Americans loathe lines. See their disdain for the gasoline lines of the 1970s, and that were an effect of price controls naively meant to contain the cruel effects of a devalued dollar.
What’s funny and sad at the same time about the gasoline lines is that per Hedrick Smith’s The Russians, the Soviets of the 1970s suffered lines for everything. Which is a statement of the obvious. Central planning is central planning, and its cruel effects are uniform across market goods.
No wonder the Soviets were so miserable under communism. No wonder so many who suffered lines and other symptoms of central planning made it their goal to escape Soviet-bloc misery for the opportunity and abundance that defined the United States.
Which brings us to the present, or at least the last several years. Polling data indicates that Americans on the right were troubled by the massing of migrants at the southern border. Notable about the unhappiness is that according to Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell, it wasn't just right-of-center types that were bothered by the vision of chaos. Rampell claims that left-of-center Americans were similarly unhappy.
There’s no disputing Rampell’s claim, or that of various conservatives who’ve asserted that the “border” is a big national political issue. Where there’s dispute is in the meaning of American frustration. The view here is that prosperity-loving Americans don’t hate people coming to the U.S. to fulfill much-needed work functions, rather Americans hate central planning. See above.
The simple, not-so-insightful truth is that the border situation is (or was) the picture definition of control from the proverbial Commanding Heights. Some utilize satellite photos of North Korea next to South Korea at night to articulate the economic horrors of central planning as represented by a largely dark North Korea, but others could just as credibly click on border photos circa 2023 to similarly make a case against the central planning that impatient Americans congenitally loathe. Because make no mistake, the chaotic, slipshod nature of the southern U.S. border exemplifies government planning of markets.
Yes, immigration is a market phenomenon. Anyone who doubts this need only look up “annual remittances” and “Mexico” on Google, Bing, Duck Duck Goose, or any other search engine. What’s true for Mexico is true for people from the other central and south American nations presently working in the U.S. Eager to earn more money for their families than they can in the more centrally planned central and south American country economies, they come to the U.S. That they’re much needed can yet again be found in the enormous annual remittances that the workers send back to poor, frequently desperate family members.
What’s frustrating about all this is that assuming legalization of the work they’re coming for, the effect would be the emptying of the borders as central and south Americans go the legal route (flight in most instances) to where they’re needed stateside. Why pay “coyotes” for risky, frequently life-threatening border crossings? Why indeed.
Which is the point. Just as government officials don’t generally plan the employment of U.S. citizens with private businesses, imagine if they ceased intervention in the hiring of non-U.S. citizens. If so, orderliness would replace chaos. And just as American fathers and mothers don’t take their kids, wives, husbands, aunts, uncles, grandma and grandpas to work with them, neither generally do central and south Americans. Get it?
Americans love prosperity, which means they hate central planning. Remove the latter from a market phenomenon that is immigration, and the bet here is that there’s placation where there’s presently a lot of anger at central planning’s symptoms, not real problems.
