The EconomistNovember 16th 2019 3U
nder a makeshiftsunshade by a half-dry riverbed on the In-
donesian island of Java, Eddie Sebastian is taking a lunch-
break. It is hot and he is tired. He makes $2 a day collecting stones,
breaking them with a hammer and selling them as building mater-
ial. Asked if he has any better tools, he says: “Our most advanced
equipment is that ‘forklift’.” He is pointing at a rusty wheelbarrow.
Mr Sebastian’s talents are wasted. Not just because he would
make a fine stand-up comedian, but also because he was born in
the wrong place. If he lived in a rich country, he would be operating
a mechanical digger and earning $20 an hour instead of $2 a day.
Migrants who move from lower- to higher-income countries
typically earn three to six times more than they did at home, ac-
cording to the World Bank. The simple act of moving makes them
more productive, because rich countries have better institutions,
the rule of law, efficient capital markets and modern companies.
Construction workers in rich countries put up better buildings be-
cause they have better tools, reliable electricity and their employer
does not have to pay off corrupt local officials. Scientists in rich
countries make more breakthroughs because they have better lab-
oratories and a wider selection of other scientists to work with.
Small wonder so many of Mr Sebastian’s neighbours have mi-
grated. A short walk up a hill from the quarry where he works is a
village, Bumiayu, where the migrants’ homes are easy to spot. They
are the fancy ones with multiple floors, big windows and satellite
dishes. “This house belongs to a sailor,” says Idrus Dewi, a localfish farmer. “The owner of this house went to [South] Korea.” Mr
Dewi is one of the lucky ones. His older sister is a nanny in Singa-
pore. The money she sends home has paid her siblings’ school fees
and provided startup capital for a variety of family enterprises.
If everyone who wanted to migrate were able to do so, global
gdpwould double, estimates Michael Clemens of the Centre for
Global Development, author of a forthcoming book, “The Walls of
Nations”. No other policy change comes close to generating such
colossal rewards. If there is $90 trillion a year up for grabs, you
might think that policymakers would be feverishly devising ways
to get a piece of it. They are not.
In most rich countries immigration is political gelignite. Some
of the biggest upheavals of the past decade—the election of Donald
Trump, the rise of populism in Europe, Britain’s vote to leave the
European Union—are partly driven by the fear of mass migration.
Opponents of immigration everywhere make similar arguments:
migrants are disruptive, strain public services, take jobs from lo-
cals and are often criminal. “I’m not a racist,” says Kevin Drake, a
Brexit supporter in Essex, England. “But in school my grandkids
don’t get attention because the foreigners can’t speak English and
the teachers spend more time on them.” Immigration will “destroy
Japan”, says Makoto Sakurai of the Japan First Party, which cam-
paigns against Japan’s slight opening of its borders.
Few migration-sceptics can cite concrete harm that a foreigner
has done to them. But nationalists around the world constantlyA world of walls
Special report
The simplest way to make the world richer is to allow more people to move. Yet the politics of migration
has never been more toxic, argues Robert GuestMigration
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