A company that spurned talent it badly needed couldn't thrive. The same is true for a country.
But that isn't stopping the Trump administration from blithely driving foreign students into the open arms of other countries with its ill-advised immigration policies.
[thousands of words on how bad this policy is deleted]
There's a fair amount in the Reason archives about how convoluted our immigration law is, but little on how companies game the system. For example, US IT staffing biz accused of abusing student visa program now forced to stop advertising only to immigrants:
An American IT staffing'n'consultancy company has been banned from running job ads that say only temporary work visa holders need apply.
In a settlement [PDF] with the US Department of Justice today, ASTA CRS agreed it will make all job postings available to anyone in America, including citizens. The dept pointed out that the job postings were discriminatory because they “specify a preference for non-US citizens who held temporary work visas.”
Huh. Now why would they have been doing that?
But the most extraordinary claims come in a posting from May 2016, when another former employee is detailed and damning. “Company run by Hyderabad people,” they note (Hyderabad is the tech center of India). “This is a H-1B fraud visa business. They recruit candidates who are in desperate need of jobs, for example, H-1B transfer candidates or foreign students. They train them for month or two in business analysis or QA and then they start to market them. They prepare false resumes with 8-10 years of fake experience [with] companies like Bank of America, Capital One, Goldman Sachs etc ... Once they are able to get a job, the candidate is paid between 25 and 28 per hour," with the agencies involved pocketing the rest.
It's Indentured Servitude. The workers have few rights, and the employer takes a big chunk of their earnings. You can't get that with US citizens. Nothing at Reason about this. Funny, that. However you feel about what the level of immigration should be, I think that everyone can agree that bringing in exploited workers with essentially no rights to redress is a Bad Thing.
But it doesn't violate the Non Aggression Principle, so it's all good amirite?
22 comments:
Libertarianism is like a mentally challenged little sister. She's cute, and doesn't mean to cause harm. You want to protect her from the big, bad world.
But she's useless, and you shouldn't pay any attention to what she says about anything of importance.
Good post, and on point.
What a wild misconception about libertarianism. It isn't about indentured servitude created by government monopolies and government human trafficking. Not sure where you'd get that idea...
Yes a lot of misconceptions here by the OP and commenters.
There are two strains of small l libertarianism. One is the one you mention. The other opposes illegal immigration and wants to lightly control legal immigration.
In fact, as you point out, it does violate the NAP, so it actually doesn't fit with proper libertarianism. That's exactly what group 2 thinks. Its why the oppose illegal immigration.
Very much a strawman argument. At best, libertarian support for H1B is like evangelical support for Trump--not ideal or what they would pick, but maybe a bit better than the alternative. (I'm assuming here...I'm neither evangelical nor a Trump supporter) Libertarians would want to see Americans compete on equal terms, not against indentured servants...but some may grudgingly allow H1Bs if the alternative is no work visas at all.
Provocative post! I fully agree. Libertarianism will always remain a fringe philosophy, and here's why: the underlying world view and epistemological presuppositions out of which libertarian thinking evolved are largely unexamined by its proponents, and have gross flaws.
As one of those evangelicals, I have substantially different presuppositions and world view. I don't live in the same amoral, futile "Ecclesiastes-esque" world as the atheists and radicals of the Enlightenment did. As an evangelical I can coherently say why human lives are priceless, even though deeply mired in Solomon's "vanity and vexation", where it seems nothing more is there to do but labor under the sun until you die.
If libertarians get some things right, and they do, and do so in a clever and accurately observant way, that does not mean that they have a way to make truly human policy decisions. Legalize drugs, legalize prostitution? Sure, just legalize human trafficking too. Might as well. Might as well legalize all-out human slavery at the same time. It's an economic arrangement, freely entered into, isn't it? If you don't look too closely.
> Libertarianism will always remain a fringe philosophy, and here's why: the underlying world view and epistemological presuppositions out of which libertarian thinking evolved are largely unexamined by its proponents, and have gross flaws.
Let's translate this for people who might stumble on this and mistake your big words for actual knowledge.
"Libertarianism won't work because it remains unexamined by people who don't like it, and there are huge undefined flaws"
"Legalize drugs, legalize prostitution?"
If you actually bothered to look at it, the Libertarian argument has nothing to do with prostitution or drugs. The core argument is about an individual having the right to choose what to do with their own body. That means that prostitutes probably would exist.
"just legalize human trafficking too. Might as well."
Are you for real? Is that actually an argument from a competent and sane individual? "Might as well just legalize human trafficking?!?"
Since human trafficking definitely violates the right to choose what to do with your own body (it's slavery) it means that most Libertarians think people who traffick children would be fed into woodchippers.
"Might as well legalize all-out human slavery at the same time"
Really dude? That's 100% the exact opposite of what Libertarianism is.
Seems like you know exactly dick and you're trying to use big words to convince everyone you don't.
"It's an economic arrangement, freely entered into, isn't it?"
Oh, yeah. You got us there. I'm sure children freely enter into agreements to be trafficked all the time.
Maybe research what it means to be Libertarian before you spout off a bunch of nonsense you know nothing about.
