Are the free market and immigration control incompatible?

 

Eddie Dempsey - RMT General Secretary

The leader of the RMT union, Eddie Dempsey, is right to point out that very often those who do the hard graft in society are often the least recognised and the least rewarded -they keep the show on the road.

But the market doesn't always determine the wages for some people. The wages of many workers are regulated and are not determined by a Dutch auction. Remuneration committees often determine the salaries of banking officials. An MPs salary is set and so are the wages of Eddie Dempsey as a trade union official. What's the going rate for an MP? The wages of police officers will be regulated along with many legal officials like judges. The wages of civil servants and local government workers are also regulated.

If you believe in the so-called "free-market", then you can't really be in favour of immigration control and must be in favour of the free movement of Labour. What does Donald Trump's crackdown on "undocumented" workers have to do with free markets? Many migrant workers may better at doing your job and may be prepared to do it for less money, but very few free-market economists are bold enough to speak out against immigration control.

In America, many immigrants work in food processing, construction, agriculture and hospitality. Undocumented workers, who still pay state and federal taxes in the U.S., make up 25% of all farm workers. There are 7 million workers in the U.S. who are undocumented.

In his book entitled '23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism', the Cambridge economist, Ha-Joon Chang, wrote: "We are persuaded to accept what I call the L'Oréal principle - if some people are paid tens of millions of pounds per year, it must be because they are worth it." We know that many top bosses get well paid even when the companies they run, are losing money and even if they resign, they're given a huge pay off. They're a nepotistic class who have basically got their fingers in the till.

In a class ridden country like Britain, the options that people can choose from, are usually severely limited by a lack of resources or education. Our preferences are strongly formed by our social environment - family, neighbourhood, schooling and social class. The social bank of mum and dad, opens as many doors, as the financial bank of mum and dad.