The Capitalist Argument Against Closing the Borders

The Wall Street Journal is a pretty conservative publication, but when it comes to business and capitalism, they often part ways with the most ardent conservatives. Such is the case regarding closing the borders. In a featured editorial today they make the case that closing the border might also close the economy:

Certainly if we could somehow seal the border--and good luck with that--the market would adjust to the shrinking supply of labor; wages and prices would adapt. The country could survive without foreign labor in the same way we cope with shortages of steel, or sugar for that matter. But economics is about trade-offs. So the real question isn't whether living in a closed economy is possible. It's whether the U.S. is better off moving in that direction.

Our answer is that a closed economy ultimately would make America a less competitive and hence poorer country--because we'd have less human capital, and because we'd be using the human resources we did have less efficiently. Among higher-skilled and -educated workers, pulling away the U.S. welcome mat means all of that talent would go to work creating wealth and jobs in other countries.

At this point I doubt the Congress will ever come up with an effective plan to control the borders, so the whole argument may be moot. It's worth reading the article though to get the big business view of border control.

On the other side of the border-closing argument is Charles Krauthammer, who I think has it right:

Every sensible immigration policy has two objectives: (1) to regain control of our borders so that it is we who decide who enters, and (2) to find a way to normalize and legalize the situation of the 11 million illegals among us.

It's a good read, and I think Charles' approach is the correct way to go, which means it probably won't happen.