Chinese Workers Who Assemble Designer Bags in Italy
As I read this, the New Yorker seemed to highlight the problems from a more leftist, social safety net perspective. The Chinese immigrants circumvented the tax code in every way they could - working under the table, starting unregistered businesses in garages and vans, living in the garages and vans, even dying secretly so their passports could be repurposed for new immigrants. This meant hospitals and other public services went underfunded.What I found interesting, though, were the competing right-wing narratives in the lives of the immigrants. They were so ready to live industrious, entrepreneurial lives (largely) outside of the protection of government, pulling themselves up by their bootstraps, while their work ethic, frugality, and ultimate success led to anti-immigrant, nativist sentiments and the politics that reflect them.I tend to be relatively laissez-faire in my tastes for both economic and immigration policy, but watching the right-wing in Europe and the United States reject the latter makes me think the sentiment comes from a deeper, visceral level. Almost like an immune system rejecting something it doesn't recognize. For all the posturing and intellectual maturity of free-market economics and small government policies, it seems that right-wing politics will always find easier alliances among those with xenophobic or even racist sentiments because those motivations are hardwired into our DNA, and embracing your hard wiring is a lot easier than comprehending Friedman or Hayek.