100% against slavery
100% against human trafficking
100% against exploitation of children
If all these immigrants are so valuable, why are they not making their own countries great? The only reason those guys are here is so globalists can drive down wages.
Marxists have been carefully programmed not to think.
Libertarians achieve the same ends by individual means.
Libertarian theory breaks down at every point when you ask the simple questions, "Or else what?", "Who's going to make me?" and "You and what army?"
Libertarianism allows your neighbor to set up a child rape factory, and there's nothing you can do about it, because he's not hurting you. Especially if he's paying the children's parents to let him do it (Hollyweird/Michael Jackson).
LOL you clearly have no idea about libertarian theory. You might have a point about anarchism, but not libertarianism.
The answers to your questions are the courts and police. You do realize that in a libertarians society they are still acceptable? Because they are a neutral third party enforcing violations of the NAP.
Libertarianism absolutely does not allow your neighbor to set up a child rape factory, because that violates the NAP. The police will stop that, and as a citizen you would be empowered to stop it too. Because yes, it is acceptable and even encouraged to stop violations of the NAP against other people, even if it affects you not at all. And yes even if there is money changing hands.
Jeez its like people hear one thing from some random leftist and think that is out the libertarianism works, and never stop to think or research. Sad.
> Libertarianism allows your neighbor to set up a child rape factory, and there's nothing you can do about it, because he's not hurting you.
Are you trying to claim that rape doesn't hurt a child or are you trying to claiming that Libertarianism says "Individuals have a right to be free from harm...but only if they aren't a child"?
Either way, you're wrong.
A huge majority of libertarians say the "NAP" means you shouldn't spank your child or even "use force" to put them in "time out". This obviously means "no rape".
The definition: "Libertarianism or libertarism is a political philosophy and movement that upholds liberty as a core principle."
In other words, it's what Republicans pretend to be. It gives you the maximum amount of individual freedom but limits you where you would harm someone else or violate their rights.
Anyways, go try actually reading about it instead of using uninformed talking points somedood on the internet told you.
Also...what's with all the haters? Why is your go-to example always something about child rape? Project much?
The fundamental flaws with big or small-L libertarianism are simple.
1) They imagine that people are inherently good.
Which is fatally wrong, and runs face-first into the brick wall of Reality.
2) They imagine that ignoring the consequences of getting #1 wrong is either wise, or possible.
This is where it sails off the cliff, and drags society along for the ride.
In summary, what McChuck said.
Much like the Amish, libertarians are basically harmless, but only as long as less than 1% of society emulates them, and wiser and more practical people ensure that they can live parasitically and practice their own peculiar dysfunction undisturbed by Reality.
The fundamental flaws with people's understanding of Libertarianism are:
1. They think that "people are inherently good" has any bearing on "Do what you want as long as you don't harm others, damage their property, or violate their rights".
2. Since items number one is a fallacy, you can't "get it wrong".
In summary, be specific how having a government that says "do what you want as long as you don't harm others, violate their rights, or damage their property" is "dysfunctional" or "unrealistic".
It's dysfunctional and unrealistic, because when people won't color inside their imaginary lines, as they never will, nor even can, libertarianism has no recourse, and no philosophical nor moral underpining to inform correcting the situation.
And the minute they try, they cease being any kind of libertarians.
The only way to "save" the system becomes to burn it to the ground, every single time, then beat the charred corpse until no discernible molecules remain.
QED
Libertarianism is a Perpetual Motion Machine, paid for by subscription to a Ponzi scheme, running on methane from unicorn farts, with square wheels mounted off-center, where the cogs are designed to run in opposition, and makes the wonder of East German auto design that is the Trabant look like a Mercedes limousine in comparison with their imaginary engine of human and political behavior. It's the only system save absolute Lord Of The Flies jungle anarchy that makes authoritarian socialist communism look sensible by comparison.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
Next question.
The libertarians are technically right on most issues, but lose sight of the fact that race, IQ, and culture matter. They have yet to find that Sharia law loving LGBTQ libertarian or one from any other country. Libertarianism is a Western idea.
Somehow the libertarian party has been infected with the 'equality' and 'diversity' virus, so they make little headway. I particularly despise their open borders stance which makes no practical sense.
I would say the closest we had to libertarianism was here in the US during the 19th and early last century.
Ah I see we have another contender for worst take on libertarian theory.
It is not dependent on whether people are mostly good or mostly bad (but FYI they are mostly good and anybody who thinks differently is running face-first into the brick wall of reality). It IS dependent on the idea that people look out for themselves first.
I have no idea what are you are talking about in your second post, Aesop. Its word salad, and less of a take down of libertarian theory, and more the rantings of somebody who doesn't understand it.
Libertarian theory has no recourse? WUT. Again, there are police and courts for the recourse. Again, its like people think that libertarianism = anarchism. Just shows their ignorance when they talk.
> "libertarianism has no recourse"
Spoken like someone who knows nothing about libertarianism. Courts and police still exist, but they aren't allowed to collect revenue from you because your grass is too long. They can only act when rights have been violated, or property has been damaged.
> "The only way to "save" the system becomes to burn it to the ground, every single time, then beat the charred corpse until no discernible molecules remain."
