A few weeks ago, I invited Professor Pistone to comment on the Church's attitude toward "brain drain" migration.  I then left town and left her email sitting in my inbox.  I have pasted it below.  And, although it is long, it is well worth the read.

Professor Pistone:

Thank you, Michael, for inviting me to discuss my work and how the recent World Bank report on migration relates to it.  I also thank you for your kind words here and here about my “thought-provoking” book (co-authored with my husband, John J. Hoeffner, who also helped out on this post).  I should note, however, that if the book is thought-provoking, one very big reason why is that you generously commented upon an early draft of it.  Of course, I had to be wise enough to listen!

As for the book (“Stepping Out of the Brain Drain: Catholic Social Teaching in a New Era of Migration”), let me start by quoting the two-sentence description we recently drafted in response to a request from our publisher’s crack publicity machine:

            Catholic social teaching’s traditional opposition to “brain drain” migration from   developing to developed countries is due for a reassessment.  Stepping Out of the Brain Drain provides exactly this, as it demonstrates that both the economic and the ethical rationales for the teaching’s opposition to “brain drain” have been undermined in recent years, and shows how the adoption of a less critical policy could provide enhanced opportunities for poor countries to accelerate their economic development.

(Can you tell neither of us has any experience writing advertising copy?).

Anyway, it is remarkable how often the book’s various concerns have been touched upon by recent writings.  There is, of course, the very recent World Bank annual report referenced by Michael, Global Economic Prospects 2006: Economic Implications of Remittances and Migration.  A month earlier, a 273 page World Bank research report was released (International Migration, Remittances & the Brain Drain).  Recently, Gary Becker, the Nobel Prize-winning economist, published a piece in the Wall Street Journal called “Give Us Your Skilled Masses.”  And recent days on Mirror of Justice have seen numerous postings on the degree of assent required by Catholics to the magisterium’s teachings, which of course include the social teachings.  Finally, there’s Stephen Bainbridge’s post on usury, which is where I’d like to begin.

If I might summarize Stephen’s very informative post:  the Church (and others) frowned upon charging interest when, basically, only the wealthy had money, the poor majority were likely to need money for the most basic of necessities, and there was no market economy to speak of in which one could invest.  Under these circumstances, a prohibition on charging interest is highly defensible.  Indeed, if absolute power corrupts absolutely, who has more power than a rich person faced with a plea from a starving poor person who needs a loan to survive?

There is still a recognition in the law that vast differences in bargaining power can cause inequities for which the law must provide a remedy.  But there is also a recognition that good in the form of a more productive and creative economy can come from the availability of credit, and that most credit exchanges are entered into in order to preserve the purchasing power of one’s savings and to enhance (rather than to save) one’s life, e.g., my need for shelter doesn’t require me to get a mortgage, but I want one so that I can raise my daughter in a nice place and have a room (or two) of my own to go to when my husband becomes too annoying.  Over several millennia, in other words, the normal case has changed from one in which the charging of interest was likely to harm the common good and offend human dignity to one in which both the common good and human dignity could be enhanced by the availability of credit.  This change should make (and I think has made) a difference in the Church’s position.

Our book makes a similar argument, only with respect to highly skilled migration (which, utilizing an acronym we developed, we call STEP OUT migration in a probably quixotic effort to stamp out the terribly loaded “brain drain.”).  The old brain drain, er, I mean STEP OUT, literature was overwhelmingly negative toward highly skilled migration.  And there is a negative case to be made: the country of origin, for example, can lose the substantial investment it has made in the education of the migrant; it can suffer by losing skills in short supply; and it loses tax revenues the migrant might have provided.        

But is the negative case the whole case?  We think not, and a substantial new literature makes the argument.  The positive case for highly-skilled migration makes many points, e.g., the “brain drain” is ameliorated and perhaps even outweighed by the increased incentive for education that the possibility of emigration provides; the prospect of return migration, i.e., “brain return,” confers many benefits and is occurring with increasing frequency; and the persistent underutilization of educated persons in many countries (at least for certain careers) makes the impact on developing nations less draining than it at first might appear.

