Disneyland is very popular, so much so that huge numbers of Americans and others pay $59 for a single-day ticket and spend more to get there, eat there, and stay there. That shows that the ideal of classless society is a marketable commodity.
As a matter of fact, the savviest socialist leader, Fidel Castro, has long marketed Cuba as SocialistIsland to Western tourists. If it were not for the US embargo, SocialistIsland might be an even more popular destination.
This gets me back on the subject of immigration. Paul Krugman observed:
<blockquote>I used to live next door to a Russian émigré. One day he asked me to explain something that puzzled him about his new country. "This place seems very rich," he said, "but I never see anyone making anything. How does the country earn its money?"
The answer, these days, is that we make a living by selling each other houses. ("Safe as Houses," 12 August 2005, <http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/opinion/12krugman.html?ex=1281499200&en=8514f5da73320fab&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss>)</blockquote>
America nowadays has few attractive commodities made in America -- aside from weapons -- to offer to international consumers, but there is one all-American commodity that the rest of the world are willing to spend big money to acquire: Green Cards.
The beauty of this commodity is that it costs very little to manufacture -- merely costs of background checks, printing notices and cards, mailing them, etc. -- and produces very few environmental externalities.
And it sells, like sex.
The price of a Green Card is far steeper than a Disneyland ticket. How much? A gainfully employed spouse or a gainful employer, willing to sponsor you. Plus fees for the privilege of getting photographed, fingerprinted, background-checked, and interviewed. If you find ever-changing immigration laws and piles of paperwork daunting, you can spend even more to hire a lawyer to walk you through an exciting immigration maze. Altogether, the price can go up to thousands of dollars.
Despite a perennial demand for this commodity that never seems to go out of fashion, America doesn't sell it according to its cherished principle: free market. It rations Green Cards by quotas and other anti-market means. That is Un-American. The rationing has led to the mushrooming of black markets for coyotes' services and counterfeit Green Cards.
To solve the problems of black-market immigration and fiscal and trade deficits at once, in the quintessentially American way, I propose that America officially rebrand itself as "AmeriLand: Land of Buy One Get One Free" and offer tickets -- i.e., Green Cards -- to AmeriLand experience for all who are willing to pay.
Caveat Emptor: NO Money Back Guarantee!
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>