katao
08-30-2007, 03:03 AM
In the back of my mind while I'm out canvasing the world for Ron, I've struggled to reconcile the only issue I seem to have a slight disagreement with Ron. Perhaps one of you can help me understand...
Paraphrased from a fellow meetup group member:
"Whenever you hear Ron Paul say he wants free markets, he means completely free markets! He sees free markets as the only (long-term) alternative to the direction we're heading. Austrian economics helps to explain why there's only really one alternative: truly free markets (no tarrifs, no Federal Reserve Bank, no huge regulatory bureaucracies that force out competition against big corporations, no minimum wage, no farm subsidies, etc.)"
Yet there seems to be one glaring exception in Ron's acceptance of this very sound, wise philosophy -- the free trade of labor.
I completely understand the desire for a strict rule of law (despite my slight wandering towards anarchy occasionally), and thus the desire to not grant amnesty to illegal immigrants nor to give them easy roads to welfare and/or citizenship.
But to truly have economic freedom, labor must be free too! Aren't restrictions on legal immigration for work purposes essentially the same thing as tariffs? They sure seem to cause the same economic damage - artificial propping up of prices (in this case for high-labor products) and all the resulting consequences, for instance.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting Ron's strong stance on ending illegal immigration and securing our borders (which I technically agree with) and he really isn't in the Pat Buchanan philosophical camp (which I find as distasteful as wrong)?
Paraphrased from a fellow meetup group member:
"Whenever you hear Ron Paul say he wants free markets, he means completely free markets! He sees free markets as the only (long-term) alternative to the direction we're heading. Austrian economics helps to explain why there's only really one alternative: truly free markets (no tarrifs, no Federal Reserve Bank, no huge regulatory bureaucracies that force out competition against big corporations, no minimum wage, no farm subsidies, etc.)"
Yet there seems to be one glaring exception in Ron's acceptance of this very sound, wise philosophy -- the free trade of labor.
I completely understand the desire for a strict rule of law (despite my slight wandering towards anarchy occasionally), and thus the desire to not grant amnesty to illegal immigrants nor to give them easy roads to welfare and/or citizenship.
But to truly have economic freedom, labor must be free too! Aren't restrictions on legal immigration for work purposes essentially the same thing as tariffs? They sure seem to cause the same economic damage - artificial propping up of prices (in this case for high-labor products) and all the resulting consequences, for instance.
Perhaps I am misinterpreting Ron's strong stance on ending illegal immigration and securing our borders (which I technically agree with) and he really isn't in the Pat Buchanan philosophical camp (which I find as distasteful as wrong)?