Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Inequality; Lant Pritchett is Awesome; the Injustice of Labor Market Restrictions

Re: Inequality; Lant Pritchett is Awesome; the Injustice of Labor Market Restrictions

Helly — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 21:53:46 -0000

Like you, Lant Pritchett has quickly become on my my intellectual heros. Yet, it makes me worried that he seems to breeze over the exploitation that unskilled guest workers may face in the migration process. If the wage differential is so high ad benefits of migration are so enticing -- then many more people will seek to migrate than actually migrate at any given point. Who goes and who stays? Perhaps the person who pays the most to a middleman or a recruiter.

Re: Inequality; Lant Pritchett is Awesome; the Injustice of Labor Market Restrictions

Dain — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 17:53:10 -0000

"Hey, ho, restrictions on labor mobility have to go!"

The term "labor mobility" rather than "people mobility" takes the edge off of the radical counter-"Social Justice" Social Justice that you advocate. It has a conservative (as in right wing libertarian) ring to it, implying that immigrants are solely good for the economy, rather than good for an ethic that seeks to apply the same standards of justice for all.

Invoking Rawls helps, but the constant use of "labor mobility" injures the humanist dimension by saddling it with that which is good for the libertarian economist's particular obsession.

Re: Inequality; Lant Pritchett is Awesome; the Injustice of Labor Market Restrictions

Slocum — Mon, 11 Jun 2007 13:20:42 -0000

Hey, ho, restrictions on labor mobility have to go!

The problem is numbers -- immigrants would swamp and destroy the economies and social orders of the rich countries. And the continuing success of those wealthy countries is critical to the ultimate lifting out of poverty of those in the developing world. And by ultimate, I don't mean in the sense of 'in the long run we are all dead' since Japan, Korea, China and the smaller 'Asian tigers' have made stunning progress in periods of time shorter than a generation let alone a human lifespan.

I think industrialized countries could take many more immigrants than they do and that this would be a good thing, but unlimited mobility would be a disaster, I'm afraid.

Re: Inequality; Lant Pritchett is Awesome; the Injustice of Labor Market Restrictions

Glen — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 22:09:33 -0000

I'm sure you already know this, but if you're listing off the problems with looking at quintiles' shares of income, this must be said: average real income has risen for all five quintiles. The rich have gotten a lot richer, while the poor have gotten a little richer.