Let Anyone Take A Job Anywhere

Estimated read time: 1:20

Summary

The debate explored the provocative idea of letting anyone take a job anywhere in the world, focusing on the implications for global labor markets and economies. Proponents argued that such a system would double global productivity and reduce poverty by allowing workers in low-wage countries to move to higher-wage areas. Opponents, however, highlighted the potential for economic destabilization in richer countries and the negative impact on local wages. The debate also touched on issues of sovereignty, integration, and existing immigration policies, ultimately reflecting deep divisions on the balance between economic opportunity and societal stability.

Highlights

Proponents argue that open labor markets could dramatically increase global productivity 🌐.
Skeptics warn of potential wage suppression for low-skilled workers in wealthier countries ⚠️.
The debate questions the morality of restricting labor movement when it could reduce global poverty 🤔.
There is a tension between maximizing economic productivity and maintaining national sovereignty and stability 🌏.
Both sides acknowledge flaws in current immigration systems, though they differ on solutions and priorities 🔄.

Key Takeaways

Open borders could potentially double global productivity and alleviate poverty 🌍.
There are concerns over potential wage depression and economic instability in richer countries 💼.
The debate raises questions about sovereignty and the right of states to control immigration policies 🏛️.
Current U.S. immigration heavily favors family reunification, leaving skilled labor needs under-met 👨‍👩‍👦.
Technological advancements blur the lines of traditional labor markets, making location less critical for skilled jobs 💻.

Overview

The debate on whether to let anyone take a job anywhere was both engaging and contentious. Advocates for the motion, Brian Kaplan and Vivek Wadhwa, focused on the potential economic benefits, arguing that lifting restrictions on labor movement could lead to a doubling of global production. Their stance was rooted in the principle of economic freedom and humanitarian concerns, as it would allow individuals from poorer countries to vastly improve their living standards.

Opponents, represented by Ron Unz and Kathleen Newland, countered with concerns about the socio-economic impact on richer countries, particularly the United States. They argued that an influx of foreign workers could suppress wages and destabilize economies. Moreover, they emphasized the importance of a nation's right to regulate immigration based on its own economic and social needs.

The interaction between the two sides unveiled critical issues around global labor dynamics, fairness, and economic policies. The debate also highlighted technological changes that are already dissolving geographic boundaries for skilled work, implying that the future of labor might be less about location and more about connectivity and skill.

Chapters

00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and Context Setting The chapter "Introduction and Context Setting" begins with the host bringing the chairman of Intelligence Squared US to the stage to set the context for an upcoming debate. The host, John, introduces Robert Rosen, who played a key role in bringing Intelligence Squared US to New York City. The chapter focuses on framing the debate, explaining why the topic was chosen, and outlining the goals for the discussion. This context-setting is part of the usual procedure before debates to ensure that the audience understands the significance and expectations of the event.
03:00 - 11:00: Debate Proposition and Team Presentations In this chapter, the discussion revolves around different types of motions and propositions used in debates. The motions can range from current policy issues like 'repeal Obamacare' or 'abolish the minimum wage' to existential topics such as 'science refutes God.' The chapter highlights the distinctive nature of 'what if' hypothetical debates, which differ in their argumentative approach. Additionally, it emphasizes that the focus of the night's debate is not on immigration policy but is rather an exploratory and experimental discussion.
11:00 - 27:59: Opening Statements The chapter titled 'Opening Statements' introduces the concept of exploring radical and challenging ideas within the scope of free market policies. It recalls a past debate concerning the legalization of a market in human organs, mentioning its success in exploring complex ethical issues, despite the improbability of such a market occurring soon. The session is set to continue this tradition by examining the radical notion of allowing people to take jobs anywhere, opening a platform for a debate on the implications and feasibility of this idea.
27:59 - 39:40: Economic Implications: Supply and Demand The chapter titled 'Economic Implications: Supply and Demand' discusses the impact of employing migrant labor, particularly drawing examples from the European Union. It highlights the advantages for employers who hire migrant workers, as well as for consumers who benefit from the services provided by these workers. However, the chapter also addresses the challenges faced by domestic workers who have to compete with migrant labor, referencing the 'Polish plumber' issue in Britain where local workers perceive an economic threat from migrants.
39:40 - 44:40: Skilled vs Unskilled Labor Discussion The chapter discusses the debate around skilled versus unskilled labor and the implications of allowing people to work anywhere in the world. The language of the debate motion is noted to be extreme and lacking nuance, which may not facilitate a productive debate. However, a more inclusive motion such as 'let more people take more jobs in more places' might lead to more consensus, although it is suggested that everyone might oppose a completely open stance.
44:40 - 50:00: Minimum Wage Debate The chapter titled 'Minimum Wage Debate' explores the complexities of labor market economics. The discussion proposes ideas such as enhancing the free market by establishing treaties to allow free movement of labor between regions like the United States, EU, and Canada. This concept is introduced as a potentially transformative approach to labor markets, indicating a shift in traditional perspectives on minimum wage and labor economics. The chapter sets the stage for a deeper exploration into these ideas through an upcoming debate.
50:00 - 58:39: European Union as a Model The chapter begins with the speaker taking the stage, acknowledging and thanking someone named John amidst applause and music. The speaker mentions the stage lights being too dim, indicating a moment of waiting for them to brighten.
58:39 - 82:00: Audience Questions The chapter titled 'Audience Questions' begins with an acknowledgment of Bob Rosen by the speaker, expressing gratitude for facilitating debates. The speaker emphasizes the unity implied in the term 'United States,' highlighting the inherent assumption that all citizens are part of the same polity, with the right to move freely within the country's borders.
82:00 - 100:00: Closing Statements The chapter discusses the concept of employment mobility and the open market practice in Europe. It illustrates how European Union countries facilitate cross-border employment, allowing companies across different nations to employ talent from any member country. The comparison is drawn with the United States, provoking thoughts on the potential benefits America might gain if it adopted a similar open market strategy for employment.
100:00 - 105:00: Voting Results and Conclusion In this chapter titled 'Voting Results and Conclusion,' the transcript discusses the hypothetical scenario where the US and other open labor markets such as Europe, Canada, India, and China engage in partnership deals. The discussion centers around the potential outcomes of reduced barriers to labor movement and who would benefit or lose from such agreements. The chapter is part of a debate organized by Intellig Squared US, and raises a provocative question: 'let anyone take a job anywhere.'

