Well, I don’t know too much about Ayn Rand. I’ve never read her books, and I am not sure that I want to. She sounds like an intriguing person, but from what I’ve read about her, I would expect the views coming from her Institute to be ones I wouldn’t agree with (their goals being “to promote the principles of reason, rational self-interest, individual rights and laissez-faire capitalism”). But I found my way to a video of the President of the Ayn Rand Institute, Yaron Brook, offering his views on immigration. (Video 1 and Video 2).
Arguing that the government’s role should be limited to protecting citizens from bodily harm, Brook advocates an open-border policy that allows anyone to enter legally except “terrorists,” “criminals” and “people with infectious diseases.” He reasons that Americans’ hiring decisions should not be regulated, and the government is not responsible for creating or protecting jobs. By opening border crossings broadly, only those who fall into the categories of terrorists, criminals, and people with infectious diseases, would attempt to cross illegally. This smaller group could be more easily kept out (Brook suggests shooting at them), thus maintaining national security. He adds that migrants with high levels of education could more easily enter the United States, a boon to U.S. industry. Brook also says:
I believe that people who are today struggling and fighting to go to the United States are acting heroically. My standard of heroism is a person trying to make the best life they can for themselves. And a pregnant woman in Mexico who wants a better life for her child, and therefore is willing to struggle and do what it takes today to cross the border illegally into the United States, is heroically trying to make her life and her child’s life better by coming to America. I don’t think that should be condemned. I think, indeed, that should be praised. She’s a hero…by coming to the best country on Earth to make the best life that you can in the world today.
I agree that legal immigration should be more inclusive. But I don’t agree with Brook’s argument, nor his specifications on how to prevent illegal immigration.
First, this speech sugarcoats–or actually, completely omits–the reality of what it means to be a migrant from a poor country in the United States. Under his plan, though migrants would have legal status, the same stance that gives Americans that right to hire whoever they want would also allow U.S. employers to pay their workers whatever they want, or treat them however they want. Undocumented workers labor without the benefit of protection from the government–the minimum wage does not apply, nor do fair labor practices. Employers can insist on twelve hour days, seven days a week. With a hands-off government, even legal migrants would have no leverage to demand reasonable work conditions.
Second, I find Brook’s solution to discriminate between safe and unsafe migrants at best facile. How would migrants prove their lack of a criminal background? I’d imagine it would have to be some government document–another opportunity for a barrier-building bureaucracy. I’m not very impressed with U.S. officials’ ability to identify terrorists thus far, and it would certainly be very difficult to develop a mechanism to identify people as non-terrorists on a broad scale. And “infectious diseases”? Does he mean people with a cold? I could see this very easily be used as grounds to discriminate against HIV-positive individuals. That Brook could comment offhand that these people should be shot on sight–well, that plain disturbs me. He explains that these groups are not permitted entry for the danger they represent to American citizens. Yet in “weeding out” the undesired migrants, he proposes an impractical system easily manipulated to discriminate and exclude.
Despite these critiques, what Brook promotes something that is, in many ways, pretty close to what I believe in: straightforward and inclusive legal immigration. So why would I feel uncomfortable calling him an ally? I think the answer lies in the paragraph I quoted above. Ultimately, in this schema of “individual rights,” some individuals are more worthy than others. Brook justifies allowing migration by saying that it benefits American citizens: it’s good for the economy, improves national security, gives us freedom to hire whoever we want. The benefits of migration to the migrant are not relevant or convincing to his audience, who believe passionately in the pursuit of their own self-interest.
The potentially redeeming image of the pregnant Mexican woman is not an affirmation of the dignity of trying to provide for a family. Instead, it ennobles the migrant for aspiring to the superior reality that is the United States. He lauds the woman for realizing the merit of “the best country on Earth” and leaving behind the lesser land she came from. She is affirming the righteousness of Americans’ individual rights by seeking Americanness herself. The possibility that she imagines a good life for her child in Mexico–made secure by wages she earned in the United States–is not discussed, for it would confound Brook’s nationalist underpinnings.
And for this Mexican migrant, when individual rights come into conflict, hers will lose out. The American employer who underpays and overworks her is only exercising his individual rights, after all. And if she doesn’t stand for it, of course the employer has the right to hire someone who will. Because the employer has more power to start with, the employer’s individual rights always will have more clout.
What I do know about Ayn Rand is that her fervent belief in capitalism had much to do with early, unhappy years in the Soviet Union that turned her forever against Communism or anything that looked remotely like it. Ayn Rand was an immigrant of the “melting pot” type: she assimilated to the language, changed her name, economic system, and cultural traits of “mainstream” white Americans. Because in her worldview the pursuit of personal wealth is the noblest human activity, economically-motivated migration is ideologically impossible to oppose. But the logic of capitalism, for all the rags-to-riches stories it makes possible, is heartless. Though hard work can lead to wealth, billions of humans work very hard and earn very little. Capitalism isn’t the least bit fair. By refusing to acknowledge the injustice of an individual rights/capitalist system–however “well” it may work compared to other economic models–the Ayn Rand philosophy must also discriminate to make itself valid.
In the name of “Reason,” Brook invokes an open immigration policy not out of compassion for migrants, but as a confirmation of the goodness that is American capitalism. It is self-serving, which is just fine by Ayn Rand, who hopes that everyone will act selfishly. But without a level playing field, the idea of “individual rights” condones and exacerbates gross injustice. Heroism is acting bravely on behalf of others, and not even Brook can deny this totally. After all, it is the unborn child in his heroine’s womb that makes her border crossing truly admirable–she acts not only for herself, but also, or mostly, for her baby’s sake.
I am very curious to read your reactions to this–criticism encouraged!
