Browsing through this week’s Economist, I came across this article about migrant workers, and I’d like to address the hot-topic.

Which brings us to the more controversial, and promising, part of Mr Bush’s plan. To “match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do”, he proposes letting illegal aliens currently in America register for legal status.

Suppose someone holds the belief that a gardener ought to earn $10/hour, and that it’s unfair to American gardeners that immigrants are willing to do the same work for $5/hour. And suppose that I would like to be a school teacher. But I believe that school-teachers should earn $70,000 per year, and I refuse to work for any amount less than that. What either of these arguments are really saying, is that ceterus parabus, someone is not willing to do a job. And this is the principle which advocates migrant worker programmes.

If you subscribe to the belief that any occupation, (for instance, a cherry-picker in Traverse City, MI) is deserving of some pre-determined “fair wage,” you are subscribing to the socialist theory of valuation – that a commodity posesses a value intrinsic in its being. It is also to subscribe to the fallacios belief in the Theory of Scarcity that Frederic Bastiat refutes in Economic Fallacies.

Aside from security issues which must certainly be addressed, I see no reason why we should be denying willing laborers the privelege of enjoying our wonderful country. In fact, I say we make the process easier, because the “illegal immigrants” are only nominally illegal. If we make it easier for them to become legal (or at least Work-Authorized Aliens) they would by and large continue to take these jobs at lower wages.

The middle classes may love illegal gardeners, but many unskilled Americans fear being displaced by them, or forced to accept lower wages. “Keep them fools out,” says Alvin Pablo, an unemployed landscaper in Tucson, who says that Mexicans took his job.

As far as your competition for employment is concerned, it really makes no difference whether your competitor is Mexican, American, black, asian, WASP, or otherwise. The Mexicans are not stealing your jobs any more than the current (and potential) teachers are stealing mine. You do not “have” or “own” a job. Employment is not your “right.” But there’s a bright side to all of this: You do have the right to sell the commodity, Labor, which you have the ability to produce. You have the right to compete with other providers of this commodity in hopes of selling yours. If your price is higher than the next man’s, you’ll be asked to justify your price with skills, speed, proficiency, etc., in short, your wage will be “commensurate with your experience and/or your skill set.” To express dissatisfaction with the labor market in this manner, specifically targeting a group or groups of people, is the basest form of xenophobia and bigoted hatred that exists. We would all do well to ignore such reasoning in the future. Would it make a difference to Mr. Pablo if it were a white, midwestern boy who took outbid him for his job?” I don’t imagine it would – but if so, that fact would only further prove my assertion regarding xenophobia and bigoted hatred.

“But they’ll abuse our welfare-state!” the liberals will cry — The prudent solution is to stop espousing political ideology that fosters the nanny-state – this will concurrently reduce the incentive for immigration, and possibly reduce government spending – a very happy equilibrium if I do say so myself.

Labor is a commodity, and a scarce economic resource. Do not believe people who insist on nonsense like “fair wages”, with that, I’ll bring more on Federal Minimum Wages later this week.