as I mentioned in my second reply to Al, there's not a lot I disagree with in what you've written. However, here are a few of my thoughts:

First, I did deliberately sidestep the issue of racism, as I don't think it's relevant here -- I accept (and have said as much, twice) that a lot of opposition to immigration is founded on racism, but my point here is to debate the merits (or otherwise) of a non-racist argument against it.

Next, when I referred to the workers being better off when prices were higher but wages kept up with them, I meant back in the era when that was occurring (before the mid-1970s, I guess). Obviously you're right that there's no inherent difference in terms of welfare to have high prices and high wages versus low prices and low wages. I do apologise for simply saying 'I disagree' -- it does come across as a cop-out -- what I meant was, I don't have enough knowledge of economics and the relevant statistical history to be able to prove what I think conclusively. But to expand on why I do think it, I guess I look at high-wage, high-price countries (like the Scandinavian ones, for instance), compared to the neo-liberal paradise that is the US, and I just think living conditions are much better (for the common man, at least -- which is what I'm concerned about) in the former. Perhaps that's a completely erroneous comparison, though, so I'd be interested to know your take on it.

As for immigration, I guess the only point I'd raise is that, sure, outsourcing is essentially having the same (negative) impact on wages as 'low-skilled' immigration, but then immigration is undermining wages in the industries which simply can't be outsourced (you can't outsource the actual construction of buildings or laying of roads, for example). So I don't see it as a good argument to say 'because outsourcing is depressing wages in some industries, we shouldn't care about immigration (potentially) depressing them in other ones'. (I don't mean to put words in your mouth, or try to make your argument look dumb -- I'm just trying to make the point).

However, I do take your point (as I understand it) that because of outsourcing/globalisation, we need to approach things with some new strategies. I like where you're going with taxing the capital to fund social programmes. It would be really great if the US started doing this, because you guys are the biggest and most neoliberal economy (in the Western world, at least), so when these types of ideas are floated in the rest of the Western world, business always screams about how 'that's not how they do it in the US' (as if that's supposed to win the argument) but more importantly 'if you do that, we'll go to the US'. After all, if every country does it (and coordinates things, ideally), where are they going to go -- the moon? :-)