In writing his famous ‘Candlemakers’ Petition’, the famous 19th Century French economist, Frédéric Bastiat, did not address the issue of immigration, but he did write about the treatment of Polish refugees who had fled persecution and were being harassed and deported by French authorities. Wrote Bastiat:
…the most ardent wish of a refugee, after the one of ending his exile, is to practise some trade in order to create some resources for his survival. But for that, he must choose the location of his residence; those who can be useful in commercial enterprises should be able to go to towns where there are such enterprises, those who want to do some industrial activity should be able to go to industrial regions, those who have some talents should go to cities encouraging those talents. Furthermore, they should not be expelled at any moment, nor live with the sword of arbitrary measures hanging above their heads.1
In fond remembrance of Frédéric Bastiat, on the celebration of 200 years since his birth, allow me to parody this topic in a manner that Bastiat might appreciate. One of Bastiat’s most famous essays was about candle makers who wanted to ban light and heat from the sun in order to protect local industry. Why not protect labour in a similar manner?
The Petition of the Candlemakers, Part Deux
From the Makers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, Candlesticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from the Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Working.
To the Honorable Members of the Chamber of Deputies. Gentlemen:
We are suffering from the ruinous competition of rivals who apparently work in such a far superior manner that they are flooding the domestic market with great diligence and an incredibly low price. From the moment they begin to work, our work ceases, all the consumers turn to them, and a branch of French labour whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. These rivals are appearing everywhere around US, they are none other than millions of birth newcomers—infants born into our midst, destined to take our jobs and our industry.
We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all openings through which they might enter to destroy our livelihood—in short, seal all wombs and secure these passages by the engagement of all necessary guards and patrols.
Be good enough, honorable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.
First, if you shut off all access to natural births, and thereby create a greater need for existing workers, what labourers toiling in France today will not ultimately be encouraged? We should surely see a demand grow such that workers will command increased compensations well beyond their hundredth year!
Surely you must recognise the drain of these birth newcomers on the creative energies of society. They come to this land with no knowledge of our customs or our language. These infants are bereft of civility or even the rudiments of good manners.
These new newcomers have no skills whatsoever, they cannot support themselves in the slightest, and, worse yet, they are absolutely certain to be a drain on our national and cultural resources for a score of years before they will compensate society in any substantial form.
We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of human rights. Will you say that the labour of birth newcomers is a gratuitous gift of Nature, and that to reject such gifts would be to reject wealth itself under the pretext of encouraging the means of acquiring it?
But if you take this position, you strike a mortal blow at your own policy; remember that up to now you have always excluded foreign labour on similar grounds.
Emigration Hypocrisy
Throughout my research on the subject I was astounded to learn that there is one country above all others that tolerates an extraordinary level of out-migration. Unbelievably, that nation-state allows four to ten million of its citizens to move and reside abroad. That’s right, four to ten million citizens living outside of its borders.
These people are fleeing their country for a variety of political and economic reasons. A few criminal and political elements are escaping a home government that would jail them for offences ranging from drug trafficking to tax evasion. But most of these are economic migrants who have moved abroad simply to improve their economic condition. Sometimes they hand over a lifetime of savings to clever agents who arrange for their travel in closed compartments across hot deserts and shark-infested seas.
This invasion of countries abroad has led to considerable displacement where they undoubtedly do work that might otherwise be done by local inhabitants. Most of these new arrivals are unfamiliar with the language, the manners, and the customs of their new home and they stubbornly cling to the language, customs, and eating habits of their Old World – typically congregating at McDonald’s restaurants worldwide.
Their families frequently congregate in isolated ethnic enclaves; they are loath to mixing in with the native population. Indeed, they are usually preoccupied with sending money home and arranging for relatives to join them.
They keep strong ties with the homeland and their loyalty to the new, adopted home is always suspect. Worse yet, these newcomers are parasites on the services and amenities that have been established by countless generations of taxpayers who built the infrastructure before their arrival.
And yet rarely does anyone ever protest this out-migration of four to ten million businessmen and their families from the United States of America. Why not?
The movement of Americans abroad is generally perceived as an economic benefit to the nation-states that receive them. They are openly courted. Indeed, people in the wealthier nation-states of America, Asia and Europe expect to be allowed to travel the world at will, yet they are far less accepting of people from poorer neighborhoods.
As If People Were as Valuable as Oil
The President has just declared a national emergency. He is responding to the recent press release from the meeting of the Organisation for People Exporting Countries (OPEC). OPEC announced today that the number of people allowed to leave their countries for destinations abroad will be cut by ten percent in order to maintain labour prices at historically high levels abroad.
A joint meeting of Congress has been scheduled to hear the full presidential address. An advance copy of his speech has been delivered to the press. In his speech the President issues a strong warning to the OPEC nations that this development on the restriction of people coming to the US is to be viewed as the ‘moral equivalent of war’ because of the adverse affects on the American economy and international economic competitiveness.
‘This nation,’ warned the President in prepared comments, ‘has dedicated the lives and fortunes of our countrymen to guarantee the free flow of petroleum from around the world because we recognise the value of raw fuel to the development possibilities of our economy. If we will do all of this to import the most base of raw materials, do you think that we would do anything less for the most sophisticated production miracles of history – evermore-precious human beings?
‘Every human being is a marvel of the self-propelled, self-sustained miracle of production, innovation, genius, and reproduction! We will not tolerate efforts of OPEC to control and cripple the potential of our nation!’
In a simultaneous development, the President has instructed his Special Immigration Negotiator (SIN), to file a complaint with the World Immigration Organisation (WIO) charging OPEC with violating the multilateral treaty for the free flow of people across borders. The SIN has blasted the OPEC on previous occasions for interfering with the international competition for labour.