Tier Tournament 2 [Top], R2: Let Anyone Work Anywhere

One last round of thanks to phantom for a genuinely stirring debate! BoP I'll just grant Con's analysis from R2 and move on. Dropped arguments Con says he's going to cover a number of other rebuttals in the final round. I'll leave it to the judges on this one, as I understand that he had a lot of arguments to cover, though I will not be able to respond. Counterplan (CP) The best he can do with this is slightly improve upon our immigration system to ensure that nations have access to what the government feels they need in terms of skilled labor. This doesn't negate my advantages, only slightly mitigating the impact I get from this group of workers. The only way this outweighs my plan is if he proves the following: 1) More competition from high skilled labor is bad 2) The entry of other skill levels of labor is net harmful I'll show why neither is true. More competition from high skilled labor is bad Con never warrants his argument that increased competition in the skilled labor market will depress wages. The reality is that “there is no consensus among the few studies that have looked specifically at the impact on high-skilled native-born workers of an increase in the supply of comparable foreign-born workers.”[25] Meanwhile, the competition is improving outcomes for consumers and businesses, both by increasing diversity (and all the outcomes from that that Con granted come mainly from skilled labor) and improving the quality of skilled workers in any given setting. The entry of other skill levels of labor is net harmful Con splits this argument up into two major points: changes to the job market and wages. He includes 2 others that I'll address separately. Job market Con grants that GDP will likely increase, he just contests the amount, though even the lowest estimate is 50%. He states that more evidence is needed, but fails to counter any of the evidence I provided. I think the NBER, the Cato Institute, the EU Commission, and a bevy of economists (my [10, 14, 19, 20 and 21]), not to mention Clemens himself, constitute a substantial body of evidence, whereas Con has solely presented the non-empirical analysis of Borjas, which actually harms his case. We can also look to the Congressional Budget Office, which estimates that adding 6 million new immigrants to the U.S. job market by 2023 will reduce wages by only 0.1%, after which they would increase by 0.5% with 3 million more workers by 2033.[26] He even concedes that there is no substantial harm to the economy from current immigration, which means his harms are purely theoretical. When worldwide GDP stands to increase by as much as 150%, it may not increase wages, but it will increase the number of jobs, as Okun's law supports.[27] With access to every labor market instead of just their own nations', the market automatically expands for everyone. With new workers coming into the U.S. increasing demand for various goods and services, and with aging and shrinking populations in most first world nations, the labor market balloons. Con ignores all of this analysis and continues to assert, without any evidence, that U.S. and other first world labor markets will decline. Correlations and overly simplistic analysis are not enough. Wages Con's assumptions remain. He is still dramatically underestimating the requirement for low-skilled labor. His non-empirical estimates that don't match the reality. Wages are still better in a system where there is no incentive to work illegally for less than minimum wage. Con added the unwarranted argument that mid-skill labor is going to come in as well, which isn't supported by current immigration trends.[11] The empirical evidence, however, shows that wages actually increase for this subset of the labor pool in the long term, something even Borjas confirms.[16] Con has ignored my arguments that opening up labor markets is good because it benefits consumers. That's because it brings quality up and drives prices down,[28] increasing the value of each dollar. Even if wages decrease, costs of living come down as well. All of Con's analysis regarding changes to wages in this round remain non-empirical. They never analyze labor markets, merely providing the basic supply and demand curves without any regard for different kinds of labor or for regional wage convergence. Without any analysis as to why this policy will lead to a sudden and “substantial excess in the supply of labor” (an excess that may exist now), this is only a theoretical, unproven harm denied by past examples of mass immigration. Other points Con's arguments on labor unions focus on correlative comparison without any causal analysis. From his own link: “there's no evidence that immigrants have a lower desire for union representation...Unions have always had the most appeal for those who are most exploited and these are the most exploited workers in the economy.” The speaker mentions that the number of Hispanic immigrants in unions has increased over time.[29] Even undocumented immigrants have shown a great interest in joining unions – that's why labor unions' attitudes towards them have changed.[30] Onto the responsibility of governments. Con does not respond to my analysis of a government's obligation to citizen business owners and consumers, and barely responds to the obligation to foreign peoples. On the latter, he completely ignores the fact that the U.S. and many other nations signed two international documents stating unequivocally that every human being has this right, which means they have the duty to uphold that right. He makes a bold claim, but Con will have to show how companies offering gainful employment to qualified individuals who are willing to pick up and move to a new country using their own funds without citizenship or support is at all equivalent to a country giving away its wealth. Now, let's get into the other voting issues. Justice I think Con is misunderstanding this contention and its basis, which is that denial of the right to work on the basis of where a human being is born, for any reason, is an unjust practice. All of Con's responses about the reasoning behind it are irrelevant, as no reasoning can justify the decision to engage in an inherently dehumanizing and discriminating practice. The reasoning itself, however, is little better than xenophobia – this idea that foreigners are essentially job thieves is demonizing. The EU's views of the “Polish plumber” as a symbol of their fear of invading cheap labor from Eastern Europe was similarly unfounded and derogatory.[31] Con tries and derail this argument fallaciously, saying it's “altruism” (a straw man, since every job is being earned, not given away) and claiming that my logic could apply more broadly (a slippery slope and a red herring meant to distract from the case at hand). These are merely obfuscations. Human decency I thought it was relatively obvious that the capacity to earn a wage capable of feeding, clothing and housing oneself and one's family was the epitome of human decency, hence the title. Con concedes this point multiple times throughout the debate, allowing that billions of people who currently have limited or no access to a reasonable wage and living conditions will now garner that access. That concession alone is enough reason to vote Pro, as I can't see a single argument by Con that weighs nearly so heavily. Diversity My link says quite a bit about foreign labor, including how it's essential for globalization, tapping new markets, and crossing borders. It's not just about gender. Con says diversity is only beneficial to companies in certain high skill jobs. At best, this is solely mitigation, as access to these business executives is still higher than with either status quo or the CP, thus reducing the incidence of Groupthink, something we both agree is net harmful. At worst, this is a gross oversimplification. Executives aren't the sole driving force behind a company. Managers and workers at every level can reach out to a broader customer base and provide new ideas. Groupthink can affect every level of a company. Con drops my argument that countries and companies will have to improve employment practices in order to be competitive. This is yet another reason why wages won't decrease, but also a reason why abusive practices like child labor and sweat shops are likely to end sooner in developing nations, as they have incentive to keep their labor force. Illegal immigration The harms of illegal immigration are also ameliorated, something Con doesn't address. Not only does this eliminate below minimum wage competition, but it also removes the desire to use smugglers like the Coyotes to get across borders, thus reducing deaths and defunding huge criminal enterprises. Conclusion The harms that Con presents, while they may seem reasonable, are often unwarranted and lacking in evidence, and focus too narrowly on the populations he deems most important. The benefits I've presented are all heavily backed with empirical evidence, much of which has been granted or unaddressed by Con, and all showcase large and advantageous impacts to demonstrably bigger populations. Whether we're concerned with job number, wages, discrimination, basic living conditions, diversity, working conditions, GDP, prices, quality, lives lost, or criminal organizations, my arguments establish a distinct and well-proven benefit to increased labor immigration. It is for all these reasons that I urge a vote for Pro. 25. http://www.au.af.mil... 26. http://www.cbo.gov... 27. http://www.investopedia.com... 28. http://www.washingtonpost.com... 29. http://cis.org... 30. http://www.newrepublic.com... 31. http://www.german-times.com...