Immigration absolutely helps the US economy, because it parasitically siphons all the skilled workers out of other countries that it underdevelops and hoards their labor for itself.
People think remittances help underdeveloped countries, but labor is the superior of capital, losing that skilled labor is never worth the paltry sums that get sent back home. It’s just another shape that imperialism takes.
In Canada we heavily base immigration on education. So we’re siphoning off the best educated of other countries. I mean this is just fucking those countries.
That’s truly one of the worst things about brain drain / educated people moving to the imperial core countries for the high salaries. Global south countries really need educated young people helping to solve their own problems, and Canada and the US rip out their heart and soul.
At least in tech / programming, a good chunk of us are devoting most of our labor time to not just wasteful things, but actively harmful things, like trying to get people to click on ads, or increasing viral engagement.
I mean tbf (at least in my case as an Egyptian) it’s not just the high salaries. Maybe Egypt is an extreme case but this country just has no future. The regime isn’t just dictatorial; it’s also dumb. There’s almost no money going to scientific research, the system as a whole was outdated 50 years ago, the military is monopolizing everything and undercutting the market because they can use slave conscript labor and don’t pay taxes, etc etc. I’m firmly of the opinion that this is at least partially caused by Britain’s unwillingness to fully decolonize in the 1920s and their godawful decolonization in the 1950s, but the fact remains that these countries have a duty to their people that they’re not fulfilling, and that’s why brain drain happens.
As a living example of said brain drain, salaries were near the bottom of my priority list when I made the decision. I was more concerned about living somewhere where I don’t need to worry about being arrested because I said my opinion on the internet (or even just complained about prices) or because I do my prayers at the mosque (I was actually told by my mother to not go to the mosque all the time because I might get arrested. It’s that bad). Below that were things like a sane administration that actually cares about things being even just barely functional, a decent education system and academia and the ability to have confidence that the country will actually exist in 20 years. Living in a wildly different country (especially as a Muslim in Japan as is my case (halal food is a pain to get here)) is such a pain you couldn’t pay me to do it, but it’s hard to turn down actually getting to have a future.
What I wanna say is that it’s not just the Global South being undercut by the West; many Global South countries are failing at fulfilling their responsibility towards their constituents, and that’s why they’re leaving. Now how much the West was involved in creating this situation is another story, but you can’t reduce it to just high salaries. Global South governments, as a rule, aren’t interesting in solving their own problems. That’s why the problem solvers go solve Western rich people’s problems.
I get what you two are saying, but this kind of removes agency from the people doing the moving.
Also: Should people not be allowed to move to another country if they’re “too useful” or “skilled”?
People make their own history, but they do not make it as they please. Our material conditions limit our agency. We go where the jobs are, where the money is, where the possibilities for a better future are. Those are all choices.
But you can’t ignore the material conditions that lead to those choices. We aren’t just free floating agents in a sea of possibilities.
Hi, one of the people that did the move: they are absolutely right. I got through uni and masters for free at federal universities, my education is amazing. My country gets nothing back because there is no industry there that’d take me and university positions are limited.
I made the bese choice for myself and am aware of how bad my choice is for home
That’s not it, but in many cases Western imperialism is involved in the conditions that made these people want to leave in the first place.
People don’t have free agency to move to any country they want. In my view the free agency which you say is being removed never actually existed in the first place.
But I do find it funny that “give me your poor” (yes I’m borrowing from the US) turned into “give me your elite”.
There’s no agency in the market. That’s the entire point of markets - being independent of a single human’s whims and being an equalizing force, the “invisible hand”.
And the entire point of communism is getting that agency, having production for the sake of humans rather than humans for the sake of production.
It also has a chicken-egg problem. What if the indicators of talent or skill aren’t apparent because of abysmally poor living and educational conditions? The lack of opportunity in many developing countries is such that people will be less successful and appear less talented simply because their country has limited ways for them to demonstrate it.
Did you just say people moving to the US for a better life are a part of imperialism?
Don’t misunderstand, the people moving to the US are blameless. Imperialism works by siphoning up all of the skilled labor around the world for itself in order to make life better for people within the imperial core, and this is part of how the imperial nations underdevelop other countries. People get educations in their home countries (often at the government’s expense) and then they take that education out of the country to put it to use in the US (or France or Canada etc). They’re just going where the jobs are, though, that’s not their fault at all.
Except where there’s little opportunity to utilize the highly skilled labor. They are going abroad anyway to find job opportunities befitting of their skill set and the highest bidder. Doesn’t matter if the US or EU took them, they’re leaving because the local opportunity doesn’t exist.
Yes, and the people who could develop that local opportunity aren’t there. They all leave as soon as they can.
That’s why I said they’re underdeveloped countries. They’re not “developing” in truth, but are being kept from becoming developed. How do you think that happens? In part it happens because of the IMF giving predatory loans and then imposing austerity on the people when the government can’t pay their loans back, but it also happens because labor is the superior of capital and these countries are losing skilled labor.
I am not blaming them for leaving their countries. I am blaming underdevelopment, which is a product of imperialism.
The president made the remark while arguing that Japan, along with Russia and China, would perform better economically if the countries embraced immigration more.
Oh, well that’s true enough. Japan is crazy anti immigration despite that being a solution to their low birth rate.
I can’t speak to Russia or China, but Japan has a history of xenophobia going back CENTURIES. It’s not exactly a newsflash.
Which Russians? Ethnic groups in Russia
I think Biden’s definition of xenophobic here is “unwilling to sacrifice everything in a suicidal world war on the Pacific front”
Japan simply is xenophobic. I lived there for 2 years. That’s just a fact.
I lived there for four years. Nice and friendly people. Never felt unsafe.
True. But I did mention that they were also friendly. I had no issue getting into all sorts of activities with them. From playing the Shamisen to practicing Sadō. I had lots of friends who would help me out in all sorts of things, such as the University entrance exam, moving stuff, and translation.
I’m speaking of my experiences of course. I come from a different cultural background (Arab). I lived in both the US and Japan, and in almost all aspects except employment and income, I prefer Japan. Your mileage may vary.
I shared that experience. I also was actively excluded from all sorts of things (including essential services) because I was a foreigner. Whenever a group of expats got together, at some point in the night, the conversation would be about how everyone got discriminated against recently.
Welcome, though? They pretty famously don’t like foreigners around them, even if they’re not going to say it directly to you.
Have you lived there? Not my experience. I felt like I was welcomed. I was welcomed into their cultural activities, I was welcomed into their homes. I did put effort into learning the language and the culture, and followed their norms to the best I can.
