The moral basis for limiting immigration and not offshoring American jobs

Matt Miller says liberals have an immoral position on trade and that big companies are the true "progressives," but I say he and other advocates for open borders are the morally obtuse ones. The evidence is overwhelming, as Miller partially concedes, that the offshoring of actual and potential American jobs and the uncontrolled immigration of foreign workers is a major factor in chronic US unemployment and stagnant and declining real middle-class incomes. Yet, he says, that's the right thing to do because it increases the incomes of the even less fortunate Chindians.

The mother of all inconvenient truths is this: Global capitalism's ability to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty in China, India and other developing countries comes partly at the expense of tens of millions of workers in wealthy nations. This awful, inexorable fact will soon pose an enormous moral and intellectual challenge for the American left.

To understand why, ask liberal trade foes how they square their hopes for the millions of workers striving to improve their lives here in America with a defensible moral stance toward the billions beyond our borders who seek better lives themselves -- some of whom want to come here, and nearly all of whom want to trade with us in ways that may put American jobs or earnings at risk.

. . . .

. . . . Seen in this light, for example, big business may turn out to be a more "progressive" global force than American labor or government in the next few decades. Why? Because corporate America is generally the strongest voice for the reciprocal free trade and access to markets that poor nations need to thrive.

Okay, Matt, I'll answer your question: In short, it's because Americans have a duty, which is fundamental to cohesiveness of national union, to treat other Americans better than non-Americans. Consider the Parable of the Improvident Mom:

A single mom in a low-wage job walked home after work on a Friday and had this conversation with her two children: 

Kids:   Hi, mom.  What's for dinner? 

Mom:  Remember we've been talking about the Good Samaritan?  After I cashed my check, I was walking on Skid Row and feeling sorry for all those homeless and hungry people.  So I invited them to McDonalds and bought big meals for all of them.  They were very appreciative, and it made me feel really good, but I spent all the money and didn't have anything left for groceries.  There's some cold cereal and a little bit of milk you can have for dinner. 

Kids:   But what about tomorrow and Sunday?  There's no food in the house.

Mom:  We can all go down to Skid Row and ask those people to share with us—just like I shared with them.  And on Monday you'll get free breakfast and lunch at school. 

First, I think Mom misunderstood the Parable of the Good Samaritan, which assumes, I think, that the fortunate are able to aid the unfortunate without privation or great cost.  Being neighborly and merciful is something less than sharing equally, and certainly less than treating a stranger better than one's own.  When our policies allow non-Americans to take the livelihoods of Americans, especially in a prolonged period of high unemployment, we are doing to millions of American citizens what Mom did to her kids. 

It is moral to give preferences to in-groups over outsiders, nuclear family over extended family, family over other community members, members of one's religion, political party, union, or other organization over non-members, tested and loyal members over applicants and probationary members, etc.  Neither our civilization nor even our species can survive without cohesive groups whose members are loyal to and support each other to the partial or total exclusion of others.  The ability to form and maintain groups of composition, function, and commitment appropriate to life's difficulties, perils, and threats is fundamental. 

Second, individuals with the power to make decisions affecting other members of their group act morally when they protect and enhance the welfare of the group members and immorally when they take actions that do the opposite.  Mom has an inherited moral duty to protect, nourish, and nurture her children.  [UPDATE 10/25/10: I meant to say "inherent" instead of "inherited," but they both sorta work, don't they?]  In the US we have many layers of representative democracy in which those elected are empowered to make decisions for the groups they represent.  They are functionally the moms of these groups, and they act contrary to their moral duty if without informed consent they take food out of the mouths of their constituents and hand it to foreigners. 

We have moral obligations to residents of other countries, but I don't think those include the obligation to let them all move in with us or to transfer away the livelihoods of our group members.  If a majority of US voters, being fully informed, were to favor conferring benefits on the peoples of other nations and paying for that by depriving millions of Americans of their livelihoods, I might be able to go along, but I'd certainly be troubled by the fact that the victims can't drop out of the American club in protest.  Anyway we haven't done that.  By large and consistent majorities, Americans do not want themselves or other Americans to suffer in that way.  The prevailing view, and a moral one, is that we must take care of our own first. 