Let Anyone Take A Job Anywhere Transcription

00:00 - 00:30 and I now want to bring to the stage of the chairman of intelligence squar us what we normally do before the debates and we're going to do it now is spend a couple of minutes um framing this debate and why we picked it and what we're hoping for to come from the debate so I'd like to bring to the stage now the gentleman who brought Intelligence Squared us to New York City let's please welcome Robert Rosen CR hi Bob hi John hi Bob so so we do we do various
00:30 - 01:00 kinds of motions sometimes it's a right out of the headlines it's a policy Choice we've done repeal Obamacare or abolish the minimum wage and then we do others that are a judgment on the state of things like science refutes God tonight we're doing one of our what if kind of hypothetical debates it's a different shape of an argument tell us about what we're doing tonight well of course as as I'm sure you've said this is not a debate about immigration it really is an experiment and a debate
01:00 - 01:30 about pushing free market ideas to the Limit and we actually did an experiment like that a couple of years ago with a debate on the resolution legalize a market in human organs and it proved to be one of the most successful debates we'd ever done even though it's not going to happen probably In Our Lifetime the point was to explore the pros and cons and the ethical issues involved exactly so tonight's debate how how radical a notion really is it to let anyone take a job anywhere well it is
01:30 - 02:00 not that radical a notion it's a notion that's been applied for decades in the European Union and the result has been very good for people who uh employ migrant Labor uh it's been very good for the people who use their services and the customers it has not been so good for people who have to compete and uh in Britain they could call this the Polish plumber problem and when you look at this motion language let anyone take a
02:00 - 02:30 job anywhere how literally do you think that we should expect The Debaters to be arguing anyone anywhere well the the the motion language is pretty extreme I must admit and not terribly uh nuanced but a motion that said let more people take more jobs in more places would hardly have been a a good debate uh but I would I I would expect everybody would be against that right I I would expect
02:30 - 03:00 though that that there we're going to hear tonight ideas about how to take the free market further in uh in the context of Labor markets so for example it would hardly be that radical to have a treaty between the United States and the EU and Canada uh providing for free market of Labor in those areas uh but I think we're going to learn a lot tonight about the various aspects of a complicated topic all right thanks Bob very much and I would like to now invite our Debaters
03:00 - 03:30 to the stage thanks thank you John [Applause] [Music] thanks the lights were a little soft on me up here and I was just waiting for them to come up
03:30 - 04:00 it's not an ego thing it's a it's a camera thing uh before we start though again I just want to thank Bob Rosen CR for for bringing these debates here and just want to ask him for one more round of applause for [Applause] that one of the often overlooked assumptions about life in these United States is that built into that word United that we're all part of the same polic and that and we have the right within our borders to go anywhere we
04:00 - 04:30 want in pursuit of a job you're from North Dakota there is nothing in the law to stop you from going to get a job in North Carolina and Europe has taken that idea a lot further with one shared open market for two dozen plus countries so that a chipmaker in Dublin or an insurance company in Sofia uh can hire the best people affordable from Finland to France or from Estonia to Austria so what is the lesson or more to the point for us what if the us set out to make
04:30 - 05:00 deals partnership deals with other Open Labor markets say the US does a deal with Europe the US and Canada or the US and India or the US and China when the barriers to labor fall who would gain and who would lose now this is a big what if but it sounds like there's a lot to debate in there so let's have it yes or no to this statement let anyone take a job anywhere a debate from intellig squared us I'm John Donan we are at the
05:00 - 05:30 cman Music Center in New York City we have four superbly qualified Debaters two against two who will take opposite sides on this motion let anyone take a job anywhere our debate as always goes in three rounds and then the audience votes to choose a winner and only one side wins our motion again is let anyone take a job anywhere and now let's meet the team first that is arguing for the motion ladies and Gentlemen please
05:30 - 06:00 welcome Brian [Applause] [Music] Kaplan and uh Brian you are a professor of Economics at George Mason University uh you are a well-known proponent of open borders you wrote a book called The Myth of the rational voter in which you puzzled over the question of why democracies so often make bad policy choices you list price controls and protectionism and other populist policies that you say most economists
06:00 - 06:30 would never vote for so um we're just wondering tonight we have 400 people in the audience if these were all economists in front of you would your side have the advantage tonight U probably a slight Advantage uh economists are definitely much more pro-immigration than most Americans but the economists also don't like to be extreme I'm an exception all right thank thank you Brian Kaplan ladies and [Applause] gentlemen and Brian your partner is Vivic wadwa God of Twitter ladies and
06:30 - 07:00 Gentlemen let's welcome Vivic [Applause] wadwa Vivic you are also arguing for this motion let anyone take a job anywhere you are President uh uh I'm sorry you are vice president of research and Innovation at Singularity University you're a fellow at Stanford law school um before joining Academia you actually started two software companies uh you you were born in India uh you went to NYU business school became a naturalized citizen in 1989 just curious if this
07:00 - 07:30 were all happening in your life now business school 2013 2014 would you go to India now or would you still want to stay here John I wouldn't have had a choice I couldn't get a Visa we've closed the doors we've locked the borders we Turning Away brilliant people because of our flawed immigration policies so I would have have to had to leave well we are here now ladies and gentlemen much [Music] welcome our motion is let anyone take a
07:30 - 08:00 job anywhere and now let's meet the team that is arguing against this motion first ladies and Gentlemen let's welcome Kathleen [Applause] nuland Kathleen you are co-founder of the migration policy Institute you study migration development Refuge protection uh you have advised the UN High Commissioner on refugees and the international labor organization and part of what inspired you to go into this field uh is something that that you did at a very young age you were 16 years old and you were an exchange
08:00 - 08:30 student where I went to Kolkata at the age of 16 very brave parents it is an experience that utterly changed my life and that's how you ended up in a way here ladies and Gentlemen let's welcome [Applause] cathine and Kathleen your partner is Ron UNS ladies and gentlemen Ron UNS Ron you have one of those uh very very disperate resumes that Intelligence
08:30 - 09:00 Squared loves you're a physicist by training but then you were a Founder uh and chairman of Wall Street analytics which is a financial services software company then you ran for governor of California then you were publisher of the American conservative you've been described quote unquote as a nerdy guy who lives and breathes policy and politics and I I hope you know that in the Intelligence Squared universe that makes you a sex symbol
09:00 - 09:30 well I guess we'll find out when the vote takes place ladies and gentlemen our [Music] Debaters now I want to remind you that this is a debate it's a contest there will be a winner and a loser and you our live audience at the calman Music Center here in New York City will choose the winners by voting twice once before the debate and once again after the debate and the team whose numbers have moved the most in terms of your support for their side of the motion in percentage Point terms will be
09:30 - 10:00 declared our winner so let's go to our preliminary vote you go to those keypads at your seat and look at numbers one two and three you can ignore the other ones but if you look at our motion let anyone take a job anywhere and if you agree with that at this point you want to push number one if you disagree with that you want to push number two and if you're undecided you want to push number three and if you push the wrong button you can just correct yourself the system will
10:00 - 10:30 lock in your last vote then again at the end of the debate we'll repeat that exercise again the team whose numbers have changed the most in percentage Point terms from their opening positions will be declared our winner and at the end of the debate it takes us about 90 seconds to get that calculation taken care of um Dana I just want to ask if I could get a pen at some point but we don't you need that for oh great thank you
10:30 - 11:00 perfect thank you oh this has all these secret messages and notes written on your notes that's the wrong pen all right onto round one opening statements from each of our Debaters they will be seven minutes each uninterrupted our motion is this let anyone take a job anywhere and speaking first for the motion Brian Kaplan a professor of Economics at George Mason University and Senior scholar at the marcata center ladies and gentlemen Brian Kaplan [Music]
11:00 - 11:30 let anyone take a job anywhere given current policy it does sound radical uh but notice the resolution does not say let anyone become a citizen anywhere the resolution does not say let anyone collect government benefits anywhere the resolution does not say let anyone vote anywhere the resolution only says that no matter where you're born it should be legal for you to accept a job offer from a willing employer the resolution parallels let any woman take a job anywhere or let any Jew take a job
11:30 - 12:00 anywhere or let any black take a job anywhere the resolution is not a request for charity and it is not a demand for government help it simply ask the world's governments to stop requiring discrimination against foreign workers most most per imigration arguments focus on high-s scaled high-tech workers I outsourced this topic to my partner Viv wadwa I'm going to focus on the vast majority of would be immigrants who aren't highs skilled or high-tech Haitian Sho shines Nigerian waiters
12:00 - 12:30 Mexican gardeners Bangladeshi Farmers now why on Earth shouldn't we require discrimination against such people who would want them the same reason that we shouldn't require discrimination against women against Jews or against blacks they're fellow human beings and they count now suppose the world's governments made it illegal for Ron to work anywhere but Haiti would that be morally acceptable to trap Ron in Haiti for the rest of his life life mandatory discrimination
12:30 - 13:00 against foreigners is especially awful because most of the world's workers earn vastly more in the first world than they ever could at home moving from Haiti to Miami increases your wages by about 20 times that is not plus that is not plus 20% that is not plus 200% that is plus 2,000% now you could object that we're not obliged to help total strangers you know so but important point to remember allowing someone to
13:00 - 13:30 take a job is not charity let me repeat that allowing someone to take a job is not charity what is it it's called minimal decency so suppose that Kathleen would get a job if I refrain from slashing her car tires on her first day of work that does not make me a philanthropist I am not starting the save Kathleen Newan fun when I don't vandalize her car I'm merely leaving Kathleen alone now sometimes trag ically just leaving someone alone has enormous costs
13:30 - 14:00 for example if someone has Bubonic plague a quarantine really is the Lesser evil if you leave the person with Bubonic plague free to roam he could kill millions of people would open borders wreck comparable harm on our economy no every scholarly estimate of the economic effects of open borders finds enormous overall benefits Economist Michael Clemens the world's expert on this topic finds that a free Global labor market would roughly double
14:00 - 14:30 Global Production now at this point you may say double how is it possible to double Global Production well consider this thought experiment imagine there were a billion Farmers stuck in Antarctica farming the snow right I don't know a lot about farming but it sounds tough all right now suppose we were to let these billion Farmers move from Antarctica to anywhere else anywhere with decent soil decent weather decent conditions well obviously the billion antarcticans would be way better
14:30 - 15:00 off when they get to leave Antarctica but they are hardly the only beneficiaries the other beneficiaries of allowing them to leave Antarctica are everyone on Earth who eats food everyone everyone on Earth who eats food benefits from that greater availability of food now economically speaking hiti and Bangladesh really are like Antarctica they're countries where workers realize only a small sliver of their full potential ask yourself this what is the best job that you could get in Bangladesh not very good now wouldn't open borders hurt some hurt American
15:00 - 15:30 workers uh some uh take me I'm a native born college professor thanks to a massive immigration loophole virtually any PhD in the world can legally compete with me in the US Labor Market as a result about half of all us us research professors are foreign born this is slashed my wages and my career prospects right now there is probably an immigrant sitting at Harvard in the office that is supposed to be mine now is my sad said story a good argument for immigration restrictions
15:30 - 16:00 sure it's a great argument wait no it's a terrible argument proor IM professorial immigration is bad for me but it's good for consumers of Education if you're glad that you didn't pay even more for your college education thank an immigrant the same goes for every occupation immigration of of waiters is bad for native born waiters but it's good for diners immigration of gardeners is bad for native born gardeners but it's good for homeowners so how Earth could we ever judge the overall effect
16:00 - 16:30 there is a very simple answer keep both eyes firmly on production keep both eyes firmly on production when Global Production doubles your standard of living is very likely to rise this is not trickle down economics it is Niagara Falls economics now what about the endless non-economic complaints about immigration I'm sure we'll get into an enormous number as we go on so I will just give you a general rule for how I respond to all of them here's the rule for any complaint you have there is a
