The 3% Solution & the Case for More, Not Fewer, Foreign Workers

Rhoda Klapp

And my rights as a UK citizen, compared to the last foreigner to get out of the back of a lorry are? Nothing to this guy. This is a trans-nationalist tract. The thing about globalization is that we the electorate were not consulted. We are still a nation. I am not aware of any party which has run on the sum total of human happiness across all nations, if it detracts from happiness here.

I think open borders ought really to have some sort of mandate first. Good luck with that, Pritchett.

TomTom

Letting Scots work in England however has been a disaster, especially when they get access to levers of power. They replicate their own failed state north of the border with tribal corruption.

Arthur

This suggestion is idiotic nonsense.

First you seem to be measuring the condition of the world in pure economics.

Second, your proposal will undermine the coherent nation. People need nations because they provide that safe and familiar bubble that gives people the freedom to live and trust their fellow man, confident that they do not harbour some deep-rooted cultural and political desire to change the country to which they have just come. More migration simply weakens the nation and will - without doubt - make the country and the world a more volatile and dangerous place.

Third, you also think we might not have enough people from sub-saharan africa. What would they be doing, with their education and skills? Oh, low skilled labour thus reducing the wages of the poorest in the country yet further.

Fourth, I suppose this is where the balance comes in. The breakup of community and lowered wages for the poor is balanced by the benefits the rich derive from cheap labour.

Fifth, your carrots and sticks to encourage return migration is also pie in the sky. In theory this might work but just remember that it is our 'first rate' political minds that will be running this program.

Sixth, you might think that allowing Poles to work in Britain has, on balance, been good for Britain, but you forget the effect this has had on the wages of the poor.

This proposal might in theory have merit, but it is another classic case of middle class nonsense that counts all the benefits to them, including an eased conscience, but ignores the costs to the poor in this country.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

"The sum total of human happiness and opportunity has been advanced."

I'm sure that gives a lot of redundant British workers such a nice feeling of having done something worthwhile.

Jim

You have watched far too much Star Trek.
In the real world we value the culture of our own country, we do not want to be over run by the third world.
When our economy collapses I do hope they the people find a place for you at the guillotine.

ndm

There are something like 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States which makes illegal immigrants more numerous than the population of many if not most European nations. Consequently, there is considerable interest in the impact of illegal immigration on the wages of locals.

A few years ago a New York Times story reported:

-- Assuming a jump in capital investment, they found that the surge in illegal immigration reduced the wages of high school dropouts by just 3.6 percent. Across the entire labor force, the effect of illegal immigrants was zero, because the presence of uneducated immigrants actually increased the earnings of more educated workers, including high school graduates. For instance, higher-skilled workers could hire foreigners at low wages to mow their lawns and care for their children, freeing time for these workers to earn more. And businesses that exist because of the availability of cheap labor might also need to employ managers.

I once read that something like 1/6th of the students at Harvard were majoring in economics. The reality is that far too many Americans are unwilling to get their hands dirty, metaphorically or actually, and prefer the easy riches that come from an economics degree or an MBA (the ultimate social network degree) to the dirty work of actually developing some new product or service that can generate real wealth for the country. That hard scrabble is increasingly being left to immigrants - be they poorly-educated Mexican farm workers in Salinas Valley or highly-educated Indian entrepeneurs in Silicon Valley.

ndm

-- In the real world we value the culture of our own country, we do not want to be over run by the third world.
When our economy collapses I do hope they the people find a place for you at the guillotine.

Failing to notice the irony in his own words Jim apparently likes some foreign inventions just as he appears to despise foreigners.

Alf Tupper C.R.O.F.

ndm

Where's the irony in adopting foreign inventions whilst at the same time voicing concerns over rapid and massive influxes of foreign people?

The Indians couldn't get enough of our steam trains but that didn't stop them objecting to influxes of British people on the grounds of Indian Nationalism.

Victor NW Kent

I suspect that Mr Massie is being controversial for the sake of it.

His opinions would attract almost no popular support since they are counter-intuitive.

In fact he appears to be supporting a guest worker scheme which revives indentured labour. After all it built the South African sugar plantations and the American mid-West railways so it must be good. in actuality it creates immigrant populations who take root without cultural immersion and cause immense friction as we see, for example, in Fiji, in Latvia, in the Ukraine, in France and so forth.

The effort to correct poverty by accident of birth cannot even be achieved in our own country, let alone the entire population of the Earth. If there are no rich people there is no capital investment and what you can do solely with labour is limited - digging ditches and even then someone has to foot the bill for the ditches.

I haven't phrased this too well - I am quite angry.

Bob Frost

'When our economy collapses I do hope they the people find a place for you at the guillotine.'

