Congressional Issues 2010
INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC
POLICY
Immigration in a Division of Labor Economy
|
The government (federal and state) owns 95.8% of Alaska, 87.8%
of Nevada, 75.2% of Utah, 70.4% of Idaho, 60.4% of Oregon, 56.8%
of Arizona, and smaller percentages of every state in the union.
Is there enough land to support 20 or 30 million additional
immigrants? Would there be enough land to support the 40 million
human beings who have been aborted since 1972? We aren't even
close to being "overpopulated" in America. If private
property and the Bill of Rights
will once again have meaning and function in America, a free flow
of immigrants could only be a tremendous positive economic
stimulus. [Federal Lands in the US]
| Our teacher is Prof.
George Reisman. His book, Capitalism, is one of
the best economics texts ever written. It is thoroughly Free
Market in perspective. We recommend purchasing the book
using the link at right. You can also view the book online
for free here.[pdf]
We are drawing this information from chapter 9, "The
Influence of the Division of Labor on the Institutions of
Capitalism," Part C, "Economic Competition,"
pages 358-366. |
|
|
| Now it is necessary to realize how important
are the gains a larger market provides not only in allowing
the existence of further specializations and
sub-specializations, but also simply in allowing existing
specializations and sub-specializations to be carried on, on
a larger absolute
scale. Our medical school example can illustrate this
point very well.
Some kind of very small market, say a few hundred people,
is necessary to allow one person to specialize as some sort of
primitive doctor. A larger market of several million, that
permits the existence of several thousand doctors, also
permits them all to be trained in a medical school and creates
the sub-specialization of brain specialist. A still larger
market increases the absolute number of brain specialists. And
here we can easily see something that is vitally important.
Namely, if the market is big enough to support 400, or better
still, 4,000 brain specialists, rather than just 4, the
likelihood of some important discovery being made about brain
diseases is substantially increased. For there will be 400 or
4,000 highly intelligent and experienced people thinking about
the problems involved, instead of just 4. And whatever any one
of them discovers, can, of course, be quickly communicated to
all the rest—through the journals, seminars, and so on that
their number is large enough to support.
Again, exactly the same principle applies throughout
production. The larger the size of the market, the greater is
not only the number of the scientific and engineering
specializations and sub-specializations, but also the absolute
size of all of them—and, equally important, the larger the
absolute number of intelligent, innovative individuals
prepared to go into the various lines of business. Thus,
throughout the economic system, the chances of new discoveries
and inventions being made, being quickly communicated
throughout the fields concerned, and then being implemented
are greatly increased. And thus the rate of economic progress
accelerates. |
In a truly capitalistic society, where immigrants do
not become trapped in a government-funded welfare dependency, and in
a Christian society where there are an abundance of voluntary
associations on a mission to bring literacy and moral character
to immigrants, the second generation of immigrants will likely
contain an abundance of geniuses, because their parents demonstrated
great character in leaving a corrupt government, heading for a
capitalistic nation, and enduring the hardships of emigrating from
their home. They demonstrate a strong work ethic and competitive
spirit. Prof. Reisman explains how a division of labor economy takes
advantage of the talent that is potential in a larger population:
| The potential gains of this kind from a
larger-sized population in a division-of-labor society can be
thought of in terms of a doubled population having a doubled
number of Edisons and Fords and the like. Indeed, in a
division-of-labor society, a doubled population even with just
one-tenth more of such innovators would probably be easily
capable of overcoming any problems of diminishing returns and
poorer-quality land and mineral deposits, and of doing so by
an ever widening margin. It would do so through the greater
technological progress that the existence of a larger number
of such outstanding individuals would make possible. For the
existence of each additional productive genius serves to raise
the productive power of the whole human race. Because
essentially what he supplies is ideas. Ideas can be
used by everyone who has need of them without in any way
diminishing their ability to serve others. They are an
inexhaustible gift.
What we have here in the existence of a larger population
in a division-of-labor society is a further step-up in
productive power along the lines of the multiplication of
knowledge used in production and the raising of the level of
such knowledge to a standard set by the most intelligent.
For now we have a larger absolute number of the most
intelligent, which is bound to mean a more rapidly rising
standard of knowledge used in production.
Thus, the effect of population growth in a
division-of-labor society is radically different than in a
non-division-of-labor society. In a division-of-labor society
it means a greater, more intensive division of labor,
including the larger absolute size of the various
specializations and sub-specializations concerned with making
new discoveries and implementing them in the form of new
products and better methods of production—in a word, it
means a greater absolute number of productive geniuses, whose
work operates to raise the standard of living of everyone.
These advantages enable a division-of-labor society easily to
overcome any problems that would otherwise be associated with
the need to produce more food and minerals for a larger
population.
|
George
Reisman's Program of Self-Education in
the Economic Theory and Political Philosophy of Capitalism
| 1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
NEXT: 6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
- MALTHUSIANISM
VS. COVENANTALISM
- Gary North's essay on Darwin, Malthus, and a Biblical
world-view
|
In his book The Myth of Over-Population,
R.J. Rushdoony shows that the symptoms of
"overpopulation" are actually symptoms of
government intervention. Darwinian and Malthusian
assumptions govern the modern State, and both the Republican
and Democrat Parties.
|
|
Recent Blog Posts
- In the Next Two Years, Congress should:
- expand, or at least maintain, current legal immigration
quotas;
- increase permanently the number of H-1B visas and
deregulate employment-based immigration to facilitate the
entry of skilled immigrants;
- remove the new one-year time limit on filing for
political asylum and reform the "expedited
removal" laws;
- repeal employer sanctions;
- stop the move toward a computerized national
identification system and the use of government-issued
documents, such as birth certificates and Social Security
cards, as de facto national ID cards; and
- reduce restrictions on the movement of workers within
the North American Free Trade Agreement area.
|
By the end of
the decade, Congress should:
- Abolish all anti-immigration laws.
As soon as possible, America should:
- Create a vast network of voluntary
social service agencies to meet all immigrants at the
borders or piers and ensure their literacy and familiarity
with American values.
- Commit to on-going transmission of American values to
immigrants in all areas of life. Read
more about this.
|
|
|
