Food for thought from Let Their People Come (page 79):
There is a story that while perhaps apocryphal is nonetheless instructive. During its waning days, the international condemnation of South Africa’s apartheid was intense in the United Sates. Protesters in the United States felt that it was morally intolerable that, in this day and age, a system would be maintained that sharply limited the mobility of people, that kept people in disadvantaged regions with no economic opportunities, that destined millions to lives without hope, and that split workers and their families—merely because of the conditions of their birth. A prominent antiapartheid activist was invited to come and give a series of lectures in the United States against the evils of apartheid in South Africa. But the trip was canceled because she could not get a visa to enter the United States.
It is said that fish do not know they are swimming in water.7 The analogy between apartheid and restrictions on labor mobility is almost exact. People are not allowed to live and work where they please. Rather, some are only allowed to live in places where earning opportunities are scarce. Workers often have to travel long distances and often live far from their families to obtain work. The restrictions about who can work where are based on conditions of birth, not on any notion of individual effort or merit. The current international system of restrictions on labor mobility enforces gaps in living standards across people that are large or larger than any in apartheid South Africa. It is even true that labor restrictions in nearly every case explicitly work to disadvantage people of “color” against those of European descent.
Never underestimate the ability of people to accuse others of doing what they themselves do, when talking about their far values helps them show off what nice people they are.
Tagged: economics, immigration, near/far
