Farage vs Clegg

[Mich the Tester]

So why don't all IT contractors get paid the same? Why don't we have one supermarket in the world selling the same food to everyone?

Does it not occur to you that there are considerable practical differences between shovelling money around the world and moving labour around the world?

Fair enough if human capital and money had the same physical properties but they dont.

IT contractors are all different in some way; that's why your customers ask for a selection of CV's.

One supermarket? Well no, for exactly the same reason.

And yes, there are practical differences, but the consequence of blocking flows of labour while having free flows of capital is that people end up stuck in some poor hellhole, unable to add value for the best possible profit, and therefore the whole world's economy has less growth than it could potentially have.

You know what? For a right winger, you're surprisingly opposed to free markets and supportive of protectionist measures like immigration controls. Sort of 'state corporatist', or even slightly state socialist.

Anyway, labour is offered on a market. The human offering the labour is not a resource, even though some in the HR business think he is, but his labour IS a resource, just like the machine that bangs rivets into sheets of metal, or the program that tells the machine to do that. Why would humans not benefit from a free global market for labour if they've benefitted from free markets for other resources?

[DodgyAgent]

We have other sources of energy and the mix worked for us well. We had well developed heavy industry before we got asset stripped by predatory capital after 1991.

At least Russia do not still our resources and freely ravage our environment!

What business is it of yours to dictate polish energy policy? As for our "energy sources" where did you get the idea that they"work well for us". Why is it our energy prices are considerably higher than polands? perhaps we should invite Chevron in to sort out our own supply

[DodgyAgent]

IT contractors are all different in some way; that's why your customers ask for a selection of CV's.

One supermarket? Well no, for exactly the same reason.

And yes, there are practical differences, but the consequence of blocking flows of labour while having free flows of capital is that people end up stuck in some poor hellhole, unable to add value for the best possible profit, and therefore the whole world's economy has less growth than it could potentially have.

You know what? For a right winger, you're surprisingly opposed to free markets and supportive of protectionist measures like immigration controls. Sort of 'state corporatist', or even slightly state socialist.

Anyway, labour is offered on a market. The human offering the labour is not a resource, even though some in the HR business think he is, but his labour IS a resource, just like the machine that bangs rivets into sheets of metal, or the program that tells the machine to do that. Why would humans not benefit from a free global market for labour if they've benefitted from free markets for other resources?

So it is open borders then? the infrastructure support for the movement of large amounts of people to "where the jobs are" and cultural factors are irrelevant (they are with money).

I may be a free marketeer but I do have an understanding of practicalities .

[mos]

What business is it of yours to dictate polish energy policy? As for our "energy sources" where did you get the idea that they"work well for us". Why is it our energy prices are considerably higher than polands? perhaps we should invite Chevron in to sort out our own supply

We have to pay EDF prices, just like UK, and its at least equally expensive as a % of family budget (it used to be very cheap when I was young and we had domestic supplier)

Poland got into clutches of Chevron only recently. People in UK struggle with designs of Haliburton.

[sasguru]

I may be a free marketeer but I do have an understanding of practicalities .

So in other words you're not a free marketeer at all.
Only when it suits you.

[Mich the Tester]

So it is open borders then? the infrastructure support for the movement of large amounts of people to "where the jobs are" and cultural factors are irrelevant (they are with money).

I may be a free marketeer but I do have an understanding of practicalities .

I know; open borders all in one go present huge practical problems and we've seen some of the problems, in a small way, in Europe, so I don't support wholesale immediate, and certainly not unilateral removval of borders. However, in general I think the world has been moving more and more toward restrictions on migration in the last 40 to 50 years, and now we've reached the point that Europe is building walls around itself and nations within Europe are threatening to do the same. I want to see that trend reversed, and gradual moves toward more freedom for people to migrate.

As for 'cultural factors'; many of the restrictions on migration that you have in the UK or in fact all over the EU today have only really been developed during our lifetimes, and although there were some limited restrictions before then, it's really in the 20th century that governments started structurally impeding migration. How did British culture grow to be what it is before all these restrictions were put in place? How about other cultures that grew and thrived without these restrictions?

You say you support free markets. I support freedom.

[vetran]

Unfortunately if you remove the restrictions on low value Labour you get a race for the bottom on wages for the people at the bottom.

If you allow managed migration for high value workers you get knowledge transfer, diversification etc.

Its not a tap, its a filter. You allow the valuable resource to move around but leave the low value resource to remain in country and push for higher wages.

If you allow a superstate you risk some nutter taking it over, if you are a member of a common market then when you want to apply pressure you can reduce access via say sanctions.

All the arguments seem to be Black & white, You are either in or out of the EU, You either stop all migration or you have none. Its as always more complicated than that.

[sasguru]

If you allow managed migration for high value workers you eventually get resentment against a highly visible and successful elite outside class.

FTFY. Like Germany 1930s.

[Mich the Tester]

Unfortunately if you remove the restrictions on low value Labour you get a race for the bottom on wages for the people at the bottom.

...

All the arguments seem to be Black & white, You are either in or out of the EU, You either stop all migration or you have none. Its as always more complicated than that.

First bit, agreed, that's why I don't support immediate or unilateral removal of borders; I want to see moves toward more freedom of migration for a change, instead of the last 40 years of restriction, to which the EU provides one exception for EU countries' citizens.

Second point; this is exactly my gripe with Nigel and Nick and the referendum; it's a binary decision where there are infinite other possibilities, or as you say 'it's more complicated than that'.

[Mich the Tester]

FTFY. Like Germany 1930s.

Precisely right, also because it reduces the way in which workers lower down the chain can become 'high value' workers, for instance by offering their labour in a place where it is scarce. Further restricting migration is really only beneficial to vested interests, not to those who want 'upward mobility' as I remember conservatives used to believe in.