Via Chris Dillow, whose 'top blogging' sidebar is actually a public service for lazy bloggers, Directionless Bones makes a case for immigration from a leftist view point.

...but united actions by both natives and immigrants (ideally in multiple countries), refusing to accept either their own exploitation or those of their competitors, is a more viable long-term answer than the Quixotic and, to be frank, incipiently fascist goal of exerting state control over mass movements of ordinary people responding to shared economic necessity.

Obviously I disagree that "united actions" are the answer to "exploitation", but that is because I am of the right. However he is absolutely right that a state attempting to prevent people obeying their economic self-interest is, if not "fascist" then certainly something a libertarian should be opposing. I put a poll up recently and it turns out that free immigration wins over a generous welfare state by some margin. Well I would expect that from the readers of this blog. But the country disagrees. Most people would like a generous welfare state and tight controls on who can enjoy its benefits.

Several people said "neither" but one commenter correctly observed that without a welfare state, the "problem" of immigration largely disappears. People arrive on the axles of lorries precisely because they've heard that they (us) give one money and a house, and one is not allowed to work. However grotty the bedsit, that's got to beat subsistence agriculture in a desertified war-zone. So they come, in their thousands from Somalia, Afghanistan and all over sub-Saharan Africa.

And because we subsidise the workshy native-born Briton to sit on their arse and watch Jeremy Kyle, he is unwilling to pick asparagus for the minimum wage, choosing instead relax on the sofa. The left pretend that this doesn't happen, or worse, seem to think that British chavs shouldn't have to demean themselves by taking poorly paid or menial work (who should do it? Immigrants? How is that not racist too?) without realising the habit of work is itself a qualification. Shitty work can and does lead to better jobs. So there are employers crying out for people to pick fruit and veg, stack shelves and clean floors, and even with the official bar on immigrants working, these jobs are largely done by foreign-born people. Even Chris Dillow concludes in his recent post that

"...Immigrants and Natives do different jobs"

And because some of this is black-economy the asylum seeker especially may end up keeping some of the state handouts too. This can however lead to problems as it can give the impression to the poor, ill-educated native that the immigrant is competing for benefit handouts and work that are rightfully "his", however much empirical evidence suggests otherwise. The BNP has two MEPs as a result of playing successfully on this fallacy.

So there are two sides to this "problem". The first is the economic push out of the third world. There is not much we can do about the wars, shitty socialist economics, and downright kleptocracy of regimes in the global south. They will remain shitty hell-holes until they accept that free-markets, liberal democracy and the rule of Law are what makes a country successful and rich. Like India and south-east asia are doing.

The second is the economic pull, and this is in our control. If we did not subsidise idleness so generously, then able bodied chavs would be picking some of the Asparagus in Norfolk rather than this being done entirely by Romanians and Poles, reducing the availability of such work to immigrants. Secondly, if we maintained an open borders policy, but made it perfectly clear that, whilst the UK offered freedom to prosper; cash handouts, minimum wages and free healthcare were benefits for citizens only; then the nature of our economy would see that only migrants certain of their ability to earn their keep, or genuinely desperate to leave wherever it is they are now (i.e. those we would welcome anyway) would come here. There would need to be an incentive to pay your way, and several years' contributions in tax should be sufficient to earn citizenship.

Nothing offends me more than the sight of people being arrested for nothing more than working, especially when we're paying our compatriots to sit idle at vast expense. Whilst I've nothing against a safety net, a few month's payments to tide one over between jobs, the Long-Term unemployed lose the habit of work. I simply do not believe that there are "no jobs" out there. But the risk of losing benefits means that casual work of the sort needed to maintain the habit of work will actually cost the jobseeker money in lost benefits, so these are the ones taken by immigrants. The welfare state therefore creates a perverse economic incentive to wait for a "good" job. I, for example, would love to be Heidi Klum's breast-massager on a quarter of a million a year, but that job isn't open at the moment. Instead, I sit in front of a flashing screen for eight and a half hours a day.

Our grossly complex benefits system maintains unemployment needlessly high, keeps a class of permanent benefits recipients just above the subsistence line, and provides a massive hurdle to get into productive work. It also leaves a huge economic sector - the menial jobs - undone. Without immigrants this country would cease to function, unless we can mobilise that 15% of the population who choose to do no work.

My solution, for what it is worth, is to remove most border controls, stop controlling who can emply whom, and end the minimum wage. A much reduced and curtailed benefits system should see the jobs currently being done by immigrants being done by chavs. An anciliary benefit is the chav will therefore not be standing bored outside poundstretcher with a bottle of white lightning, looking for someone to mug, because he's picking Asparagus for me instead. After which he's too tired to go out on the piss, and kick off at Ritzy's. Furthermore, the prospect of working next to spotty Wayne rather than stunning Olga means that the shitty job on offer at home in Romania looks a lot more attractive.

The benefit bill goes down, the border bill goes down, crime goes down, employment and therefore tax reciepts go up. And we still welcome anyone who still wants to come here. Who doesn't benefit from a cut in benefits and open borders?