Let the Mexicans starve. That's the view, apparently, of the brain trust over at the editorial board at the New York Times, which, in an editorial this morning on immigration, puts itself firmly in the camp of nativist xenophobe Patrick Buchanan. Free movement of labor across the border between America and Mexico "is not practical anytime soon," the Time claims. It might result in -- perish the thought! -- low-wage Mexican workers competing "with the poorest, least skilled Americans." What we really need, the Times says, is "improved Mexican border enforcement."
This is so wrong in so many ways that it's hard to know where to start, but let's have a crack at this claim that letting in Mexicans would somehow harm the "poorest, least skilled Americans." Those Americans are already subject to competition, and are being hurt, now, as American companies move their factories to Mexico to take advantage of low-wage Mexican workers. An intelligent policy would encourage Mexican workers to come to America. The alternative apparently backed by the Times is to close off the American labor market, drive up wages and thereby encourage American factories to move to Mexico. Letting in the immigrants would create economic growth that would help all Americans. And their taxes could help pay for education and training to help lift up the poorest and least skilled Americans -- tax revenues that would be lost if factories moved to Mexico and the Mexican workers were kept out of America because of "improved" border enforcement.
The pro-globalization crowd at the Times has been leading the cheerleading for lowering the trade barriers with China. Immigration restrictions are just another kind of trade barrier, a restriction on the movement of labor rather than on the movement of goods and capital. It's inconsistent of the Times to favor an end to barriers on the movement of goods, but support restrictions on the movement of labor. (The Times is going to claim it actually favors a slight increase in visas for Mexicans, but that position, and its rhetoric, fall far short of the open-borders position enunciated by truly pro-immigrant newspapers such as, say, the Forward, or the Wall Street Journal.)
And there are some core principles here that go beyond economics. America is a land made great by immigrants. Why should those who happen to have been born here get a preference over those who were born in Mexico yet who yearn to take part in the American dream? Why should those with the good fortune to be born in America be shielded from competition from those who want to come here? There is no good reason, only the bad reasons of anti-Mexican racism or the more subtle prejudices of those whose ancestors came here a few generations earlier and who now want to shut the door on those who would join them from other parts of the world.
Cheney's Options: An editorial in today's Times about Richard Cheney's stock options in Halliburton acknowledges what Smartertimes.com pointed out in its August 18 edition: That is, as the Times puts it, "A Wall Street firm could sign a contract on his options, locking in his proceeds from the sale of that stock now." The editorial proceeds with the usual handwringing about how it is "especially troubling" that Mr. Cheney has some of his net worth tied up in an energy-related company, noting, "Oil touches on everything from relations with Venezuela to wildlife preservation in Alaska, from Middle East politics to the automobile industry." Okay. So why no fuss -- why not even a mention in this editorial -- of the fact that a large chunk of Al Gore's family net worth comes from a block of stock in Occidental Petroleum, an oil company?