A child in Morocco, his life ended by gunshots.
A Japanese teenage girl, drowned by her own sorrowful thoughts.
Babel. Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's.
The American couple was saved by a U.S. helicopter from a remote Moroccan village.
Their Mexican nanny was soon deported from the U.S.
What is the value of a life?
Is it depend on we the living?
Or on them who govern nations and decide upon how much lives should be valued?
Bono in his introduction to Jeffrey Sachs' “The End of Poverty”:
A Japanese teenage girl, drowned by her own sorrowful thoughts.
Babel. Alejandro Gonzales Inarritu's.
The American couple was saved by a U.S. helicopter from a remote Moroccan village.
Their Mexican nanny was soon deported from the U.S.
What is the value of a life?
Is it depend on we the living?
Or on them who govern nations and decide upon how much lives should be valued?
Bono in his introduction to Jeffrey Sachs' “The End of Poverty”:
“… the idea of equality. What is happening in Africa mocks our pieties, doubts our concern, and questions our commitment to that whole concept. … Deep down, if we really accept that their lives – African lives – are equal to ours, we would all be doing more to put the fire out. It’s an uncomfortable truth.”
A shooting incident that linked them all.
Inarritu’s way of interpreting and representing the world that to Thomas Friedman is flat?
And Jeffrey Sachs’ own words:
“Am I an optimist? Optimism and pessimism are beside the point. The key is not to predict what will happen, but to help shape the future.”
18 comments:
My two cents:
1. Babel deserves Oscar
2. On value of a life, it's 6.1 million USD. No, not really the economist who calculated it, the lawyer did :-)
3. On Jeff Sachs, and Bono, end poverty, a modest proposal is more preferable. And in this case, I am for Easterly.
4. On flat world. OK, I admit that I haven't read the book. But for globalisation (free flow of goods/capital/labor/ideas) to go on , world can not be (and never be) flat. A flow happens only if we have at least two places with different altitude, so does trade.
I find it fascinating how economists can always put a number next to everything ;) What if you put into the equation one’s assets in life? Would rich people worth more than poor ones, as the lives of those whose nationalities are of richer and more powerful countries seem to worth more than those from poorer and less developed ones?
Now it’s me who must admit I have only started reading Sachs’ book. So can’t comment on which side I’m on yet. (I’m still trying to open Easterly’s article.)
About the flat world, after writing this post, I realize that what Inarritu represented is actually the opposite of a flat world. It was made flat by Arriaga & Inarritu’s idea to link them all, as well as the distribution of the movie throughout the world. I agree that most of the world is far from flat the way Friedman describes it. See my comment to Muli’s post On Network.
I am gonna do a post about this soon enough, but the basic problem is there is no freedom of movement.
Well intentioned people like my schoolmate Bono can weep and philosophise all they want, but actually I believe they are crocodile tears.
Would he want to open up his beautiful native Ireland to hundreds of thousands of Africans looking for a better life? Doubt it! -- And for good reason, we live in relative paradise.
I'll have to flesh this out in a post...
John, I agree with you that national borders are too restrictive but I think wanting to keep one’s identity and property is human nature and also part of basic human rights. There are different levels of compassion and I don’t think it’s fair or possible to demand everyone to perform up to your level of idealism. You will risk losing the very well intentioned group who wants to help but also wants to keep their own rights, and majority of us I presume would fall within this group.
Dewi, on globalisation and free labour movement, you may want to read my view here. Thomas Friedman, as far as I know, and correct me if I'm wrong, never touches this issue yet.
The reason on them restricting their labor market using immigration law is not much about identity's; it's the job market. Now could you suggest me which one is more "human right": one's freedom to find work, or one's right to defend their current work from, well, aliens?
Rizal, you’re right, Friedman didn’t touch upon the issue of free labor movement. What I mean by identity is national identity. Of course you can argue who has the right to claim that identity, be it the indigenous people of a land or the later immigrants who created what Ben Anderson termed as imagined community.
The issue of immigration in the US since its initiation by those who founded the nation has always been troublesome. The strictness of immigration law depends on whoever happens to govern, the strength of human rights movement, and politics among others.
At time like this you can say they are hypocrite, but if you were in their situation, what would you do? Suppose you own a land (again you can dispute the status of land ownership and law for that matter), which you use to earn a living. Part of your land is still empty and some people thinks that you should let them earn a living there because it’s human right. How would you react?
I agree that the immigration law is too restrictive, but I don’t know if it’s possible to create a world that allows free movement of people without any restrictions. Without similarly responsible and mature society at both sides of the border, a free flow of people could get easily abused. But I’m open for that possibility if I can be convinced otherwise. Perhaps both you and John can enlighten me.
