Oceans Yet to Burn

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[xhxhxhx]

voxette-vk replied to your link: Towards the Garfield Left (Away from Basic Income)

Terrible essay.

please elaborate

[mitigatedchaos]

Well, while I’m not ideologically inclined to agree with Voxette, I still think it’s misguided.  The economies with more restricted worker hours below 40 seem to be underperforming and have lower employment, basic income plus fewer work hours simultaneously will cause a bigger hit on the economy, basic income (or other alternatives) already creates more worker leverage to negotiate for fewer hours and safer conditions, and slashing everyone’s Mondays across the board will hit a lot harder than alternatives, because not every worker’s time is equally valuable.  Also, I don’t think it will sell well politically - and business will fight like dogs to prevent it from happening.

Which, is odd enough for me to say, seeing as with executive functioning stuff a 4-day workweek (perhaps leaving out Wednesday instead) would fit me well.

Additionally, just on shear economic cost vs efficiency, I can’t see a reason to prefer a combination of 4-day workweek + basic income in the short-medium term, given that the level of automation in the future is uncertain, over a low minimum wage plus direct-to-employee declining hourly livable wage subsidies.

Wage subsidies + low minimum wage would create lots of new jobs, which is a good sell politically, while also taking a lot of pressure off the poor and lower classes and giving them a lot more leverage.  Businesses won’t fight it as hard, even though it will need a tax increase, since they’ll benefit from lower labor costs at the low end.  It multiplies government spending with private spending for a larger potential effect.  It can also be rolled out incrementally in different amounts to test out just how much economic efficiency is lost.

There are other potential advantages, I really should write a post on it specifically, but it doesn’t seem to be getting much coverage vs UBI.  I think the Republicans might support it as their alternative to UBI come 2024/2028.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[mitigatedchaos]

But, if we leave race out of it… the fact that nearly all land has been taken by violence undermines the idea of “well this was violently transferred” in principle, I don’t think it makes the case that the Japanese government cannot opt to restrict immigration, since all land ownership is effectively created by force of arms anyway.  Even by the basis of “well some specific Japanese might object,” there is almost never going to be complete unity of opinion in government, so their objection does not necessarily invalidate the entire project, especially if emigration is permitted and there are states to emigrate to.  

In fact, there is a thriving market in governance already, with hundreds of options to choose from.  As criticisms of “but the market doesn’t have what I want” can be shut down as the market not being obligated to supply it, so too, here.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[xhxhxhx]

@voxette-vk:

Surely the benefit to high-skilled wages and loss to low-skilled wages is an artifact of the legal regime under which high-skilled workers are the only ones allowed to come in most cases?

Not if Frédéric Docquier, Çağlar Özden, and Giovanni Peri are right:

… emigration, which entails the loss of talent and brains in much larger proportion than the loss of unskilled workers, is the real threat for unskilled workers left behind, even in some OECD countries. Less educated workers in Cyprus, Malta, Ireland, New Zealand, and Portugal all lost between 1 and 6% of their wages because of the flight of highly educated emigrants. While net emigration, especially of college educated individuals, may be a symptom of economic malaise and not its cause, it certainly directly contributes to lower productivity and wages of the remaining workers.

As I understand it, Ireland and Portugal had freedom of movement within the EU, and most of their emigrants went to the EU, so the effect shouldn’t be an artifact of a legally-discriminatory regime.

And the same effect appeared in simulations across 2000 and 2007, across a host of EU countries, including Luxembourg, Austria, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, France, and the Netherlands, in addition to the countries of the eastern and southern European periphery.

I think the hypothesized mechanism here is plausible: high-skilled workers have positive externalities, which helps raise the wages of complementary low-skilled workers. If you drain a country of its high-skilled workers, it should hurt the wages of native low-skilled workers.

And because high-skilled workers are inherently more mobile and employable than low-skilled workers, they have a higher propensity to emigrate even when the target country’s legal regime is non-discriminatory.

