Economics

移民神话和经济现实

Feb 26, 2019 Mahmoud Mohieldin and Dilip Ratha

华盛顿——2018年12月19日，联合国大会以152票赞成、5票反对和12票弃权的比例投票通过了安全、有序和定期移民全球契约。支持者对契约持欢迎态度，认为这是朝更为人道和有效的移民管理所迈出的重要一步，但与此同时，反对势力也依然强劲。

契约并非具有法律效力的条约，它也并未保障移民拥有新的权利。事实上，契约的23项目标是在为期两年的包容性探讨和6轮谈判基础上起草的，尤其侧重于建立一套不会过度干预国家内部事务的国际合作框架。

因为存在对契约的误解，我们应当认真研究一下移民挑战——以及管理良好的移民系统可以为东道国和原籍国所带来的巨大好处。

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Mahmoud Mohieldin

Writing for PS since 2011
30 Commentaries

Mahmoud Mohieldin, a former Egyptian minister for investment, is Egypt’s High-Level Climate Champion for COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh, an executive director at the International Monetary Fund, and Facilitator of the Green Climate Fund’s second replenishment process.

Dilip Ratha

Writing for PS since 2014
2 Commentaries

Dilip Ratha is head of the World Bank Migration and Remittances Unit and Global Knowledge Partnership on Migration and Development.

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B Wilds Mar 1, 2019

The debate of what people "deserve" and whether those who have it should share is not new. Whether a person has landed in a place of plenty by luck or worked their way in by cunning or toil it is something to be valued.

Borders are a creation of man and men set the rules as to who crosses them and on what terms. While it may seem unfair to exclude or deny individuals this right we must remember that life is unfair and this is a reality of life. More on an immigrant's right to enter a world of plenty in the article below.

http://brucewilds.blogspot.com/2018/07/immigrants-right-to-enter-land-of-plenty.html
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Paul Friesen Feb 26, 2019

I am sure that, when the history of our time is written in a couple of hundred years, the barriers that today's rich countries trow up to migration will be seen in much the same way as we view slavery today. Today, we can hardly fathom how so many people could have regarded slavery as right, and justified, and necessary. And yet it was so regarded. Mainstream opinion in the American South was just like that.

In two hundred years, I expect that people will be able to look back at our time as we look back at slavery. They will be able to view us with at least a bit of objectivity. And the barriers which industrialized, rich countries put up to keep people out of the industrial clusters which they want to keep all to themselves are going to be viewed as every bit as unfair and unjustified and selfish and harmful as slavery. Today's industrialized countries are not that way because their inhabitants are smarter or harder-working than anybody else. The only reason they have so much is that industry tends to create and attract more industry, for many reasons. The result is that those countries that happened to industrialize early have a huge advantage. To those who have, more is given.

Today, mainstream opinion in rich countries is that the barriers they put up are justified. Never mind that they condemn millions to lives of poverty in a world that could easily give everybody a decent life. Never mind the suffering, death, and starvation into which those barriers force so many people. Slavery forced people to work themselves to death. Today, we put up barriers to prevent people from working - to keep them away from jobs that they could be doing - to keep them from contributing. The future will judge us, just as we judge those who promoted and used and tolerated slavery.
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