New at Reason

April 13, 2007

Kerry Howley explores immigration as a feminist issue, or, the connection between becoming more Amish and protecting America from the Mexican menace.

Comments

Russ 2000|4.13.07 @ 12:46PM|#

The keep-'em-out, mow-your-own-lawn ideology falls hardest not on the traditional purveyors of lawn care, but on the traditional purveyors of childcare-mothers.

I couldn't disagree more.

The traditional grass cutters for America's greatest generation were children. Every kid I knew had to cut the grass as one of their expected household chores.

But nowadays, lawnmowing is far too dangerous to allow 13-year olds to do it, much like delivering newspapers. Plus the fact that children are required to do 6 hours of homework every night, even during the summer, and the only people left to cut grass are recent Mexican adult immigrants.

Fluffy|4.13.07 @ 12:52PM|#

White guys mow my lawn.

I guess that's OK.

That's what this is really about, right? If I give white guys 40 bucks a week to mow my lawn, I'm helping America, but if I give hispanic guys the same amount, I should mow my own damn lawn.

4311|4.13.07 @ 1:03PM|#

"But as American women look to solidify the gains they've made, through the Equal Rights Amendment and other measures..."

Not to nitpick, but American women have made no gains "through the Equal Rights Amendment." It never passed.

thoreau|4.13.07 @ 1:08PM|#

Good article, Kerry.

Cesar|4.13.07 @ 1:17PM|#

*That's what this is really about, right? If I give white guys 40 bucks a week to mow my lawn, I'm helping America, but if I give hispanic guys the same amount, I should mow my own damn lawn.*

And I wonder what they would say if you paid a guy like me to mow your lawn! (Half Irish/Half Mexican).

KoWT|4.13.07 @ 1:19PM|#

The Conceptual Continuity Generator here in the Kingdom of White Trash has been spitting out Alan Watts refrences for the last coupla days

this column evoked memories of his "lawn order" shtick

|4.13.07 @ 2:06PM|#

We should ask them to pick their own oranges or strawberries, see what they do there.

edna|4.13.07 @ 2:22PM|#

we use asian nymphets in bikinis. it's classier.

KipEsquire|4.13.07 @ 2:44PM|#

Why not just cut to the chase and dismiss lawns outright as an unnecessary, narcissistic, Veblenian luxury?

Asphalt jungles are so underappreciated...

Pig Man|4.13.07 @ 3:24PM|#

Can we please all agree on one point: hot foreign babes should be allowed unrestricted entry to the United States!

Bee|4.13.07 @ 4:22PM|#

Wow, I would so pay someone, anyone, to churn me some fresh butter. Mmm.

This is a fresh and thought-provoking angle on the issue, Kerry. Thanks.

|4.13.07 @ 4:48PM|#

Yukio Mishima? Random.

|4.13.07 @ 4:56PM|#

As usual, left-libertarians get the issue wrong here by avoiding the 800 lb gorilla in the room. The real issue that causes a need for low wage foreign workers is welfare. Millions of poor, uneducated, and unskilled workers who would be in the workforce, as was throughout our history before the Great Society, doing jobs like laundry, lawncare, and other jobs appropriate for those with low motivation and/or intelligence. Funny how left-libertarians love the business skills of the local drug dealer but, in an effort to pander to the racialist and radical left, ignore the millions not working because of welfare. Also note that drug dealer is usually living with girlfriend or parents in a subsidized apartment. Without welfare, the drug dealer and the women he bunks with would be forced into the legitimate economy doing the work illegals do now.

Cesar|4.13.07 @ 5:15PM|#

Johnnie-

I can see your point about welfare producing a bigger shortage of labor that would otherwise exist. But there was welfare reform ten years ago, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe people can stay on it indefinitely anymore.

Of course that doesn't change the fact that it would be better if we didn't have government-sponsored welfare at all.

highnumber|4.13.07 @ 7:06PM|#

Johnnie,
You're f-in' brilliant man! Seriously.
You have shed a ton of light on the issues at hand. Do you have a blog where I can keep up with this sort of analysis?

|4.13.07 @ 8:23PM|#

"But nowadays, lawnmowing is far too dangerous to allow 13-year olds to do it, much like delivering newspapers."

Hell, I was only eight when I started mowing the grass with just an ordinary walk behind mower. Used to do the neighbors' yards for pocket money, too. Raking and weed trimming (pre-Weedeater days) was the tough part.

|4.13.07 @ 8:33PM|#

I can see your point about welfare producing a bigger shortage of labor that would otherwise exist. But there was welfare reform ten years ago, correct me if I'm wrong but I don't believe people can stay on it indefinitely anymore.

