I recently watched a video by Mr. Beat about PragerU. I enjoyed Mr. Beat’s analysis of the assertions made by PragerU. Fact checking is critical. But I think there is something even more fundamental to the PragerU video I want to object to.
The host of the PragerU video says it is not possible or desirable to let in everyone.
In a sense, she is right. But she asserts the method of enforcement for this is the US government. I have a big issue with this. Let's take a step back and think about what the video is asserting, that the government should regulate immigration. That the US government should decide the amount of people who should be let into the country, they should determine the skills and qualifications they have. The video asserts that unskilled workers should not be let into the country.
Let's go on a short tangent now.
Imagine instead of living in a free market like we do now, we lived in a centrally planned command economy. That the government projected the amount of bread that would be needed in the next year and directed factories to produce adequate bread for the population.
This is a system that has been tried before. It might remind you of the USSR, where millions of people died because of food shortages. It seems time and time again, forecasting needs is difficult. The government is not in a good position to estimate the needs of consumers. And it seems central planned economies often fail.
Consider North Korea and South Korea. There are countless metrics I could reference here.
Look at this graph of GDP per capita in south Korea vs North. Also, North Koreans are shorter than South Koreans.
Now this isn’t definitive, but I think this difference in height is probably at least in part explained by differences in diet, that an unhealthy diet will lead to stunted growth.
In short, centrally planned economies have failed time and time again and lead to suboptimal outcomes.
Now instead of looking at projections for food, why should the government project labor needs? After all, that is what regulating immigration is doing. Farms, for example, need laborers. Ideally, cheap, unskilled labor and they need a lot of it. With less regulation, farmers could hire the workers they want. With increased regulation though, the government needs to project how many unskilled workers to be let in.
Really though, I don’t know what the right number of immigrants to be let in is, and I don’t think anyone really knows. Except, as people act in rational self-interest in a free market we ultimately get to the right answer. It is the free market itself that should regulate immigration. When there are jobs to be had, workers will come to get them. And if there are ever no jobs to be had, then people will not come, as it is no longer to their advantage to come.
Any system where the government is projecting what the market will want is a system that is inherently flawed. The market will demand what it wants, the government does not need to interfere, and in fact, when it does, suboptimal outcomes result.
