Thanks for this article; this is also something with which I have trouble contending. We are called to care for our neighbors, and every human is made in the imago dei, and worthy of our consideration. This means that we must also consider the literal neighbor next door, and not merely the next country over, and the effects of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
If you’ll remember as late as the mid 2000s, we can find democrats decrying illegal immigration for its wage suppressing effects and how it harms working class people who must now compete with people willing to undercut the legal wage limits by working under the table. General rules of supply and demand were understood, increasing the supply of labour would make it cheaper, benefiting those who employ labour at the expense of those who depended on scarcity of labour to demand higher wages for themselves.
High immigration at that time was seen as a “Koch brothers scheme” of sorts, a very right-wing, anti-labour, anti-working class thing. Famous left-leaning heroes like Cesar Chavez and Bernie Sanders were against immigration for this reason.
The political polarities have since switched, as the right has increasingly become seen as the party of the working class and the left as the party of the elites (There is room for argument, of course).
The left tends to rely on pathos more than anything, and if you’ll remember believe in Jonathan Haidt’s theories about moral foundations, arguments about care and fairness are the most impactful to a left leaning person. Therefore, democrats had to repackage the phenomenon in those terms, which is why caring and fairness are now the main arguments in favour of something they once argued was damaging, or unfair, to the working class.
As Christian’s, we are to eh gentle as doves and wise as serpents, so we must be wise enough to recognize when language is being used to push something that masks the harms it causes.
This type of immigration primarily benefits the wealthy who can abuse the cheap labour and suppress wages, be it legal or illegal. Employers will sometimes prefer legal immigrants with certain visas, because their residency is tied to their employment. This allows the employer to exploit the employee to a degree that’s far greater than a resident who could quite their job without the fear of being deported. They’ll sometimes prefer illegal immigrants because they do not have to pay for things like benefits or insurance, or even the minimum wage.
In addition, one advantage the US has currently is that it is essentially importing all the world’s smart people. It’s to America’s benefit, but arguably those countries from which they’ve been poached likely need their smart people more than a hegemonic superpower.
Allowing exploitation under the guise of “helping” people is duplicitous at best. Forcing poor and middle class people to compete with the entire world for their wages is also not kind.
Allowing the wealthy to import serfs, whether legally or illegally, serves mammon, not God.
Humanitarian arguments still hold weight, however. Many are coming from truly heinous conditions. The difficulty comes in asking how many people can fit on a lifeboat before the whole thing sinks? The answer isn’t zero, but it’s not an infinite number either, and good intentions don’t keep the realities of a finite world from imposing themselves.
Thanks for the detailed reply! I had heard of the political parties being switched on things in the past, but it's a good point to bring up.
I also agree that illegal immigration often harms our immediate neighbors, while benefiting those from other cultures. I think the standard progressive argument would be "well, those people need help MORE!" And there is something to that, I mean an immigrant from Africa or El Salvador is probably going to receive a lot more from the same $ amount of charity than someone here in the U.S.
While they are essentially serfs (the illegal immigrants at least) they are still likely much better off, hence why they do it.
At the same time it does seem like the people pushing this don't genuinely care about compassion? It seems more like a political, ideological stance that has gotten deeply rooted. Anyway, just thinking out loud. The lifeboat analogy is good too. Hard choices sometimes have to be made.
One needing help more than the other is a fair argument. Balancing greater needs of a stranger with lesser needs of those nearer to us has never been straightforward. Consider Aquinas:
“The case may occur, however, that one ought rather to invite strangers (to eat), on account of their greater want. For it must be understood that, other things being equal, one ought to succor those rather who are most closely connected with us. And if of two, one be more closely connected, and the other in greater want, it is not possible to decide, by any general rule, which of them we ought to help rather than the other, since there are various degrees of want as well as of connection: and the matter requires the judgment of a prudent man.”
—Summa theologiae
A dollar does stretch further in other countries and 1 USD will buy more for a homeless person in Africa than a homeless person in the US, but who will help the homeless US person if not other people in the US? Admittedly, something the US still fails to do…
In my own life, when I walk by the homeless in my neighborhood, I often give them a few dollars. Is the utilitarian argument that my change would do greater good if sent overseas enough to justify prioritizing those with the (in this argument’s context) “good fortune” to be poor in a place with a more favourable exchange rate?