And furthermore, except for a few states able-bodied men have never been able to go on "the dole" Euro-style. And those states ended the practice long before the welfare reform referred to above.

Sorry but the few pimps and drug dealers you refer to (if indeed they exist at all) are not significant to the discussion at hand.

I'm sorry, Johnnie, but your comment is in the same class as most of the anti-immigration bilge here. That is, it is based on utterly mistaken premises.

|4.13.07 @ 9:05PM|#

slaves, that's what we need. Yeah slaves.

|4.13.07 @ 9:59PM|#

I totally agree with the upthread post who said anti-immigration sorts should have to pick their own oranges and strawberries. Actually, they should really have to make their own cloth. Thousands of immigrants staff our cotton mills and clothing factories, doing jobs that just a couple centuries ago good American women were perfectly content to do themselves. (close snark tag)

Seriously, we started having an economy worthy of the name when people began 'outsourcing' things like cloth production from their homes to factories. Housework is just the latest task we've started paying for. (And, by the way, I have a bi-monthly maid service. I still have to clean in between visits, so it's not like I'm unfamiliar with the process.)

|4.14.07 @ 7:42AM|#

women have come a long way huh? why do they allow their daughters to dress like whores and wear whorish amounts of makeup? does endless hair dyeing cause problems? did my grandmother and all her hairspraying sisters get emphasema? [sic]. do men trust women more than ever? are there millions of young women exposing themselves online? hey lady! discount shoes over here! oops i got crushed by a mob. amerikan children are vastly from single parents now, and it's all the fault of men. men are to blame for everything. but our children just get nicer and nicer every decade, dont they? see the U.S. dad walking 5 steps behind his family with a lost look on his face as they graze for plastic and shiny and colorful trinkets.

|4.14.07 @ 8:03AM|#

i worked in the building supplies industry, and all kidding aside this is the script i saw played out over and over [ 100's of times]:
wife: we NEED to get crown moulding.
husband: uhhhh
wife: where's the crown moulding
worker: it's right here ma'am.
wife: ohhhhh... so THAT's crown moulding.
husb: hmmmm
wife: we gotta get that.
husb: [with a lost look on his face] uhhhhh..o.k.

i swear i have seen that happen word for word 100's of times. go to the big box store's moulding aisle and see for yourself. it can occur several times an hour on the weekend.
women's magazines/TV tell women what to buy and they obey. you are a strong bunch, i tell ya. ''you're ugly '' the media says.. so you slather on makeup and dye your hair garishly.
misogynistic you say? no. i am being disrespectful specifically towards the majority of amerikan womanhood. i love grey hair. it says: ''i am real!!''
read some Margaret Mead fools and foolettes. no indiginous tribe's women feel as amerikan women do. Birkenstock is an anti-abortion supporter. Disney and Nike and sesame street are Chinese slave drivers. how many of you women buy their crap? ''but my kid's want it!''
at the expense of the Chinese female. so full of cr4p you mostly are. buy amerikan! hire amerikan. raise your own kids because YOU have the uterus. you are responsible for your actions. no more corporate entertainment for kids. they need to learn. coddling will help them fail. look around.

|4.14.07 @ 10:00AM|#

I can't be sure, but I would bet that Rich Lowry does very little grass cutting or shrub trimming or anything else resembling manual labor...But then I shoulod guess being a "do as I write not as I live" hypocrite is old hat for NR writers...

ernunnos|4.14.07 @ 10:26AM|#

A lifestyle based on the availability of cheap labor is inherently unsustainable and unscalable to the larger population. It's the "wealth" of feudal lords or American slaveholders.

True prosperity - the kind that lifts all boats - is based on increased production, new efficiencies, economies of scale, and capital improvements that multiply the value of labor. When we need to dig ditches faster, we don't import hundreds of thousands of ditch-diggers from the 3rd world to live among us in the kind of squalor afforded by a ditch-digger's income, we invent the backhoe.

Any business that can only survive by paying low wages is declaring itself inefficient at creating value. And any arrangement that simply shifts a task from one party to another just changes who goes without. Who raises the children of the full-time nanny? Unless you're creating new value, you're simply shuffling misery around. The uncared-for children will be in someone else's neighborhood. But they will still be in America.

|4.14.07 @ 1:57PM|#

Johnnie hit the nail on the head, but he didn't drive it in far enough.

Welfare is not only the reason that there is a NEED for immigrants, it is also the primary reason for the CONDEMNATION of immigrants.

Read the letters and listen to the talk shows, and you will find the most common complaint is that "they come here for the welfare money."

