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Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

bloomberg.com

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Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#41

Post by bell-cot »

Wow. Is Bloomberg actually a credible business publication?

Barring a serious housing surplus, or similar major economic problems, there are ~no upsides for political leaders who actually work to attract more residents to an area. (Attracting more & higher bidders, for the limited housing stock, is a different story.)

Vs. "attracting new business"? That attracts plenty of favorable press, bragging rights, etc. And for local governments - which live on property taxes and have to fund the schools & local services - every dollar worth of business properties is a money farm, and every dollar worth of residential housing is a money pit.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#42

Post by kelseyfrog »

Eumenes wrote: post #24
fnordpiglet wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a migratory species it is literally inhuman to erect a border. Borders should be jurisdictional boundaries but should be permeable like the states in the US. The rest of the tribalism BS is just that.

TIL humans are birds

Behold! I've brought you a man

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#43

Post by vorpalhex »

candiddevmike wrote: post #36
gameman144 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rates are vastly different though,no? If I have a leaky faucet, it seems strange to say "This faucet is useless: the water is getting through anyway, and this way I'm having to pay for new gaskets!"

I don't think your example is valid because we're not talking about water, we're talking about humans who are choosing to leave their country for a better place. Pursuit of happiness and all that jazz. I guess my opinion is being born in a place like the US shouldn't be some kind of privilege, and instead we should strive for the US to be a bastion for human dignity.

So then work on making other countries as good as the US, not by cramming every person into the US.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#44

Post by pjc50 »

cyclecount wrote: post #6

This line of thinking comes up often on HN but it ignores the central reason for governments to enact borders, a rather modern invention. Governments (at the behest of businesses) enforce borders so that labor cannot effectively organise. A border exists often for workers only, but is mostly a legal fiction that corporations can easily navigate. The most common example for the Americans reading this is NAFTA, which m…

It's true that hard borders are a modernish (start of c20th) invention, but they're just as often something that labour asks for in order to prevent labour competition. "Taking our jobs" and all that.

They're also products of both the information-state (being able to know who's in the country through identity document systems) and the jet age. Before the steamship the only real border enforcement was on trade at ports.

The British Empire had "freedom of movement" that effectively lasted only as long as people weren't using it in significant numbers. People could move from the colonies to the centre, and indeed after WW2 the government actively solicited Jamaicans to do so (Empire Windrush), but resistance from the public has increased since then.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#45

Post by mtoner23 »

cyclecount wrote: post #6

This line of thinking comes up often on HN but it ignores the central reason for governments to enact borders, a rather modern invention. Governments (at the behest of businesses) enforce borders so that labor cannot effectively organise. A border exists often for workers only, but is mostly a legal fiction that corporations can easily navigate. The most common example for the Americans reading this is NAFTA, which m…

Idk, i think borders exist to exclude other groups of peoples. this is why european countries kept splitting up on various racial groups (check and slovaks, all of yugoslavia) Businesses on the other hand would prefer to have access to all peoples. and to have access to cheaper or better labor wherever it is, giving us the success of the european union.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#46

Post by vorpalhex »

FpUser wrote: post #38
vorpalhex wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago. You probably don't want criminals to freely move into your country. You probably want a country that gets funded by taxes (both short term and long term). No country in the world maintains open borders. Everytime there has been mass unorganized migration it has been a humanitarian disaster. Platitudes only work on paper.

>"Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago" Up until recently ( relatively ) a person could pretty much move to other country without much fuzz.

That is ahistorical. Rome, Greece and so on generally required you to file paperwork, pay money and usually join the military if you wanted to be able to move in their borders and have rights.

Even moving to a new tribe in Native peoples in North America required proving a blood relation, having someone vouch for you, or being skilled enough they would accept you in.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#47

Post by comte7092 »

bell-cot wrote: post #41

Wow. Is Bloomberg actually a credible business publication? Barring a serious housing surplus, or similar major economic problems, there are ~no upsides for political leaders who actually work to attract more residents to an area. (Attracting more & higher bidders, for the limited housing stock, is a different story.) Vs. "attracting new business"? That attracts plenty of favorable press, bragging rights, etc. And fo…

Even in the era of remote work, businesses are attracted to places with strong (as in a well developed & highly skilled workforce) labor markets.

Workers who have high career capital are mobile and can generally choose where they want to live.

Nothing about this is unserious just because it doesn’t fit your worldview.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#48

Post by pyuser583 »

nradov wrote: post #40
remarkEon wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Governments (at the behest of businesses) enforce borders so that labor cannot effectively organise. I have never heard this explanation. Where is it coming from? It sounds not only wrong but inverted to me. Governments enforce borders to effectively secure their territory and people, and thus its own power. Is the idea that, without the “legal fiction” of borders, we’d have some kind of global autoworkers Union or…

Indeed there is nothing stopping workers from organizing across borders, even if individual workers are only legally authorized to work in one country. Many labor unions have local chapters in multiple countries and can coordinate labor actions. For example, see the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers which operates in the USA and Canada.

It’s tricky. American unions avoid coordinating with their American counterparts because of corruption.

Unions have a very specific set of rules to play by, and these rules are different for each country.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#49

Post by wishysgb »

vorpalhex wrote: post #12
cyclecount wrote: post #6

This line of thinking comes up often on HN but it ignores the central reason for governments to enact borders, a rather modern invention. Governments (at the behest of businesses) enforce borders so that labor cannot effectively organise. A border exists often for workers only, but is mostly a legal fiction that corporations can easily navigate. The most common example for the Americans reading this is NAFTA, which m…

It is literally easier to move a person than an entire company across national borders. The process for both is at it's core the same - identify, verify and pay your taxes. Yes people can and do move from Mexico to the Midwest all the time. Why do you think Mexican laborers should get paid less for building your car then someone in Detroit? Part of the goal of NAFTA is to help stabilize the economy of Mexico and help…

Legally it is very hard for a Mexican to move to the Midwest. As in almost impossible requiring almost 20years.

I am not Mexican but it toke my family 14 years to be able to move to the US from Palestine, although my grandparents and uncles have been here since the 80s. It really isn't hard.

A company doesn't need to move everything, they can just literally build a new factory or rent one else where, not only that they would even get tax breaks as incentives for moving.

Borders enforce the huge discrimination in pay between TJ and San Diego. Even though the same companies work on both sides of the border.

Re: Governments should compete for residents, not businesses

#50

Post by nhchris »

FpUser wrote: post #38
vorpalhex wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago. You probably don't want criminals to freely move into your country. You probably want a country that gets funded by taxes (both short term and long term). No country in the world maintains open borders. Everytime there has been mass unorganized migration it has been a humanitarian disaster. Platitudes only work on paper.

>"Humans stopped being migratory about 12,000 years ago" Up until recently ( relatively ) a person could pretty much move to other country without much fuzz.

Because this was so rare that the destination countries didn't see it as a problem. And when it did happen en masse, it was usually war.
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