The latest Freakonomics radio podcast grapples with the question Is Migration a Basic Human Right? (itunes) As usual, Stephen Dubner and his team have put together a compelling story with multiple-angles and perspectives. I provide the jumping off point:
There are fundamental human rights. There are rights which accrue to everyone, no matter who they are, no matter where they are on the globe. Those rights include the right to free expression. They include the right to freedom of religion. And I believe they should also include the right to move about the Earth.
but many other voices are also heard including Madeleine Albright, the great Michael Clemens, Casey Mulligan, refugee Basel Esa and others.
By the way, a new book on global justice is of interest, Justice at a Distance, by philosopher Loren Lomasky and legal scholar Fernando Teson.
On a basic level we should have a freedom to leave, but recognize restrictions to enter. Sure, decide to immigrate, and then find a place to take you. This is an ancient reality.
I think though that many will treat this as a jobs question, a labor rate question, which misses the forest for the trees. I am now reading “The Great Surge, the ascent of the developing world” (as recommended by MR). Among the many happy statistics of millions lifted out of poverty it contains an interesting jobs number. In the last 20 years 700 million people have been added to the globally integrated workforce. That is huge. It is much bigger then quibbles about a million here million there immigration.
I think the bigger number, the 700 million, is the one that affect things like global labor rate and global inflation.
decide to *emigrate
One’s human rights end when they harm another. One has the right (Declaration of Independence and Constitution) to have $1,000 (property). One (including the government) doesn’t have a right to take (without compensation/due process) $1,000 from John Q.
Is there a right to immigrate to the USA?
Where is it found? Is it in the Constitution? Is it in a Federal or state law enacted by USA elected representatives?
If there is such a right, who pays? Did the payer consent (“of the governed”) to the payments?
Milton Friedman wrote, “You can have open borders. You can have the welfare state. But, not both.”
Unexpectedly, reality will bite us in the ass.
If the government enforced current laws on illegal immigrants and the criminal enterprises that employ them, there would be no illegal immigrant problem. But, Obama and the elites (academics, Dems, media, GOP) don’t care about no stinking Constitution or no stinking law or no stinking working class Americans.
It doesn’t appear as though you are familiar with the 9th Amendment…
Neither is anyone else. There is no body of 9th Amendment jurisprudence because no one can contrive any enforceable entitlements out of its language.
Except abortion.
Indeed. A proper understanding of the Constitution *requires* a proper understanding of the philosophy of liberty. Those in power are not generally interested in maintaining a philosophy of liberty, however, which is why the 9th Amendment is generally ignored.
I think most of the angst some feel is because of that 700 million being absorbed…and then we have billions more, but as the globalized, rich economy expands, there will become less worry. It just sucks while the labor arbitrage period is happening, but eventually everything will settle down.
The right to migrate is good in principle, but becomes difficult in practice due to the vast differences in welfare states between countries.
When you have expensive health care and education systems, it becomes a net drain to the country to let in families of 3 or 4 or more supported by a single unskilled worker.
Why can’t you just have restrictions on welfare and public benefits for recent immigrants? Problem solved.
I recall a suggestion that immigrants should be required to have insurance for such things.
Yes – this seemed to obvious to me that I didn’t even think it needed saying. Then I met the left wing.
Problem not solved in the least.
The US has many such laws. The bureaucrats don’t really like them so they are often not followed, or there are loopholes to get around them. See rules for food stamps. They are supposed to be limited to a few years, IIRC, and yet the number of on food stamps grows and grows…shouldn’t those people be falling off the rolls?
Some states do away with them entirely: California is discussing opening the ACA and subsidies to illegals, for example.
The most salient subvention is public schooling, which our power drunk judges have ruled is a ‘right’, regardless of one’s status.
lol yeah, easy!
You also have to limit benefits for refugees or you get what Germany and Sweden are getting, a flood of people exercising their right wander the globe by claiming to be refugees (whereas the majority of arrivals this year have not been from countries whose citizens are granted asylum easily).
Why not just let markets work? Where the benefits are too lavish, productive people can leave, and productive people who don’t mind expropriation can stay.
Seems to work with CA and TX.
Because it hurts the people already here and paying for the benefits, who can’t all easily move? You’re imposing large costs on people and justifying it by saying they can give up their homes and lives if they don’t like it.
Alex: Let us assume it is a basic human right. You would maintain that restrictions to prevent someone from moving to another country to live is wrong. But, I would ask you to address the question on Freakenomics: If that is the case, then why are restrictions that prevent me from living on a tract of *private* property wrong, particularly if the private property is acquired through inherited wealth or inherited rather than earned by the owner?