This table is pre-accession for nearly every country but Ireland, but the table shows the same disparity for Greece, Portugal, and Spain – Greece had a 0.3% emigration rate during the 1990s, but a 4.6% emigration rate for college graduates – and I suspect it would show the same disparity in post-communist Europe post-EU accession.

[voxette-vk]

Interesting.

But there are other legal barriers to the employment of low-skilled workers which would discourage them from moving, even within the EU; e.g. the minimum wage.

[mitigatedchaos]

Also money, it costs money to move, to temporarily live in new places while finding a job, to find new insurance, to survive while learning new rules or a new language…

There is an awful lot of friction that isn’t just government interference. And of course, there are ways to reconcile lowering the minimum wage with employment of low-skill workers, but not with perfect freedom of movement.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[rasienna]

Reading various politicians talk about consumer power in healthcare makes me really want to take all of them and make them shadow and then try to do the work of some medical social workers.  Like I just feel all these plans really underestimate how little executive function sick people and their families have at the time they need to get health care.  

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

2020

Just for the record, regarding immigration issues: I feel that the current rate of roughly 1,000,000 immigrants per year is roughly acceptable for the United States.  (My statements elsewhere might have implied that I thought this was too high.)  I’m not particularly worried about most of the categories of immigrants currently arriving in the US.  I could be convinced for a higher number under certain conditions I won’t elaborate on now, partially because I don’t think they can credibly be offered due to political conditions in the United States, including ideological pre-commitments.

I predict at 80% that Trump will not lower the yearly immigration level below 800,000 by the year 2020.

I cannot accurately forecast the numbers on refugees.  The Trump administration originally planned to be more selective about refugee groups (particularly persecuted religious groups that are religious minorities in their country of origin), so we may see them make a grab for Christian refugees from ISIS, supposing some sort of support infrastructure (such as American churches) were set up to take them.  Alternatively, they may not, and the number of refugee admissions may crash.  I predict at 60% that average annual refugee admissions from 2017-2020 will be lower than under the Obama administration.

I predict at 80% that there will not be a new American Middle Eastern war by 2020, so long as Trump remains President and there is no major attack on US soil, defined as an ideologically-motivated terrorist attack with a death count exceeding 100.  (For the purposes of this prediction, American forces returning to Iraq and Afghanistan does not count as a new war.)

I predict at 80% that at least one more Sikh is going to get killed by some moron in America for ideological reasons before 2020.

I predict at 70% that one person will die from either Antifa violence, or violence by Antifa rivals by 2020, and this will make the national news.  I predict at 90% that this will not be intentional.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

@xhxhxhx You are known for your longposts.  Do you have any evidence that emigration from countries addresses the conditions that caused people to emigrate in the first place, particularly near to our modern era?  For instance, does it appear to lower fertility or improve institutions (possibly measurable by corruption perceptions or ease of doing business, maybe GDP/cap)?

If there’s good evidence for it, that would favor increased immigration, but if there’s good evidence against it… well, that’s pretty damn tough, as it would probably favor some kind of weird semi-colonialism, but I have some thoughts about ecological tariffs paid to developing countries that could be more developed…

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

For the record, my conception of Nationalism is multiracial, rooted in a group identity based on culture, ideology, and reciprocal loyalty rather than race.

Each nation has a different immigration policy best suited to it.  I don’t consider the racism in various nations good, even if I think restrictive immigration policy is suitable for that country.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

btw what is the Official Counterpoint to Japan not taking immigrants?

is it that their circumstances are different, or that they’re just super racist and not an example to emulate?

[shieldfoss]

Japan is super racist.

I honestly did not think this point was up to any debate at all.

I deal with this problem by not trying to move to Japan, they can be as racist on their own island as they want.

[mitigatedchaos]

Yeah, but that hits a wall under the modern moral climate, where it’s implicitly argued that foreigners have a right to immigrate to, essentially, anywhere, but particularly to developed nations.  The idea of “the Japanese on their own island” has the audacity to suggest collective ownership of a nation-state for the benefit of an exclusive group - the old Nationalist model.

A model that I actually approve of, minus the racism, but one that now would mark me as right-wing, even though I don’t consider myself right-wing.

