The case for globalized labor

Although it won't happen in our lifetime

Dani Rodrik, an economist at Harvard, estimates that a worker in the first world earns 10 times more than someone with similar qualifications in the third. Even a light loosening of immigration restrictions, Rodrik argues, would provide a far bigger boost to the world's poor than knocking down all the famously crippling agricultural subsidies. After all, for many in those countries, their biggest asset is their labor, and the current system forces them to sell it at much lower than market value. If free trade is a tide that lifts all boats, then so is free labor. But this time, the smallest boats get the biggest boost. If we're going to ask countries to let in our goods, we should be willing to let in their workers.

Abolishing visa restrictions may be an impossible political sell. The poor and unskilled in Europe and America would confront competition from new immigrants, who would bring with their willingness to work a host of cultural change. But the same argument could have been made against the abolishment of slavery or apartheid, both of which took decades of work and preparation to overturn. It's worth considering the scale of the inequality under the current system. The U.S. poverty line, defined by the Census Bureau in 2005 at $10,160 for individuals under 65, outstrips the per capita income of every African country. There's no reason our poor should stand on the backs of people who can't get enough to eat. If we don't want them coming here, we should get serious about helping them over there.

Like he writes, politicaly it is a difficult sell - just look at the potential immigration crisis in Europe.