James E. Miller writing in Taki's Magazine
* * *
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: There are some
jobs Americans won’t do. Therefore, we need Third World labor to come pick up
the slack.
(*SMIRK*)
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that line
parroted in the press, I’d cover the yearly salary of all the migrant
strawberry pickers in California.
Regrettably, the “jobs Americans won’t do” trope is
treated like just another piece of locus communis.
Economists repeat it endlessly.
Big-business types love to deploy it (and collect the
windfall profits from employing cut-rate labor).
Media moguls believe it.
Politicians, both Democrat and Republican, robotically
repeat the claim, as if it were fed to them by the Chamber of Commerce.
* FOLKS... UNDERSTAND... THE MODERN CHAMBER OF COMMERCE IS REALLY THE CHAMBER OF CRONY-CAPITALIST COMMERCE. I'M SORRY. IT'S THE SAD TRUTH.
This election cycle has brought new life to the issue of
the Third World’s untrammeled access into the United States. But it hasn’t
changed the conventional wisdom on the “jobs Americans won’t do” line. Nearly
every candidate is in favor of guest-worker programs, which basically means providing
an ample supply of cheap, fungible labor for business.
Even real estate magnate Donald Trump (say it ain’t so!)
buys into the notion.
When challenged by Sen. Marco Rubio in a recent debate
for hiring Mexicans to work at his Florida hotel, Trump defended the practice,
claiming “people didn’t want to have part-time jobs” and that he “couldn’t get
help in those hot, hot sections of Florida.”
Trump’s thinking is far from unique. Yet the idea that
there are some jobs Americans are too proud to do is pure hokum. From a data
perspective it doesn’t make sense. And from a purely rational view it doesn’t hold
up, either.
First, the numbers. A 2013 study from the Center for
Immigration Studies reports that only six out of the 472 civilian occupation
categories in the U.S. are filled primarily by immigrants. That’s about 1% of
the entire workforce. Professions normally thought of as immigrant-dominated,
such as janitorial work and cleaning services, are actually staffed primarily
by those native-born.
* Er... SORRY... BUT SINCE WE'RE IN LARGE PART TALKING THE
"UNDERGROUND" OR "TRANSLUCENT AT BEST" ECONOMY... I
WOULDN'T TRUST SUCH STATS.
Of course, you won’t hear those figures from someone like
Senator Rubio, who, despite his criticism of Trump, justifies more immigration
by saying there are some American workers who “can’t cut it.” (One wonders what
the reaction would be if Rubio said that to an unemployed American. Would a
laid-off blue-collar worker take kindly to being told that he can’t work with
his hands as well as someone in this country illegally?)
* AND ONCE AGAIN I MUST INTERJECT A NOTE OF REALITY:
WE'RE TALKING A WELFARE STATE (AMERICAN; WITH SOME INDIVIDUAL STATE OFFERING
MORE "GENEROUS" WELFARE AND UNEMPLOYMENT BENEFITS THAN OTHERS), WHICH
EXPLAINS WHY SO MANY AMERICANS CAN "AFFORD" NOT TO WORK AT "ANY JOB
AVAILABLE" IF THEY DON'T "LIKE" THOSE JOBS.
(*SHRUG*)
Then there is the issue of reduced wages, which both
progressives and free-market conservatives seem to believe is a great thing for
competitiveness. We’re told that the industries illegals predominantly occupy
pay little and that Americans aren’t willing to accept a pittance for taxing
physical labor. Our countrymen have families to raise. They can’t afford to
care for their children with a down-market wage.
But whoever said that jobs like plucking vegetables or
folding towels were full-time positions?
* EXACTLY!
Sure, they are low-skilled, unpleasant, and sometimes
hard on the body. But they are not careers. These aren’t jobs meant to provide
for 3.14 persons. Monotonous work pays little because it doesn’t require much
abstract thinking or innovation. Thus, they are the perfect jobs for those
first entering the working world.
As a teenager I worked at a theme park for $5.85 an hour.
This was 2003, with the economy still recovering from the dot-com recession. As
the years went by, I took on more roles and responsibilities. I was in charge
of managing employees, counting cash, and making sure guests who paid $40 a pop
to get into the park got their meal in reasonable time. But I also had to do a
ton of dirty jobs, including cleaning Dumpsters, emptying grease pans, and
sweeping up garbage in the hot sun. It was sucky work, no doubt. Yet it taught
me discipline and the value of bettering myself for more remunerative
employment.
(*STANDING OVATION*)
When guys like Stan Eury rig the system and bring
busloads of Mexicans for low-skilled, physically demanding drudgery, it denies
that opportunity for natives to earn cash and improve their skills.
* YEP...!!!
Paying migrant workers the most minimal of wages might be
great for profit margins. But the elitist assumption baked into the “good for
business” equation doesn’t take into account why illegal aliens can accept
second-rate pay. Is it because they are that desperate for jobs? Or is it
because they can afford to live in squalid conditions and work long hours for
lousy pay as they don’t require permanent residence and plan on returning home
eventually?
Maximizing profit on the backs of illegals is often done
at the cost of turning away the native-born. It disrupts what Edmund Burke
called the “little platoons” of society. That is, it sows discord into
communities where members feel less valued than outsiders.
Now, I don’t mean to wax on romantically about the
steadfast resolve of the American worker. It’s true that the lower working
class has been rendered indolent and lazy with a combination of government
welfare, easy availability of drugs, affordable, calorie-rich food, and cheap
thrills. But the nation’s economic and political elite like having the masses
placated by McDonald’s and Netflix. The less riffraff from the proles, the
better.
The only way to get the lower and middle classes out of
their stupor is to stop the flow of cheap migrant labor.
There is nothing demeaning about grunt work.
Labor is dignifying.
Nature’s benevolence doesn’t put food on the table. Man
has to work for his rewards. Like St. Paul said, if you don’t work, you don’t
eat. Americans should rid themselves of the notion that tedious, dirty work is
"beneath them."
The sooner that happens, the sooner we start having a
country again, and not an economic free-for-all.
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