FWIW Dr Guillotin's invention was merely an improvement on the Halifax Gibbet first used in 1286. Once again, an English invention developed abroad.....

journeyman

This borderless global utopia.Is it going to be a simultaneous multi-lateral agreement,where at the strike of midnight--all national identities and borders to be abolished and church bells ringing as we usher in the dawning of a new age,free from poverty and war.
Or the same old unilateral,one -way street,death of a thousand cuts,colonization,which the inhabitants of any other non-western nation wouldn,t entertain for a second.
Further more,would such generousity fully atone for the "accident of their birth place".
Its nice to see that the corporate mercenary right and the Alinsky multi-cultural left agree on a common temporary convienient agenda.Each riding on the others coat tails,until one has no need of the other.
Then again-if you give a man a fish,he can eat for one day--but if you give the corrupt,priveleged elite of these underdeveloped a wacking great crack with a baseball bat--they might stop exploiting their own people and save us the disaster that "Eurocide"will befall us.
The factors that determine social stability has taken a thousand years of struggle,and no charitable,well meaning proggressive,leftist,King Canute will survive the incoming tides of human nature.

journeyman

Is this one more hybrid-corporate/marxists utopian experiment with us as the Alinsky "lab-rats".?
Will this borderless global utopia be a multi-laterlal agreement where,at the stoke of midnight ,church bells ring all over the world to usher in a new age ,signifying the end of nationlism,war and poverty.?
Or just the same one way street,unilateral,incremental colonisation that no other non-western population would entertain non-violently for five seconds,for fear of the disruption it would bring to the thousand years of history,blood sweat and tears it took to reach social cohesion and common consensus.?
Is it not the corrupt governing elite of these countries which are responsible for this "accident of their birth place".?
Would not such dilution of our hard one progress,reduce us to their level,while they remain the same corrupt mafia devoid of the institutions of democracy and rule of law and workers unions.?
And when the backlash comes,which is already in the first stages of its manifestation,who will be blamed.?
The sociopath mad scientists of the "great game"or the poor bastard miserable working class British indigenous peasant.
While the Corporate right and multicultural poly-tech marxists have discovered they both have a mutual agenda of convieniance--borderless,anti-nationalist,one size fits all.
Each political ideology temporarily riding on the others coat tails,until one has no need of the other.
Is not taking kindly to the import of a hostile culture and population replacement only a Tibetan human right.
And just exactly how much is expected of us,to atone for the misfortune they have exploitaion they have inflicted upon themselves.
How long must we "limp before the lame--deeming it kindness"until we are also as lame as they are.
That guillotine investment is looking more attractive by the minute,because their will be fatalities.

Rhoda Klapp

I suspect Victor is right, this is a baiting exercise. If so, it worked. And we are unanimous, except for ndm who expressed no opinion. Does nobody speak for open borders? I'd like to hear what they have to say. It might not even be a bad thing. If I can freely live anywhere I like, and the local population have to put up with it. Serves them right for being prosperous, no? And I can escape my £26000 household debt.

ndm

-- And we are unanimous, except for ndm who expressed no opinion.

My opinion are that in this era of passports you can never have too many. I like that I can live and work in 28 countries - and, even though I will probably never do so, believe the ability to live and work in many more would be a good thing for me and the countries concerned. I have certainly learned and contributed much in each of the five countries I have worked in.

In my son's current school, 42% of the children are of Chinese origin. In his previous school, 45% of the children were of hispanic origin. This is, boys and girls, a good thing. Yes, it does make teaching more difficult because of language and social issues - it is hard to help with your child's homework if you left school at 13 and work two jobs. However, my son has a much wider variety of friends with different ethnic origins than I did when I was in a class with 41 lilly-white boys and girls along with one Pakistani girl.

I did, however, come from a place everyone left to live and work in all parts of the World. They may have come from a small town in the back of beyond but they showed themselves far more willing to live WITH the World than do those who object to the cultural richness and intellectual diversity brought to Britain by immigration over the millenia.

I recenly had the opportunity to read the Daily Mail each and every day for a few weeks - along with a random selection of real newspapers. I was shocked at the hate-filled nature of the rag - almost every article was designed to instill fear and hate in the reader with absolutely no pretence at providing information. And I was shocked at how easily this ignorant hate has spread into the hearts and minds of the readers. Britain is not a country that needs to wake up to the threat posed by immigration and immigrants - Britain is a country that needs to wake up to the threat posed by the bigotry and racism of its mass media and those who succumb to its siren call.

The frequent appeals for sanity with regard to immigrants and immigration by Alex Massie and Clive Davis are utterly rational. The British right needs more like them just as it needs far less individuals who promote bigotry, racism - and the currently fashionable Islamophobia.

Rhoda Klapp

Yes, yes, I've worked in a dozen countries. Love all the people. But in Kuwait in Ramadan we were told not to eat while the locals could not. Fine, that's the way they do it there.

You seem unable to differentiate betwen racism, bigotry, what have you, and wanting to preserve one's culture. Each immigrant group is fine until it reaches a critical mass where its own culture is self-sustaining and potenetially intrusive. With Poles that might be quite a high number. With others less so. Should there be uncontrolled immigration? I don't think so. I think there should be limits and conditions. Open borders imply no limits. Fair enough, I might be wrong. Let's put it to the vote. Let's have an open debate.
Let's NOT have some government sneak it through by using their majority without a clear manifesto position. Let's not have it come here via the EU as part of a human rights decision made by some undemocratic court.

Is that so insane? What would you do?

ndm

-- Each immigrant group is fine until it reaches a critical mass where its own culture is self-sustaining and potenetially intrusive. With Poles that might be quite a high number. With others less so.

And just where would Jews and Muslims fall in the spectrum of less or more so? It is the capricious and arbitrary nature of the "less or more so" that makes such thoughts racist and bigoted.

ndm

-- Let's not have it come here via the EU as part of a human rights decision made by some undemocratic court.

I wasn't aware that British courts were democratic. I find, however, that people who complain about Courts making human-rights decisions are people who don't think OTHER people have rights.