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The most dangerous wrong ideas in public policy are the ones that sound so intuitively true that any attempt to push back or even nuance them can be sneeringly dismissed as academic foolishness that flies in the face of 'common sense'. I... may have written a book about this. 👀

Jonathan Portes@jdportes.bsky.social

I can excuse @iaindale.bsky.social's ignorance here. Just because anyone with a very basic economics education should recognise the lump of labour fallacy doesn't mean he should. But the arrogance combined with the absolutely deliberate refusal to think is quite remarkable.

Interesting. But people's real world experience needs to be seen. High skilled manual labour experienced high immigration in the 2000s - that did suppress wage rates of workers in those areas. Use of economic concepts incorrectly applied to deny real world experience damages reputation of experts.

The use of the "lump of labour" fallacy requires nuance, not to be used as a complete denial of the impacts of changes in labour market conditions for individuals or individual sectors.

But you are ignoring the impact on individuals & groups who experienced wage suppression as a result of immigration, especially in the 2000's. It was substantial for many at that time. When they hear experts deny their life experience they become prey for those who want to weaponise that experience.

A reminder to you. Data that aggregates the impacts of a widespread action across millions of people risks ignoring the specific variable impacts. That is what I am highlighting. You are welcome to ignore negative consequences on some people, but they understand and remember. This is nuanced.

Are you denying that some groups of skilled manual labour did not have their pay suppressed by immigration in the 2000s? To directly answer your question, groups include bricklayers, plumbers, carpet layers, double glazing fitters, painters and decorators, many others. They lived that experience.