Capital goes where it’s wanted and stays where it’s well-treated, said the late Walter Wriston, who was once the chairman of Citicorp. That’s true of all forms of capital — at least all mobile forms of capital. Wriston said it would flow freely across national boundaries to the point where those borders would no longer be economically relevant. This, he said, would be a wonderful thing for all. Authoritarian regimes would be punished by capital flight, and open-market societies would be rewarded by receiving it.

However, for many people, all of the capital they possess is located between their heels and their hair. They have nothing else. Nevertheless, they are mobile — and they’ve been proving it.

Record numbers of people have been flooding into the United States. They may not be welcomed by Lou Dobbs and most House Republicans, but they are welcomed by their employers. They integrate quickly; in fact, in a recent speech, Ed Leazer, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisors, reported that the average income of second-generation immigrants exceeds that of native-born Americans.

That’s because, all cultural hand-wringing aside, most immigrants “get” what we’re about. They are, by their very nature as immigrants, risk takers, which makes them natural entrepreneurs.

The above chart bears this out. Latinos have higher business-start-up rates than whites and much higher rates than blacks. This is because Latinos are more likely than other racial groups to be immigrants, and immigrants (also shown above) are more likely to start businesses. This calls into question the notion that immigrants have trouble assimilating into the economy. It also demonstrates that the relatively lower level of black business starts cannot be explained by racism; after all, anti-immigrant attitudes are much more prevalent than anti-black attitudes.

Reaganite conservatives have long defended the free-flow of capital across borders. It remains to be seen whether they will defend the free-flow of the most valuable capital of all: the human kind.

– Jerry Bowyer is the author of The Bush Boom and an economic advisor to Blue Vase Capital Management. He can be reached through www.BowyerMedia.com.