This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
Illegals do not make massively less than citizens doing the same job. They are simply willing to do jobs it is difficult to get an American labor force on, and far more reliable than the non-working class that would theoretically be doing those jobs.
The problem with that is it eliminates the price incentive to find better ways of doing those shitty low-wage jobs. No VC will invest money into a startup trying to replace sub-$10/hour migrant hotel maids with robots. At $25/hour? Suddenly that's a lot more space to capture value.
Just as an example of this dynamic, look at touchscreen ordering in fast-food restaurants and self-checkout machines. The technology had been there already for 10+ years, what made it finally hit mass adoption was the point where the marginal hourly cost of a unit and its maintenance went below the cost of a worker by a significant enough margin that stores were willing to annoy their customers for a bit as people got used to it. I'd personally rather have an economic makeup that has fewer low-wage jobs and more engineers figuring out automation rather than an underclass of serfs that are paid so poorly (yet subsidized by the taxpayer) that they are impossible to displace.
More options
Context Copy link
...at what price? If you raise the price, you can likely get American labor force on it. If you don't have to raise the price massively to get American labor force on it (because illegals don't make massively less than citizens doing the same job), then it seems somewhat minor. If you do have to raise the price substantially to get American labor force on it, well then I guess we're back to potentially significant cost increases for various crops/clean hotel rooms/etc.
If one raises the price, it is not clear to what extent the people attracted to those jobs will come from the currently-non-working and to what extent it will come from folks working other jobs. You can generally get the reliability you desire by raising the price. Of course, this will compete with other job opportunities, pushing wages up more broadly and likely ending some jobs that are at the low end of value. This could increase costs for other goods/services that don't directly employ illegals now.
The open boarders economists like Bryan Caplan make the argument well that immigration restrictions have effects like ending those low value jobs, reducing overall economic efficiency and total output. I've already observed that, for example, hotels have significantly rolled back on regular room cleanings post-COVID. You could imagine effects that feel kind of like that, possibly still in combination with price increases, as the market adjusts. Some folks think the tradeoffs are worth it (and may point to various different things that are trading off, one prominent example being distributional affects purely in terms of American wages), others disagree, and well, yeah, some are probably ignorant of how they're likely to be connected.
“Rolled back regular room cleanings posts covid”
Where did our workers go between pre and post covid? The illegal immigrant surge occurred post COVID - during the Biden administration. Somehow pre-COVID we had a lot of workers. Post Covid despite a surge in supposedly illegal workers we had an accute lack of labor?
It seems like wages have doubled since Covid but we have a lack of workers. Where did everyone go?
I'm not sure whether the roll back was entirely supply-side. Hotels probably thought that consumers wanted hotel staff to stay out of their rooms during COVID. Then, different consumers likely had different preferences over time (some folks wanted to "get back to normal" very quickly, while others stayed in "pandemic mode" longer), they probably pretty rationally came up with the idea of just making room cleanings a bit more optional rather than routine. At some point, the light bulb probably flipped, and they realized they could probably save a fair amount of money by just fiddling with the default.
Even pre-COVID, it was still 'optional'. You could just put up the Do Not Disturb sign if you didn't want it. But the default was every day. More recently, I've seen defaults that are every other day or twice a week or whatever; I don't remember the details of every one. It's always been, "Don't worry, we obviously thoroughly clean for new guests, and also if you ever want a cleaning, just ask," but this allows them to skimp on costs with almost no consumer bad will. Honestly, this is probably part fluke that they just somehow didn't think of it before (or felt like they couldn't get away with deviating from the 'industry standard' until they had COVID push everyone off the equilibrium).
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
If you offer six figures to work as a janitor, of course you'll get people willing to do it. But the end result of that is far fewer janitors, not janitors getting a pay raise. There simply isn't a world where general construction laborers are all making well above average salaries, although there is a world in which construction is completely unaffordable. Drywallers, hotel maids, etc are not suddenly going to be making offshore-rig wages- although there might be no drywallers or hotel maids.
This doesn’t fit a timeline with Covid. We didn’t lack workers to this extant before Covid. Now every sort of fraud seems to have taken off since Covid. Military disability surging, home health care aids surging in NYC, Somali day care fraud. Am I correct in feeling that everyone has figured out a way to get a government check without working? If we just started shutting down all these programs we would suddenly have a lot of hotel maids and janitors? I feel like UBI has already happened.
More options
Context Copy link
It's probably unlikely that we'll end up with zero janitors, general construction workers, drywallers, or hotel maids. Prices find equilibria. Both supply and demand matter.
Adding illegal workers shifts the supply curve to the right; removing illegal workers shifts the supply curve to the left (at a first approximation in the linear range). Both elasticities will matter, but the only way that you can shift the supply curve to the left and not have the price rise is if the demand for janitors is almost perfectly elastic. That seems unlikely.
As I mentioned, removing illegal immigrants very likely has both the effects of increasing price and decreasing output. That is, both increasing wages and decreasing jobs. The proportion depends on elasticities as well as factors in the rest of the general equilibrium, as the market adjusts.
Nothing in anything I've said has any claims on which occupations will or will not make "well above average salaries". That will be up to the market to decide. What counts as "completely unaffordable" is also subjective, but could in theory be supported by quantitative estimates. Prices will rise; wages will rise (they are prices, after all); output will fall; jobs will fall. This is all very standard economic theory and not really contestable. Any other statements about magnitudes of effects require quantitative argumentation.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
That's just "We should maintain an arbeiter class" with extra rationalizations.
You can get people to do any job, reliably, if you pay enough. We don't want to pay enough to entice Americans to do this work. So right now, the only way we can get a reliable workforce willing to do it at acceptable wages is by importing illegal labor. If you actually want to end mass illegal immigration, you have to solve the left side of the equation somehow.
You could solve the equation from either side and get the same result. Presumably, if you remove immigrants from the equation, then either we'll have highly-paid janitors or no janitors at all. And if this is an unworkable situation, then supply of underpaid servants, sufficiently desperate for work will be increased by political means, perhaps by cutting from various social safety nets, encouraging wealth inequality to foster an indigenous servant class. We'll go back to a time where maids and butlers were feasibly affordable.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link