I wrote about this last week - and didn't check back here until now...
"I think wanting to keep one’s identity and property is human nature and also part of basic human rights"
I don't disagree with you. I am aware of this human nature, but I suggest this (at a minimum):
Rather than watching Africans starve on TV, Africans should be allowed to starve on our doorsteps.
They would be still Africans, not Irish, they are still penniless (but legally they wouldn't be allowed to work here) and don't get a cent from us -- but at least they have the freedom to starve in a rich country (Ireland is 2nd richest in Europe now by some measures).
The West are utter hypocrites, I'd just like my fellow Westerners to be fully aware of it. To be honest I think the situation is kinda similar to the 17th / 18th century slave trade.
The economics of the situation are explained in the post linked above.
John: "Rather than watching Africans starve on TV, Africans should be allowed to starve on our doorsteps. They would be still Africans, not Irish, they are still penniless (but legally they wouldn't be allowed to work here) and don't get a cent from us -- but at least they have the freedom to starve in a rich country (Ireland is 2nd richest in Europe now by some measures)."
I know that what you want to stress is the freedom to choose where one wants to starve. However, I don't know what you would gain from having such a policy then. Wouldn't it be simply moving a problem from one country to a bigger problem in another country?
I say bigger problem because in most developing countries at least poor people have support systems (peer and extended family) that will enable them to survive. There are also many odd jobs one can do to feed themselves without being bogged down by legality. This is not possible in developed countries. What will happen then?
What I’m saying is having an open door policy has plenty of repercussions. And I think the latter understandably make many countries have to think more than twice and would rather keep their doors open to privileged ones because it keeps things simple on their end.
Note: this same comment is posted on John's blog here. Those interested to check his response should visit it.
Rizal: Babel lost :(
"I say bigger problem because in most developing countries at least poor people have support systems (peer and extended family) that will enable them to survive."
Well, I would allow the poor to decide whether their problems are bigger or not - they are poor not stupid.
Freer movement would also make rich countries take extreme poverty more seriously.
"What I’m saying is having an open door policy has plenty of repercussions."
I agree with you, but most necessary corrections in policy have seemingly harsh repercussions in the short term.
Take rice import tariffs in RI for example. Free trade in rice would have massive repercussions, but every economist they will all tell you that rice imports will go a long way to help the 20% of RI's population that are extremely poor and desperate.
John: “I would allow the poor to decide whether their problems are bigger or not - they are poor not stupid.”
Unfortunately most poor people won’t have access to good education and, often times, good information. They may not be stupid, but knowledge and information can make huge difference in this case (i.e. A doesn’t know anything about the US. A may thinks that it’s a country where dreams come true, and decide to spend all savings to get to the country. B knows about US immigration and work policy, and can find access to this kind of information. If A and B have the same amount of savings, I think B will think more than twice before deciding to jump ship).
Since you’re an economist, suppose you want to propose this open door policy to your government, what would be the incentives for them?
On Babel, I am not surprised :-). As predicted, they just don't get it -- that the world isn't flat, after all.
On A and more knowledgeable B, I think the available option for A is either to die at home or try their luck abroad, regardless how slim it is. As for B, most likely he/she's not poor -how can they get the access, anyway?
On open door policy,what is the incentive of developed country's administrator? Lower cost of production and more quantity of goods and services available.
Oh, that's an(idealized) economic argument, you may want to say. OK, enter politics, legalize them and you enlarge your political base and voters. But it should be big enough to counter your losers, no, incumbents-related political rivals.
But, who is the government anyway? :-)
Rizal: “On A and more knowledgeable B, I think the available option for A is either to die at home or try their luck abroad, regardless how slim it is. As for B, most likely he/she's not poor -how can they get the access, anyway?”
Which is what I’m trying to point to John: access to knowledge and information is for the privileged. People can be smart, but without access to knowledge and information, no one can make well-informed decisions.
In a smaller scale, the problems of people movements happen in cities. The problem of urbanization is partly due to the fact that people moving to cities driven by hope (and illusion) of the unknown but having no concrete plans. Even Jakarta at times was not open for people from other cities, because the city was not (and still is not) prepared to take in the migrants. And we’re talking about people from the same nationality here.
So economists, how would you convince the very people who fear their jobs would be taken away by new immigrants? ;) Any politicians will have to be able to answer this concern if they were to promote open door policy right?
"The problem of urbanization is partly due to the fact that people moving to cities driven by hope (and illusion) of the unknown but having no concrete plans."