16:30 - 17:00 cheaper and more Humane remedy than mandatory discrimination against foreigners immigrants abuse the welfare state let them work but not collect benefits immigrants damage the environment let them work but tax their pollution immigrants vote the wrong way let them work but not vote immigrants hurt low-skilled Americans let them work but charge immigrants an admission fee or a c tax use those funds to comp compensate native workers who lose out
17:00 - 17:30 if you think these remedies are unfair they are certainly less unfair than turning honest workers into criminals just because they were born in the wrong country to conclude let let anyone take a job anywhere it is the right way to treat your fellow human beings it will transform the world for the better and it will cost us less than nothing
17:30 - 18:00 thank you thank you Brian Kaplan and our motion is let anyone take a job anywhere and here to speak against the motion I'd like to introduce Ron s he founded the financial services company Wall Street analytics and is the former publisher of the American conservative ladies and gentlemen Ron [Music] UNS I'll admit when I was first approached with this topic the resolution being let anyone take a job
18:00 - 18:30 anywhere I thought the idea was so crazy it would be very hard to get anybody lined up on the other side but obviously we found a couple of intelligent people to do that let's think a little bit about what this means now you know I'm laboring under a disadvantage in this debate because not only am I not a trained Economist I've never even taken a class in economics I've never even opened econ an economics textbook I personally don't claim to really understand of most economics I'm
18:30 - 19:00 not convinced everybody else understands economics that well either but one part of Economics that is very well established a very simple issue is the law of supply and demand think of what production means the two main factors in production are labor and capital together those factors produce everything we have in our society allowing an unlimit mited number of additional workers from everywhere in
19:00 - 19:30 the world to come here and take jobs would massively massively increase the supply of labor the result would be tremendously disadvantaging labor at the expense of capital in effect ordinary workers ordinary citizens people basically who work for a living would be tremendously economically disadvantaged by the fact that they would be competing against a billion to 2 billion 3 billion
19:30 - 20:00 an unlimited supply of additional foreign workers who would take the job for whatever wage they could it's true certainly there would be a huge increase in economic production productivity G&P but almost all of it and possibly even more than all of it would be captured by Capital captured by the wealthy people who own that side of the equation in other words what we're talking about is something that would be very beneficial for the top 1% 1% 2% 5%
20:00 - 20:30 the wealthiest segment of American society they would benefit no doubt about it everybody else would suffer I think that's very clear because when you're talking about basically a 100 million or 150 million American workers suddenly competing in an open labor market with a billion or two billion or three billion impoverished people from everywhere else in the world they certainly would suffer now let's think of what really has happened in American society over the last 20 30 40 years
20:30 - 21:00 Daniel Pat the late Daniel Patrick moan over 20 years ago pointed out that for two decades there had been no increase in average wage income in the United States the standard of living of ordinary American workers had been stagnant for two decades he said that 20 years ago it's now been 40 years the income of or the average American has been stagnant or declining for 40 years
21:00 - 21:30 now which is a shocking statistic that most people are not aware of clearly there have been advances in technology so that in many ways people have a much better life than they did before with iPhones with Google with things like that but in terms of real income people are basically the same or poorer than they were decades ago and as moan pointed out in the '90s that's the first the longest period of economic stagnation that has happened in North America since European settlement began
21:30 - 22:00 hundreds of years ago now is it entirely coincidence that 40 Years of economic stagnation for ordinary American workers is the same 40 years that have seen one of the highest rates of foreign immigration to the United States in our history I I think it's more than a coincidence the point is if you have a huge influx of willing workers from abroad able to take any job they could because they from poor countries you're trying to drive down the wages of
22:00 - 22:30 ordinary American workers who are competing with them allowing anyone to take a job anywhere in effect would convert America's minimum wage into into its maximum wage and if you see the complaints right now over the 1% over the wealthy Elite who have tremendously benefited in the last few decades while Ordinary People Ordinary People in New York City or other places around the country have suffered that would be tremendously exacer at if you brought in
22:30 - 23:00 tens or even hundreds of millions of impoverished workers from other countries to take their places now the point is when you're talking about the results of economic stagnation in the United States that has now gone on for 40 years for ordinary workers the end result at some point may be severe political backlash and that's sort of things inevitable the reason America in its history largely avoided the disastrous political results of many European countries is that every decade
23:00 - 23:30 Americans were wealthier and better off than they were before that's no longer true today and it's no longer been true for 40 years now allowing an unlimited number of impoverished foreign workers to come to the United States would obviously make that situation incredibly much worse and the result would be an economic disaster it's true that possibly 1% or 2% or even 5% of Americans would benefit tremendously from that change but probably 90% of the
23:30 - 24:00 American population would suffer economically and they are the people who vote they are the people who can protest and they their views would certainly be made known and the result would be tremendous political backlash we have to ask ourselves whether one reason for many of the problems we've had in the last few decades economically is because the glorification the amplification of theoretical Concepts that that may look very good to Pure economic theorists
24:00 - 24:30 people basically spend their time in the ivy Tower but don't understand that ordinary workers suffer when their incomes don't rise for 40 years and I think unfortunately that's probably true today one other aspect of the American political Dynamic has been that there's an increasing centralization of politics in the hands of wealth in other words the people who fund the campaigns the organizations that fund the P campaigns and when you have the wealthy people
24:30 - 25:00 benefiting tremendously from a proposal like this and everybody else suffering but when the wealthy people for example fund the politicians they fund the think tanks they fund the universities they fund the journals it's not too surprising that some of these ideas become very common in such circles even if the end result would be disastrous for the United States the bottom line is that letting anyone take a job anywhere might sound good in theory but it would
25:00 - 25:30 destroy the United States and destroy the lives of ordinary workers thank you very much thank you Ron UNS and a reminder of what's going on we are halfway through this opening round of this Intelligence Squared us debate I'm John Don vanan we have four Debaters two teams of two on opposite sides of this motion let anyone take a job anywhere you have heard the first two debaters and now on to the third let's welcome to the Lector Vivic wadwa he is the vice president of research and Innovation at Singularity University and
25:30 - 26:00 a fellow at Stanford law school he is arguing for the motion let anyone take a job anywhere ladies and gentlemen Vivic wadwa you know I've read Ron's writings I've watched his videos and that's not the Ron that I've read he the Ron that I've read about is not one of these tea party anti-immigrant uh people who goes around creating fear about the billions who are going to invade America and take away jobs and so on those are the
26:00 - 26:30 debates that are happening in Washington DC by a small segment of Congress which has been elected through a jurry manded electorate that is not the real world that is not how Americans think the fear we've had about Mexicans coming in and taking our jobs away they're and then Indians coming in taking our jobs away they've not been founded now Brian explained what's happening in the unskilled sector I've been researching systematically what's happening in the skilled sector because you have the same fear-mongering happening in skilled immigration that my God these Indians
26:30 - 27:00 are going to come and take our jobs away if we expand the number of H1B visas American workers will be unemployed the exact opposite is happening America is the most competitive land in the world we have reinvented ourselves over and over again diversity rules over here look at New York City it is diverse as could possibly be the economy is thriving people are doing much better look at the benefits we've seen from technology all of the advances that Ron talked about our iPhones our Googles the factors of world is connected right now we have more knowledge than we've ever
27:00 - 27:30 had knowledge has become free it used to be that if you needed uh to get information about your health you had to go to your doctor and that's it now you just Google and uh download apps and you have medical information readly at your fingertips that happened because of technology and do you know who's been building these Technologies immigrants 52% of the startups in Silicon Valley during the most Innovative period in in recent economic history were found Ed by immigrants people like me people like
27:30 - 28:00 the this audience people who came here because they saw opportunity they were highly educated and they decided to to bring their knowledge and their intelligence with them over here and make America a competitive place this is what's made this land what it is in every generation there were people like I mean this is not wrong I mean I said I've heard his his U his lectures I've seen his writings this is not I don't believe what he just said over here but in every generation in every generation there have been people who said that if we let these irishan if we let these po and if we let these Jews in if we let these people in our jobs will go away
28:00 - 28:30 and guess what happened these immigrants made Americans work harder think smarter compete and this became the only Innovative economy in the world we are we lead the world because of innovation because we open our borders and because we allow people to come in here now that's one perspective the other perspective is that I hate to tell you this but the cat is already out of the bag how many of you check email when you go home all of you do right now when you go on vacation do check email all of you
28:30 - 29:00 do well most of you do when you're let's say that you decided to work for 6 months in South America and your job was highly a knowledge job as as as are many jobs increasingly right now you'd be working from anywhere therefore anyone else could work from anywhere as well you know this is getting a little bit off topic but the point I wanted to make was that already we are in a borderless economy when it comes to knowledge we're in a knowledge economy knowledge jobs can be done anywhere Boeing has Engineers working in four or five
29:00 - 29:30 different countries at the same time designing aircraft systems as do most companies if you any of you work for large corporations I'm sure you've had meetings with people in all corners of the world you're working together because of what technology has made possible we're already in a borderless economy I I live it I have a job at Duke University yet I live in Silicon Valley my Dean over there um allows me to work from anywhere I want to work I also work for Stanford I also work for singular University I also have a role at at em
29:30 - 30:00 University I'm able to be at many different places because I can go over the internet and now teach lectures I can do research I can do the things I needed to do one of the things I've been researching is a is the role of women in Innovation or the lack of women in Innovation the fact that they left out of the Innovation economy there's something I feel very passionate about I did a research project I had a team lead in Washington DC I had uh other researchers in New York City we needed a website we got it built in at Stanford and we needed a video we got it built
30:00 - 30:30 done in Estonia I wanted to crowd create a book I put the word out that I'm looking for people to help me with social media I had 300 women all over the world sign up to be my ambassadors I wanted to now crowd edit the book I had 500 women all over the world telling their stories I could do within 6 weeks the research that would have taken me years and years to do by using the power of the web by using the power of of technology and by letting people work from anywhere this is a new new worldwind I Crow created a book on Innovation this one would have been UNC
30:30 - 31:00 unconceivable even 5 years ago so you talk about the damage that open borders are doing I'm sorry it's it's happening right now the topic we're talking about is let the jobs be anywhere no one said let the migration be anywhere no one said that billion Mexicans have to come to the USA and take our jobs away because increas because we have the unskilled jobs which Brian will talk more about and we've got the skilled jobs the skilled jobs is what most of us in this room do they can be done anywhere because we're knowledge workers and we're in a knowledge economy we're
31:00 - 31:30 now connected to the internet anything can be done anywh and it's happening over the last 5 years we have not seen a decrease in productivity we seen an increase in productivity I'm more capable right now I'm more connected right now I go on Twitter and I tweet I need some information and I have hundreds of people all over the world now doing my research for me and providing me back what I need That's The Power of connectivity the web that's a world we're in right now we have a free flow of information we have open borders right now on the internet that didn't cause our you know our productivity to
