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Here's some more from a mysterious Economist blogger on the subject of guest worker program. As he says, "In the end, immigration reform did not fail in America due to liberal quandaries on the ethics of guest worker programs; it failed because the Republican Party took a hard right turn on the issue." The question, then, is whether there's reason to think that greater reliance on a guest-worker program (or, to be more precise, on a large expansion of current law's very modest guest-worker allowances) would defuse some of the opposition.

The answer, I and the Mystery Blogger both agree, seems to be "no." None of the things that bother people about immigration would be substantially less bothersome in a guest worker scheme than under a more liberal immigration regime. If anything, you'd see the reverse. Trade unions have often been hostile to immigration. More recently, they've decided that their interests lie in organizing immigrant workers and seeking legal status for members of the workforce who are currently here illegally. Guest workers are essentially impossible to unionize, so a large bloc of guest workers is something unions -- currently supportive of immigration liberalization -- would be duty-bound to oppose. On the merits, I think both Reason and The Economist would welcome any effort to further crush the American labor movement, but it doesn't make sense to advocate something so patently anti-labor as a second-best political tactic. All it'd do is push unions into the restrictionist camp and totally doom the prospects for liberal reform.

Comments

The classic for me will always be the McCain rally in either AZ or NV, where he claimed that Americans just plain 'ol didn't want to do certain jobs, *no matter what the pay*. He then gave a hypothetical example to the effect of: even if you paid lettuce pickers $50/hour, Americans *still* wouldn't want those job.

At which point a number of Americans (i.e. white) in the crowd piped up saying hell YAH we'd take those job.

lawl.

Posted by sherifffruitfly | December 28, 2007 1:19 PM

All it'd do is push unions into the restrictionist camp and totally doom the prospects for liberal reform.

That's well said.

Put another way, what the yahoos primarily want (or at least, say that they primarily want) is a greater effort to reduce the occurrence of illegal immigration. It's not obvious to me why that is necessarily an illiberal goal.

And once you reduce the occurrence of illegal immigration, you can legitimately and drastically increase legal immigration. That is a liberal goal.

Reducing illegal immigration will marginalize people who are truly anti-immigrant by limiting the effectiveness of their appeals and breaking up their coalition with the (much larger, I'd wager) cohort of people who just want to see the law enforced.

Posted by southpaw | December 28, 2007 1:21 PM

Matt: Why are you so sure said Economist blogger is a he?

Posted by dan k | December 28, 2007 1:29 PM

"Guest workers are essentially impossible to unionize"

Why think this is so? For example, in Germany the Turkish guest workers developed, quite quickly, very strong unions that vastly improved their situations. The situation in this US is obviously different from German, but in ways that make things better as well as worse. Why could guest-workers not be unionized? All the proposed guest-worker programs invisioned them staying about 4-6 years, and that's surely long enough to making joining a union plausible. Instead of saying things that are clearly false, why not try to figure out if what you're saying is true or not? You've obviously put almost no research into this issue, Matt, and it's really emberassing, I think. It might be plausible to say that we should not support a guest-worker program that doesn't allow for union membership, but to just assuming that guest-workers could not be organized (when this is obviously false) is pretty bad form and doesn't help the debate at all. Please, try to do better on this.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | December 28, 2007 1:58 PM

The reason it's much harder to unionize guest workers is that, basically, to fire a guest worker is pretty much to deport him. You could insert a provision that prohibits companies from firing guest workers for union activity, I guess. But given the NCLB's recent reluctance to enforce such measures even for US citizens, a guest worker would be nuts to rely on such assurances.

Would guest workers have the right to vote? Only over the dead bodies of Mickey Kaus and Lou Dobbs, gotta figure. But being unable to vote further weakens the guest workers' power to unionize; they can't help elect pro-labor politicians.

Posted by kth | December 28, 2007 2:13 PM

Kth- you're right, to a degree, under the sort of guest-worker program that we have now. But, one aspect of the proposed program, opposed so violently (but apparently w/o understanding) by our host here, was a provision to make guest-worker visas portable between jobs. It would also not be hard to allow a provision giving a grace period between jobs. Why not support such provisions (as well as better NLRB enforcement) rather than oppose programs that are pareto superior to the alternatives? Again, in both France and Germany unions worked with guest-workers and organized them to a high degree, to the benefit of both sides. The idea that such a thing can't be done is, frankly, stupid and it's a shame Matt doesn't see this.

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | December 28, 2007 2:24 PM

Considering that the American economy is probably on the verge of falling into an absolutely mammoth recession, isn't it a little silly to be debating the whys and wherefores of a new government program to fill our unmet labor demand?

