On immigration, the big political tug-o-war axis today is: more or less immigrants. But if you want tug the rope sideways, both to oppose polarization and to have a better chance of adding value, you might do better to focus on a perpendicular axis. Such as
The vast majority of social process in our world have disproportionate demographic impacts, and yet most last a very long time. You vastly exaggerate the sensitivity to this.
I like the idea in principle, but I suspect without certain constraints it may do more harm than good. Here are four reasons:
1. Even if we stipulate that all speculators are of impeccable moral character, inevitably, we will still find that certain traits (e.g. sex, race, nation of origin, religion, etc) will correlate with outcomes and hence be of predictive value for speculators. Using this information would almost certainly increase social tensions domestically, and possibly also internationally.
2. Even if we stipulate both morally impeccable speculators *and* a world in which protected demographic categories genuinely have no predictive power with respect to expected outcomes in an *unbiased* society, any systemic demographic biases in our *actual* society will still manifest as disparities in expected outcomes between demographic groups, driving item 1.
3. To the degree to which a speculator is biased against any given demographic trait, they can favorably trade it off against expected earnings. That is, a speculator may knowingly choose to suffer an opportunity cost in order to influence the demographic make-up of immigrants. It seems ill-advised to give officially-sanctioned channels through which such bigotry can be laundered. (Granted, I assume there are probably already officially-sanctioned mechanisms through which this can be done).
3. Combining 2 and 3, large firms (or coalitions) with such prejudices could (again, for some opportunity cost) systematically bias both speculation and employment against disfavored demographics. The employment bias genuinely decreases expected outcomes for such demographics, serving to make the speculation bias appear justified, further laundering the bigotry. (Although, maybe it would turn out that even very large corporations could only have a marginal impact in this regard before the employment bias becomes blatant enough to trigger legal intervention.)
A couple of ways to mitigate these come to mind.
A) Keep information about protected demographic categories unavailable, whatever its predictive validity. Redacting the name, sex, race, nation of origin, and religion of prospective immigrants serves two purposes. First, it makes it significantly more difficult for motivated speculators to act on such prejudices. Second, it (rightly) shields the (speculation) institution itself from claims that it is a vehicle for such bigotry.
Without this protection, it's hard to imagine such an institution lasting very long. Of course, denying access to such demographic information may reduce the palatability of this whole compromise in the eyes of many of those you've identified as immigration skeptics. (It is debatable whether this would imply prejudice on the part of those skeptics.)
The demographic information could be made publicly available after speculation has ended, which may prove to be a valuable source of sociological data to researchers investigating such things.
B) Rather than redacting the demographic information about immigration candidates, make all speculation a matter of public record. In most cases, if a speculator's speculation history is publicly available, they're (presumably) far less likely to use it as a vehicle for bigotry. I'm not very confident about this mitigation, though. As soon as the speculation data can be tied to individual speculators, it becomes a plausible avenue for social signaling, distorting the market.
And as a corollary, it seems quite likely that even genuinely unbiased (in the prejudicial sense) speculators will become the targets of political or ideological activists if their speculation history happens (even coincidentally) to show those kinds of correlations. Or perhaps it would *always* be possible for a malicious actor to process the data in a way that superficially suggests prejudice, allowing anyone at all to be targeted.
> Again, I reject an approach whereby the individual is judged by the collective in terms of the value s/he is perceived to offer the State (or other voters), which I think is a creepy road to go down.
We've been doing precisely this for ages untold in assessing job candidates, university applicants, athletes trying out for sports teams, and elected officials. Banks do this when evaluating loan applications.
There are numerous television shows based more or less on this. American Idol, Shark Tank, America's Next Top Model, all those cooking competition shows.
Whatever else it may be, it's a well-trodden road.
The original idea makes sense but I cannot see it gaining any political traction; to the extent that it is "pulling sideways" it is likely to raise the ire and unified opposition of both sides of the immigration typical tug-of-war.
Why? Most people just do not want to hear about differences in worth. Surely differences in asset prices would emerge for individuals from country X, of religion Y, gender Z, or race Q. Most people would prefer to prevent these comparisons and evaluations from becoming common knowledge. Fundamentally, as much as "better immigrants" sounds like a Pareto improvement, many are too invested in an illusion of equality to agree.
Just to point out that "country issues" does not mean "ignore others:"
I personally believe we should select much more based on need. There are areas of the world where people are being slaughtered: If I had my druthers, we'd preferentially admit a Rwandan potential genocide victim, over a Mexican economic migrant. Frankly a lot of people these days should probably come from Africa, not Central America, though Venezuela may change that.
But THIS IS STILL RANKING. You can't avoid a choice. You can only choose a means of selection--or you can choose open borders. If you choose "local and close" or "signs up in person" you privilege Mexicans over Rwandans. If you choose "about to get killed in genocide" you do the reverse. If you choose "random" then you'll leave out plenty of poor folks who need the most help. Etc.
"Are you suggesting that a country is compelled only to take actions that benefit itself?"
