Scolding Black Markets
"We're only against the *illegal* robots."
Imagine the US has a legal production quota on, say, robots. By law only 1 million robots can be sold domestically in a given year. But the market clearing demand is more like 4 million/year. There would definitely be black market activity, meaning the production and smuggling of “illegal” robots, covering (partially) the 3 million robot shortfall. It is totally predictable that people will be clandestinely manufacturing and importing illicit robots. It won’t make up for the total shortfall, but a large black market will exist and the policy makers know it.
In this world, it would be totally disingenuous for anti-robot scolds to say shit like, “I’m only against the *illegal* robots.” It’s totally fair to challenged them by pointing out that the restrictions on *legal* robot production made the illegal robots inevitable. There are voluntary transactions between consenting adults that would have happened if government policy didn’t stand in the way. It is clearly the robots themselves they are objecting to. They don’t have this sense of unshakable fidelity to the precise letter of the law in any other context, so it’s weird that it would show up in this one area. If supporters of such policies promptly duck out of the conversation, like a squid doing an ink-jet escape, you’d correctly surmise that they just have a misguided anti-robot ideology.
This is the lens through which I see the discourse on immigration (if you could call it a discourse). I have slightly more respect for people who are upfront about just plain disliking foreigners, because at least they are honest about their motives. It’s a pathetic dodge to favor a policy that will with 100% certainty lead to illicit activity and then complain about the illegality of that activity. When you outlaw voluntary transactions between consenting adults, you get black markets. If you support those laws and policies, the predictable consequences are your fault.
This is also the appropriate lens with which to view drug policy and vice crimes. I pointed out in an older post that otherwise normal behaviors get sleazier when you drive them underground. The required obfuscations and evasions appear shady, and criminals (or “criminals”) sometimes engage in genuine law-breaking to cover their tracks. Smuggling people across a border inside a semi trailer is dehumanizing and dangerous. It’s not an activity that is inherent to immigration, though. It only happens when the “market level” of immigration is artificially tamped down by shortsighted politicians responding to a wave of ugly nativist populism.