31:30 - 32:00 decrease or our jobs to go away or the catastrophy that you know my my opponents are saying it caused me to be more productive it causes you to be more productive it causes you to be smarter your children right now have access to the world's knowledge they just get on their on their iPads or their iPhones and they connected to everyone else via social media via Twitter they're able to go to websites they're able to gain knowledge from everywhere they're able to hire tutors in New Delhi all or get video production done in Estonia like I
32:00 - 32:30 did this is the new world we live in it's all open and it's not falling apart where moving up up the ramp this is the most productive most Innovative period in human history when the world will come together and start solving problems there's not going to be a mass migration to America because just as we've seen from Mexico the numbers have actually dropped as the economy of Mexico Rises there's less incentive for them to come over here if they can do knowledge work for for us where they are and contribute to our intellect and our knowledge they will do that they don't want to be here
32:30 - 33:00 they love being where they are no one is fleeing to America because because you know they want to they do it because they have to so let's uplift the whole world let's make the world a smaller place and everyone wins it's a better world it's a better economy and we solve major problems thank you Viv [Applause] guad our motion is let anyone take a job anywhere and here to offer her opening statement against this motion Kathleen nuland she is co-founder and Trustee of
33:00 - 33:30 the migration policy Institute where she directs policy programs on migrants migration and development and Refugee protection ladies and gentlemen welcome please Kathleen [Music] nuland thank you John and thanks thanks to all of you it's wonderful to be here in this extremely stimulating company I'd like to remind Vivic among and the rest of the panel that our proposition tonight is let is not let
33:30 - 34:00 anyone take an anywhere job it's let anyone take a job anywhere and I want to ask you to consider what the world would really be like if anyone could take a job anywhere as a theoretical proposition it's very attractive economic models where other things are always equal show that world GDP would go up but I'd like us to think about those other things which in the
34:00 - 34:30 real world are never equal as John Donan and Mr Rosen CR said this is not a debate about immigration I think immigration is a very good thing for the United States and almost always it's a very good thing for immigrants and most of a time it's even a good thing for the countries that people are leaving as they send back remittances and trans M knowledge and sometimes create companies and jobs in
34:30 - 35:00 their home countries but for um a debate that's really not this debate is really not about immigration it's about how our societies are organized do you think that we should expect our government to try to manage the numbers and the kinds of people who join our societies I don't I don't mean micromanage I just mean setting a fair
35:00 - 35:30 and reasonable framework for the labor market in which both immigrants who come here and uh people who are born here compete we shouldn't Outsource that very important function of deciding how our societies are organized to employers that's not to demonize employers they're the engines of our economies but it's not their job to pursue the public good to to pursue the uh best Organization
35:30 - 36:00 for the largest number of people who live in any given country labor markets are social institutions as well as Economic Institutions and they have geography despite the fact that many jobs are mobile not all jobs are mobile and especially the jobs that are done by less skilled people in today's world are not mobile those jobs in the service sector the gardeners the um uh Food Service workers the uh child care and
36:00 - 36:30 elder care workers those jobs have geography and uh we need immigrants to come and fill them but we need to set a framework in which that's an orderly process in which it is as much as possible a legal process we need to open channels so that the people we need to come and do those jobs can do them legally but it doesn't mean anyone can take a job anywhere why well as I mentioned labor markets are social institutions they're
36:30 - 37:00 the main channel in our society through which income is distributed and we have a choice of whether we want to live in a lowincome low productivity Society with a vastly l larger labor market or whether we want to live in a society where people earn higher incomes and uh have higher productivity and where we Import and Export and including through the web of the services that can be done
37:00 - 37:30 more cheaply elsewhere having anyone do a job anywhere having high levels of immigration to fulfill that uh that Vision carries a lot of externalities with it we don't I don't think most people would want to live in a society where immigrants can't have their families join them over long periods of time we don't want to live in a society where we don't educate the children of
37:30 - 38:00 immigrants we don't provide Health Care to immigrants uh we don't provide adequate shelter or uh allow people the means to acquire adequate shelter so there there are costs associated with immigration not that those costs aren't worth it I believe they are but we have to face the fact that that building adequate infrastructure supplying adequate Public Services take some planning take some funding take some upfront cost and that's a good reason to regulate our
38:00 - 38:30 the intake to our labor markets I think there's also a question about values in here I've mentioned some of them already about what kind of society we ought to live in but it's also about who gets to decide and I have great sympathy I work on development issues I work with refugees I have great sympathy for Brian's idea that you know it's a moral obligation to let people reach for the same good life that most people have in the United States at least in relative terms or in other
38:30 - 39:00 developed countries but the fact is that we live in sovereign states and there's a good reason that we do um in 1648 the system was set up to end centuries of religious wars to end uh external interference in the societies uh in organized societies and although we've evolved from the sovereignty of Kings to popular sovereignty I think there's still a question of who gets to decide and I
39:00 - 39:30 don't believe it's practical to have um the to have to decide for the entire world that we will have the same standard of living we live in a real world in which immigrants in which workers are not just units of production they're members of our societies and we have to make the kind of provision uh for people to live in the in the kind of societies you want to live in and that to my mind
39:30 - 40:00 is a good reason to vote no against the proposition that anyone should be able to take a job anywhere thank you thank you Kathleen newand and that concludes round one of this Intelligence Squared us debate where our motion is let anyone take a job anywhere remember how you voted at the beginning of the debate on this proposition we're going to have you vote again after you've heard the arguments and the team whose numbers have changed the most in percentage Point terms in terms of your support of this proposition will be declared our
40:00 - 40:30 winner Now we move on to round two and round two is where The Debaters address each other in turn and take questions from me and from you in the audience the motion is this let anyone take a job anywhere and arguing for the motion we've heard Brian Kaplan and Vivic wadwa and they have argued uh several points they've come at it several ways uh they've argued uh that actually giving a job to anyone anywhere is common decency not to do so is a form of discrimination
40:30 - 41:00 against foreign workers uh that in itself violates that decency that opening borders globally they site a statistic that says would actually double Global Production which the other side uh did not refute they also say that we're on this road already that in one sector of the economy the knowledge economy that this is already happening and to quote Vivic wadwa the world is not falling apart arguing against the motion against the motion to let anyone take a job anywhere we've heard from Kathleen nuland and Ron un they have
41:00 - 41:30 argued uh while conceding the point that uh productivity production would double globally they also say that that would have terrible socially divisive effects because who would it benefit they argue that that uh increase in production would benefit almost exclusively uh an economic Elite that the average person the ordinary person would see their wages uh terribly depressed to be essentially in competition with two billion workers around the world and they argue also that uh employment uh
41:30 - 42:00 and and labor is a geographically based thing you have to be in the place it's social there are real costs who's going to pay for the schooling of these moves of population who's going to pay for the health care costs it's not just a matter of uh of uh individuals being units of Labor do you really want to give uh Factory owners a decision about how society's organized or do you want to give it I think they were saying to legislators or maybe even Kings so that's where we are on hearing hearing both sides of of these arguments and I want to take um I want to go back and
42:00 - 42:30 slice through some of what you were saying and have you interact on some of this and I'm I'm interested in um in Brian kaplan's point when he was arguing for the motion to let anyone take a job anywhere that not to do so is a form of discrimination against foreign workers and I want to take that uh to your opponent Kathleen nuland because to a degree it sounded as though you get what he's saying uh and as somebody who works with refugees you certainly have sympathy uh for foreign workers you have an Infinity obviously but why is it not
42:30 - 43:00 why is it not the kind of discrimination that uh Brian kapl was talking about well I think um you know our um governments are obliged to discriminate in our favor um that's part of the responsibility of government that's part of the reason we have governments um to keep uh external forces from uh from attacking us that's why we have a National Defense and we have National Labor Market policies because we want to establish a certain level of living in
43:00 - 43:30 this country we don't want people to be paid $2 a day for their work in this country we don't want uh people we we don't want workers rights to be flouted at will so we we have rules we have regulations and we have we exert some control over who and what kind of people can come let's hear Brian kaplan's response I'm just trying to imagine Kathleen going to Haiti and telling them look we
43:30 - 44:00 need to keep you out because if we let you in we'd have to give you free healthare and I don't feel like doing that so you have to stay here then that way we can maintain our standard of living just seems like to anyone that was not already inside of your in group this argument would be totally unconvincing because it would be so obvious that you really just don't care about them and you're willing to do almost anything to people outside your group mean let me let me put it this way uh when parents are judging a sporting event they take extra effort to not show f favoritism to their kids why because it's what because favoritism is in their
44:00 - 44:30 hearts what I'm saying is we need to be equally careful to not show favoritism of this kind to our fellow citizens we need to make sure that we are treating people from other countries fairly and this is not what we are doing you know the solution is something that Ron has advocated which is having a minimum wage he's advocated 12 to $15 let's say we did that we would now lock out the billions that they're worried about don't you know oh I entirely in other words if we had a very large rise in the
44:30 - 45:00 minimum wage maybe to $12 an hour that by itself would alleviate a lot of the problems associated with immigration because in a sense if you have a situation where American workers can't be paid less than say $12 an hour then even a huge amount of foreign competition would ensure that ordinary American workers had a reasonable standard of living and maintained it so the problem is the minimum wage allowing people to come in for working for $2 an hour we didn't say that you know nowhere in this resolution are we talking about bringing in people at 50 cents an hour
45:00 - 45:30 $2 an hour we're talking about If an employer wants to hire them if I want to hire someone in uh Chile and have them work for me they should be allowed to work for me but you can have limits they should anybody can work anywhere for a minimum wage well why not you can't no one's saying that you have unlimited open borders anyone can do anything you have laws you have Customs you have processes and you have U regulations have good regulations the current minimum wage is
45:30 - 46:00 too low in other words right now if you have a janitor earning 9 or 10 or $1 an hour and if he's suddenly put in competition with two billion workers around the world who are willing to work for anything his wage would immediately go down to the minimum wage in other words all American workers would see their wages drop to the absolute minimum labor unions would be destroyed and the country would be impoverished I mean if we had a much higher minimum wage that would not be wa one second I want to I want to just hear if the the the point
46:00 - 46:30 that was just made that in fact it would have a terribly depressing effect to be in competition with two billion workers sounds reasonable I want to hear from Brian Kaplan do you think that that's accurate uh no uh so here's the important thing well it's true well are you going you're going to tell us why ABS absolutely good so if they're really only one kind of Labor then Ron's story is right you let in a ton of people and wages go down however uh Ron did didn't get to the empirical part of Economics which is a really important part here's the thing
46:30 - 47:00 there are many different kinds of Labor there are high-skilled labor mid skilled labor low skilled labor you can go and read the most respected critic of immigration in the entire economics profession George BOS and all that'll tell you is that immigration has been bad for high school dropouts everyone else he says there have been gains um so um oh when you consider the effect of imation it's it's not going to be an effect upon all workers it's going to be effect upon a narrow segment of workers who I said you could take care of them by having taxes or admission fees for low skilled workers or minimum wages