Why should individuals be permitted to put restrictions on who can use their land, but communities cant?
>>Why should individuals be permitted to put restrictions on who can use their land, but >>communities cant?
Because immigration increases the supply of workers and consumers, thus depressing wages and increasing sales, both of which increase corporate profits, which makes the rich richer….academia is a propaganda generation machine for the upper class….and pro-immigration multiculturalism makes the rich richer…hence this post by marginal revolution….currying favor by the upper class…more grants!
The greatest expansion of workers and customers available to US corporations has happened on the other side of the border, by far
I think this is a good point. To what extent do those that oppose immigration favor a kind of autarky for the United States?
Possibly no extent at all. You can’t just make up the argument for the other side and then dismiss it with a killer blow. Surely the main reason to oppose immigration is that you don’t want your community to change, not that you don’t want cheap plastic toys.
It seems to be accepted that money and goods can move anywhere (except for anti-terrorism and anti-money laundering purposes) but people can’t.
So it does not follow that anti-immigration = pro-autarky.
The point is, that the list of complaints “the preacher” put forth have more to do with international trade than immigration.
Come on people, follow the thread.
Sorry, it gets confusing sometimes. Academia are left wing puppets designed to justify the continuous expansion of the socialist state. Or sorry, got it wrong, right wing puppets designed to do whatever their corporate/elite paymasters say. I wasn’t on track with which one of these truths was being paraded out today.
I think the preachers mistake is to assume that the “upper class” controls who gets grants. It’s not even the 1% who controls that, it’s the 0.001% (including in the capacity as corporate executives who control corporate cash stacks), who can toss tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars into funding research on whatever their pet projects are.
On autarky then – yeah, it seems that some anti-immigration people are anti-trade too, based on Trump’s strong anti-China statements. Trump’s statements are actually more refined – he wants to get better access to Chinese markets – but I think his supporters and the sort of anti-immigrants folks you might have in mind, are more likely to hear Trump saying “keep those Chinese goods out”.
Being allowed to engage in the free market by renting next door or competing for my job is not the same as a right to enter my house, share my bed and eat from my fridge.
Why is it “your” land, particularly if you did not make it and inherited any wealth in exchange for it? This has little difference from our country being “our land”.
OK, individual rights = national rights.
They aren`t very different at all.
Individuals are like nations.
This is an interesting view. It’s not just the underlying land as defining the extent of a polity, but the stake and ownership of the social capital and institutions that have been formed over time and that lead to success.
https://propertarianforum.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/white-privilege-normative-commons/
“This example should help you grasp exactly how a set of behaviors (norms) are a property. They are a property because they are defended. They are created through investment, paid for by forgoing opportunity costs. The social portfolio of these normative commons are what allows Western civilization to flourish with a stable social order. They are the tools that have led to the economic dominance of the Western peoples, and now the increasing dominance of the civilized Asian peoples, which defend a rich set of normative commons. The value of this particular property should not be underestimated.”
We should also remember John Rawls:
“Concerning the second problem, immigration, in #4.3 I argue that an important role of government, however arbitrary a society’s boundaries may appear from a historical point of view, is to be the effective agent of a people as they take responsibility for their territory and the size of their population, as well as for maintaining the land’s environmental integrity. Unless a definite agent is given responsibility for maintaining an asset and bears the responsibility and loss for not doing so, that asset tends to deteriorate. On my account the role of the institution of property is to prevent this deterioration from occurring. In the present case, the asset is the people’s territory and its potential capacity to support them in perpetuity; and the agent is the people itself as politically organized. The perpetuity condition is crucial. People must recognize that they cannot make up for failing to regulate their numbers or to care for their land by conquest in war, or by migrating into another people’s territory without their consent.”
Thank you Horhe. I’ve been able to see that there’s something to this line of thinking, and your post is the best presentation (first particularly good one?) of it that I’ve seen.
The arguments I’ve seen so far which go in this direction most often seem something like “it’s mine/ours now stay off”, sometimes combined with “and those inferior people will make us worse”.
