Unz Review, is the former publisher of The American Conservative, a small opinion magazine, and is the founder and chairman... Read More
Where Do You Stand?
- Allowing people to move as freely as goods and capital would benefit the world's economy, by some accounts, doubling the global GDP and bringing an end to poverty.
- Freedom of movement, as well as equal access to opportunity, is a basic human right. Open borders would end the arbitrary discrimination against people based on their place of birth, allowing those trapped in third world poverty to access first world opportunity.
- Emigrants transfer knowledge and skills back to their developing countries and, via remittances, help to alleviate poverty, develop markets, and increase trade.
- The free movement of people strengthens global networks that spur innovation, maximize human potential, and reduce international conflicts.
- Developing countries would not only suffer a brain drain, but tenuous economic development and delayed political and social reform.
- Remittances are only a band aid for poverty and do not develop economic infrastructure.
- Immigrants are a net fiscal burden, overwhelming an already strained economy and draining public resources like schools, hospital care, and welfare benefits.
- Opening our borders would create job competition for native workers, suppressing wages and putting the least-skilled Americans out of work.
- The free movement of people could threaten the cultural identities of both sending and receiving countries.
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