Will Wilkinson - Latest Comments in Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Nico — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 03:30:29 -0000

Hmm, it seems to me like if these things were so obvious, then there would be no need to constantly point out how ignorant people who disagree with you are. It would be obvious, and everyone would be convinced. Being that that's not the case, you can try to offer arguments and evidence for your view, which I'll be happy to read, or you can vent your spleen to make you feel good about yourself.

If what you linked to is true, and for all I know it is, that might be a matter of concern, but I still don't see how this means we ought to shut down the borders. Hey, if opening the borders is the morally and prudentially right thing to do, as I think it is, then we could thank the Mexican government for its lobying for a just cause. If you think it's not a good idea, as you clearly do, than you might think the Mexican government is out of line, but how does it follow that we should therefore collectively punish the poor Mexicans who want to better their lives?

As for the brain drain point, certainly leaders of many countries are greedy, corrupt, and all the rest. What I want to know is: where is the evidence showing that opening the borders makes people in those countries worse off? I understand the theory, I'm just saying that I see no reason to think it accuarately describes reality.

In the absence of the aformentioned evidence (not saying there isn't any, just saying I haven't seen it, know-nothing libertarian that I am :-)), it seems like, given what seems to me the very strong humanitarian and economic case for open borders, I'm gonna have to stick to that position for now.

Here's a question- is there any evidence that would convince you that the open borders position is right? I'm genuinely interested. I'd like to have a real discussion, rather than fling accusations of stupidity.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

KjO — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 17:43:27 -0000

Your supposition only works if all workers are equally intellectually endowed. Which they are not. Not all employees are equally "smart" for lack of a better word. Two employees may have the exact same opportunities and education but one might earn a higher wage due to simple intellectual ability. In this case barriers or education have nothing to do with their wage earning ability. The market reward those who are better at producing.

It is interesting how we publicly recognize that people are born with differing level of ability in sports, music, and many creative fields, but we are afraid to say what we all know. That some are smarter than others. Education is not the great equalizer. It never can be. Because we are not all blanks slates. Some are simply born with an advantage. So while there are glaring problems in the current system of education [It severely under-serves the intellectually gifted...as an example the kids with the highest IQ and lowest IQ are in the same classroom being taught the same material at the same pace.] we cannot place wage differentiation solely on educational inequalities.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Tracy W — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 13:07:21 -0000

Braindraining authoritarian countries would be a great way to insure that they remain authoritarian and continue abusing their citizens, Garrett J.

Have you ever studied history? The Berlin Wall was put up by East Germany, the authoritarian state, to *stop* its citizens leaving. The collapse of the Berlin Wall was followed shortly by the collapse of the East German state. Stalin actually killed or sent to the gulags millions of his fellow citizens, particularly amongst the more educated (eg university professors, the Red Army officers), and yet he died in office after having managed to expand Soviet power across much of Eastern Europe. Mao Zedong killed millions of people and had a swipe at the educated with the Cultural Revolution (sending them off to re-educated camps) and he died in office.

You meanwhile have not cited a single case of an authoritarian country collapsing because its citizens didn't leave.

Before you start laughing at Wilkinson's expense, I suggest you spend a bit of brainpower on your own theories.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Tracy W — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 12:58:40 -0000

How would braindraining foreign countries enrich their local despots? The local despots would have less people to rule over, so at first analysis to me the despots would be worse off. If you want to convince me that the despots would be bettter off with less people, you'll need to do some explaining.

As for the idea that people have obligations to stay in foreign countries, why? Why not say that those of us who were lucky enough to be born in rich countries have an obligation to move to foreign countries to make their lives better? How does being born in a country create an obligation to stay put?

And if you've left a country to *escape* a foreign despot, why would you be interested in following that despot's instructions in your new country? I can't recall many cases of the people who fled to the USA from Communist Russia in the 1920s seeking to install Communism in the USA.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

LonewackoDotCom — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:26:31 -0000

Well, Nico, let me try to explain this to you in a way that you and Wilkinson might understand. You're failed to factor *everything* involved in the "market" into your "analysis". For instance, the greed of the leaders of various tinpot countries.

