July 30, 2015
I’m not kidding, this is what he criticized Senator Bernie Sanders for in a Vox piece today. He apparently views it as outrageous that Sanders, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, doesn’t think that the United States should open its borders so that every person who in the world who wants to come and work in the United States has the opportunity to do so.
On the one hand Matthews has a point, there is an injustice in that people who were born in the United States are able to enjoy a better and longer life than people who had the misfortune to be born in a poor country in Africa, Asia, or elsewhere in the developing world. On the other hand, it is hard to see that as a greater injustice than saying that people who were born in wealthy and educated families in the United States, that could give their children the wealth and social training to enjoy a high living standard, have a right to a better standard of living than children who were born to less privileged families. Of course these children of privileged families will benefit from having more less-educated immigrants in the country since it will mean they have to pay less for their nannies and to have their lawn mowed and their house cleaned.
This problem can be solved much more easily than worldwide inequality. For example, let’s eliminate the patent and copyright monopolies that redistribute so much income upward to these privileged children. Let’s alter the licensing restrictions that ensure doctors and lawyers get outlandish pay. (We can use a lot more immigrants in these areas and the gains are large enough to have repatriations of a portion so that the home countries of these foreigners benefit as well.) And we can have the Fed not raise interest rates to keep the less privileged children from getting jobs.
Anyhow, we all have to decide for ourselves which injustices we find most worth fighting.
Comments