Maybe we should focus on something more immediately practical, like how to spend our huge current budget surplus...

Posted by RKU | December 28, 2007 2:41 PM

Well said.

The better political tactic for Democrats hoping to "elect a new people" to vote Democratic is to talk about "a path to citizenship."

Posted by Steve Sailer | December 28, 2007 3:06 PM

To put my point another way, when both McMegan and Steve Sailer agree with you on a position, you should think about your take on that position again!

Posted by Matt (not the famous one) | December 28, 2007 3:37 PM

NTSA.

First, what the Economist calls a "hard right turn" is what the rest of us call "enforcing our laws".

Second, there's a reason I don't blog about the happenings in Piscataway. And, that's because I've never been to Piscataway and I don't know anything about it.

Likewise, MattY might want to consider educating himself about these topics before discussing them and then he might consider being a real pundit and not just a pimp by disclosing the downsides of what he does support.

After he learns more about this issue, he can offer an answer to the following:

The MexicanGovernment has explicitly stated that they're going to be using U.S. nonprofits to push their agenda inside the U.S. How exactly would MattY counteract such attempts by foreign governments to obtain PoliticalPower inside the U.S.?

Isn't it safe to assume that MattY/the Dems don't care about foreign governments having some degree of control over our internal politics? Would they support some form of condominium with that country?

Posted by TLB | December 28, 2007 3:43 PM

Well said, TLB.

The unintended consequences of the well meaning "feel-good" policies play right into the hand of those who would curtail our soverignty.

Posted by litbrit | December 28, 2007 4:03 PM

"The better political tactic for Democrats hoping to "elect a new people" to vote Democratic is to talk about "a path to citizenship."

Illegals don't need a "path to citizenship". They're already citizens. Of Mexico. Where they can also vote.

Posted by kafka | December 28, 2007 5:21 PM

Yglesias suspects that the Economist blogger is Will Wilkinson.

Posted by Pithlord | December 28, 2007 7:12 PM

Here's a funny story about Will Wilkinson.

A few years ago I wrote a satire about "guest" programs and posted it to a blogspot blog (jfsac.blogspot.com) then sent the link to Reason magazine. The all-in-one version of that is here.

What do you know, a couple week later a similar proposal found its way into Reason magazines pages, written by Will Wilkinson (reason.com/news/show/32871.html).

What a coincidence!

Posted by TLB | December 28, 2007 10:19 PM

I worry when paranoia about losing our sovereignty to a bunch of relatively powerless developing countries commands enough legitimacy to be an "across the spectrum" (litbrit to TLB) view. To echo unfamous Matt: litbrit, when TLB agrees with you on a position, you should think about your take on that position again! Take a look at his blog. We're in as much danger of losing our sovereignty to Mexico as we are of being invaded by Iraq, Iran, or Vietnam. Which is to say that the sovereignty canard is a scare tactic used to oppress the powerless and make fear-driven political gains--a twofer for any good authoritarian.

I respect MY's argued position on guest worker programs in theory--I am somewhat of two minds on the topic myself. But so much depends on the details of implementation that it makes little sense to speak of something called "guest worker program" in any categorical way. Thus far, guest workers have generally been able to find a way to stay if it makes sense for them, by changing status and working their way to permanent residence (e.g., B-2 tourist to F-1 student to OPT work-study to H-1B temporary worker to green card to citizenship). This is why I think people like TLB and Sailer oppose any type of guest worker program so vehemently. Any guest worker program in the strict sense of the term, that is one that absolutely mandated a temporary stay (like the current J-1 visa, in some instances), would be likely to fail, in my opinion. We've never really had a guest worker program of that kind; it's not something Americans understand or have supported in the past, and I don't think it's something they would support in the future. Hence, I'm not so worried that the kind of ironclad guest worker program MY fears would actually end up being implemented.

Also, the goal of "reducing illegal immigration" is an illusory one and represents political code rather than substantive policy, much like "winning the war on terror." Immigrants come and go in response to economic stimuli; Congress decrees them legal or illegal depending on the prevailing political temper. There's nothing immutable about it--it's fairly arbitrary, and the randomness and discretion running through the immigration system put the lie to the idea that it's all about enforcing "rule of law."

Posted by yave begnet | December 28, 2007 11:15 PM

NOTE: THE ABOVE COMMENT AT 4:03pm WAS NOT MADE BY ME, LITBRIT.

I am the victim of a wingnut sockpuppet troll who is going around the blogosphere leaving rightwing nonsense and offensiveness in comment threads, using my name and my blog address.

