Baywatch and protectionism (Do foreign workers steal domestic jobs?)

This article provides an interesting example of issues raised by protectionism, describing a summer guest-worker program in the US, under which young foreigners take short-term jobs in the US at the expense of higher unemployment among young Americans. A particular example given is lifeguards at swimming pools. Employers admit a number of reasons for preferring guest workers to hiring more Americans, such as cheaper labor (no need to pay high taxes), greater availability during the season, lower demands posed by the workers, and a shortage of Americans willing to work as lifeguards etc.

Protectionism here is expressed by a visa policy that restricts foreign workers from competing in the labor market. Thus, guest-worker programs are the easing of protectionism. This style of protectionism is very common and therefore often overlooked; indeed the very existence of nation-states aims at giving a group of people (the nationals of a particular state) various advantages over foreigners, particularly, in access to the domestic labor market. While many countries practice visa-free regimes for tourist visits, working invariably requires obtaining a visa. Even within the European Union employers are encouraged to prefer domestic workers.

Getting back to the situation at hand, there are four different groups of actors involved: the companies/employers, consumers of services (i.e. those who are using swimming pools), domestic workers, and foreign workers. Companies and the two types of workers are engaged via the labor market.

Economically, the outcome of hiring is most efficient if the domestic and foreign workers have equal access to the labor market so companies can employ the maximum number of workers under the most profitable conditions and provide cheaper and higher quality services to their consumers.

Socially the economically efficient outcome is not necessarily the best. One might, for example, see higher social value in ensuring maximum domestic employment while disregarding foreigners. Tightening visa requirements may force companies to put more effort in finding domestic labor, and to offer better salaries/work conditions/employment periods in order to hire a sufficient number. The downside of this outcome is that it will hit negatively at the domestic producer (i.e. the companies/swimming pools), as well as at the domestic consumer, who will have to pay a higher price for using a swimming pool, or be at greater risk of drowning due to the shortage of lifeguards, or face the closure of some pools due to their economic inefficiency or lack of lifeguards.

What I find most interesting is how this simple case raises uncomfortable questions regarding the traditional “right vs. left” political views as they exist in the US and Europe.

In particular, the moderate “left” (represented, for example, by Barack Obama and François Hollande) advocates government involvement to improve market outcomes, along with more compassion towards foreign workers (i.e. potential immigrants). Here, government interference (i.e. tightening visa rules) would improve the market outcome domestically, but hit immigrants.

Conversely, the moderate “right” (Mitt Romney and Nicholas Sarkozy) would find it hard to reconcile a pro-free-market position with its tougher views on immigration.

In this light it is not surprising that the positions of nationalists (such as Marine LePen) and Communist-like movements (Jean-Luc Melenchon) are often so similar and isolationist: the right sees protectionism as a way to hit hard against disliked immigrants, whereas the left sees protecting domestic workers as a convenient justification for striking “the rich” (i.e. the companies).

"Four legs good, two legs bad!"

A few more comments in continuation on the subject of prejudice as resulting from lower cognitive ability (here and here).

1. The phenomenon in question was succinctly summarized by George Orwell in his "Animal farm" by the phrase "Four legs good, two legs bad!", intended to oppose animals and humans. (Orwell immediately points out that it posed the problem with identifying chickens as animals.)

The beauty of Orwell's animalism is that it can be applied to many settings, for example:
"Conservatives are good, liberals are bad" or "liberals are good, conservatives are bad" (By now you may realize the point that I am making - the problem is not with liberals or conservatives, but with rejecting either of the views in favor of the other one, deemed to be "correct".)

2. One thing that bothers me is the widespread view of the horrors of Fascism as a result of the conflict between the right and left ideologies. The crimes committed by Nazis and fascists have been widely popularized and resulted in most of the "western world" swinging in the direction of the left ideologies. This resulted in the strange state of affairs, when Communism and its horrors are viewed with much less aversion than the Nazi/fascist symbols, and portraits of Che Guevara and red flags are considered "cool" symbols of the social equality rather than the symbols of murder and oppression, which they are to the  hundreds of millions who suffered from the Communism.

3. I think that Communism and Fascism are the two expressions of the same phenomenon: exploiting the image of a "common enemy" to unite people behind a "leader" or a political movement. The particular choice of the enemy might be different: it may be the external powers (Such as "the Big Satan" - the US); it may be culturally different groups, such as immigrants or Muslims; it may be differing ethnic or racial groups, such as Jews, Arabs or black; it may be the people who stand apart economically - "the rich".

The excesses of such views were notably demonstrated by Nazism (anti-Jew) and Communism (anti-rich), but, as I have stated above, the latter case is being consistently overlooked.

Ordinary fascism

I have written yesterday about an article that a friend of mine posted on a social network (here). The article claims to explain the racial and anti-homosexual prejudices as the result of lower cognitive ability and general intelligence. It is also claimed that this prejudices are channeled via supporting conservative and authoritarian ideologies.