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

[argumate]

btw what is the Official Counterpoint to Japan not taking immigrants?

is it that their circumstances are different, or that they’re just super racist and not an example to emulate?

[mitigatedchaos]

I’ll have you know that the Japanese are proud People of Color™, and it isn’t the standing of White Imperialists such as yourself to question the wisdom of the Might Japanese Emp–

**coughing**

No, they’re considered racist but either you’re not supposed to talk about it as much because they’re Asian, or it just isn’t considered as important because they aren’t Western.  The plan of the Japanese government itself is to just send large amounts of money instead.

However, since the country is so safe that their children can routinely commute to school on their own, I can’t really say that I disapprove (edit: of the nationalism and low immigration, not the racism).  Not every place in Asia needs to be Singapore.  

[Oceans Yet to Burn]

express.co.uk

Denmark's right-wing anti-migrant leader Pernille Vermund 'polling well ahead of election' | World | News | Express.co.uk

[mitigatedchaos]

rocketverliden:

I personally believe that doing…that…will itself lead to a counter-reaction, because it’s becoming clear that most rational people are otherwise disgusted by the actions of populists, and perhaps there will emerge a figure capable of realigning interests towards a saner future, all other ideas having been exhausted. That person would know exactly how to play to people’s self-interest or even selfishness while directing it to the goals they want to achieve. 

The current situation is itself a reaction to the fact that multiculturalism as practiced and often preached is, well, contradictory.  Either culture matters, in which case immigration rates and assimilation are important, or it doesn’t, in which case there is no actual point to “diversity”.  The situation held with previous immigrant groups because differing conditions prevailed at the time, but now it’s being stretched to the breaking point.  While you might see “the most rational people” being otherwise disgusted, from what I’ve seen, a lot of people are shifting to the Right and the Left has ideologically blocked itself from actually addressing any of the problems because anyone who actually starts talking about it will be shouted down as one of the “deplorables.”

I mean honestly, they’re cheering on demographic destiny and population atrophy.  They’re getting the backlash of people realizing that the plan is to replace them, and well, they don’t want to be replaced.

I don’t see that changing soon, unless Neoliberalism implodes and the Left starts taking seriously Islam and some associated cultures to task for all of its problems.  They killed Melting Pot for being evil and “racist.”  Why would they bring it back?

rocketverliden:

And why the appeal to political power? Your worst enemy will likely gain power after you’re gone. Sometimes the problem with politics doesn’t necessarily seem to be structural inertia, but down to the intelligence of actors within the structure.

The utility of plans must be considered based on their probability of actually being implemented, and the Left intends to use mass immigration to secure a permanent majority.  I didn’t used to believe this, but it’s far too consistent with their behavior.  We’re already playing with political power.

Also?  I don’t see any way of increasing the intelligence of actors in the system in my country.  At least not one that would actually go through.  The necessary structural reforms are either not sexy enough, or would be overruled because people are apparently legally too stupid to rank candidates in order or something along those lines.

rocketverliden:

If anything, I think this roundaboutism could contribute to the problems it’s trying to avoid. For all we know, school vouchers don’t actually solve the problem of the job market selecting for collegiate prestige over quality of education, nor the problem of college costing exorbitant amounts of money.

That’s not what the school vouchers are for.  They’re for the kinds of K-12 systems where performing well in school is criticized as “acting white” by peers.

rocketverliden:

Reducing immigration doesn’t stop rich fat cats sending jobs overseas to places where they can pay less for the same labor, 

It tightens the labor market at home, though, and they’re about to cut down on the indentured labor of H-1Bs.  An ACTUAL solution to that is not on the table and you know it.

Edit: Oh, and also, they’re actually on the verge of doing something about the trade deficit, which would have an effect on that.  The rival Globalists are against doing anything like that, because who needs nations anyway right?

rocketverliden:

or solve the problem of why we keep sending troops to die in pointless wars.

Again, actual solution not on the table.  If the Orange Man avoids getting us into another war, however, I will consider it a success that saves us $1 trillion.