Thus, the solution is simple: pass a law stating that only a legal resident may take tax-funded welfare benefits of any type.

You know what? People will rapidly discover that the vast majority of immigrants ALREADY DON'T use welfare -- that's overwhelmingly the domain of American-born deadbeats (and a small handful of those who are legitimately in need, generally on a temporary basis).

The "no-welfare-for-illegals" law will be a good first step toward eliminating the whole welfare scheme in favor of a "workfare" program, while at the same time removing a lot of the pressure on the immigration issue.

The REAL need is for immigration REFORM, making it easier for the people we want here to come here legally, and keeping the criminals out.

Of course, our Elect Officials don't WANT to keep out the criminals . . .professional courtesy, you know . . .

|4.14.07 @ 2:09PM|#

ernunnos wrote:

Any business that can only survive by paying low wages is declaring itself inefficient at creating value.

Not necessarily. All business is driven by the market -- no business can survive unless they provide their product at a price that the market is willing to support. It has nothing to do with the ability to create value, it it driven by the market's ability to afford the product. This is why so few people own LearJets.

If using low-priced labor is the only way that a business is able to bring their prices down to what people are able to pay, then there's no other option.

|4.14.07 @ 3:22PM|#

i love unmown lawns and dandelions. It says "i am real".

ernunnos|4.14.07 @ 5:06PM|#

This is why so few people own LearJets.

And yet Lear is still in business. They can charge high prices because they're producing high value.

One of the ways that markets work is to put inefficient businesses out of business. If the value I produce is less than the value that customers are willing to pay, I will go out of business. This is not a tragedy, this is the market working correctly.

If I have to import desperate people to make my business a viable concern, my business model isn't very good. Particularly since there are significant side effects to living near desperate people that my neighbors will have to suffer, and which I will not be recompensing them for.

Last year on May Day (a traditional socialist holiday) I saw tens of thousands of people participating in a general strike (a traditional socialist activity) to demand entitlements in violation of the rule of law (a traditional socialist demand). And Reason's contributors want me to believe that I'll be better off if only we import a couple of million more socialists and gave them the vote?

I'll mow my own lawn, thanks. Or better yet, buy a Husquavarna Auto Mower.

|4.14.07 @ 5:44PM|#

Many illegal immigrants work in meat-processing plants; I assume NR recommends that Americans slaughter their own meat?

Nobody Important|4.15.07 @ 3:13PM|#

J Golden Rockwell | April 14, 2007, 1:57pm
Read the letters and listen to the talk shows, and you will find the most common complaint is that "they come here for the welfare money."
Thus, the solution is simple: pass a law stating that only a legal resident may take tax-funded welfare benefits of any type.

Would your law prohibit illegal aliens from using subsidized schools and hospital emergency rooms?

LarryA|4.15.07 @ 5:09PM|#

Without welfare, the drug dealer and the women he bunks with would be forced into the legitimate economy doing the work illegals do now.

Yeah. Because he'd much rather mow lawns, wash dishes, cut Christmas trees, pick vegetables, etc. at $4.00 an hour than rake in suitcases full of cash supplying eager customers.

And any arrangement that simply shifts a task from one party to another just changes who goes without.

Hogwash. Ever heard of "specialization?" Shifting the task of repairing my Jeep from me to an auto mechanic means that someone with training and the proper tools, parts, and equipment does the work.

Who raises the children of the full-time nanny?

Figure "working age" from 18 to 65. (To choose a restrictive definition.) Figure a woman has two children four years apart and raises them as a full-time mother. It takes 23 years from conception to adulthood. That leaves the typical woman over half her work-life to be a nanny without worrying about who is raising her children. And that's only one alternative. (Men can be nannies to.)

Funny you didn't ask, "If a businessman goes to the office every day, who will raise his children?"

Unless you're creating new value, you're simply shuffling misery around.

Many people in Mexico need paying jobs. If they come here and work, tripling their income, they are less miserable. If U.S. employers need people to work hard, and hire said laborers, the employers are less miserable. The laborers send money home, making their families less miserable. The families can purchase more in Mexico, making their businesses less miserable. Mexico has less of a welfare problem, making the Mexican government less miserable. The laborer pays taxes, making U.S. government and society less miserable.

Where is the downside?

If I have to import desperate people to make my business a viable concern, my business model isn't very good. Particularly since there are significant side effects to living near desperate people that my neighbors will have to suffer, and which I will not be recompensing them for.

Giving jobs to desperate people makes them less desperate. Closing the border to desperate people makes them more desperate, just across the border. I'd much rather help solve the problem with legal immigration than by having to repel an invasion.