Ironically, the article itself presents an example of the phenomenon that it claims to investigate: it effectively affirms the existing among "liberal/progressive" community prejudice that the people supporting conservative ideologies or right-wing parties are less educated and less intelligent. This prejudice is particularly strong in the overwhelmingly left-wing academic communities, the members of which, by virtue of their higher level of education, consider themselves intellectually superior to the typically conservative "blue collar" public.

A few additional comments
1. The article discussed is essentially fascist in nature (or as a minimum extremely prejudiced). Indeed, one could conceivably obtain a very similar text by taking an article from a Nazi-time research journal and replacing the references to "conservative/right-wing ideologies" by "Jews/Communists/Liberal democracies", and the references to "lower cognitive abilities/intelligence" by references to "inferior race/scull shape".

2. It is quite embarassing that my friend posted such an article in a public forum, and that it is overlooked by most and even "liked" by some.

3. I admit the possibility that the article might be itself a part of another scientific experiment, similar to Milgram experiment or Standford prison experiment (or perhaps my friend is conducting such an experiment): the authors might have on purpose posted an extremely prejudiced peace of work in order to see the public reaction, and demonstrate how the prejudices similar to those, that have been historically discredited within various kinds of authoritarian/conservative ideologies, quite successfuly continue to exist under the disguise of  "liberal/progressive/left-wing" (See my other post on non-liberal and non-progressive nature of many things called "liberal" and "progressive".)

New racism

Here is what passes nowadays for "research"... Those who are not blinded by either ideology will have difficulty setting this apart from the "research" conducted by Nazi scientists and others in the similar strain:
"Despite their important implications for interpersonal behaviors and relations, cognitive abilities have been largely ignored as explanations of prejudice. We proposed and tested mediation models in which lower cognitive ability predicts greater prejudice, an effect mediated through the endorsement of right-wing ideologies (social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism) and low levels of contact with out-groups. In an analysis of two large-scale, nationally representative United Kingdom data sets (N = 15,874), we found that lower general intelligence (g) in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology. A secondary analysis of a U.S. data set confirmed a predictive effect of poor abstract-reasoning skills on antihomosexual prejudice, a relation partially mediated by both authoritarianism and low levels of intergroup contact. All analyses controlled for education and socioeconomic status. Our results suggest that cognitive abilities play a critical, albeit underappreciated, role in prejudice. Consequently, we recommend a heightened focus on cognitive ability in research on prejudice and a better integration of cognitive ability into prejudice models. "

While it is to be expected that lower intellectual abilities  and inabilities to distinguish "the shades of gray"  make it more likely for individuals to adopt extremist ideologies, the claim that extremism is limited to the conservative and right-wing ideologies is precisely what is terribly wrong with modern "intellectuals".

An unbiased person has no difficulty pointing out many instances of the "liberal" and "progressive" intolerance towards different opinions, religious convictions, policies etc.

Added later:
Perhaps, my my point will be clearer, if I point out the similarity of this research with the concept of "untermensch", which has earned a rather gruesome reputation throughout the XXth century.

About liberalism: why I use quotation marks

Article on subjectm that I am not very interested in, comes up with the following remarkable statement:
"Classical liberalism was concerned with the freedom to hold and practice beliefs at odds with a public consensus. Modern liberalism uses the power of the state to impose liberal values on institutions it regards as backward. It is the difference between pluralism and anti-­clericalism." 

My comments:
1. The imposition of "liberal" values can be seen in the intolerant attitudes towards the evangelical Christians in the US. Another case is the attempts by "liberal" groups to impose economic and academic boycotts on Israel, whereas in Israel itself this takes a form of anti-settler sentiment. Ironically, if a liberally-minded person tries to defend the rights of evangelicals or settlers on their views (without actually agreeing with them), he/she is branded a right-winger.

2. You may have noticed that sometimes I use quotation marks to designate the terms whose linguistic usage does not agree with their literal meaning: "liberal", "progressive", "rich/poor" etc. So, for example, in the US "liberal" is used to designate Democrats, often extremely left-wing ones. Yet, for the reason outlined in the previous comment these people frequently are not liberal in the original sense of the word.

Another case when "liberals" are not really liberals is when one refers to their views on the economy. "Liberals" often advocate limiting the market freedom and discriminating against those who are more economically successful. In this contextm the people who do hold liberal economic views are referred to as "neo-liberals" (or, in an extreme case, "libertarians".) In fact, those who are called "liberals", should be really named "neo-communists" (no offence intended - simple statement of ideology.)

The subject, that goes beyond the theme of this post, is whether one can forgo the economic liberalism, but preserve the liberal freedoms in the other areas of life (freedom of speech, freedom of gatherings etc.) Marx and Lenin would certainly disagree.