You also have no clue about the things that the MexicanGovernment does inside the U.S., which may include using proxies to agitate their citizens to take to our streets in an attempt to change our laws to suit them. The sets of "those who are smart, know about history, know about human nature, and who basically know what's going on" and "open borders libertarians" is completely disjoint.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Nico — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:47:26 -0000

Brad's comment seems really wrong to me. Here are my objections:

Like Mr. Willkinson said, how does open immigration automatically undermine national sovereignty? Many countries have much more liberal immigration policies than the U.S. Are they worse off in some way?

I understand how someone has a right to have a say in how their tax money is spent (that's what democracy is for, I think...). But how does that translate to some collective right to exclude people from what we fund with your tax money based on where they were born?
If it's because they didn't pay taxes for our infrastructure, etc. , why don't we just tax them? Hell, we could even tax them more. That would be more humane that letting people rot in poverty.
Plus, isn't there a violation of the rights of Americans going on as well? Don't I have a right of free association, to work with and hire whom I please, if I decide it's in my interest to do so? Does that right end if I want to associate with non-Americans?

As for the brain-drain argument offered by 24AheadDotCom, it's far from clear to me that we'd see any such thing in poor countries. For one thing, many lower skilled people would also immigrate. Also, if, for example, Ecuador saw a massive exodus of doctors, you'd have a pretty strong incentive for people to be doctors in Ecuaodor. That seems to be how markets work.
If the argument is about the effect on the political system- granting the premise for a moment that you'd see an exodus of smart people from poor countries in disproportion to non-smart people- than you might have a bit of a point. I think, however, that the ability of talented, rich, and influential people to defect from a bad political system (and take their resources with them), could improve those systems by changing the incentives of political leaders. I'm not confident about this, but at least it doesn't seem obvious to me that the effects of radical immigration liberalization would be negative.

Anybody have any data on any of these points? I'd be really interested.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

LonewackoDotCom — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 02:09:32 -0000

Braindraining authoritarian countries would be a great way to insure that they remain authoritarian and continue abusing their citizens, Garrett J. I'm not familiar with you, but that's one of those things that a "great humanitarian" like Wilkinson will never be able to figure out.

Question: if someone is as much a true believer as Wilkinson is (or pretends to be) gets a security clearance, is that a risk to the rest of us?

If Wilkinson got a security clearance, what exactly would prevent him from selling the rest of us out to the highest bidder?

P.S. If you want a laugh at Wilkinson's expense, see this. An article Wilkinson wrote for Reason was quite similar to a proposal I'd sent to Reason a couple weeks before. Except, my proposal was a hoax/satire similar to the recent one involving the "Harding Institute for Freedom and Democracy". Maybe the NAU will turn out to be a Rockefeller satire that Wilkinson's bought as well, but I doubt it.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Garrett J — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 00:18:01 -0000

24ahead-

So are you saying that the humanitarian answer is to force individuals to remain in authoritarian countries?

And Jeffrey-

I think your definition of justice - "whether any particular outcome drops below a threshold where health and well-being begin to drift out of reach." - is essentially Rawls restated, about health rater than income. And if your point is that society should provide for the basic needs of individuals, than you're not really on the subject of income inequality as an inherent problem.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

webgrrl — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 23:48:45 -0000

"I'm actually arguing that North America should implement something very much like the EU"

If only for the oil, WW, if only for the oil. Do you know that together Canada, Mexico and the US had, as of 2006, an estimated 213 billion barrels of oil?

Compare that to the estimated 267 b in Saudi. Not too shabby. And as the climate crisis accelerates, we have to be honest and say that Canada might suddenly have even more, more and accessible, as its icy parts recede and open the seafloor for drilling.

That's estimated to be another 233 b barrels right there, altho' the Russians strongly feel they own some of that. . .not that I want to encourage the carbon economy. I'm just presenting some facts here, WW.

If the government in Venezuela would change more favorably, we might also be able to kick in their 79 billion barrels. Sweet!

But blatant self-interest aside - we are arguing from justice here, no? - a NAU would only be fair to the Mexicans, who we have in fact treated rather poorly (for example, that small incident involving Veracruz. . .) and would be a great boon to end poverty there.

