Last Fall, a call went out to boycott yogurt company Chobani because its immigrant founder, Hamdi Ulukaya, hires immigrant refugees.
The New York Times blames the boycott on “the extreme right.” Likewise, the New Jersey Star-Ledger blames “far-right bigots” and “nativist crazies” for the boycott. The Times also blames xenophobia, because only Chibani is being targeted even though many companies have pledged to hire refugees.
The Star-Ledger is right on the issue, but as usual waters down its message—in this case by sarcastically pointing out that Ulukaya “didn't start out with a $14 million loan from his father”—a stab at Trump—and criticisms of Trump’s business practices. It’s true that Trump stoked anti-immigrant fever in America. But what do Trump’s prior personal business practices have to do with the boycott?
The Star-Ledger also writes, near the end:
Why pick on Chobani? Likely because its CEO is an immigrant, and instead of "stealing jobs," a favorite right-wing talking point, he's created thousands of them. Human Rights Watch just called him "a xenophobe's nightmare."
By then I had had enough of the Star-Ledger’s mischaracterization of the boycott movement. So I left these comments:
I take issue with equating xenophobia with “the right wing.” The central hallmark of the Right is support for free market capitalism, which encompasses free trade and free migration. Pro-capitalists understand the enormous contributions that the “fresh blood” of immigration has and does make to America. That cannot happen without a robust capitalist nation that protects individual rights. Free trade and free migration among nations at peace with one another are two sides of the same capitalist coin: they are not only economically good, they are moral imperatives that are central to the concept of human rights. Also, Rightists don’t talk in ridiculous terms like “stealing jobs.” Job creators and their employees are not stealing jobs from anyone, no matter where they came from.
Anti-immigrant populism is in fact a hallmark of the social conservatives, not the political Right (even though social conservatives are usually lumped in with “the far Right”). Furthermore, xenophobia is alive and well on the Left. Bernie Sanders routinely rails against free trade, and he represents a wide swath of the Left as evidenced by his nearly upending Hillary Clinton’s presidential nomination. Free trade is nothing more that Americans trading with foreigners. Sanders is as much a “nativist crazie” for his anti-free trade stance as the Chobani boycotters are for their anti-immigrant stance.
I also want to point out that Hamdi Ulukaya is not the only “billionaire who actually looks out for the little guy” (the elitist Left’s derogatory term for hard-working, self-supporting middle class Americans). With few exceptions, virtually every modern billionaire made his fortune creating mass market products that benefit millions of average folks, building great businesses that create millions of jobs in the process. Most billionaires, and businessmen/entrepreneurs generally, make the world a much better place. It makes no difference whether he got his start with a large loan from his father or a small business loan. It’s what he makes of it that counts. If Ulukaya had started with a $14 million loan, his fortune would undoubtedly be even larger.
My wife and I have and will continue to enjoy Chobani yogurt. As a radical Right-winger, I say thank you Hamdi Ulukaya. Unlike the Star-Ledger, I mean it. Unlike the Star-Ledger, I’m not aligned with the envy crowd that crusades for the government to forcibly redistribute your wealth in the name of fighting income inequality. I support your right to keep, use, and pass on your fortune as you see fit. You earned it.
Related Reading:
The Vital Function of the Left-Right Political Spectrum—Craig Biddle for The Objective Standard
7 comments:
"he central hallmark of the Right is support for free market capitalism, which encompasses free trade and free migration. Pro-capitalists understand the enormous contributions that the 'fresh blood' of immigration has and does make to America. That cannot happen without a robust capitalist nation that protects individual rights. Free trade and free migration among nations at peace with one another are two sides of the same capitalist coin: they are not only economically good, they are moral imperatives tat are central to the concept of human rights"
The only right wingers I know who support free immigration are the chamber of commerce crowd. Imagine free immigration from Somalia, well you don't have to imagine it because it's happening.
Here is the most wanted list from Minneapolis:
http://www.hennepinsheriff.org/jail-warrants/most-wanted/list
"Fresh blood"? Seriously you believe that Somalis are contributing more to Minnesotta than 4th generation scandinavians?
-Steve Jackson
"Free immigration (or migration)" does not mean "anything goes." It means "freedom of," which implies limits to freedom based on the condition to respect the rights of others, just like all other individual rights.
My interest in issues of immigration and in issues of most other things in the whole realm of human affairs and of human relations has waned, because we're on an unstoppable fast express into another dark age, because everybody clings ferociously to their altruism, thus to systems of values totally irrational, totally in terms of altruism. For example, everybody values food to eat, water to drink, clothing, a roof and 4 walls, and air to breathe, according to an altruistic system. So, long term, just TRY securing those values and keeping them.
People are virtually hard-wired and riveted, not to be reached. So they're impervious to any rational policy of immigration, which can work only in a rational country of unalienable individual rights, not just on paper, but also in fact. They're impervious to any notion of such a country. In any other kind of country, nothing works, at least, not long term.
People are impervious to anything rational, in immigration or in anything at all in the whole realm of human affairs and human relations. So, my interest wanes.
We don't need to go back to the drawing board. We're already there. Let's start over, from scratch, among ourselves only, and let those 7.5 billion hominids cascade over a miles-high cliff to their demise. Humans are better off without them, even if there are fewer than 1 million of them. Those billions can make good fertilizer for food and lots of other vegetation.
Michael,
I got the impression that you supported The Objective Standard's "open immigration" polic, which, while not "anything goes" is fairly close to it.
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2013/03/gop-should-reject-ann-coulters-collectivist-approach-to-immigration-reform-and-embrace-individualism/
Steve
Free immigration within the principle of unalienable individual rights. That's the only legitimate immigration policy, but it can be offered only by free countries, and there aren't any free countries, today. Without a general. thoroughgoing prevalence of individual rights in law, and always enforced, this policy, like anything, works only short term, and will collapse in the prevailing cultural and systemic irrationality.
This immigration policy requires a written, legal framework. Don't open the floodgates. Use a controlled opening of gates at specific ports of entry, denying entry only to those who have done things which are crimes under U.S. law, and to those with contagious diseases. Those trying to sneak thru at ANY point on the border in the middle of nowhere are automatically illegal under this policy.
But, given the way the U.S. is today, it's hard to blame decent, disease free people for sneaking in. And it's hard to give them a free pass when they do it. The more corrupt a country is, and the more criminal plan is posed under cover of the guise of actual law and government, the more smeared and obliterated the whole concept of law and government is until there is none, but only a criminal regime.
Despite my waning interest, I still find some charge in me sometimes.
The only way you could even consider open immigration is the welfare state was completely abolished (not just for immigrants but for everyone) and if there were laissez faire. The situation now just invited people in who are able to get on welfare.
-SJ
Steve, the link you provided deals primarily with the issue collectivism vs. individualism. That said, I am in general agreement with the position of The Objective Standard, as laid out in these to articles;
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-spring/immigration-individual-rights/
https://www.theobjectivestandard.com/2014/07/myths-facts-rights-respecting-immigration-policy/
As Mike points out, a properly functioning immigration policy requires a strict screening process. My own position can be read through this link to a series of posts on this blog;
https://principledperspectives.blogspot.com/search?q=immigration
You’re right about the welfare state. I have given this some thought and have more recently come to the conclusion that, in our current circumstances, part of the screening process should be that immigrants should demonstrate that they have a means of supporting themselves—whether through work or, in certain cases like children or the elderly, family members—and that they are blocked from government “safety net” programs for an extended period (perhaps 5 years).
Open immigration does not mean open borders. In my view, open immigration need not and does not mean “anything goes.”
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