Unlike the improvident mom who, it may be assumed, will share the hunger with her children, proponents of open borders generally are not personally sharing in any sacrifice but actually benefit from selling out their fellow Americans. If they feel no shame about that, they are the ones who need to swing their moral compasses.

I suggest that a big reason voters report increasing alienation and eagerness to vote out whichever political party is in at the moment, is that there is a persistent sense that the ins are out of touch and "don't care about people like me." How else can these disaffected voters understand the long-term bipartisan failure to enforce existing immigration laws against US employers and the flood of jobs being offshored? They still have to pay heavy "dues" in this "club," but the benefits are going to free-riding non-members. They see this as an immoral betrayal by their elected decision-makers, and so do I.

Update on Thursday, October 14, 2010 at 04:04PM by Skeptic

An email says my argument is "bigoted, narrow, and unpersuasive."  I'll cop to unpersuasive and try again with a lifeboat analogy.  Assume a fully-loaded lifeboat encounters other victims in the water.  They will die if not taken on board, but if they are taken on board the lifeboat will be overloaded and sink.  Under what circumstances, and by what decision-making mechanism, should some of the people in the boat be ejected and left to drown to make it possible to save those now in the water? 

In the fully-loaded lifeboat case and in the Parable of the Improvident Mom, one can make the moral problem disappear if it's not a zero-sum game, i.e., that mom can feed the Skid Row homeless and her own children and that the life boat won't sink if all the swimmers are pulled out of the water.  But if it is a zero sum game, as I think the evidence clearly shows, or if there is substantial uncertainty about whether it's a zero-sum game, there is a moral problem whether we choose to acknowledge it or not. It's not as though those in the lifeboat can save a swimmer by levying the same tax on everybody in the boat--some one person presently in the lifeboat must change places with the swimmer who will otherwise die, a child must go hungry if mom feeds the homeless, and an American who has or hopes to have a livelihood won't if it goes instead to a foreigner. 

There are all sorts of theoretical arguments about why this is not a zero-sum game, e.g., the Lump of Labor Fallacy fallacy.  But I'm looking at the evidence of what has happened in terms of US employment and am unpersuaded by theoretical arguments that what I'm seeing can't happen. 

Update on Sunday, October 24, 2010 at 04:16PM by Skeptic

The Lump of Labor Fallacy is explained here. 

Update on Saturday, December 18, 2010 at 11:21PM by Skeptic

Before we can feel much for others, we must in some measure be at ease ourselves. If our own misery pinches us very severely, we have no leisure to attend to that of our neighbour . . . . 

Adam Smith, Theory of Moral Sentiments.

Update on Tuesday, January 11, 2011 at 11:14AM by Skeptic

Here is a related post, A neurological basis for group cohesion?  But who's in my group?

Update on Friday, March 4, 2011 at 06:01PM by Skeptic

Princton economist Uwe E. Reinhardt continues writing about the case for and against free trade and immigration, concluding that the "dictatorial, collectivist" norm of economists to favor open borders neglects other considerations that are relevant and often paramount:

The issue of free trade, like the issue of immigration, is too important to be left to the cerebral structures of economists. We may be just good enough to fire the opening salvo in a wider national conversation on these themes — which should be discussed and resolved by a wider group of stakeholders.

Reinhardt refers to the debate about a 2005 Forbes article “Xenophobia and Politics: Why Protectionism Is a Lot Like Racism" by Steven Landsburg.  He also links to a rebuttal by Pat Buchanan that closely approximates my views: It's not racism at all; it's patriotism. 

To be more concerned about the well-being of one’s fellow Americans is not “xenophobia,” which means a fear or hatred or foreigners. It is patriotism, which entails a special love for one’s own country and countrymen, not a hatred of any other country or people. Preferring Americans no more means hating other peoples than preferring one’s family means hating all other families. An icy indifference as to whether one’s countrymen are winning—be it in a competition for jobs or Olympic medals—is moral treason and the mark of a dead soul.

We are all born into families, clans, tribes, neighborhoods, countries, all of which—as well as the friends we make, the schools that nurture us, the churches at which we worship—have a claim upon our love and loyalty.

Hat tip to Christine.