It’s odd from an older person’s perspective to hear the argument that the people being exploited come to be exploited willingly as it’s their best option, as this also used to be what Nike and other big corporations said about their sweatshop workers. The workers are not at fault for making the best economic decision they can, it’s the “employers” who are for doing the exploitation. It’s to our discredit that we enable them to this day. Not demanding dignity for workers effectively initiates a race to the bottom in the name of cheaper material goods.
A final thought on exploitation is the biblical analogy in John 12:15-16:
“Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”
He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Here Judas is chastising someone else for not sacrificing for strangers who are more in need, but he’s doing so with the ulterior motive of being able to benefit from it personally, and not out of actual concern. Jesus senses this and rebukes him for it.
Christians need to call out bad faith arguments that appear kind but are motivated by vice, like Jesus did.
If I have hammered on with this point, it’s because we’ve had nearly two decades of hearing the other side of this argument, often pronounced in a cynical and bad faith fashion, and would like a more tempered debate where both sides are given some weight.
In any case, this has been a good chance to think out loud about the issue. Thank you for taking the time to write about it honestly and with curiosity.
You are full of crap & half truth & Hypocracies, because ancient India is a successful multi racial society where race or skin colour was never a problem unlike in Europre where Roma gypsies, Jews, Muslims etc were historically persecuted.
Ancient India is a mixture of indigenous harrapans, Aryans, Europeans, Turky & middle eastern and then Dravidians who are closer to Africans etc.
As I said man, I am not fully formed on this stance of opinions yet. No need to call me full of crap or anything, I'm working out my ideas here.
I totally agree that there have been plenty of impressive multiracial societies! I don't think it's impossible to do at all, and it's something to strive for.
That being said, it's pretty obvious to me that "white" American culture (as much as that is a coherent concept) is pretty toxic and horrible about communities. I would like to see us work on figuring out how to fix our own spiritual problems, and integrate immigrants into a healthy society, instead of ignoring our societal problems and bringing in a ton more immigrants, which I fear might make the problems worse.
Thanks for this article; this is also something with which I have trouble contending. We are called to care for our neighbors, and every human is made in the imago dei, and worthy of our consideration. This means that we must also consider the literal neighbor next door, and not merely the next country over, and the effects of robbing Peter to pay Paul.
If you’ll remember as late as the mid 2000s, we can find democrats decrying illegal immigration for its wage suppressing effects and how it harms working class people who must now compete with people willing to undercut the legal wage limits by working under the table. General rules of supply and demand were understood, increasing the supply of labour would make it cheaper, benefiting those who employ labour at the expense of those who depended on scarcity of labour to demand higher wages for themselves.
High immigration at that time was seen as a “Koch brothers scheme” of sorts, a very right-wing, anti-labour, anti-working class thing. Famous left-leaning heroes like Cesar Chavez and Bernie Sanders were against immigration for this reason.
The political polarities have since switched, as the right has increasingly become seen as the party of the working class and the left as the party of the elites (There is room for argument, of course).
The left tends to rely on pathos more than anything, and if you’ll remember believe in Jonathan Haidt’s theories about moral foundations, arguments about care and fairness are the most impactful to a left leaning person. Therefore, democrats had to repackage the phenomenon in those terms, which is why caring and fairness are now the main arguments in favour of something they once argued was damaging, or unfair, to the working class.
As Christian’s, we are to eh gentle as doves and wise as serpents, so we must be wise enough to recognize when language is being used to push something that masks the harms it causes.
This type of immigration primarily benefits the wealthy who can abuse the cheap labour and suppress wages, be it legal or illegal. Employers will sometimes prefer legal immigrants with certain visas, because their residency is tied to their employment. This allows the employer to exploit the employee to a degree that’s far greater than a resident who could quite their job without the fear of being deported. They’ll sometimes prefer illegal immigrants because they do not have to pay for things like benefits or insurance, or even the minimum wage.
In addition, one advantage the US has currently is that it is essentially importing all the world’s smart people. It’s to America’s benefit, but arguably those countries from which they’ve been poached likely need their smart people more than a hegemonic superpower.
Allowing exploitation under the guise of “helping” people is duplicitous at best. Forcing poor and middle class people to compete with the entire world for their wages is also not kind.