Yes, of course it does, although this does not preclude helping others. The U.S. was not formed to help Canada.
A country exists to better the life and conditions of its citizens, just as a corporation exists to enrich its stockholders. That is the sole reason that a country exists. To assign a *duty* for a country-as-entity to consider non-citizens is anathema to the concept of "country," just as the *duty* to help a competing non-stockholder is anathema to a corporate structure.
However, that still allows for substantial third party benefit, because it is quite obvious that most country's citizens will benefit from activities performed outside the country! Some of those benefits are moral (it makes me happy that we give foreign aid, simply because I like the idea; that is a benefit to me which may fully justify the expense) and some of it is practical (some aid may produce a specific benefit to reduce our citizen's risk of climate change, high prices, war, etc.)
Similarly (to continue the corporate analogy) it often makes perfect sense to be courteous to your competitors, avoid harsh advertising and trickery, and so on. But there's a HUGE difference between saying "it will often make *sense* for corporations to consider larger interests" as compared to "all corporations should be *required* to consider the interests of non-shareholders."
I realize this won’t do much to appease the median voter, who breathlessly thinks that anything and everything happening in America is unprecedented and scary. There are infinite things one could do to appease voters in order to “compromise” on any particular issue, but I don't know that it's the right goal to have.
Again, I reject an approach whereby the individual is judged by the collective in terms of the value s/he is perceived to offer the State (or other voters), which I think is a creepy road to go down.
Yes, I'd 'let everyone in' - just as I'd let everyone cross between US state lines and/or reproduce freely – all without speculating if they are going to be a drain on the system, become criminals, produce "cultural change" or disrupt the "political equilibrium."
Funny idea I have when I read this:1. We have a progressive tax system.2. If we let in enough MD's we could low the earnings of all MD's.3. We could end up with less taxes paid.
"the big political tug-o-war axis today is: more or less immigrants. ... we should agree that we want better immigrants. For example ... are not criminals"
I think the tug of war is more about what to do with illegal immigrants. Perhaps more or fewer illegal immigrants can be looked at? Are illegal immigrants by definition criminals? If so then that would imply anyone wanting better immigrants automatically doesn't want illegal immigrants. But in wanting better quality immigrants (illegal or not) perhaps we could waive a few non violent offenses like illegal border crossing given the presence of other factors. Few would care if someone came here illegally if their contributions are important enough.
I think you are misunderstanding the proposal.
That would destroy your market. If there is no incentive available for "keeping someone out" then why would anyone participate in the first place?
The vast majority of social process in our world have disproportionate demographic impacts, and yet most last a very long time. You vastly exaggerate the sensitivity to this.
I like the idea in principle, but I suspect without certain constraints it may do more harm than good. Here are four reasons:
1. Even if we stipulate that all speculators are of impeccable moral character, inevitably, we will still find that certain traits (e.g. sex, race, nation of origin, religion, etc) will correlate with outcomes and hence be of predictive value for speculators. Using this information would almost certainly increase social tensions domestically, and possibly also internationally.
2. Even if we stipulate both morally impeccable speculators *and* a world in which protected demographic categories genuinely have no predictive power with respect to expected outcomes in an *unbiased* society, any systemic demographic biases in our *actual* society will still manifest as disparities in expected outcomes between demographic groups, driving item 1.
3. To the degree to which a speculator is biased against any given demographic trait, they can favorably trade it off against expected earnings. That is, a speculator may knowingly choose to suffer an opportunity cost in order to influence the demographic make-up of immigrants. It seems ill-advised to give officially-sanctioned channels through which such bigotry can be laundered. (Granted, I assume there are probably already officially-sanctioned mechanisms through which this can be done).
3. Combining 2 and 3, large firms (or coalitions) with such prejudices could (again, for some opportunity cost) systematically bias both speculation and employment against disfavored demographics. The employment bias genuinely decreases expected outcomes for such demographics, serving to make the speculation bias appear justified, further laundering the bigotry. (Although, maybe it would turn out that even very large corporations could only have a marginal impact in this regard before the employment bias becomes blatant enough to trigger legal intervention.)
A couple of ways to mitigate these come to mind.
A) Keep information about protected demographic categories unavailable, whatever its predictive validity. Redacting the name, sex, race, nation of origin, and religion of prospective immigrants serves two purposes. First, it makes it significantly more difficult for motivated speculators to act on such prejudices. Second, it (rightly) shields the (speculation) institution itself from claims that it is a vehicle for such bigotry.
Without this protection, it's hard to imagine such an institution lasting very long. Of course, denying access to such demographic information may reduce the palatability of this whole compromise in the eyes of many of those you've identified as immigration skeptics. (It is debatable whether this would imply prejudice on the part of those skeptics.)
The demographic information could be made publicly available after speculation has ended, which may prove to be a valuable source of sociological data to researchers investigating such things.
B) Rather than redacting the demographic information about immigration candidates, make all speculation a matter of public record. In most cases, if a speculator's speculation history is publicly available, they're (presumably) far less likely to use it as a vehicle for bigotry. I'm not very confident about this mitigation, though. As soon as the speculation data can be tied to individual speculators, it becomes a plausible avenue for social signaling, distorting the market.
