A New Order: Imagining Life Without Illegal Immigrants

We need illegal immigrants because every reasonably complex society needs a cadre of intelligent, responsible, competent people, who have no other options (at least temporarily) to do its dirty work. Dirty work has to be done, and done reasonably well, to keep the wheels turning. But without large groups of people who are forced to do it, by discrimination and legal constraints, it would be left to people who were too stupid, irresponsible and incompetent to make a go of it.

When I was a kid blacks and women did the dirty work because that was all that any black person or woman, however smart, responsible or competent could get. Lily Mae Brown cleaned the house, and Bill Myers, who had elaborate horticultural theories and a complicated routine for dealing with my mother's peonies, did the garden. Jimmey, an elderly white male with a remarkably bulbous, red nose who wore the same oversized overcoat summer and winter took out the trash--irregularly. Lily Mae and Bill were likey overqualified; Jimmy had risen to his level of incompetence. As for my mother, with her degree in Classics, she was a school teacher--which was the best any middle class woman could do.

Now only those who can't, teach: the standard program for smart, middle-class women is law school. Teacher shortages are chonic, turnover is high and, apart from a few saints, teachers are stupid. Women who are smart enough to be nurses become doctors as the market struggles to provide better wages, benefits and working conditions to attract a sufficient number of competent workers to the profession. And, even with gross, ongoing discrimination, most competent, responsible blacks can do better than cleaning and gardening.

We need an underclass. Discrimination is rational because there aren't enough good jobs to go around and because bad jobs have to be done reasonably well. We need guest-workers.