Elon and Vivek are ultimately businessmen. They are giving the businessman’s perspective—and every businessman wants labor to be cheaper. I’ve run my own business and had to make payroll—I completely understand the business perspective at play here.
But the other perspective—that of the worker—is no less valid. Workers want labor to be pr…
Elon and Vivek are ultimately businessmen. They are giving the businessman’s perspective—and every businessman wants labor to be cheaper. I’ve run my own business and had to make payroll—I completely understand the business perspective at play here.
But the other perspective—that of the worker—is no less valid. Workers want labor to be pricier. Every person wants their labor to be more valuable.
A free market for labor is where those competing wants get resolved to achieve a presumptively faire market wage.
That is how wages are supposed to be set in a free-market economy, such as the United States claims its economy is.
Using immigration to manipulate the labor supply—and in particular using government regulation to do it—is a corruption of the labor market. That companies are able to do this means we do not have a free market for labor, but one that is very demonstrably tilted against workers. While that might be beneficial to businesses, it is by definition harmful to workers.
I’m not surprised that Elon and Vivek are showing a bias towards business. That’s what business people do. That probably even explains Donald Trump’s support for H1-B visas.
But the policy commitment Donald Trump made was to the American worker. Reining in immigration is a policy commitment that is going to advantage workers over businesses. For workers that is a good thing—it means higher wages. For the economy as a whole that is almost certainly a good thing, because worker wages have stagnated in this country. Most importantly, however, is that it is the promise Donald Trump made.
If the objective of Making America Great Again is to be realized, Donald Trump needs to keep his promises. Eliminating H1-B visas would be a really good step towards keeping promise #1.
Elon and Vivek are ultimately businessmen. They are giving the businessman’s perspective—and every businessman wants labor to be cheaper. I’ve run my own business and had to make payroll—I completely understand the business perspective at play here.
But the other perspective—that of the worker—is no less valid. Workers want labor to be pricier. Every person wants their labor to be more valuable.
A free market for labor is where those competing wants get resolved to achieve a presumptively faire market wage.
That is how wages are supposed to be set in a free-market economy, such as the United States claims its economy is.
Using immigration to manipulate the labor supply—and in particular using government regulation to do it—is a corruption of the labor market. That companies are able to do this means we do not have a free market for labor, but one that is very demonstrably tilted against workers. While that might be beneficial to businesses, it is by definition harmful to workers.
I’m not surprised that Elon and Vivek are showing a bias towards business. That’s what business people do. That probably even explains Donald Trump’s support for H1-B visas.
But the policy commitment Donald Trump made was to the American worker. Reining in immigration is a policy commitment that is going to advantage workers over businesses. For workers that is a good thing—it means higher wages. For the economy as a whole that is almost certainly a good thing, because worker wages have stagnated in this country. Most importantly, however, is that it is the promise Donald Trump made.
If the objective of Making America Great Again is to be realized, Donald Trump needs to keep his promises. Eliminating H1-B visas would be a really good step towards keeping promise #1.