Please disregard anything suspect (i.e. obscene, offensive, ridiculously rightwing, etc.) you may read on this blog and any others, most likely posted yesterday afternoon or evening, using the sign-in litbrit and linking to my blog. If you wish to confirm this, or advise me of further comments I may have missed, please email me at litbrit at gmail dot com. Thanks so much, and I apologize for this--what a mess.

Posted by litbrit | December 29, 2007 12:52 PM

yave begnet: I run several sites, and none of them are "blogs". However, I do encourage people to come take a look, so they can learn all the things that MattY doesn't know.

The issue isn't a complete "loss" of our sovereignty, the issue is that it has in fact been eroded due to massive immigration from Mexico. In order to see that you have to actually follow the issue, something I do closely. I'm going to guess that you don't and thus your denials are based on ignorance.

When a foreign government has political power inside your country, you've lost some sovereignty. And, a good overview of some aspects of the political power that the MexicanGovernment has inside the U.S. is here: city-journal.org/html/15_4_mexico.html

Note also that some Democratic elected officials have direct links to the MexicanGovernment, others more or less represent Mexican citizens (GilCedillo), and many have indirect links to that government. And, the MexicanGovernment has a long list of direct or indirect links to various nonprofit organizations that are active on immigration issues, including well-known organizations such as the ACLU, SPLC, AFSC, etc. And, the MexicanGovernment has explicitly stated that they're going to be using nonprofits to push their agenda in the U.S.

Why, even a presidential candidate - and U.S. Senator - served as a useful idiot for those linked to that government.

So, once you're actually familiar with these issues, you'll see that we have lost some control over our internal politics, and that will only get worse unless we do things like completely discrediting those corrupt politicians and pundits who support the current situation.

Posted by TLB | December 29, 2007 1:19 PM

My sympathies, litbrit--I had the same thing happen to me recently. It seems immigration motivates identity thieves on the right like few other issues.

In order to see that you have to actually follow the issue, something I do closely. I'm going to guess that you don't and thus your denials are based on ignorance.

Maybe you should base your arguments on more than speculative, ill-informed slurs. Just because you're reliably restrictionist and you think your opinions are right vis-a-vis mine doesn't mean you are informed on the issues and I am not. I'm an immigration attorney and try to pay attention in my professional and personal life to the immigration debate.

once you're actually familiar with these issues, you'll see that we have lost some control over our internal politics, and that will only get worse unless we do things like completely discrediting those corrupt politicians and pundits who support the current situation.

Having corrected your misunderstanding that I know not of which I speak, I'll reiterate my point: claiming that the U.S. government has in any meaningful way ceded sovereignty to the government of Mexico is simply nativist fear-mongering, designed to obscure oppression of the powerless and make political appeals based on dubious cultural claims.

I run several sites, and none of them are "blogs".

The link from your handle on the comments above goes to this site: http://lonewacko.com/blog/index.html --note the presence of the word "blog" in the URL, hence I hope you'll forgive me for assuming that it was a blog I was reading--I stand corrected.

Posted by yave begnet | December 29, 2007 5:22 PM

yave begnet: the bit about blogging was partially tongue in cheek, and partially not. For the latter, I really don't want to be associated with people who have a habit of just ripping and posting rather than looking into issues. Plus, it's difficult to change URLs, especially when you've got thousands of them.

And, when it comes to legal matters I'll defer to you. However, since I've posted literally thousands of entries on the wider subject over a span of over five years, you might want to assume that I at least remember a little bit of what I posted and thus am quite familiar with things like the MexicanGovernment's attempts to keep the money flowing. Plus, there are things like this.

Perhaps you'd be willing to take my "ignorant or apologist?" quiz by supplying the vowels for all of these; the first couple are just a warm-up:

vcnt fx
flp cldrn
lvr rlln
mm lzn
jrg mjc
rtm rrl
tdr ms

Posted by TLB | December 29, 2007 6:05 PM

I'll save you the trouble: I'm an apologist.

Posted by yave begnet | December 30, 2007 10:27 AM

Just for the permanent record, here's another test. Anyone who says that my concerns are not valid should know the answer to the following; otherwise they're arguing from ignorance.

Which nonprofit is linked to not just the MexicanGovernment but even some bloggers? They were also appointed to a Midwest state panel and they sued another state (in the Southwest) in an attempt to block enforcement.

Which group am I referring to?

Posted by TLB | December 30, 2007 5:56 PM

Just for the permanent record, here's another test. Anyone who says that my concerns are not valid should know the answer to the following; otherwise they're arguing from ignorance.

Which nonprofit is linked to not just the MexicanGovernment but even some bloggers? They were also appointed to a Midwest state panel and they sued another state (in the Southwest) in an attempt to block enforcement.

Which group am I referring to?

Posted by TLB | December 30, 2007 5:59 PM