Sharing the wealth

ON SUNDAY this happened:

A narrow majority of voters in Switzerland approved proposals on Sunday that would reintroduce restrictions on the number of foreigners who are allowed to live and work in the country, a move that could have far-reaching implications for Switzerland’s relations with the European Union.

The foreign-born population in Switzerland is 27%, and Tyler Cowen reckons that probably functions as something of an upper limit for politically tolerable stocks of immigrants in a rich country. He adds:

One of my objections to the open borders idea is that I think it would be negative for sustainable, actually realized flows of immigration.

That anxiety seems misplaced to me. For one thing, "open borders" are pushed by a relatively small intellectual elite. While I'm sure most of that elite would like to see truly open borders, their rhetorical efforts are probably better understood as an effort to shift the window of possibilities among influence-able decision-makers toward generally more open immigration regimes. We can wring our hands over unanticipated side-effects of open-border policies when they threaten to become reality.

I'd also argue that we shouldn't take attitudes on the subject as fixed. Views on the desirability of immigration are anything but uniform across the world. Americans seem generally fine with a foreign-born population of around 12% of the total while Japan has a foreign-born population of under 2%. The perceived "otherness" of some kinds of immigration can change dramatically over time. Americans once had fairly retrograde views on migrants from the European periphery: groups that would scarcely be considered immigrants at all today. These things are not immutable.

I'm more interested in, and perhaps worried by, the (possible) interaction of the Swiss immigration vote with a fledgling movement within Switzerland for a universal basic income.

The basic income plan is anything but a sure thing, and residence does not equal citizenship. But at a time at which economic conditions—like stagnant wages, falling employment rates, and declining labour share of income—make extension of the safety net look reasonable, a large foreign-born population may come to look like an obstacle to such extensions: either because making the safety net available to migrants is socially and financially impractical or because the idea of a second class of poor migrants is unappealing.

One might just as well argue that in countries like Britain and America, universal basic incomes look roughly as realistic a possibility as open borders, and so it might not be worth stressing about the interaction between the two policies. But it is something to keep an eye on. It will probably seem much easier to invite in migrants when the invitation means little in the way of obligation for those already in the country.

via:http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2014/02/immigration