I am skeptical of that view. Yes poor people make mistakes, but I suspect they rarely find themselves in a situation where they cannot undecide their move to a city.
I suspect (the cynic that I am) that the situation in the countryside is actually /worse/ than the city. It's just that wealthy intellectuals (that care a fig) only see how bad it is in the city, and therefore think that the poor are somehow [insert condescending term here]. Same applies to poor migration to rich countries.
Then again it is only a conjecture.
I'll reply more soonish ... ... ...
"So economists, how would you convince the very people who fear their jobs would be taken away by new immigrants? ;)"
Well I would do the same that was done for global warming and slavery.
Firstly you have to identify the kernel of the problem and then win the intellectual and moral argument - something that I fervently believe is winnable.
I don't think complete freedom of movement is practical right now, but living in ignorance won't help either...
On urbanization, this is my take.
The poor, as anyone else, decides to move based on mostly limited imperfect information. Again, if he thinks that net marginal benefit to migrate (adjusted with the risk and probability to find job)is larger than the net marginal benefit for staying longer in the countryside (family support system, you said); they will move.
They are not as ignorant as we think, I guess. They have information network with earlier fellow migrants. This is why we observe, in Jakarta, meatballs sellers mostly from Wonogiri, chicken satay from Madura, and Metromini drivers from North Sumatra.
But the bottom line is that the most informed person in this situation is him/herself.
John: “… I suspect they [the poor] rarely find themselves in a situation where they cannot undecide their move to a city.”
Dewi: Kompas does yearly coverage after the Ied. Some first migrants interviewed last year, by the time they reached Jakarta, only had little money left to survive for a couple of days, if they are lucky. How can these people move back to the countryside?
John: “I suspect (the cynic that I am) that the situation in the countryside is actually /worse/ than the city.”
Dewi: I agree. I don’t have issue with people moving to the cities and across countries, but if you want to win as you said “the intellectual and moral argument”, then you will have to have stronger argument (read below). Open door policy will most likely benefit the privileged rather than the poor, because travel costs a lot of money, especially to countries other than your own neighbors.
Rizal, thanks for the link to your post and to Catatan Pinggiran. I agree with you that the most informed person, at the end of the day, is the person him/herself. But objective information would help make someone make better informed decision. I commented on Muli’s post on urbanization here. Specific points I would like to stress is this:
“urbanization is inevitable, as are its problems. the question of how to best manage the problems is what most cities are trying to deal with. while i agree that everyone should have the freedom and right to live wherever they choose, i would not consider having “no choice but” as a choice. as such, in the case of jakarta, i am more of a proponent of the “no-alternative” argument.
the specific problem in jakarta i think has to do with lack of choices: if other cities in indonesia is as well developed as jakarta, there will be many magnets for all kinds of workers (knowledge-base and skill-base). they will make both cities and workers compete against one another and induce demand for improved conditions of the cities and skills of the workers. if migrant workers have wider skills, they will have more choices in terms of the types of work they could do, where they could work, etc., and private sectors would be more than willing to absorb them (imagine having a housekeeper who can cook, babysit, and drive!)”
Going back to my comment for John, if you want to win the arguement for open door policy, in my view you’d have to think about the repercussions and ways to overcome them beyond having the regulation. You'll win a lot more supporters including mine ;)
i'll have to take time to read your comment more closely.
i think we are in agreement on most points.
in fairness to me, my original aim was to explain /why/ extreme poverty exists in a world of plenty.
obviously solving it is the hard problem ;) but solutions might be more effective if people faced up to the underlying reason for poverty, rather than huffing and puffing on the periphery of the problem...
"by the time they reached Jakarta, only had little money left to survive for a couple of days, if they are lucky. How can these people move back to the countryside?"
true but, i suspect that they didn't use their life savings to get to Jakarta, and would have a good chance of earning enough to travel back if they wanted to. the point is, they are not stuck in jakarta for the medium or long term.
"Open door policy will most likely benefit the privileged rather than the poor, because travel costs a lot of money, especially to countries other than your own neighbors."
true, although there are many, many poor illegal immigrants from /every/ continent in North America and Europe. also as with maids flying to to middle east, /some/ employers would probably pay for their passage.
"you’d have to think about the repercussions and ways to overcome them beyond having the regulation"
i agree, but that just means that freedom of movement is similar to many other oppressions. historically lack of freedom and oppression also impeccably good economic rationale.
slaves were cheap labour that made a lot of money for their Western masters. European colonies built the lavish mansions, universities and cities of Europe.
i wrote a post on it here. would be interested in any comments.
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