47:00 - 47:30 minimum Ron's minimum wage idea is terrible and Ron could tell you why U the whole point of Ron's minimum wage proposal is to keep out low- skilled workers he says it explicitly I encourage you to read his piece his goal is to make sure that anyone who is not worth $12 an hour namely most of the people on Earth are locked in their countries with they're earning a dollar a day I think it'd be far better if they could come here and my hold off hold off cuz I want to hear from the other side Kath I think I think we see what happens in this kind of competition among low-skill labors every
47:30 - 48:00 day in international labor markets um where recruitment is handled by recruit by recruitment agents who Arbitrage the difference between what people are willing to work for and what they're paid even at relatively low levels if you have a Filipino worker going to the gulf for example a a worker will pay $3,000 a third of his or her annual income to get that job so even if you have regulations even if you have a
48:00 - 48:30 minimum wage you'll have people so eager to maybe not earn 20 times maybe earn five times what they earn you will have I don't think you agree with that and why let R let Ron sure again it depends what thank you Viv Ron it's a matter of specific in other words it depends what minimum wage we're talking about the minimum wage right now in the United States is very low it's much lower in real terms than it was 40 years ago when the country was much more prosperous if the minimum wage were
48:30 - 49:00 higher that would simply ensure that there were a floor below which ordinary Americans could not fall under those circumstances that restriction on the labor market means that even if there a billion foreigners willing to take a job at any wages you still have a situation where no American worker can be paid less than $12 an hour which is enough to ensure a reasonable standard of living for ordinary American workers let me um let me vi one second um I I want to move
49:00 - 49:30 off the minimum wage we did a great minimum wage debate a a few months to back and I'm not saying that that's not relevant because it obviously is but I don't want us to just talk about that I want to I want to go a little bit to the point that Vivic was making that you as you pointed out it's already happening in the knowledge industry that uh um design is happening on single projects that are shared around the world um and you said and the world is not falling apart over that but I want to take that argument to the other side let's just look at the higher end of this for a
49:30 - 50:00 time being and then Viv I'll let you respond to their response to your argument um but but the argument being it's it's kind of working out already at the higher end globally that you know literally the the engineers who are designing uh for General Motors or Intel don't have to be in the United States but they they're certainly having an impact I would think on wages in the United States or are they let's take uh Kathleen n anyone who has an electrical engineering degree from a good University can take a job anywhere yes it's already
50:00 - 50:30 it's already in place at the higher at the higher end and I'm absolutely good with that why are you good with that in it it's going to have an impact on wages globally as well will it not aren't there now hundreds of thousands more uh engineers in India competing with American uh American Engineers well we're not but they're not competing with them here and really what Viv is saying here doesn't matter because the the work takes a place across borders so answer that yeah uh I I think here does matter the engineer in India unless you know
50:30 - 51:00 he's at the top level of management is not getting paid the same as the engineer in the United States there is an Arbitrage going on between those equalize salaries keep Rising worldwide and if you have more people doing Innovation you solve more problems the economy Rises this is what's happening worldwide right now I told you how I became more productive how I could now crowdsource a book on innovating women by getting women all over the world to help me with it there's no way I could have done that project if I didn't have access to all these amazing women all over over the world that's the magic that happens when you stop worrying
51:00 - 51:30 about you know restrictions and and start it's like you know we would have to block off the internet to stop the right but her point isn't that you can't do a book and you're playing the woman card quite effectively um wom and I hope that they vote for her point is that the Indian Engineers are actually not making the same kind of money that engineers in Silicon Valley are making their salaries are rising this is what happens but you know it's not only about their salaries it's also about that you know if you are an
51:30 - 52:00 electrical engineer in Haiti and you can make the same salary in Haiti that you would make in Los Angeles you still would probably rather live in Los Angeles where you have a reliable supply of electricity talking about migration the skilled workers don't have to migrate the Boeing Engineers that work in different places are not migrating they're working together they're collaborating yeah but I but we're arguing about anywhere here we're arguing geography matters you're looking looking in the past you're looking 50 years in the past when people had to physically move to do jobs the jobs that
52:00 - 52:30 all of the people in this room do are highs skill jobs I don't see any laborers in this room they are able to do things over the Internet they're able to do things over email they're productive over email they're on the you know they're connecting with each other different amazement I thought Brian K was going to be the problem here tonight and and I haven't heard from him in a couple of minutes so Brian jump in please and then I'll come to you Ron Ron mentioned the declining the stagnant wages of the last 40 years andest suggested that immigrant labor Supply was the problem there was a much larger change in the labor market over the last
52:30 - 53:00 40 years it's called women entering the labor market U my question for Ron so do you think that women entering the labor market was a bad thing for the economy was it bad was it all did did all the gains go to Capital was it bad for men I'd like to know well [Applause] actually that's not why Wages that's an interesting point but I mean when you not but interesting point but change the subject actually let me respond that's a pretty good question respond the sort of wage
53:00 - 53:30 sectors that have seen sharp declines are not necessarily the ones where there's been large entrance of women so I I tend to doubt that the entrance of a large number of women in the labor force is really the main factor involved it's a complicated issue obviously yeah it's very but the bottom line is that incomes have declined and it it's simply due to job competition now getting back though to the point that there was a lot of discussion about regarding the internet I think it's absolutely true that it's impossible to prevent jobs from migrating over the Internet
53:30 - 54:00 technologically you can't stop that type of economic competition from overseas workers I think it's also true that the wages and benefits of the sort of workers in America who are electrical engineers or software developers has been negatively impact by Foreign job competition over the internet I think it's absolutely true but those workers are among the best paid in the United States so the negative impact on them has been relatively mild in terms of society in other words electrical
54:00 - 54:30 engineers right now are very well paid but if not for the internet if not for Indian job competition they would even be much better paid but they're not the people I think we have to worry about we have to worry about the ordinary workers in the United States the working class which is like 60 70 80% of society they are the ones whose jobs cannot be sent over the internet and to exacerbate that problem by having physical job compet as well as Internet job competition would I think make things much much worse for
54:30 - 55:00 that do you concede that point I con but the we agree the solution to the unskilled labor is have a minimum wage have some regulations so that people can't be abused just like we have environmental regulations we have so fix those regulation problems and now let people work wherever you know when If an employer thinks that this Mexican Gardener is more qualified to do this job than someone else they can hire locally let them do it why should we try to stop uh it becomes much less severe problem if you have something like a much higher minimum wage so let's fix
55:00 - 55:30 regulations but let's now concede the fact we're back on minimum wage and I let me let me let me you know we said that we want to play with some hypotheticals in this debate we cited uh the European Union as a not a hypothetical they're they're doing it what if the United States hypothetically partnered with the European Union we joined them or they joined us but essentially the rules that now let an Irishman work in U Bulgaria would let
55:30 - 56:00 him also work here and an American work anywhere in Europe would what would be your response to that Kathleen Newan curiously you know the the immigration rate between European countries is about the same as the worldwide rate and Europe has invested enormously before they admitted Spain to the European uh as it then was the European economic Community uh before they admitted gree they invested enormously in these countries and they have put strict
56:00 - 56:30 requirements on the newer entrance like Bulgaria and Romania so that they've created a much more Level Playing Field now if you have a a a bigger labor market as a more efficient labor market absolutely no question about it and if you if you fuse countries that are at pretty similar levels of income and infrastructure and human rights standards uh then then you probably won't have that much movement between them that's been the case in Europe we
56:30 - 57:00 have an agreement with Canada there's not that much movement between the US and Canada but if you had an agreement between Europe and Morocco or you had an agreement between the US and Guatemala you would have a lot more movement and I think that is where uh social and political and infrastructural problems AR R if there isn't some control yes it could work but you've got
57:00 - 57:30 to pick your partners carefully you've got to pick your partners carefully or you've just got to plan and do it slowly and consciously it sounds like we agreeing so for the motion I mean is isn't that great sorry sounds like we we won already so uh anywhere well Brian kle what about that yeah any movement towards more open immigration is good for me but I will say the most gain come from tra from immigration from poor countries those are where the gaps and
57:30 - 58:00 earnings are largest those are the people whose productivity is at only a tiny fraction of what they could accomplish if You' just let them go to another country letting an engineer move from one country to another gives you a small gain in production letting an unskilled worker move gives you an enormous increase because they're stuck in countries where they really just can't use their skills in more than a trivial way so you don't agree with the pick your partner carefully Theory um I would agree no I would actually I would take any partner I will dance with anyone any country that want any any country that we want to open our borders
58:00 - 58:30 to I would open our borders too absolutely so we just have some regulations which prevent abuse of Labor we do things the American way and we can now make the world a better place we uplift the rest of humanity just like in Europe you have a leviz happening and you didn't have a mass migration of people between countries as Kathleen just said so the fact is the model can work we just need to have the right that's because the leveling happened before the opening happened well let's start leveling the world why do we have idea let let me propose let me propose
58:30 - 59:00 um let me propose I'm going to come to questions right after this so I just want to remind you raise your hand I'll call on you stand up wait for the microphone please if you forget I'll just remind you tell us your name ask a question really make it tur make it a question if there's a question mark at the end of whatever you say it works um let's move it away from Europe hypothetically the US and India make a deal are we ready for that is the time ready for that on the skilled side it's already happening like I said the free flow of knowledge is already happening
59:00 - 59:30 the fact is that that they that you know I get my my tax returns I have a a tax accountant uh who really outsources the tax processes of India without telling me it's happening we have medical transcription happening over there we have web development happening over there it's very happening and the world didn't come apart India uplifted India became a more strategic partner for the United States we became more productive it was win-win all fear has not happened but slightly different question about letting a person move for
59:30 - 60:00 a job would is India are India in the United States right for that uh John if we had the minimum salaries there would not be a problem the problem happen if in the United States in India can have its own minimum salaries as long as you have minimum standards for people you can let them do a job anywhere the problem happens when you can have slave lab with cheap labor when you have Haitian salaries in the United States then everyone loses so keep a keep keep some decent regulations there keep our social values build a real middle class
60:00 - 60:30 this is the beauty of what Ron has been proposing that under his scheme we would have a stronger middle class we've lost that middle class because we have a minimum wage Which is less than it has been for what two or three decades whatever the numbers are we all agree on the minimum wage okay but but no but time out but it's Rel it's related though so I I just I just want us to move to New ground do agree on the minimum related issues the reason why the reason why Ron is arguing about billions of people coming over here is because that Sal will go down to zero but you have made you have both made the
60:30 - 61:00 that round of points twice now and that I'm only saying that because I want us to try to get to other topics not to disrespect the points because I I do want to respond to Vivic on that and I and I and in a way to uh agree but it's not a question of anyone being able to take a job anywhere because this can only work under two kind it can only work two ways it can work anarchically which is what I've been arguing against because that's what's implied by the proposition is
