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PaperclipPerfector  4mo ago (text post)   35195 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 16, 2025

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Interestingly, in May 2025, the same article notes that average hourly wages rose by 0.4%, reaching $36.24, as companies competed for a smaller pool of workers.

Something I've never been clear on is how this dynamic is controversial. Obviously if labor is scarce wages will go up, eating away at the 'income inequality' boogeyman.

But try to argue that flooding the country with cheap labor will (besides making housing much more expensive) drive down wages and people smirk and tell you that's the "lump of labor" fallacy.

I don't think it is though. Yes, having more people around also generates some economic demand, but surely this is in the same sense that broken windows will generate economic demand? Unless those people are actually providing more value than they cost -- and here we must consider healthcare, education, wear and tear on infrastructure, social friction, decline in cohesion, crime, and so on -- doesn't the argument come down to "Well we have more mouths to feed so that generates economic activity"? And isn't that rather the broken window fallacy?

What is going on here?

Something I've never been clear on is how this dynamic is controversial

The long run dynamics are less clear cut because immigrants also demand goods and services and also start businesses, and density + cluster effects produce economic efficiencies that lead to long-run economic growth and therefore employment. The even longer-run dynamics are even less clear cut... Sometimes thanos-snapping your workforce ends in the economic productivity growth after the black plague. Sometimes it ends in the permanent economic slump of eastern europe.

Sometimes it ends in the permanent economic slump of eastern europe.

That is not true. Eastern Europe problems are 2 - communism and post communist corruption. And EU membership made the second one worse. It was never for lack or excess of labor. If you check the countries economies - all sectors that for one or other reason are left alone by the state are doing quite well.

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