>On Fri, 28 Feb 2003, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>> On the feminist economics list, the so-called dean of feminist
>> economists, Barbara Bergmann has been worrying about immigration. (I'd
>> forward the posts, but it's against the rules.) Immigration lowers
>> wages, puts a strain on public budgets, and - her latest worry - is
>> bringing in a lot of antifeminist religious nuts. My first reaction to
>> the last worry was "coals to Newcastle."
>
>And your second reaction was to ask her whether she was afraid of being
>labelled the feminist Pym Fortuyn?
>
>Michael
Oooh, her first post on this from several weeks ago was to the IAFFE list, which doesn't have that annoying no-forward rider. Here it is in all its richness (bad formatting in original).
Doug
----
Date: Wed, 08 Jan 2003 10:25:37 -0500 From: "Barbara R. Bergmann" <bbergman at wam.umd.edu> Organization: University of Maryland To: "International Association for Feminist Economics" <iaffe-l at lists.carleton.ca> Subject: Re: scabs, unions, immigration, low wages, single moms
N.Kaul at hull.ac.uk wrote:
> I cannot
> understand the narrow provincialism of citizenship and immigration
> restrictions where if you happen to be born within a certain set of
> historically-politically contingent lines on a map which were sketched in
> blood, bribes and violence -- then you "belong" there and "others"
>do not, and
> so you must ensure to keep you and yours away and protected from the numerous
> (economic, cultural, psychological) threats of the 'others'.
>From the point of view of the welfare of the world (which I agree
>should be paramount) the
only valid reason to limit immigration to developed countries would
be to preserve and
hopefully improve and eventually spread to the rest of the world the
institutional
conditions that are unique to developed countries and lacking in the
undeveloped world, such
as freedom, higher standard of living, low corruption, as well as
more equal chances for
women. If, for argument's sake, a large influx of fundametalist
Muslims joined the
fundamentalist Christians in the US and augmented their cultural and
political power, we
would not like what happened. I was impressed by some demonstrations
of fencing off part of
the Sahel desert, so that nomads' goats could not freely graze there.
The result was patches
of green in the midst of the desert. That's what the developed world is.
--
******************
Barbara R. Bergmann bbergman at wam.umd.edu
Professor Emerita of Economics,
American University and University of Maryland
Tel 202-537-3036 Fax 202 686-3456
Mail to: 5430 41 Place NW, DC 20015
*******************
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