61:00 - 61:30 anyone anywhere or it can work under highly regulated circumstances Sweden has a labor market policy that is anyone who want who is offered a job in Sweden by a legitimate employer can come to Sweden do that job live in Sweden Sweden has a very high tax highly regulated um and high benefit Society which I think actually sounds pretty good you don't copy everything you don't have to have high taxes you have
61:30 - 62:00 relatively low taxes and you have a high minimum wage problem fixed you can't you can't yes you can do that and and Ron has demonstrated you can do that you need to I think you then get into the Arbitrage problem you know can you expain the term Arbitrage for folks who don't get it when some when somebody is uh basically taking the difference between a wage here and a wage there and uh creaming out part of it for their own benefit this is what happens in international recruitment with these very high fees that are paid by resp to
62:00 - 62:30 and the reason why that's possible is precisely that it is not legal for them to go under most circumstances no this is leg these are legal workers these are legal workers under most circumstances most of there are very few jobs in Sweden where someone would want to hire someone from from another country if they're low-skilled precisely because the regulations are so strict the re again remember the whole point of Ron's proposal is to price out most people on Earth from the US Labor Market he says this so when you talk about the poor conditions of workers in other countries
62:30 - 63:00 remember Ron's proposal is designed to keep them poor at home is that true Ron that's not that's not true well not not really in other words I mean again it's a very it's a very simple issue it's a very simple issue when you have billions of workers legally able to come to the United States and take every any job they can that they're offered you're really converting again the minimum wage into a maximum wage because BAS basically very few people in the United States under those circumstances who do ordinary jobs would ever get paid more
63:00 - 63:30 than the minimum wage no no but you've already said that his question his point was that you you want to you want to lock out the poor that's right that's what he said and I always said is that true well again it depends what you mean in other words if you're talking about preventing tens of millions of people coming here and driving down wages yeah that that's certainly true I I'm trying to PR even though they are living in total misery back home and they would be earning five or 10 times times as much as they can true if you allow an unlimited number of foreign workers to come to the United States and take a job
63:30 - 64:00 under any circumstances those foreign workers would benefit they would end up being much more prosperous than they are right now but ordinary Americans would be hurt at the same time by comparable amount oh I stop there Brian is that true no it is not so if you want to get an idea I mean it sounds extremely plausible well well yes so since we're since we're in New York let's talk about one of the greatest open bards experiments in history Puerto Rico Puerto Rico started out as a thir world country when the United States beat Spain there was open borders what has
64:00 - 64:30 happened well first of all about half of Puerto Rico left over the course of a hundred years secondly Puerto Rico is now one of the richest countries in the world what happened uh people in Puerto Rico who otherwise would have been stuck in a thoral country not able to use their skills many of them left and found that there was a better place for them to work and those remaining found that their wages were higher a lot of what happened was that Puerto Ricans went home and turned a third world country into a first world country there's no reason that America can not do for the world what it did for Puerto Rico the whole world one difference one
64:30 - 65:00 difference is one difference is that Puerto Rico give me a century and I will give you Prosperity over the surface of the Earth you got it we will we will meet you here let's go to some questions from the audience uh right there in the center sir and if you can raise stand up uh when the mic comes from your left hand side and tell us your name thank you this is horrific my name is Jerry orstrom and my question is for the panelists opposing the resolution Mr
65:00 - 65:30 UNS uh you asserted that opening labor markets would not only be devastating to local labor but to the general economy itself and yet economists often advise us that economies are not so much about producers and workers but about consumers and to the extent that foreign workers are hired at all it's because it's deemed that they will produce goods and services with higher quality at cheaper prices than the local market
65:30 - 66:00 that they the local labor market that they out compete which in turn is wonderful for the economy could you address that please and could the other panelists respond well it's certainly true the economy would grow but the benefits the growth would be captured by the factors of production that are not based on labor it would be captured by capital in other words it's the sort of thing where if you suddenly have a vast increase in America's population population of workers the economy will
66:00 - 66:30 obviously be larger in other words there'll be more Goods more services more people buying things and it's also true that those tens of millions or even maybe hundreds of millions of foreign workers would be much wealthier in the United States than they were back home in China or India or Africa or wherever they were before but ordinary Americans the existing the current Americans would be drama rically hurt by it they would be much poorer so what it really comes down to is whether it's important to
66:30 - 67:00 safeguard the prosperity of ordinary Americans even at the expense of decreasing the impoverishment of tens or hundreds of millions of people from overseas I mean again the numbers involved would be gigantic if we had a policy right now that anybody could take a job anywhere I think we'd be talking about 10 20 30 million people coming to the United states in the first few years of something like that again people right now are earning a dollar an hour
67:00 - 67:30 50 cents an hour 10 cents an hour and if suddenly they could earn $7 an hour in the United States it would seem awfully good to them the people who employ them would drive down the wages and ordinary workers would be tremendously damaged by Brian Kaplan I think he just described your fantasy come true yeah so the problem is that Ron keeps talking about Labor like there's only one kind of Labor so everyone in everyone in America's ident equal to everyone else on Earth so you could be replaced by any whatever job you're doing by anyone on Earth but that of
67:30 - 68:00 course is not true there are many different kinds of Labor rich countries tend to have much more skilled workers so uh you should expect that skilled workers would be among the beneficiaries of the increase in the supply of lower skilled workers now does this mean that every American will gain uh that is much less clear that's where I said if it's only a minority of of Americans who are losing then it is very feasible to say we will we will charge you an admission fee your aerx and give you some compensation but what Ron is talking about is keeping out almost everyone on
68:00 - 68:30 Earth and losing all these benefits that we could otherwise have and of course trapping most of the world in poverty for no reason and and and um Ron I want to bring back to you something that Brian said in his opening statement that we haven't got to which he talked about the the renewal of of a society and an economy by virtue of having fresh blood IM immigrant blood the the the both the energy and the creativity and The Innovation that can come from that and and you haven't addressed that as a value that plays very highly both of your opponents do very highly I I think there's certainly a lot of Truth to that in other words over history America has
68:30 - 69:00 benefited tremendously from you know it's large scale immigration and I I think probably the immigration we've had over the last 20 or 30 years has been very beneficial in many ways also but the numbers really are awfully large right now America has for example one of the America right now has one of the most rapidly growing populations anywhere in the first world much more rapidly growing than most other countries in fact for example that sometimes is distorted when the New York Times or other people talk about America's growth in GDP and compare it
69:00 - 69:30 to growth rates in Europe or other countries they're not talking about per capita GDP they're talking about total GDP right now America's population is growing at twice the rate of China's so for example when you look at the growth of America's GDP if it's 2% but if the population is growing by 1% the per capita income growth is only 1% the problem is ordinary Americans care about per capita income not the total GDP of
69:30 - 70:00 the country and even for example if the wealth of America increased by a lot if we brought in 30 or 40 or 50 million foreign workers but if the per capita income of ordinary Americans dropped dramatically that would be disaster if you basically triple the population of a country but everybody in the country becomes half as wealthy as they were before the GDP is much larger but it's a disaster for ordinary Americans that's not what we're talking about we again we
70:00 - 70:30 keep going to the Doomsday scenarios where we'll have the Mexican hordes coming in here it's not what we're talking about let's go to another question right there ma' uh there's a mic coming down the aisle uh thanks if you can tell us your name and my name is uh Brett popper and I'm just curious we've been focusing on foreign workers coming to America and I'm curious should Americans be able to take jobs anywhere in the world why not
70:30 - 71:00 that's a great idea that's the same question that Brian would ask saying if we're going to now tell um you know the economy of other countries will rise things will get better in the rest of the world there may well be a day when Mexico has a stronger economy than the than does the United States now imagine flipping it on its head saying Americans can't take a job in Mexico because they happen to be North versus South that's the same type of thinking we're doing right now rather than trying to up Up Lift anyone and make the world a more equal more fair place where everyone is well off we're talking about restricting
71:00 - 71:30 ourselves we're talking about closing off borders we you know God knows we'll have a thousand a thousand billion people coming to America and taking our jobs away decimating our salary that's not how it's ever been that's how it's not not it'll ever be if you know if we create a third world country next door to us if we keep having these restrictionist policies we'll create problems for ourselves the solution is to uplift Mexico and to and to you know have the same relationship as US and Canada we don't worry about people going across borders Kathleen do you want to take the question about Americans
71:30 - 72:00 traveling or do you want to respond to where Viv got to uh well uh I I think they're uh I think they're related um I because I I do think that um the the ability to travel for uh for a job is is something that is and needs to be a matter of public policy you know there there needs to be a matter of consensus on on that within countries
72:00 - 72:30 and I think that uh a polity you know self-constituted under a sovereign a sovereign people have the right to decide what kind of relationship they want to have with other countries and I would indeed I wish that we knew how to uplift Mexico I wish that we knew how to eliminate corruption and they're doing it on their own thank you Mexico doesn't need American handout Mexico is rising on own I'm not talking about handouts
72:30 - 73:00 let's talk about Haiti much better example I wish we knew how to do that I wish we had the will and the willingness to spend in Haiti that would solve all the problems I couldn't agree with you more if we knew how and had the will and the resources to level the playing field worldwide we wouldn't be having this debate because there wouldn't be a problem there is an easy solution to Haitian poverty and that is let Haitians in right now if you can stand up please thanks um I'm Jabron Shake um I have a question
73:00 - 73:30 towards uh the people arguing for the motion Dr Kaplan mentioned uh a uh moral uh imperative and in this country we can't provide health care for our our citizens as it currently stands uh education is uh terribly flawed we have uh if we were to allow millions and even billions of people theoretically to come over here um wouldn't we have a more moral obligation than to provide them if they were injured here for example or if their kids needed education and if we're
73:30 - 74:00 not able to address that for our own citizens how how would we be expected to uh do that for other people wouldn't it be a little bit morally egregious to thank you for that question Brian [Applause] ke it's a very strong question so I ask you imagine going Haiti and saying look we know that you would love to come here and get a job we know that there's plenty of people want to employ you but unfortunately you came we would feel obliged to give you some other free stuff and we don't want to give you any
74:00 - 74:30 free stuff so you have to stay in Haiti earning a dollar a day that is the kind of humanitarianism that America has right now I think that is a very poor kind of humanitarianism the Haitians would much prefer someone who would say I would I'm willing to let you come and get a job I'm not going to give you free stuff but I'm not going to keep you away because I don't want to look at poverty and that is really what our current system does it creates an enormous amount of poverty and then it keeps it away from us so we don't have to look at it open borders is a is a incredible solution to Poverty but it's true you would have to look at poor people if if they were if they were to come in that
74:30 - 75:00 is the price that we pay for actually greatly producing the problem Kathleen I think that question also aners some of what you said in your opening statement do you like to take that yeah well I I I think that again you know I I don't think we want to live in a country where poverty is tolerated and I don't think we and in order not to have poverty in our midst I think we have to have a framework whereas the whereby the immigrants that we do admit and we admit a lot and I'm glad of it and I would like to see us admit more but I don't
