Don’t Know Much About Immigration
July 3rd, 2006What explains the open borders view of many economists? Soft-headed sentiments for grandma and grandpa rather than sound understanding of the world we actually live in suggest Steve Sailer. Quotable:
Recently, an “open letter” to the President and Congress on immigration was penned by George Mason University economist Alex Tabarrok of the Marginal Revolution blog. It was signed by over 500 economists even though it consisted of the usual sentimental flapdoodle and duplicitous double-dealing, such as citing data on legal immigrants to argue for amnesty for illegal immigrants ..
[In fact] few economists know much about immigration. Those 500 economists [who signed an open letter] would likely average worse on a test of factual knowledge about the subject than the typical VDARE.COM reader.
But they don’t care. One apparent side effect of a Ph.D. in economics is the assumption that you can extrapolate from general principles without knowing enough facts to understand which principles apply to this particular situation ..
These economists obviously feel that the most important purpose of future American immigration policy is to validate the admission of their own grandparents at Ellis Island a century ago. Apparently, they haven’t been educated to understand the strong emotions driving their preferences. Their individualist perspective seems to be too limited to comprehend many human motivations, especially political ones.
Read the whole thing — and don’t miss a boat full of useful links.