And as a corollary, it seems quite likely that even genuinely unbiased (in the prejudicial sense) speculators will become the targets of political or ideological activists if their speculation history happens (even coincidentally) to show those kinds of correlations. Or perhaps it would *always* be possible for a malicious actor to process the data in a way that superficially suggests prejudice, allowing anyone at all to be targeted.
> Again, I reject an approach whereby the individual is judged by the collective in terms of the value s/he is perceived to offer the State (or other voters), which I think is a creepy road to go down.
We've been doing precisely this for ages untold in assessing job candidates, university applicants, athletes trying out for sports teams, and elected officials. Banks do this when evaluating loan applications.
There are numerous television shows based more or less on this. American Idol, Shark Tank, America's Next Top Model, all those cooking competition shows.
Whatever else it may be, it's a well-trodden road.
The original idea makes sense but I cannot see it gaining any political traction; to the extent that it is "pulling sideways" it is likely to raise the ire and unified opposition of both sides of the immigration typical tug-of-war.
Why? Most people just do not want to hear about differences in worth. Surely differences in asset prices would emerge for individuals from country X, of religion Y, gender Z, or race Q. Most people would prefer to prevent these comparisons and evaluations from becoming common knowledge. Fundamentally, as much as "better immigrants" sounds like a Pareto improvement, many are too invested in an illusion of equality to agree.
Just to point out that "country issues" does not mean "ignore others:"
I personally believe we should select much more based on need. There are areas of the world where people are being slaughtered: If I had my druthers, we'd preferentially admit a Rwandan potential genocide victim, over a Mexican economic migrant. Frankly a lot of people these days should probably come from Africa, not Central America, though Venezuela may change that.
But THIS IS STILL RANKING. You can't avoid a choice. You can only choose a means of selection--or you can choose open borders. If you choose "local and close" or "signs up in person" you privilege Mexicans over Rwandans. If you choose "about to get killed in genocide" you do the reverse. If you choose "random" then you'll leave out plenty of poor folks who need the most help. Etc.
"Are you suggesting that a country is compelled only to take actions that benefit itself?"
Yes, of course it does, although this does not preclude helping others. The U.S. was not formed to help Canada.
A country exists to better the life and conditions of its citizens, just as a corporation exists to enrich its stockholders. That is the sole reason that a country exists. To assign a *duty* for a country-as-entity to consider non-citizens is anathema to the concept of "country," just as the *duty* to help a competing non-stockholder is anathema to a corporate structure.
However, that still allows for substantial third party benefit, because it is quite obvious that most country's citizens will benefit from activities performed outside the country! Some of those benefits are moral (it makes me happy that we give foreign aid, simply because I like the idea; that is a benefit to me which may fully justify the expense) and some of it is practical (some aid may produce a specific benefit to reduce our citizen's risk of climate change, high prices, war, etc.)
Similarly (to continue the corporate analogy) it often makes perfect sense to be courteous to your competitors, avoid harsh advertising and trickery, and so on. But there's a HUGE difference between saying "it will often make *sense* for corporations to consider larger interests" as compared to "all corporations should be *required* to consider the interests of non-shareholders."
Yes, there are many workable options here.
Conservatives if course
I realize this won’t do much to appease the median voter, who breathlessly thinks that anything and everything happening in America is unprecedented and scary. There are infinite things one could do to appease voters in order to “compromise” on any particular issue, but I don't know that it's the right goal to have.
Again, I reject an approach whereby the individual is judged by the collective in terms of the value s/he is perceived to offer the State (or other voters), which I think is a creepy road to go down.
Yes, I'd 'let everyone in' - just as I'd let everyone cross between US state lines and/or reproduce freely – all without speculating if they are going to be a drain on the system, become criminals, produce "cultural change" or disrupt the "political equilibrium."
Funny idea I have when I read this:1. We have a progressive tax system.2. If we let in enough MD's we could low the earnings of all MD's.3. We could end up with less taxes paid.
This post isn't remotely on the topic of your comment.
The system I proposed could be used to decide whether to legalize those who are already here illegally.
"the big political tug-o-war axis today is: more or less immigrants. ... we should agree that we want better immigrants. For example ... are not criminals"
I think the tug of war is more about what to do with illegal immigrants. Perhaps more or fewer illegal immigrants can be looked at? Are illegal immigrants by definition criminals? If so then that would imply anyone wanting better immigrants automatically doesn't want illegal immigrants. But in wanting better quality immigrants (illegal or not) perhaps we could waive a few non violent offenses like illegal border crossing given the presence of other factors. Few would care if someone came here illegally if their contributions are important enough.
"we should agree that we want better immigrants."
We should. We don't. Even pushing limits on access to state welfare services is wildly contentious.
Trump pushed this. Trump advocated a point system like what Canada has. He was overcome with broad fanatical opposition to any limits of any kind.