The Canadians would benefit from our military protection, esp. since the Russians will really insist that Arctic oil is theirs, theirs, theirs. While we could use their health insurance.

Also, together we can all make a stand economically against China, perhaps saving our bacon for another 50 years. The combined economies could very well have a production of US$17.5 trillion. Compare that to the EU's mere US$14.7 t.

But seriously, an NAU will have to occur if only because the re-Latinization of the US has already unstoppably begun. In another generation, most large cities will frankly be Miami. Which is great, because Miami is a fun, fun town.

But the Quebecois - well we'll just incorporate them as best we can and all learn to love speaking Spanglaish. Creole languages can be very rich - English is just a mish-mash of Latin, Greek, Ancient German, Old French, and whatever the Angles spoke anyway! But Shakespeare did pretty well with that dog's breakfast. We might finally be able to capture some Nobel prizes in literature in our new tongue.

In short, I'm in. When can we start?

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

anonymouse — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 22:07:14 -0000

How, pray tell, would there have even _been_ a Cold War or a WWII without national governments? Both of those conflicts are the results of overambitious national governments setting out to conquer the world, literally or figuratively.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Bill Gardner — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:48:36 -0000

Rebuilding the education system from the ground up is a great idea. But if the goal is to equalize opportunities for children, child-oriented early interventions need to begin before school starts.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

willwilkinson — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:35:37 -0000

I'm actually arguing that North America should implement something very much like the EU. The fact that Swedes now share a labor market with the Poles has not entailed the abolition of Sweden and Poland as sovereign states, has it?

Limits on immigration may be justified. But "fuck them, this is OUR country" isn't it.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Brad — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:15:47 -0000

Opportunity Hoarding....uh....yeah...Will - it is called national sovereignty.

This is in part why we pay taxes to the USA....to help provide the infrastructure, governmental, educational, regulatory and legal and social institutions needed to encourage and foster the opportunities, for....get this....AMERICANS.

You may find this whole national sovereignty thing arcane. But I suspect part of this is due to the fact you have grown up (as have I, but appreciate this fact), where globalization has brought us all closer together, and the idea of the need for national governments seems unnecessary. But at some point in time, these government are necessary (like now actually or during WWII or the Cold War). And at these points, you begin to realize that just ignoring the rights of citizens and arguing for ignoring that those citizens should and do deserve the fruits their nation bestows upon the population legally living there actually comes to light.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

LonewackoDotCom — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 19:06:33 -0000

More open borders nonsense from Wilkinson. Allowing even more people to come here would braindrain foreign countries, making the situations there worse and doing little more than enriching their local despots. Wilkinson's braindead scheme would create more problems for more people than it would solve, even in the best case. And, it would give more power in our country to foreign governments, making things even worse for us.

Do us all a favor and go to the libertarian paradise, aka Somalia.

Re: Outliers, Inequality, and Injustice

Jeffrey — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 18:52:41 -0000

Will

Okay, I'll go with all this. But I'm struck by the absence of suffering as a factor in this schema. Wages do convey information, but they don't do so in an abstract sense. They do it by leaving some people unable to pay their medical bills or feed their kids. Valuing the ability of people to meet those basic needs over the the clarity of the signals sent by the market doesn't strike me as at all crazy. The question of justice is not so much in how outcomes for various individuals compare, but in whether any particular outcome drops below a threshold where health and well-being begin to drift out of reach.

Hence the opportunity hoarding which results from barriers to immigration. Correctly or not, people view immigration as a threat to their chances of remaining above that threshold. My impression of the data is that immigration to the US has a had a pretty insignificant effect on low-skill wages, but I could be wrong. Even if I'm right, most people don't have the free time to become familiar with the data, so you can hardly blame them for being politically sympathetic to such barriers. All other things being equal, more workers mean there is less of a market need for high wages.

As for public education, I agree again that ground-up reform is necessary. But by my lights, the standard libertarian line on education has always been that we should make it even more contingent on an individual family's ability to pay than it already is. And how that will make it more likely for more people to remain above the economic threshold of well-being is beyond me.