The core of the new thinking, however, emphasizes that the creation of well educated diasporas can bring positive benefits through exchanges of information and the development of contacts.  Some of the more easily measurable benefits include increases in remittances (which both recent World Bank publications focus upon), foreign direct investment, and trade.  Such migration also can increase origin countries’ influence in receiving countries – during the 2004 Presidential election, for example, U.S.-based Indian professionals mobilized in the

U.S.

All things considered, does the positive case outweigh the negative one?  Gary Becker thinks it does.  His Wall Street Journal article calls for increases in highly skilled migration and states that it “usually benefits the sending and receiving country.”  The World Bank’s annual report frames a similar conclusion a little less enthusiastically:  “In some instances, high-skilled emigration has a negative impact on living standards of those left behind and on growth . . . [b]ut high-skilled migration is often beneficial for origin countries.” (page 67).

Should these assertions – and the many studies that support them – be enough to lead the Church to change its position?  After all, there are a lot of qualifiers in the preceding paragraph: “usually,” “some instances,” “often.”  Despite these words, our answer is an unqualified yes.

The reason why gets into questions of the relationship between – and the differences between -- fundamental moral principles and prudential judgments.  For the Church, opposition to brain drain stems from the application of the two fundamental principles of the common good and human dignity.  Adherence to these principles should be unyielding.

But the prudential judgment that highly-skilled migration should be discouraged because it offends human dignity and the common good deserves no permanent place in the social teaching.  The continued viability of that judgment is contingent upon a host of economic and technological understandings that time may prove to have been unfounded from the start, or which may have become unfounded in the course of time.

In particular, in deciding whether the prudential judgment to oppose brain drain remains appropriate, it matters whether the effect of brain drain on economic development is negative, positive, or mixed; it matters whether development might be expected to occur quickly or not; it matters whether trade or an insular self-sufficiency is the cornerstone to economic growth; it matters whether and to what extent technology allows migrants to keep in touch with and assist their home countries even when away; it matters whether or not, over the last 40 years, nations that have experienced substantial brain drain also have experienced good growth; and it matters whether or not, on the individual and national levels, brain drain is appropriately regarded as a permanent or temporary phenomenon.

Over the course of the last four decades, the consensus answer to every one of these matters changed substantially, sometimes because the world changed, and sometimes because our understanding of the world changed.  But in all cases, the change was in a direction that weakened the foundations of the prudential judgment against skilled migration, perhaps especially from the perspective of a person concerned about the common good and human dignity. 

Given this historical development, the prudential judgment against highly-skilled migration appears much shakier than it did 40 years ago and, at best, on no firmer ground than the opposite judgment.  Under these circumstances, fidelity to the prudential judgment may very well mean practical support for a policy that disserves in some ways fundamental human dignity and common good concerns.  In our view, the Church should not maintain a judgment that places it in such a position.  Instead, in this case, it should adopt a neutral position, while trying to ameliorate the negative effects and trying to maximize the positive effects of highly-skilled migration.

I know I’ve run very long here, so I’ll be merciful and note my last point very briefly.  We believe that additional support for our position, albeit support of a different type, can be found in the three great social encyclicals of Pope John Paul II:  Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, and Centesimus Annus.  Together, these three encyclicals give a heightened emphasis to the nature and purpose of work and, more explicitly than ever before, place the right to pursue freely the work of one’s choosing high among the hierarchy of fundamental rights.  Centesimus Annus also emphasizes that certain structural preconditions may be necessary in a society in order to ensure an adequate realization of the right.  The Pope’s articulation of these points implies an increased recognition of the magnitude of the affront to human dignity that occurs when the opportunity for creative work is denied, and thereby implicitly strengthens the ethical case for skilled migration (or, perhaps it is better to say, weakens the case against skilled migration).

By the way, if some of this post has sounded familiar to any of the Mirror of Justice regulars, that’s probably because you have heard it before – from me, two years ago at the first Journal of Catholic Social Thought conference at Villanova.  That was when I was pregnant but before I became a mother, which means that birthing a child must be easier than birthing a book.  But, after much hard labor, the book will come out, too – in only six more months, I’m told.