75:00 - 75:30 think that we can create the kind of framework for a good Society for the kind of society want we want to live in our immigration policy is only as good as our integration policy and our integration policy for immigrants that makes them part of our society on equal terms is not something we can do for the whole world mean Kathleen me Kath so Kathleen you seem like a very nice person you've been to Kolkata you know you know you know how you know how horrible things there are I find it very
75:30 - 76:00 strange to say that it's so important that we not have to look at you that we're going to keep you living here in horrible poverty because you might come to America and earn minimum wage it seems crazy to me I want to remind you that we are in the question and answer section of this Intelligence Squared us debate I'm John donvan your moderator we have four Debaters two teams of two arguing out this motion let anyone take a job anywhere and tonight's debate is is also being broadcast right now worldwide on our website is2 q iq2
76:00 - 76:30 us.org and on for.tv uh and I want to tell you that if you're watching the live stream uh right now we'd love to hear from you too if you um send us your questions on Twitter or Facebook we're watching and uh if you have a good question with the hashtag jobs debate um that'll get our attention and if it's a good question we'd love to bring it here to the Elon and to our Debaters let's go back to some questions sir um y thank you uh Dan Kim I'm addressing
76:30 - 77:00 the motion for uh why should we replace the immigration system and the system for uh selecting uh foreign people from coming here and taking jobs uh and replace it with a radical to let let anyone take a job in the United States uh the current system albe it it's certain flaws it is uh not we're not isolationists we already have a system that selects people to come into our United States
77:00 - 77:30 and work and as Mr W said uh there is already a Renaissance of uh Innovative technology throughout the world that is going on I actually you put your question first and then you did your argument afterwards is that if you had stopped at the question it was Bingo just perfect but it's a good question let's go to the side thank you for that question you know the US system is broken that it worked a long time ago um was a time when when there were no such thing as visas there were no passports you could easily come to the United States and that's when the US developed
77:30 - 78:00 into the PowerHouse that it is most recently um there've been lot lots of problems with with the number of visas all these restrictions we now have a reverse brain drain going on we have skill Talent leaving the country because we won't give them enough visas we have this protectionist sentiments now we have a clogged Congress which can't even keep the government open let alone you know do rational immigration reform because why because you have a small small segment of American society which believes that if we open the doors billions will come in they'll take our jobs away and this country will go to
78:00 - 78:30 the dogs I mean this is the the problem we have right now so your answer to his question when he said we actually have a functioning system not perfect but it functions it sets priorities okay you you do not agree right now as as of the last two or three years it's Bren the same question if you want to respond Ron and if you don't I can move on to another question can I just can I just say one thing about that I I think the US system leaves a lot to be desired I think we it does need fixing but I don't see why we should replace it with a system that's completely employer-driven and that is
78:30 - 79:00 you know let anyone take a job anywhere means you know any means that employers what the implications what when you say that this that essentially you're saying the flow of labor would be uh completely under the influence of employers what are the implications of that well currently in the United States our immigration system is overwhelmingly driven by family reunification and that means that 70% of the people who get a green card um about 10% of them are refugees about 14% are
79:00 - 79:30 selected by employers 14% that's all we have now and yet we still get the best and the brightest a larger proportion of the best and the brightest than any other country now we may not get them all we may not get as many as we need we may not get as many as we could but we get a lot they're going back now they we're now in Reverse well we're not in employes are not evil employes like I said if as long as you have regulations and have minimal levels employers are not going to bring in people from abroad
79:30 - 80:00 when they can hire equally competent better people here they don't want the cultural problem they don't want to have the the cost involved with it they don't have to to have to pay for the health insurance when they don't have to they will do what's right for them and there's nothing wrong with letting employers select the people they want to hire if I just want to get back to Kathleen you you started answering my question and maybe that is the answer but the implications of what I think you what I thought I heard you saying is you're concerned about out a system that essentially is under the control of a political process giving it giving the control of the flow of Labor to
80:00 - 80:30 employers and I just want to get a clearer picture of what that means and and why why you are I guess frightened by it or because it's it's not the job of employers to pursue the public good it's the job of employers to pursue the good of their companies that's as it should be that is part of what accounts for the dynamism of our economy but they don't have a responsibility for the integration of immigrants they don't have a responsibility for the families of immigrants they don't and when you bring
80:30 - 81:00 people in through a Family Channel um and I think we probably overdo it on that but when you bring them in you have an integration machine that's that gets going there people are coming into a community they're coming into a family they're coming into a social system I I think we see with Clarity what you say employer who was hired foreign workers I hired lots of people from the UK in the '90s from from Britain and I took respons responsibility for making sure that their families came here and making sure that health coverage making sure that they integrated they weren't
81:00 - 81:30 cultural issues but that's what employers do employers aren't evil they're not they're not going to bring in uh slave labor just to cut some cost they're going to do what makes sense for them and for their companies where integration has to happen I suggest you go to the Central Valley in California not just well we're not talking about Central Valley we're talking about the rest of America yeah you know you know we keep coming back to Farm Workers let's not just say because of some abuse in some segments of America we shut off the we close the doors and we start it always comes back to this billions are going to come in and take farm jobs away if we have
81:30 - 82:00 minimum wages if we have regulations if we now require them to have provide health insurance these things will not happen hi my name is Victoria and I have a question for I think your mic's not turned on can we just double check hello there it is um you said that one of your main concerns is um looking at the poor and acknowledging the poor and being uh right Who Who Are You addressing which I
82:00 - 82:30 think uh the side four this I arguing for the most yeah sorry um but it seems like there is a blind spot for the poverty that exists here now um so I'm wondering how the poverty population here would be uplifted by your plan and also wait wait I I I just I I need a little more clarity on on what you mean and I want to make sure it relates to our motion well because um part of the part of The Proposal Part part of the reason for letting people in is altruism
82:30 - 83:00 because it's wrong not to it's wrong to say to a poor person hey you know what we know you're poor and your conditions suck but we just don't want you in because we don't feel there goes the NPR bro right so so I'm wondering what about the blind spot for the people who the Americans the poverty here I'm going to respectfully pass on the question okay then but I have a second part um okay but I need you to get to it if it if it uplifts the country if it level if it is
83:00 - 83:30 a leveler for other countries what about the brain drain what the what about the the the effect on the other countries of having yeah with all of the those talented people leaving how does that uplift their economy fair question let's take that to Brian Kaplan thank you um sure so first thing to think about brain drain is when people complain about it they really are asking us to do to the people of the third world what the Soviet Union did to its own citizens it's a scary thought uh however you could say well mean it was very good for the Soviet Union to keep
83:30 - 84:00 their smart people in at least they didn't get to run away uh but I would say you know you know more important you know the more more fundamental point is that you know let it letting smart people to go to other countries actually creates benefits for not only themselves not only the world economy but for people back home so Kathleen me mention mentioned remittances uh and again if you just want to get an idea about how it works take a look at Puerto Rico started out as a third world country wait Puerto Rico again I just just the interest of time I just want to give Ron Ron un a
84:00 - 84:30 chance to respond to the brain drain question I mean that that's certainly true in other words if we're talking about the brain drain we're talking about relatively small numbers of Highly Educated highly talented people and that's very different than allowing anybody to take a job anywhere where the numbers implied are from a population based in the billions rather than in the hundreds of thousands or maybe in the millions now you know again there a lot of pluses and minuses with immigration flows in the United States I I I think on balance it's been positive for the
84:30 - 85:00 United States but at reasonable levels hundreds of thousands a year sometimes getting up to a million a year that's very different than the proposition which is talking about unlimited numbers which I think would be dis subject to employers making job offers and then people taking jobs that's what we're talking about we're not saying part of your argument but but the motion doesn't say let anyone take a job anywhere subject to employers employ do say it also doesn't say that it also doesn't say that let them just come here and then look for a job I mean we're not talking about removing all barriers
85:00 - 85:30 we're talking about if you have a job offer if you find an skilled worker somewhere you can hire them you need a mic to come through you oh sorry hi my name is Tatiana and I'm an immigrant I was born in Soviet Union now it's mova the poorest country on the continent I think in Europe glad to have you so excuse so so two things I wanted to mention so I
85:30 - 86:00 need you to ask a question and one just one question okay pick the best only one question go for it so 10 years ago I my salary was $30 a month five years ago I moved to America it if it took me only five years to get here get a job and be successful I think anybody can do it so I don't think that the laws here limit people people that are really motivated that are driven want to do things so my question is about European Union so my
86:00 - 86:30 question is about e European Union there are countries in European Union that people that are part of European Union have no rights to work in for example I mean they need a a work permit Switzerland is one of them not so my question to to you would be if if we would take your opinion Union as an example I don't think that economically economically they have done a really
86:30 - 87:00 good job so I wouldn't go by their example at all and there are Austria Germany wait a minute I I have to stop you CU you've been talking for two minutes I TR need a question my question is I'm a little nervous so my question is if European Union um I mean if we go by European Union platform um where would we go because I don't think they have been a good example far so can can I rephrase your question this way that is the European Union a good model for
87:00 - 87:30 something that can work this way that would be it absolutely okay let's take that to the to the side thank you you know I've been doing this a long time I know how to compress there's there's no shame in struggling through a question I've done a lot of it a lot of times I just get to edit it out of the broadcast so I'm so glad to have a question from mdova I've been working there a lot in the last year I've been there four times so I want to talk to you afterwards um but um the it's really the other way around
87:30 - 88:00 the United States was a model for the European Union um in in in a a sort of fundamental sense of trying to reach the economies of scale the Continental economies of scale that the European Union uh that the United States had by virtue of being one country so the European Union has gradually eliminated first you know its tariff barriers and tried to integrate into coal and steel Industries at the very beginning and finally is the last step to integrate its labor markets so um I think they are
88:00 - 88:30 still struggling there have been a lot of strains particularly with the broadening to and with the more shallow uh preparation efforts for new entrance like Croatia and Romania and Bulgaria compared to Italy France and Italy and Greece and Spain um so it's it's not with a lot of strain but I think they are becoming try striving to have markets more like ours rather than us
88:30 - 89:00 looking to Europe as a model we also have the huge advantage of having one language other side like to respond no the migration policy of the European Union has been fantastic my only complaint is that they keep out in most poor countries okay all the way in the back there uh and a Mike will come up to you do you mind standing out um in would you actually because you're in Shadow from my perspective which probably means you are for the camera just to come down about six steps until you're great
89:00 - 89:30 that's great thank you okay so people can you tell us your name Tiffany Trina so people want to come to America because they want to prosper right and I think three of y'all but Brian have mentioned that there needs to be a minimum wage but we don't have one so if the politicians are not going to vote for one or if we don't know if they're going to vote One how can we today vote and say yes that we want
