Recent attempts to push for greater restrictions on immigration present a dangerous direction of travel. The tension around this issue has been tightened by the approaching end of the transition period for the newest members of the European Union, Bulgaria and Romania. When the transition ends, the citizens of those countries will be free to move freely between member states.
There has been particular consternation in the UK, where hyperbolic screeching has claimed that the entire population of Eastern Europe is suddenly going to sign on to the British welfare system (Eaton, 2013). The more sober appraisals have been turned to the long term effects that loosening restrictions on movement will have on those new member countries. In particular is the problem faced by European nations with struggling economies, such as Ireland and Italy, where young people are emigrating to find opportunities for the chance of better life (Khaleeli et al, 2013; Davies, 2013).
The principle of free trade brings with it many benefits. Amongst them, the freedom of people to move to where they are most valuable to the economy - as the young and educated are to the nations of Western Europe with their ageing populations. The competition this movement brings tends to make employers very happy. But that is just one aspect of free trade. There are benefits that are often left unaddressed.
One such benefit is free trade's built in defence against corruption: competition. When businesses are able to acquire resources wherever they can and when capital and labour are able to move to where the best opportunities are, it stops power being concentrated too dangerously in any one pair of hands.
When we give in to the much hyped fears over the issue of immigration, it puts at risk important parts of the defences offered by free trade. Specifically, those aspects of free trade that act as a safeguard for the rights of workers. The freedom of people to move around and to seek work where they will is an essential defence against the power of capital. With the borders closed, the ability of workers to negotiate for better pay, better conditions and better rights is severely hampered.
However, stricter border controls also greatly increase the power of domestic business owners, by enhancing the control they wield over the domestic workforce. Since the workers are effectively cut off from other potential competing employers, their ability to negotiate is limited. With the borders closed, workers find themselves increasingly bound into a world shaped in the interests of employers.
'The worth of a State, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it; and a State which postpones the interests of their mental expansion and elevation, to a little more of administrative skill or that semblance of it which practice gives, in the details of business; a State, which dwarfs its men, in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands even for beneficial purposes, will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished; and that the perfection of machinery to which it has sacrificed everything, will in the end avail it nothing, for want of the vital power which, in order that the machine might work more smoothly, it has preferred to banish.' (John Stuart Mill, 1859)
John Stuart Mill argued that the 'vital power' - our ability to imagine and to innovate - is dependent upon individuals having a choice. Without competition the protections capitalism offers against corruption are non-existent. Without choice, so too is our capacity to realise Mill's vital power. Attempts to restrict the free movement of people presents a real threat to both competition and choice. We must remain vigilant against these and other attempts to concentrate control into the hands of a few, and build safeguards against attempts to restrict our horizons and our right choose.
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References:
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+ George Eaton's 'How fears over Romanian and Bulgarian immigration have been exaggerated'; in the New Statesman; 22 April 2013.
+ Homa Khaleeli, David Smith & Helena Smith's' 'The great escape: European migrants fleeing the recession'; in The Guardian; 30 January 2013.
+ Lizzy Davies' 'Italy election: the 'forgotten generation' seeking opportunities abroad'; in The Guardian; 19 February 2013.
+ John Stuart Mill's 'On Liberty'; 1859.
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