May 23, 2007
Henryk A. Kowalczyk for President?
Well, it is still an open field, after all.
Although I always seem to misspell his name, Henryk A. Kowalczyk is one of the most interesting people I have met on the internet. Henryk has a lot to say about immigration, the war in Iraq, and government meddling in the personal lives of its constituents.
I should also point out that I don't always agree with Henryk. Nevertheless, in an internet full of robotic partisans delivering canned rhetoric from the Right and the Left, Henryk looks at issues from a contrarian perspective.
He advocates a purely market-based approach to the current immigration conundrum. Read it for yourself here.
Here is what I do like about Henryk's proposal:
He is obviously not in favor of allowing people to come here to mooch off the U.S. welfare system. Under Henryk's proposal, permission to come to the U.S. would be based on a foreign applicant's demonstrated ability to support him or herself here.
He acknowledges the flaws in the current lottery and family-based visa programs.
I do, however, have several problems with Henryk's proposal:
His scheme to throw open the U.S. labor market to the "global bottom line" would be destructive for American workers. He says, "Some Americans are paid more than their work is worth, and some of them would lose their jobs due to competition from foreign workers." Although the U.S. is a capitalist nation, there has always been a balance between laissez faire and societal stability. Economic efficiency is a tool, not an end in itself. Or, to put it another way: the United States is not just a labor market. It is also a nation. His idea would be a race to the bottom, with big corporations dividing up the spoils and workers footing the bill.
I am also concerned about the premise that we actually want all the capable people of the world to come here to begin with. I would sort of prefer that they stay home and improve conditions in their own countries. As I have argued at length, open immigration hurts developing nations a lot more than it helps them.
But these are my opinions. Check out Henryk's website and video, and decide for yourself.
