Behind the Veil of Ignorance

Eric Umansky finds John Tierney making the pro-immigration test better than I have seen anybody else do:

Eric Umansky: I'm with Tierney: I tend to come away from John Tierney's columns thinking they're both wrong and predictable. Today, predictable or not, he's right on:

Suppose you were setting immigration policy from behind that veil of ignorance. [That's philosopher John Rawls dictum that societal rules are fair " if you would endorse them without knowing what your position in society would be.] Which of these would you choose?

(1) Restricting immigration to protect some of the lower-paid workers in America from a decline in wages that would be no more than 8 percent, if it occurred at all.

(2) Expanding immigration to benefit most Americans while also giving some non-Americans living in dire poverty the chance to quadruple their income.

You don't need to slog through "A Theory of Justice" to figure out this one.