Allowing the wealthy to import serfs, whether legally or illegally, serves mammon, not God.
Humanitarian arguments still hold weight, however. Many are coming from truly heinous conditions. The difficulty comes in asking how many people can fit on a lifeboat before the whole thing sinks? The answer isn’t zero, but it’s not an infinite number either, and good intentions don’t keep the realities of a finite world from imposing themselves.
Thanks for the detailed reply! I had heard of the political parties being switched on things in the past, but it's a good point to bring up.
I also agree that illegal immigration often harms our immediate neighbors, while benefiting those from other cultures. I think the standard progressive argument would be "well, those people need help MORE!" And there is something to that, I mean an immigrant from Africa or El Salvador is probably going to receive a lot more from the same $ amount of charity than someone here in the U.S.
While they are essentially serfs (the illegal immigrants at least) they are still likely much better off, hence why they do it.
At the same time it does seem like the people pushing this don't genuinely care about compassion? It seems more like a political, ideological stance that has gotten deeply rooted. Anyway, just thinking out loud. The lifeboat analogy is good too. Hard choices sometimes have to be made.
One needing help more than the other is a fair argument. Balancing greater needs of a stranger with lesser needs of those nearer to us has never been straightforward. Consider Aquinas:
“The case may occur, however, that one ought rather to invite strangers (to eat), on account of their greater want. For it must be understood that, other things being equal, one ought to succor those rather who are most closely connected with us. And if of two, one be more closely connected, and the other in greater want, it is not possible to decide, by any general rule, which of them we ought to help rather than the other, since there are various degrees of want as well as of connection: and the matter requires the judgment of a prudent man.”
—Summa theologiae
A dollar does stretch further in other countries and 1 USD will buy more for a homeless person in Africa than a homeless person in the US, but who will help the homeless US person if not other people in the US? Admittedly, something the US still fails to do…
In my own life, when I walk by the homeless in my neighborhood, I often give them a few dollars. Is the utilitarian argument that my change would do greater good if sent overseas enough to justify prioritizing those with the (in this argument’s context) “good fortune” to be poor in a place with a more favourable exchange rate?
It’s odd from an older person’s perspective to hear the argument that the people being exploited come to be exploited willingly as it’s their best option, as this also used to be what Nike and other big corporations said about their sweatshop workers. The workers are not at fault for making the best economic decision they can, it’s the “employers” who are for doing the exploitation. It’s to our discredit that we enable them to this day. Not demanding dignity for workers effectively initiates a race to the bottom in the name of cheaper material goods.
A final thought on exploitation is the biblical analogy in John 12:15-16:
“Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.”
He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.
Here Judas is chastising someone else for not sacrificing for strangers who are more in need, but he’s doing so with the ulterior motive of being able to benefit from it personally, and not out of actual concern. Jesus senses this and rebukes him for it.
Christians need to call out bad faith arguments that appear kind but are motivated by vice, like Jesus did.
If I have hammered on with this point, it’s because we’ve had nearly two decades of hearing the other side of this argument, often pronounced in a cynical and bad faith fashion, and would like a more tempered debate where both sides are given some weight.
In any case, this has been a good chance to think out loud about the issue. Thank you for taking the time to write about it honestly and with curiosity.
You are full of crap & half truth & Hypocracies, because ancient India is a successful multi racial society where race or skin colour was never a problem unlike in Europre where Roma gypsies, Jews, Muslims etc were historically persecuted.
Ancient India is a mixture of indigenous harrapans, Aryans, Europeans, Turky & middle eastern and then Dravidians who are closer to Africans etc.
Haha hey I think I know you from twitter!
As I said man, I am not fully formed on this stance of opinions yet. No need to call me full of crap or anything, I'm working out my ideas here.
I totally agree that there have been plenty of impressive multiracial societies! I don't think it's impossible to do at all, and it's something to strive for.
That being said, it's pretty obvious to me that "white" American culture (as much as that is a coherent concept) is pretty toxic and horrible about communities. I would like to see us work on figuring out how to fix our own spiritual problems, and integrate immigrants into a healthy society, instead of ignoring our societal problems and bringing in a ton more immigrants, which I fear might make the problems worse.