Ask HN: Why are US tech workers so pro open borders? I am trying to understand why US tech workers seem to be so Libertarian on open border immigration policy, when it clearly does not benefit them (downward pressure on salaries, immigrant ethnic cronyism, etc). Where does this attitude come from? |
My experience working with a lot of international people (H-1B, etc) is just that in general the people I have worked with have been highly-motivated, hard working, and fantastic people to work with in general. Bringing more people like this into the country I think is just good for society and good for the culture. Any statistical disadvantage it may create for me (salary-related, job competition, etc) I am just not concerned about. I think these concerns tend to be overstated.
"Immigrant ethnic cronyism" -- would you care to explain a bit more?
That's my own personal opinion. I can understand how e.g. local and/or temporary changes to wages would be far more concerning and devastating to jobs that are lower paying, but since the question is on tech jobs which are typically much higher paying, I think it's fair game for companies to make strategic decisions in the company's best interest (as long as it doesn't run afoul of laws or human rights). I would be happy for the folks that were able to participate in an economy.
To me it would be unethical to create artificial barriers to lock humans out of opportunities just so I could keep an effectively inflated salary (since this assumes that the true value of the labor is actually lower than what I'm being paid).
Pichai came to the USA as a student and worked initially on an H-1B visa as did Musk. Musk once claimed he would "go to war" supporting this program though he may feel differently today.
Given that much of "big tech" is staffed and run by immigrants why would we not expect big tech to be pro open boarders at least as it relates to tech employment?
So if you ask the question in general, you'll get some basic support. But if you ask, perhaps, about H1B abuse you'll find that people will often confirm that it occurs.
I live in Korea, so my perspective differs a bit from people here. I've worked with clients in Korea, China, and Japan, and I've also collaborated with Americans.
To be precise, this is a classic core-periphery model problem in macroeconomics. People often say that open source is open to everyone, but if you're not a native English speaker, participation is difficult. That's the first barrier. It's hard for products of lower quality than open source to become commercialized, right?
And that's where the problem begins. US big tech companies use open source and global platforms to extract free labor and data from peripheral developers around the world, building exclusive profit models.
It's open in form, but in practice, participation is stratified.
They control the infrastructure and standards of the 'open source ecosystem,' and developers in third-world countries, including Korea, end up working as subcontractors that conform to those standards. They become digital tenant farmers.
Of course, the tenant farmers also benefit. It's just that the structure of the benefits is asymmetric compared to the landlords
The tenant farmers (developers from countries other than the US) work hard on the land provided by the landlord (US open source frameworks and platforms), but the landlord reaps all the final harvest.
To learn how to use US infrastructure, people in other countries introduce certifications and other gatekeeping mechanisms. In other words, the entire industry is dependent on US technology. Ecosystem capture is the US strategy.
Google released Android and Kubernetes, and Meta released React, precisely to control the ecosystem standards. It's the most efficient strategy.
So it requires more cognitive overhead. And because of that openness, sovereign programming or machine-native programming never emerged, leading to a complete cultural dependency—which also makes it easier to manage.
In fact, there are quite a few ways of thinking that feel natural to the Western programming industry that feel foreign to me
The more open it becomes, the more participants join, and the harder it becomes for non-native English speakers to keep up. China seems to be catching up with its 1.4 billion population, but looking at Gitee, they're still heavily dependent on the US.
It's free, but it's not free at all.
But is open borders really all that bad? My answer is no. Domination is inevitable anyway. It's just that domination through open borders is easier to gain consent from the dominated than through closed borders.
Participation in an open empire is better than submission to a closed one. It's just asymmetric.
As Gramsci said, domination comes from the consent of the dominated. In that sense, a refined form of domination like open borders, even if asymmetric, is acceptable enough
I don't believe that is actually a commonly held capital "L" Libertarian belief though, and certainly would not associate myself with that party.
But forget the military/self defense issues. Consider the word "jurisdiction". It literally means getting to say what the law is. Well, if you have a place where US law is in force, and another place where Chinese law is in force, you have to have a border, a place where the law switches from one to the other.
Or do you believe that there should be one universal law for the whole world? If so, whose?
Or do you believe that law enforcement is also state violence? Do you believe that the absence of any law would be less violent? And if so, what is your basis for believing that?
I don't know what you mean with the russia/Ukraine thing, bringing a tank over the border would obviously be illegal in either legal system.
If your point is that we don't have easy solutions, yes I agree.
I'd also point out that the distinction I am making is state vs personal not violence vs non violence.
...It obviously is? How is that even a question?
Looking back, the reaction to Aaron Shwartz's death in 2013 was, IMO, indicative of the older culture. It definitely felt like a minority viewpoint by the time Covid rolled around. So, somewhere in there.
Cynically: Greed and cynicism. Greed first. The tech workers who wanted to come here have always been able to come, so open borders are not going to increase the supply of tech workers much. But it is going to increase the supply of low-level workers, which results in lower prices in a number of areas. That makes tech workers better off, because at least some of the stuff they buy is cheaper.
The cynicism part is cynicism about America. They see it as nothing special, as having no special character worth preserving, as either neutral or negative overall. So if mass immigration happens, and it changes the character of either politics or culture, who cares?
If you go into the midwest though there's more animosity about being replaced by lower-wage foreign talent. In my experience when US-born engineers support immigration strongly it seems to be a holdout from their college years, and not something they picked up since starting their career.
No immigration means no concentration of talent, which means companies would just move to a country that allows that (e.g. Ireland) and they'll take their high-paying jobs with them.
I don't think we could cleanly say either way though, it would come down to nitpicking the definition of "tech worker". I have no real interest in that, and will grant you could look at it either way.
It is interesting though seeing US tech companies, making US level revenue streams, with their US owners making massive profits go from hiring highly paid Americans to hiring overseas people for 25% or less.
Not to be hyper-nationalistic or anything like that, but US tech workers used to get to take advantage of the wealth of the US tech industry. Obviously lots still to do, but many people are unemployed for a long time right now or taking jobs at lower pay. Meanwhile the US owners are making record profits. Feels like a part of the system isn't working anymore.
All that said, I also can't really justify hiring an American developer over an Eastern European developer in many cases. Not all, but many.