[American Thinker] Although the "progressive left" fetishizes open borders for its own sake, they nevertheless festoon their arguments with economic ornamentation in an attempt to convince fiscally-minded fence-sitters. Usually, their ploy fails.But every once in a while a seemingly convincing argument is made. Ruchir Sharma's piece in the New York Times, entitled "To Be Great Again, America Needs Immigrants," is one such piece. Not only does Sharma rely on uncontested data, but his logic seems solid. But looks can be deceiving. Sharma's argument suffers from two main problems: Sharma misunderstands how economies grow, and he conflates gross domestic product (GDP) with prosperity.
Sharma claims economic growth depends primarily upon extra population, not productivity:
The underlying growth potential of any economy is shaped not only by productivity, or output per worker, but also by the number of workers entering the labor force. . .What makes America great is, therefore, less about productivity than about population, less about Google and Stanford than about babies and immigrants.
This is wrong. Technology, not population, drives long-run economic growth. Consider: economic growth occurs when either more stuff or better stuff is made. For example, America's economy grows when it produces more cars or (all else remaining equal) more luxurious or fuel-efficient cars. This applies to all economic output, whether goods or services.
There are two ways to make more stuff. First, work more. Working 60 hours a week will necessarily generate more wealth than working 40; likewise, 110 workers will make more stuff than 100 otherwise equivalent workers. More input, more output.