Having had many discussions on the topics of immigrants lowering the standard of living in our country (thats the UK for those who don’t know) I finally got motivated to actually write something one the subject.

Is Immigration A Bad Thing?

First you have to decide whether the immigrant is a political asylum seeker or an economic migrant. Personally I find it difficult to blame a genuine political asylum seeker for anything; after all could you live in a society where you where likely to be arrested and beaten for having a view on a particular topic?

Economic migrants, on the other hand, are a different matter; they haven’t left their country becaues they are afraid of living there - they are just trying to improve their lives and that of their families. (When you look at it that way - Who Isn’t? - And I would say you have to admire someone who will transport their family thousands of miles for a better life) For the most part economic migrants are dynamic people (after all they wouldn’t have got off their arses if they weren’t) and are probably a benefit to the society that they arrive in, but they can keep wages in their location of choice depressed lowering the standard of living for the less skilled in that area - which causes resentment.

Haven’t People Always Chased Money?

Yes - but where is the money going? - When you look at the whole question of immigration you need to look at where the money is - or more precisely where the money is going, as this in my opinion is of a much greater import in the 21st century.

Living in Europe I can probably see this highlighted more prominently than those in more insular countries - as the European Union is trying to support the more depressed areas within its boundaries more than most, and the disparity between the more well off (e.g. UK, France and Germany) and the less well off (e.g. Poland, Hungary and Latvia) in quite pronounced. Thus we see a transfer of wealth at governmental level between the richer and poorer areas in an attempt to bring an equalisation of wealth. If you add to this economic migrants sending money home to family and bargain hunters buying from countries where multinational companies sell things cheaper than in others you see a flow of money out from established economic powers ( and although governments control the first of these, the others are much more difficult to control - for example if cigarettes cost £1.50 per pack in Poland and £5 per pack in the UK - how many packs of cigarettes is going to pay for a Budget Airlines return to Warsaw?)

We don’t only see this flow of money within the EU, after all how many items do you own that were made in China (or another asian country, where the standrds of living are significantly lower than your own)? How many times do you hear of peope subcontracting programming or telesales jobs to India? - Enough to know that the Indian economy is booming, well at least according to those people I know complaining about the booming office real estate prices in Mumbai.

So money flows to those areas where labour is cheaper - at least until their standard of living has risen to a state where it is uneconomic to outsource jobs and supply to those areas.

What Does This Mean Long Term?

Well eventually the flow of money will cause a general balancing of wealth throughout the world, (okay some areas and some cities will always do better than others) and for the most part the poor and unskilled workers across the world will end up with a very similar standard of living. Unfortunately that means that, although being poor in a country now considered to be ‘third world’ your standard of living is likely to improve, being poor in a current ‘western industrialised nation’ is likely to become a much more uninviting prospect.

Anti-Globalisation is Left Wing? - I Just Don’t Get It.

From the way I see things, one of the most ridiculous political movements of the 21st century has been the ‘left wing’ anti-globalisation movement. After all the multi-national corporations selling their products at different prices in different countries is one of the prime motivators of the flow of money away from the current industrial nations towards those poorer nations, in addition to this the multinational companies are also outsourcing more of their work to countries where labour is cheaper - and no this is not exploitation of the workers in those countries, it is pure economics; the long term result of which will be that more money will flow to those economies providing the labour force, which in turn will provide better levels of employment in those countries which will then drive up wages. (Unless of course their population increases at a similar rate - which is another topic entirely, which I undoubtedly will post on in the near future.)