A lifestyle based on the availability of cheap labor is inherently unsustainable and unscalable to the larger population. It's the "wealth" of feudal lords or American slaveholders.

I don't think I'm either a feudal lord or slaveholder. It makes sense to have my lawn mowed for several reasons:
1. I hate mowing lawns. I really hate mowing lawns.
2. I can earn enough working for two hours to more than pay the $30 it costs to have my lawn mowed.
3. I don't have to purchase a lawnmower, and maintain it and store it and a can of gasoline in my garage.
4. The person who mows my lawn makes enough to support himself and his family. $15/hour isn't exactly a "low wage" job. (And no, he isn't "illegal.")
5. My lawn guy, (Andrew) likes working outdoors. He hates having to sit at a computer.
6. My wife calls the lawn guy and gets the lawn mowed when she wants it done, instead of pestering me to work it into my "leisure" time.

It's the true wealth of a diverse and specialized economy.

ernunnos|4.17.07 @ 12:58AM|#

Mexico has less of a welfare problem, making the Mexican government less miserable.

Yes, because as so many mideastern countries with oil and African countries with uranium and diamond mines demonstrate, unearned wealth is the path to good governance and the end of misery.

Closing the border to desperate people makes them more desperate, just across the border.

Spoken like someone who's never heard the 'pop-pop-pop' of desperate gunshots in their backyard. Keeping that kind of desperation on the other side of a a wall is a significant accomplishment. I don't really care if it's a prison wall or a border wall. Except maybe border walls are cheaper.

I hate mowing lawns. I really hate mowing lawns.

My heart bleeds for you. Do you hate mowing lawns more or less than you hate the idea of your kids hearing 'pop-pop-pop' on their way to school? Not that you would hate them being exposed to such diversity, of course.

|4.17.07 @ 3:46PM|#

So, do we just allow everyone who wants to enter america to do so? Regardless of the number of people, the abilities of the people, etc?

We set no limits whatsoever? Instead of expecting other countries to fix their own problems (usually caused by socialist type economies), we say, just let everyone come to america?

And, you don't think this will have significant negative effects on America?

So, the new open borders argument is do it for women's rights and the poor from other countries?

And this is "Reason"?

Seriously, I have not seen a weaker argument advanced for open borders anywhere else. This has to be some kind of joke.

J Random American|4.17.07 @ 6:15PM|#

I agree with Kerry Howley that people (including women, of course) should be free to pay to avoid work that they think is beneath them or that they just don't want to do. But why does that mean we have to bring in a new underclass of foriegn servants to do the menial work for us? Make the robots mow the lawn! We don't churn our own butter, but not because we pushed the work off on someone else. We invented machines to churn the butter for us so that we could do more productive (and therefore higher paying) work designing, selling, and maintaining industrial butter churns. Here is my blogpost on the subject where I go into more detail: http://ideasinprogress.blogspot.com/2007/04/make-robot-mow-lawn.html

Robert|4.17.07 @ 6:56PM|#

Libertarians amuse me with their child-like belief in the Free Market.

I guess that the libertarian view is that immigrant labor exists solely to do the jobs that Americans won't do like cut the grass, paint houses, raise children.

Europe imported "cheap labor" from north Africa and the bill has come due (note the Paris riots or the riots in northern England as the descendants of the cheap labor clash with the growing native unemployed).

And then there's the simple issue of population. I'm sure I'm not the only one who finds that rapidly worsening traffic and increasing taxes to pay for over-burdened schools make mass immigration, well, unattractive.

There is no such thing as cheap labor (immigrant or native, legal or illegal). Low wage labor is heavily subsidized by those of us who do care for our own kids and mow our own lawns (and watch as our neighborhoods are overrun with people living ten to a house).

|4.17.07 @ 7:20PM|#

Cailin Flanagan said it more pithily:

"How Serfdom Saved The Women's Movement"

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/2004/03/flanagan.htm

|4.19.07 @ 12:33AM|#

Illegal immigration good for feminists? Having slaves or rented uteruses would be even better for todays Amerikan women. No sense damaging your physique with a dangerous pregnancy when you can hire someone less fortuate to do it for you. Or to care for the children you bore. How boring, anyway, when it's not all about you. Women are mercenary by nature, but Amerikan women are the most self-centered materialistic people on earth.

|4.25.07 @ 10:09AM|#

I consider myself an informed and intelligent person, but I can't figure this article out. What is Ms. Howell's point? I can't discern between what I think is sarcasm and what is actually her view. With all respect, I hated reading this. Really.