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> Americans don't want these jobs.

They don't want these jobs at the current pay rates. Let's not forget the most important qualifier here.

No, this has been studied. Americans think bending over in artichoke fields in California or working in chicken and pig slaughtering plants are jobs suitbale for immigrants, not them. They seemingly can't put two and two together that's that is why Mexicans are here, unless everyone is participating in this charade that Mexicans come here for welfare and to vote for Democrats

Sure, Americans also don't want to work at McDonald's or as sanitation workers, or any number of other undesirable jobs, but they'll do it if they're unskilled and need the money, as long as it pays enough.

You can work at McDonalds or in cleaning whilst living in or near your existing neighborhood, surrounded by family and friends, possible even in a house you own. Not so much moving to a different state to some isolated rural community to do unglamorous work, even if it pays more than McDonalds. cf Mexicans who think the move is part of the attraction (as well as obviously being more likely to be wowed by the salary offer and experienced in hard manual labour; there are seasonal farm work recruits who don't fit those two brackets though, like British university kids picking apples in New Zealand)

If you're looking for the subset of manual labourers willing to move to remote locations, you're competing with oil companies that really well, and people aren't queuing round the block for those jobs either. Labour intensive food production isn't particularly likely to be able to compete with oil on salary.

When the 'take our jobs' website first came up (immigrants offering citizens to take their jobs bending over artichoke fields and what not) I was one of the first to sign up. It turned out they didn't actually want people to take their jobs, and they never actually offered me a job even though I was 100% ready and wanting to take their job. These jobs are largely closed off to citizens through the old boy network of immigrants (I'm not impugning them for this, I'm very glad they're here working those jobs so I can eat). I ended up hitchhiking to North Dakota for one of the few labor jobs available, building housing for the oil rush.

That's hilarious that you actually thought they were serious. No, they've got Mexican-American field managers in California who are second or third generation running crews of recent immigrant Mexicans with green cards. The last thing they want is some Anglo coming in to start demanding rights.

At that time I was young and willing to do pretty much anything. The idea of living in a tent in a field sounded like a great way to save money. Even if the pay was $5 an hour, I figured I could save almost 100% just like the immigrants working these fields do, and then follow them back to Mexico where my money would last awhile. Hilariously I basically just wanted to join in on the same action.

I had the same idea but even if I spoke fluent Indian-Spanish dialect, which I don't, there was no chance of it happening. They have a system that works well for growers, 2nd and 3rd generation Mexican-Americans and recent Mexican immigrants and I'm sure it will be working the same long after I'm gone

As an American, even the poorest have other options besides working in fields. If you told an Amazon warehouse worker that they could make $36 an hour to work in a field instead of $18/hour ho work in a warehouse, how many would take them up on the offer?

Not sure, but it's not zero.

They had plenty of stories where field owners couldn’t find Americans who would stick to the work for more than week.

Would you work in the field for twice your current pay?

If I had a choice between living by myself and making $36/hour working in a field and getting a roommate and working in a warehouse (or an Amazon delivery driver), guess which one I would choose?

> They had plenty of stories where field owners couldn’t find Americans who would stick to the work for more than week.

Sure, because the pay or other benefits weren't good enough. There are sometimes other considerations as well, like that some of this work is temporary/seasonal and people want something steady.

> If I had a choice between living by myself and making $36/hour working in a field and getting a roommate and working in a warehouse (or an Amazon delivery driver), guess which one I would choose?

That's a weird question. You could easily keep working in that field and still get a roommate and you'd get to keep even more money.

That’s not the point. Once you have “enough” to meet your basic life needs - food, shelter, transportation - then you start making other choices.

I am sure I could give up my big house in the burbs and my wife and I could stay with another couple. But do you think I would make that choice?

On another related note, you saw the same thing with school bus drivers after Covid (my wife was one). No amount of money in the world was going to convince many bus drivers who didn’t really need the extra money to risk Covid to drive the bus. Many of them were just doing it for extra money.

Anyone could have more money saved if they found a roommate. But at some point we decide it’s not worth the trade off.

A shit ton. I worked up in the Alaskan fishing industry for a short period. About half the people there were white citizens. It is much worse than the field. You are stuck in a ship, in the Bering Sea (one of the most dangerous and nastiest coastal areas in the US), working 16+ hours a day under the worst conditions imaginable. Imagine being deathly sea sick while holding a knife in your hand, rocking violently from side to side. You're literally trapped, stuck with horrible smell of fish, horribly ill and worked to the bone with no escape and the boss will probably kick your ass if you bail while out at sea.