@Nathan W:
“often seem something like “it’s mine/ours now stay off”, sometimes combined with “and those inferior people will make us worse””
Those are or should be equally valid points. The exercise of one’s sovereignty should not be limited by an appeal to a third party on the acceptability of one’s discourse. People often think that the argument against immigration is that you wouldn’t want to find a poor person at your door claiming a moral right over your fridge, your couch, how you dress in the house, because he is less fortunate. However, I find it just as compelling that it is just as bad for you to find a person at your door waving a real degree and an IQ test result around which states how good he is and how much smarter he is than you, and that’s why he is coming to your fridge and couch and gaining a vote in the house, but he’ll pay his own way. I’m just as justified in slamming the door in his face, no? With regards to what people term the Asian minorities, I find it a bit weird that even immigration restrictionists would, on account of IQ, economic potential and low criminality (but discounting the clannishness and social capital destruction), abase themselves in front of a person whose parents were defecating in a ditch while theirs was landing people on the Moon.
The problem most people face is that they lack the capacity to articulate an argument that makes them look more concerned than churlish. This is where the angry redneck dismissal comes from. This is a sign of declining education, the decline in national culture, the decline in political self-education, the anti-productive or even treasonous attitudes of an ideological media and many other factors, including the basic distribution of IQs, especially verbal, in the population. At no point in the last hundred years have the lower productive classes (blue-collar workers etc) had so few intellectuals on their side to articulate their concerns in a manner consistent with a natural evolution towards proposing policy to alleviate their issues. And the reason why is that incentives matter, as do social bubbles and peer pressure, in academia and elsewhere. Raj Chetty had the intellectual chops and the access to restricted information to articulate those arguments but went dark side and advocates for magic dirt theory.
I was slow to write my reply, but as I wrote below, the right to property confers societal benefits regardless of whether or not it is fair.
I think people on the other side from you on this issue think of a state as private property held collectively by its citizens. As we all know from Econ101, holding private property provides real benefits to individuals and society as a whole. A person who holds her land privately protects the investments she has made in the land. That sovereignty is protected by the right to privacy.
If you consider the country your property, then excluding non-owners makes sense. You would believe in the right of holders of a property to exclude anyone from that property for any reason, on the basis of protecting her investments in the property. Thus, a state that holds its borders as sovereign is just protecting the investments it has made in its land and citizens.
If, as you and Alex probably do, think of the country as public space, then excluding people based on race, sex, or national origin is distasteful. We find it distasteful if any property holder excludes people because of individual qualities such as race, sex, or national origin. For spaces considered public, we even make it illegal. We give everyone the equal right to enter a park, regardless of race, sex, or national origin, because to discriminate publicly is wrong.
We don’t give everyone the right to enter every property. Private property is held sovereign, because the right to privacy supersedes the right to public equality.
So is a country private property held collectively by its citizens, or public space? Your feeling on migration probably depends on that question (or at least it does for me).
Well put. Nobody on the right-to-immigrate side of the debate will engage with this point (other than to dismiss it).
Perhaps they are seeing it as a good point/question, not disagreeing with it.
I wouldn’t have said anything until you suggested that silence was dismissal. It’s a good point/question. But how should someone from the right-to-immigrate side of the argument respond?
Silence is not dismissal. Dismissal is someone responding to say “psshaw, that’s an irrelevant stupid point/question”.
Let me take a stab. If a country is public space (and no you don’t have the right to enter my living room, it’s mine), then the decision would have to be made collectively. What does that mean? Some level of consensus would need to be achieved. Does that consensus exist? Surely not. How much consensus would be needed? Debatable.
Other side – a country is private property collectively held by the citizens. Well, it seems to be that the debate comes back to consensus, which is why I don’t understand why anyone thinks it’s smart to make analogies about it being the same as a right to march through my front door. Both views on individual/collective views on property lead you back to whatever process is required to change laws, constitutions, etc.
This ain’t gonna happen for 100 years if ever, so we’ve got lots of time to debate how much hypothetical consensus would be needed. And since you probably think it’s never going to happen anyways, it might not seem worthwhile to bother debating the level of consensus needed since it wouldn’t be achieved.
“You would believe in the right of holders of a property to exclude anyone from that property for any reason, on the basis of protecting her investments in the property.”
While I am sure that plenty of people on this site believe that, it is far from a universally accepted truth. In fact, in the US we have widely supported laws which run counter to the belief – just because you own a coffee shop, doesn’t mean you can selectively refuse customers on the basis of race.
The basis of these laws is that any space that is “public” must not discriminate – even if that space is privately owned.
I’m sure you see where I am going – in your example in which the country is viewed as private property owned by the citizens, the country would still be “public”, and thus, per the general approach in the US, should be open to all equally.
Now, if you are the libertarian type who believes in individual liberty at all costs, you probably don’t agree with these types of laws. That is fine. But your view is not the only view.