89:30 - 90:00 everyone to be able to come in and work anywhere that's actually not a minimum wage question that's a question what you're asking is why why this side is arguing that we'll work it out and you're asking how can we trust correct the system to work it out I think it's a fair question um in this hypothetical what if World we're talking about what is your confidence level that the kinds of of of protections that you're saying would need to be built in could actually be we already have those protections we have employer laws we have um laws for
90:00 - 90:30 uh sick leave we have employer laws for maternity we have laws for healthcare we have a minimum wage let's just tweak it a little bit and now move on it's not that it's not rocket science but you can applaud that I would mean to suppress your his Applause I I I just I thought that this the flow of the argument was though that the the cost of uh of supplying those services to large numbers of people your opponents are arguing could be prohibitive we're talking about as many employees as
90:30 - 91:00 employ employers need and we're not talking about billions of people we're talking about reasonable numbers of people coming here taking jobs when they offered jobs I don't you know there's no I I don't see why we keep talking about billions coming with no one is saying just open the borders and let people come here and live and we have to give them health care we're saying there the job here for them let them take the job that's it's as simple as that I don't know why we even have to debate this it's a simple argument If an employer wants it if they're going to
91:00 - 91:30 uh here's the problem I mean in the Practical World obviously people are self-interested and they try to game the system let's say for example we convert our uh immigration policy or job labor policy entirely to the control of employers right now for example illegal immigrants pay thousands of dollars to be smuggled into the United States in a difficult and dangerous way suppose instead they took that thousands of dollars and paid it to an American employer to hire them for one week or
91:30 - 92:00 two weeks or three weeks they could come here legally they would work for one week or two weeks or three weeks they would then be laid off and they would melt into larger society in other words basically you'd have to set up a police state to then catch them and Deport them afterwards that is really oh come on that is really scheming that's really complicated all these doomsday scenarios to close off the borders come on that's an extreme situation again I have to this is the same Nega party I have to say this concludes round two of this intelligence
92:00 - 92:30 Square us debate thank you where our motion is let anyone take a job anywhere and now we're going to go on to round three round three are closing statements from each debater in turn they will be three minutes each immediately after their closing statements we will have you votee a second time and I want to remind you you've already voted your position on this motion and after hearing the arguments you vote a second time and the team whose numbers change the most in percentage Point terms uh will be
92:30 - 93:00 declared our winner so our motion is this let anyone take a job anywhere and here to summarize his position against this motion Ron un he's former publisher of the American conservative magazine ladies and gentlemen Ron [Music] un over the last 20 or 30 or 40 years the there's been a tremendous bifurcation of American society the wealthier have gotten much wealthier the
93:00 - 93:30 rest of the people have not we've reached the point right now where the top 1% of American society which has sometimes been in the headlines the top 1% has as much wealth as the bottom 95% in the last few years since the 2008 financial crisis virtually all of the gains in wealth and income have gone to that wealthy Elite and virtually none of it to the rest of the population now that's a bad situation to make a bad situation like
93:30 - 94:00 that much worse would be to cause the vast majority of ordinary American workers to suddenly have to compete for their jobs against everybody in the rest of the world it would destroy their incomes what we're talking about again is something that certainly would benefit the best educated the wealthy Elite the affluent people in society to be honest the proposal we're talking about probably would benefit many perhaps even the majority perhaps even the vast majority of the people sitting
94:00 - 94:30 here in this audience I mean we're talking about New York City one of the wealthiest cities in the United States we're talking about the sort of people who attend to debate like this many of you might not many of you might not be wealthy right now but you're young in your careers is you certainly have a lot of prospects probably many of you would benefit from something that would drive down the wages and income of60 70 80% of the rest of the people in society but it would make the political situation much worse than it is right now what we have
94:30 - 95:00 to do is make changes in other proposals and other aspects of our society to alleviate the problems we've had over the last 20 or 30 years in terms of this wealth Gap not make them much worse The Proposal we're talking about would be devastating to the vast majority of Americans and should be voted against thank you runs [Music] our motion is let anyone take a job anywhere and here to summarize his
95:00 - 95:30 position supporting this motion Viv wadwa vice president of research and Innovation at Singularity University ladies and gentlemen Viv wadwa right through American history we've had these same debates that foreigners will take American jobs away we've always blamed Foreigners for all the ills now my friend over there is blaming Foreigners for the income disparity between the rich and the poor immigrants haven't done that that's the evil Wall Street that's done that my friend that that's a different problem in American society we can have a
95:30 - 96:00 balanced immigration so policy which allows people in that make sense for America that make it more competitive to come in here it's happened with skilled immigration skilled immigration has has made America the most fiercely competitive land in the world we're seeing benefits from it it's uplifting Society a lot of good has come from skilled IM immigration we're moving into this knowledge economy in which we've already tested what happens with open border the fact is that we're communicating connecting with people everywhere our children are now connected to children in the poorest parts of the world because of open
96:00 - 96:30 borders which is the internet so closing off borders saying that no you can't have people taking a job you know where they need to is like closing off the internet it doesn't make sense in this in this modern day era it's good for America it's made what is America what it is let's get get Beyond this protectionism let's get Beyond this this closed-mindedness and blaming foreigners these billions of Mexicans are going to come to take our jobs away they're going to decimate our standard living false they have made this country fiercely competitive they've made this country
96:30 - 97:00 great let's do more of it not less of it we can control wages we can have minimum wages so that we don't have them going down to zero we don't have Fierce competition for low-scale jobs American employers are not evil American employers are doing what's best for their employees and for themselves and for their investors we can trust them to hire people that make sense for them let's not try to over regulate the employ or let's US Open up so that we bring in the people that we need in this great country thank you Viva
97:00 - 97:30 [Applause] guat our motion is let anyone take a job anywhere and here to close her position against this motion Kathleen nuland co-founder of the migration policy Institute ladies and gentlemen Kathleen nuland thank [Music] you I think in order to decide how to vote on this proposition of let anyone take a job anywhere we need to think about what the alternatives are and the alternative I think is uh a better
97:30 - 98:00 managed a more thoughtful uh labor market policy a more thoughtful immigration policy as I said before only currently only 14% of our immigration intake the number of permanent residency permits that are granted every year are uh granted to immigrants who are sponsored by an employer so increase that so um increase our intake of uh skilled people but not
98:00 - 98:30 to the exclusion of poor many of the family members who come in through our dominant family stream are not wealthy people their children do well they become you know the the Bedrock of the society and I couldn't agree more with uh Vivic statement that immigration has been a tremendous benefit to America but but what we what we need is a thoughtful
98:30 - 99:00 measured targeted uh immigration and labor market policy and I think that that needs to be a public policy framework that is set through public debate like this one um and where people other than only employers have a say in who comes in to be our neighbors and who who and how many people constitute and reconstitute and
99:00 - 99:30 renew American society thank you Kathleen nuland a motion let anyone take a job anywhere and here to summarize his position supporting this motion Brian Kaplan professor of Economics at George Mason University ladies and gentlemen Brian Kaplan as Vivic said it is hard to believe that we're actually even debating let anyone take a job anywhere if our opponents had told you that the
99:30 - 100:00 law should prevent women from working or the law should prevent Jews from working or the law should prevent blacks from working you wouldn't just disagree you would be appalled you would be horrified to hear such words coming out of their mouth you should be equally appalled when someone says the law should prevent foreigners from working criminalizing the employment of women Jews blacks or foreigners is doubly evil it denies workers basic human rights and it deprives the world of the full benefit of workers talent and ambition open
100:00 - 100:30 border should be a bipartisan and bi ideological cause conservatives should oppose immigration restrictions in the name of Freedom free markets small government the work ethic meritocracy and Horatio aler himself liberals should oppose immigration restrictions in the name of equality reducing poverty equal opportunity non-discrimination social justice and the global 99% when the government forbids American
100:30 - 101:00 farmers to hire Mexican Farm Workers how can a conservative not see the oppressive hand of big government crushing the entrepreneurial Spirit when the government forbids American restaurants to hire Haitian dishwashers how can a liberal not see a heartless legal system diabolically promoting poverty and discrimination please let anyone take a job anywhere it is the right way to treat your fellow human beings it will transform the world for the better and it will cost us less than nothing thank
101:00 - 101:30 you Brian Kaplan and that concludes closing statements and now it is time to see which side you feel argued best I want you to go again to the keypads at your seat and vote now the second time remember it's the difference between the two votes that determines our winner and the way the vote works if you look at this motion let anyone take a job any where and after hearing the argument you agree with it you're agreeing with this team push number one if you do not agree with this motion you agree with this
101:30 - 102:00 team push number two and if you are or became undecided push number three if you push the wrong key just correct yourself the system will register your last vote before we lock it out all right thank you it looks like everybody's done we're about 90 seconds away from having the results the first thing I want to do uh is say that uh
102:00 - 102:30 it's our goal at Intelligence Squared to raise the level of public discourse by bringing real argumentation and respect and robust uh AR ideas and logic and wit and we had that tonight these debating these two teams were just [Music] terrific and and vivc when you say that we shouldn't even be debating this that chills me to the Bone but but I'm I'm sure it was just rhetorical I don't want to take your job away my friend all
102:30 - 103:00 right um and and everybody who got up and asked a question tonight they all got through and thank you for working with me on reshaping the questions I appreciate that you have the nerve to get up and do that in front of everybody so thank you to everybody who asked a question uh we would love it if you tweeted about this debate the Twitter handle handle again is iq2 us the #for this debate is jobs debate um our next debate is in two weeks a little over two weeks Thursday uh November 19th the
103:00 - 103:30 motion we'll be uh debating that night is the constitutional right to bear arms has outlived its usefulness and I'm sorry that's on November did I say 14th Thursday the 14th yes um and arguing for the motion that the uh constitutional right to bear arms is outlived its usefulness Alan dtz he's the Harvard law professor who's been called one of the nation's most distinguished Defenders of individual ual rights and not just by Alan dtz his partner his partner is Sanford levenson he's a political scientist and a law
103:30 - 104:00 professor and author of the book our undemocratic constitution against the motion David copel he's a research director at the Independence Institute and one of the foremost second American Scholars and Eugene volok who's a professor at UCLA's School of Law and founder of the volok conspiracy one of the most right widely read legal blogs in the nation on Wednesday November 20th we're going to be in Washington DC in partnership with the Institute debating this motion spy on me I'd rather be safe uh tickets for all of our remaining debates are available through our
104:00 - 104:30 website wwwi iq2 us.org uh and for those who can't join of course uh we've been streaming on forward.tv and on iqt us.org and this debate will be on NPR stations Across the Nation just check your local listings and you can hear your own Applause going out to the nation okay we have the results in remember you have voted twice before the debate and once again after the debate the team whose numbers have moved the most in percentage Point terms will be declared our winner here are the results
104:30 - 105:00 in the opening vote 46% of you agreed with the motion let anyone take a job anywhere 21% were against the motion 33% were divided the second vote let anyone take a job anywhere the team arguing for the motion they went from 46% to 42% that's a loss of four percentage points the team team uh the team arguing against the other side I think we can see where this is going their second vote was 49% that's an increase of 28
105:00 - 105:30 percentage points they are our winners the team arguing against the motion let anyone take a job anywhere are our winners are congratulations to them and thank you for me John Donan and Intelligence Squared us we'll see you next time [Applause]