the more the merrier

i don't wanna seem like a late night talk show host commenting on the news stories of the day in some sort of strained joking manner like i've got some big chin or something, but i gotta say something about the arizona immigration bill argument that's going on.

we've all heard it before. people on one side say immigrants are taking jobs. others urge compassion for people escaping third world countries. has anybody ever stopped to think that embracing the "visitors" might actually be in our best interest?

the foundation of our basic economic theory comes from a book written in the 1700s by Adam Smith called "The Wealth of Nations." Smith posits that the wealth of a nation is not based on their resources but in the size and quality of its workforce.

it's time to take a hint from a hardcore band and break it down. let's say it's the 1700's and you're living on your own in the new world. you're responsible for everything - hunting food, raising crops, making clothes, caring for children, building shelter, transportation, etc. You and your wife work tirelessly everyday from sun-up to sundown just to squeak by and survive. even then, if a flood hits or there's a drought or someone gets sick, your all is sometimes not enough.

then the industrial revolution comes around. instead of one person being responsible for EVERYTHING, we develop specialized jobs. the assembly line. instead of working all day doing everything, you work all day doing one specific thing. but you see, there's a benefit there - because you're doing one thing all day, you become very good at it and you are able to produce more efficiently than when you were doing everything. the result of that efficiency is that instead of working every waking minute of the day, you have an extra hour or so of leisure time every day. the addition of more people working efficiently provides a benefit to all that would not exist if everyone was working individually.

as our society becomes more efficient at providing things we need, we gain more free time. two things that make us more efficient are our technology and the size of the workforce. as the population grows there's more and more slack in what it takes to survive. heck, we even pay people welfare for doing nothing. our economy is so efficient that we've gone from every family struggling to survive and working every waking hour to a society where we have an 8 hour workday and we can even afford to pay a small portion of our population welfare benefits to do no work at all - but that's a whole different rant. i'll come back to that later.

therefore the most basic economic theory says that the more people we have in our country working, the more efficient we will be. everyone benefits. many people say that immigrants "steal" jobs away from 'Muricans. but nobody ever talks about how for every immigrant who "steals" a job, that same person will use the services of many other americans. he'll buy gas from gas stations, pay for daycare, get his car worked on at the mechanic, pay for internet service, etc. A large portion of the mexican population here in nashville lives near the northern part of nolensville road. what if they weren't there? there's good reason to believe that many of the local businesses in that area that provide jobs to 'Muricans would have to close down. the fallacy of immigrants taking people's jobs is based on the assumption that those same people won't consume goods and services themselves.

now i must make one qualification. back to the welfare argument. the wealth of a nation is built on the size and QUALITY of it's workforce. it's probably safe to assume "quality" of the workforce is assuming that those people are actually working. providing open-ended welfare to immigrants completely negates the positive effect of them enlarging our workforce.

we should open up our borders and let people into our country with open arms. let's maintain existing citizenship and naturalization procedures. immigrants still have to pay their dues and pass the tests. they won't be able to vote. just let them work. they'll have to pay taxes. if they really want to live here, let's let them and make it a really good deal for us. no welfare or unemployment benefits. if they want to come here and work hard, then the only one who is losing out is the country they came from. the USA became a great nation because we were the first truly free nation. we have (somewhat) free markets that reward efficient and hard working individuals over those who are not. the same free market approach could actually encourage other governments to follow our lead lest they lose anymore of their hard working population. and in this case, that government happens to be arizona.