The upside of that 36/hr is many people were able to either take much of the year off or provide lavishly for their families when otherwise their children would have much fewer opportunities.

It's not even a question whether many would take it, it's a certainty.

So how many farmers could afford to pay enough to field laborers to provide “lavishly” for their family and still be competitive in the global market?

And the fishing industry is highly subsidized

https://www.lenfestocean.org/~/media/legacy/lenfest/pdfs/sub...

$36/hr was your example, not mine. You gave the example and apparently now you are debating yourself.

If your point is the industry (fishing) is subsidized, well farming also is highly subsidized.

Yes farming is heavily subsidized and they still don’t have high margins. How will they afford to pay enough to compete with much easier year round warehouse jobs with benefits that are much easier. It’s not like people in Alaska have too many choices and the relatively few fisherman pales in comparison to the number of farm workers needed.

Besides, Americans are already whining about inflation. Guess what would happen if food labor costs went up 5x?

Well my solution is more or less as follows

1) Eliminate subsidies to agriculture (and fishing) gradually over say a decade. Effect: higher food prices

2) Phase out any tariffs or regulation on import of agriculture/fishing over say a decade. Effect: lower food prices

3) All workers should be on equal playing field. What regulation applies to one should apply to another. Let the free market determine rates within these regulatory constraints. Taking special advantage of undocumented immigrants to avoid labor regulations isn't an acceptable option. Regulations and law should apply equally to everyone, if it is to be applied at all.

Wages will rise until either the free market rate for this kind of labor is matched, or the farm in question becomes unprofitable. In the latter case, the farm is not compatible with efficient use of human resources and should adapt or fail. In the former case, workers benefit in the form of rising wages.

When there are subsidies, Americans pay one way or another. You can pay either in the form of increased government revenues (i.e. taxation/inflation/debt) or you can pay at the grocery store. I'm much more in favor of the latter as we don't need to add yet another middleman eating up resources in this equation. Costs should be born directly by those consuming the resource.

And what happens when the US phases out subsidies and other countries don’t?

American farmers are then less competitive here and abroad.

Yes I know, there are no easy answers.

>And what happens when the US phases out subsidies and other countries don’t?

Then American consumers basically get fed at the expense of the rest of the world. Not ideal for the world, but great for those getting the cheap food. Labor directed in agriculture instead get focused into other industries we have a competitive advantage in.

Any industry has a competitive advantage internationally when your government is subsidizing it going out and imposing tariffs coming in.

As soon as the US industry is destroyed, the other countries remove subsidies and prices rise and we can do nothing about it.

Again, there are no easy answers. Either we subsidize farmers and pay more in taxes or we impose tariffs to level the playing field. Either way, we pay more than we should.

> Either we subsidize farmers and pay more in taxes or we impose tariffs to level the playing field.

Both of these don't level the playing field, they distort the playing field.

>As soon as the US industry is destroyed, the other countries remove subsidies and prices rise and we can do nothing about it.

Arguably it is subsidies that destroy farming industry, not the reverse. Farming can tolerate a lot more inefficiencies, bad practices, poor resource allocation and unreasonable crop selection when subsidies influence the market. This could be see India for example in the 70s where textile subsidies meant many people were working in sweatshops weaving with hand operated machines instead of maintaining well capitalized fully mechanized looms. Eliminating these subsidies gradually will allow farmers to develop techniques that make them more competitive on the international stage if these other countries "remove subsidies" (which is your prediction).

Distorting and leveling is a matter of perspective.

Yes tariffs (inbound) and subsidies (outbound) both distort the playing field. But no country can unilaterally disarm.

>Americans don't want these jobs. But corporations don't want small town Americans to blame them for the foreign influx, so they blame Democrats in a constant drum beat on right wing media

It has nothing to do with Americans not wanting those jobs and more to do with undocumented immigration provides a workforce that can be underpaid and wont organize or ask for any benefits under threat of deportation. These farms pay under minimum wage to undocumented workers and provide 0 benefits; why would Americans work them. If either party were actually serious about this issue, they would start with fining corporations, not deportations.

In fact Karl Marx was against "open borders", exactly because it's pro capital by depressing local wages:

https://aussiesta.wordpress.com/2020/06/04/karl-marx-on-open...

It is -very- hard to enforce your will of virtual enslavement when you have open borders. Even Karl Marx knew it would take an iron fist and closed borders to enforce his form of government for the masses by the masses.