Immigration and Freedom

by Chandran Kukathas

The economic advantages forgone by immigration controls should not, however, be measured only by the immediate losses sustained by those unable to find workers, or the unemployment that might result from enterprises having to close altogether because deprived of access to particular kinds of expertise, or even by the gains that failed to materialize for those who might otherwise have benefited from more or better or cheaper goods that could have been produced. The greater loss still is the forgone product of the extension of the market in the broadest sense—the market here understood as that process in which individuals and groups compete, collaborate and cooperate, and in so doing discover new things.118 When women began to enter the labour market in large numbers, twentieth-century western democracies saw a decline in national wage levels, even though women were more poorly paid because of restrictive legislation and discrimination by employers as well because of differences in experience and skill. The gains to society, however, were considerable not merely because of rising family incomes or any increases in national wealth but because everyone could now gain from the expansion of the pool of talent and imagination. The loss incurred by controlling and limiting immigration is not simply a loss of cheap, or even of skilled, labour but a loss of creative energy. One important indicator of this is the predominance of immigrants among the entrepreneurs who set up new and h...