The problem with all the animus at borders around the world is that it interferes with good thinking. Hate rarely improves thinking. And that is a problem in Canada as it is in the United States.

The economist Paul Krugman said one of the problems was a persistent fallacy that has gripped politicians and their followers. He called it the “lump of labor fallacy.” He called that a zombie idea by which he meant an idea that refuses to die—like a zombie—but instead meanders (oops I mean wanders) along eating people’s brains. It prevents them from being smart. It prevents critical thinking.

According to Krugman

“This is the view that there is a fixed amount of work to be done and that if someone or something — some group of workers or some kind of machine — is doing some of that work, that means fewer jobs for everyone else.”

 That is not how the economy actually works, but it underlies Trump’s false economic view of immigration.  And it is a surprisingly resilient idea.  For example, the brilliant writer Kurt Vonnegut also subscribed to the view. He wrote a book called Player Piano in which he saw a future where there would be so much automation that it would lead to massive unemployment. If the machines could do everything there would be no need for workers anymore. As we know, this did not happen. As Krugman said, “But the crude argument that technological progress causes mass unemployment because workers are no longer needed is just wrong.”

 The problem is that there is always a large group of people who could be called, as Krugman did, the “lumpencommentariat.”  These people believe—wrongly—that there is always a limited amount of work to be done so it is unwise to use technology to increase the productivity of immigrants, because they will just take away jobs from Americans in the US or Canadians in Canada.

 In France in the 1970s their political leaders also believed in the same idea. When Mitterand came to power in France he feared a steep rise in unemployment and to counter that he thought it would be wise to reduce France’s retirement age from 65 to 60.  I admit I once thought it was economically wise as well. French politicians believed this would encourage more people  in the work force to free up jobs for young people. Unfortunately, for France it did not work that way.  As Krugman said, “Mitterand’s successors have spent decades trying to undo the damage.”

Now being a retired guy, who I often feel did not retire early enough, I admit early retirement also has a lot of good things going for it. It’s complicated.

But the ones who really screwed things up were Donald Trump and his immigration “architect,” Stephen Miller. Miller told everyone that one of the things he and Trump wanted to do was “turn off the faucet of new immigrant labor.” Not just illegal immigration either! All immigration even the immigration America desperately needed. Trump and Miller were hostile to almost all immigration.

 As Krugman pointed out,

 “Remarkably, Trump issued an executive order meant to deny visas to highly skilled foreigners, many working in the tech sector. Miller and his boss apparently believed that this would mean more plum jobs for Americans, when what it would actually do was undermine American competitiveness in advanced technology.”

In other words, Trump and Miller turned back a lot of people that could really have helped the American economy! And they did that out of animus. Hate interfered with their thinking.

The fact is that when incomes rise people find things on which to spend their money. That creates new jobs to replace those displaced by technology or newcomers.  Now some jobs are lost in such circumstances and we must be alert to help those people out. But we must do that smartly, not just by increasing tariffs or keeping valuable people out of the country.

As Krugman explained,

“Machines do, in fact, perform many tasks that used to require people; output per worker is more than four times what it was when Vonnegut wrote, so we could produce 1952’s level of output with only a quarter as many workers. In fact, however, employment has tripled.”

Keep out the hate; keep in clear thinking and we’ll all be better for it.