That sounds like a great way to fix our current system. I seem to recall an old text "...that when any government becomes destructive to these ends" (What ends? Protecting individual rights.) "...it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it."
Then there's this gem:
> "The libertarians are technically right on most issues, but lose sight of the fact that race, IQ, and culture matter."
Huh? What? Are you trying to say that *race* and *intelligence tests* matter when it comes to "you are not a slave, do what you want with your own body"? Is this the new Republican line? What...are you "too black" to be free?
Aesop
Although it is difficult to tell what your specific disagreements are, I suspect that you are misinterpreting the nonaggression principle as pacifism. Nonaggression means that you don't initiate force. If someone else initiates force you can use force to counter their aggression, and a libertarian government would still have at least some prisons for thieves, murderers and such.
-25 points for trying Gainsaying.
Perhaps try a refresher viewing of Michael Palin and John Cleese in The Argument Clinic.
You know who you are.
But libertarian prisons?
Uh huh.
Built where?
Paid for how?
Paid to whom?
What if someone isn't feeling like paying today?
Who decides the rules?
What happens if 50%+1 libertarian voters belong to a drug cartel?
Or are communist socialists?
Your libertarian unicorn just crashed on takeoff into a smoking crater, about 27 ways, and we're only on the first five seconds'problems.
Lunatics build castles in the sky.
Libertarians want to move into them.
And the excuses sound remarkably identical to "real communism has never been tried".
You'll have to forgive my amusement at watching the political version of Groundhog Day.
But Bill Murray did it better, and Michael Palin parodied it better explaining government to King Arthur in Monty Python & The Holy Grail.
I've been reading libertarian literature and listening to libertarian podcasts for years. I've heard and read "lock up far fewer people" over and over, I've never heard "abolish all prisons and jails". I've heard "no victim, no crime", I've never heard "no such thing as a criminal".
We will have some sort of government whether we want it or not. We need enough government to enforce contracts, prevent warlords and such--and there's the difference between anarchist and libertarian. We probably need some taxation to pay for it. The amount of government and taxation that's ideal is a fraction of what we have now.
If 50% belong to a drug cartel....then drugs will remain illegal, otherwise cartels would lose all of their profits. That's a critique of democracy (including representative democracy), not libertarians. Libertarians would legalize all or almost all drugs, from heroin to Hydroxychloroquine.
What if libertarians were Communist socialists? That's like "What if Christian churches were atheist?" And once again you're arguing against democracy instead of against libertarians.
Real libertarianism has never been tried...but unlike socialism, steps in the direction of freedom have almost always made things better.
Well said Sevesteen.
Aesop:
> But libertarian prisons?
What about them? Seeing as you won't be jailed for having a license plate light out on your car, owning a plant, or having your grass too high and arguing about it with a government employee, there will be a serious drop in demand for jails.
> Built where?
Where are they built now and how was the actual construction a violation of the NAP? Well...most governments 'appropriate' the land and maybe even use eminent domain (taking land that isn't theirs) to build their stuff. They could just find cheap land and buy it.
> Paid for how?
Prisoners? People who really want to lock up murderers and rapists instead of just shooting them when they break into homes or try raping people?
> Paid to whom?
Do you think that libertarian beliefs literally equal "absolutely no government in any way, shape, or form"? If so, you're mistaken. That's usually most anarchist movements.
> What if someone isn't feeling like paying today?
Are they contractually required to pay? Did they make an agreement to pay? Does the agreement list penalties for not paying? Does the person violating that agreement have money or property that can legally be taken to satisfy the contract they entered into?
> Who decides the rules?
> What happens if 50%+1 libertarian voters belong to a drug cartel?
> Or are communist socialists?
I can see why you'd be confused about this. That's our current system to a T.
If 51% of your neighbors say "We're voting 'yes' on measure 9876 because the police department wants money to buy a tank"...well...guess who has to help them pay for their tank or else they'll be locked in a cage or shot? You. That's called 'Democracy' or 'mob rule'.
Libertarians believe you don't get to vote on the rights of others. You can't say "Well...51% of us voted that you owe us money, so pay up".
> Your libertarian unicorn just crashed on takeoff into a smoking crater, about 27 ways, and we're only on the first five seconds'problems.
That might have been true if your argument was actually against libertarianism instead of a bunch of strawmen you set up, toppled, and then declared victory over.
Yeah really seems Aesop is talking about anarchism, or some sort or made up libertarian theory that has nothing to do with actual libertarian theory.
Yes there will be prisons in a libertarian society.
Yes they will house murders, rapists, robbers, and other violent criminals
Yes they will be built on land the government purchases.
Yes they will be paid with tax dollars.
Yes there still is a government who will receive those tax dollars!
Yes they will be fine or jailed if they don't pay those taxes.
Yes there still is a system of voting, but protected by a Bill or Rights.
Yes they still can't vote for infringements of rights.
Yes you have no idea what libertarianism is all about.
This about sums up Aesop's arguments on libertarians:
That might have been true if your argument was actually against libertarianism instead of a bunch of strawmen you set up, toppled, and then declared victory over.
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