If you start with private property restrictions and scale up I don’t think you arrive at immigration restrictions. Should undocumented illegal immigrants not be allowed on public roads/sidewalks? Seems dubious and unenforceable.
Wouldn’t it be better to let individuals make decisions about this by letting citizens coordinate moving/renting/jobs etc with prospective immigrants?
I think this would be the scaled up version of private property restrictions. I think it makes more sense that the right to migration is more of a right of free association instead of its own basic human right.
if illlegal immigrants ARE allowed on public roads/sidewalks, what does it mean for them to be illegal?
Ownership is expressed by an individual, or by a group through contact between its individuals. It cannot be expressed by a group without contact.
There are forms of ownership between individuals and groups that don’t require a formal, written contract. For example, an easement does not need a contract to be valid. It can arise through pattern and practice. Why can’t the same be said for the social contract?
An enforceable contract requires explicit consent by all parties.
An easement is specifically a form of contract between two parties granting the privilege of access across property. It can only be valid through consent of all parties.
The “social contract” is an enforceable contract because it does not exist, anywhere. It’s terms are not explicitly defined nor are they consented to by all participating parties.
Easements are not necessarily by contract. For example, landlocked parcels.
But a state is based on a social contract.
No, it is not. The “social contract” either does not exist, or is a form of involuntary servitude. An enforceable contract requires explicit consent by all parties, not just some parties, and not just implicit consent.
The term “social contract” has, throughout history, been a rhetorical device designed to subjugate people under a system of authoritarian rule.
Based on your answer, I don’t think you understand what the social contract is, nor are you familiar with the book nor the author.
The social contract is a concept that people must be able to choose the laws under which they live, and that their government must reflect the will of the people. Further, it explicitly negates rules by force beyond the limits set by the governed, and explicitly states that a people unhappy with their government should be able to form a new one.
If you go online, there are probably copies of Rousseau’s The Social Contract in the public domain, and there are copies available on Amazon for as little as a penny. You might also want to read some commentary on its influence over the past few centuries.
I’ve commented before about Professor Shiller’s dictum about risk: that if all risks were shared, the per capita cost would be nominal and overall economic well-being would be much greater. The natural corollary to that dictum is migration. How’s that? Early efforts at risk sharing were failures because they actually concentrated risk. For example, risk sharing among rice producers in China did not disperse risk but concentrated it. Successful efforts at risk sharing were across geographic locations or industries. In this context, would Tabarrok’s preference for a right of migration mitigate risk or intensify risk? On the one hand, it could mitigate risk by allowing people to migrate from areas of high risk (Syria) to areas of low risk (the U.S.). On the other hand, it could intensify risk: everybody would concentrate in the most “desirable” geographic locations, exposing more people to the risks of those “desirable” locations. Anyway, it’s an interesting thought experiment, one that Tabarrok no doubt enjoys.
Sounds like magic dirt. The geography has far less to do with the risk level/desirability of an area than the nature of the people who inhabit the area. The American migration patterns of the past century tell us everything we need to know about how this would play out.
@Emma L. – not sure I follow your logic. You’re saying Floridians and Arizonians are nice people to emulate or something? I think Rayward’s Magic Dirt theory sounds more plausible: for example, nearly everybody who has moved to the Washington DC area–the good, bad and ugly–have gotten rich over the last one or three generations (my family sure has). It’s like joining a winning sports franchise: you can be a mediocre player, but joining a winning team makes you look good and gets a championship ring on your finger.
Allowing open borders would in some ways make the DC area even more desirable. Since I have real estate there, I’m for it.
Allowing open borders would in most ways make the DC area less desirable to live in.
Most people in the DC area are not rich, even though apparently your family is.
Open borders would likely raise property values, due to increased demand – but that doesn’t translate to more desirable. Schools, transit times, and crowding are not likely to benefit.
Interesting. I’m skeptical, but even if we could think up more concrete examples of how it could prove to be true, then these people who were exposed to the risks, even assumed they could not insure themselves against the risks, could just pick up and move again.
tyler, I am gonna migrate into your house….leave the door open for me…it is my basic right…
Not at all the same thing. We basically all agree that private property is a good thing, and most people have a fundamental need for some privacy. This is not at all similar to being allowed to rent/buy a house down the road or compete for the job that you hope to get.
Many similar principles apply in both cases. Imagine some stone-age agriculturlist tribe. Is their territory private property or a mini-state? It is both. And such groups rarely allow strangers to just traips accross their territory at well since those stranges a frequently bad actors in search of rape and plunder.
And even today, people have resonable concerns that some immigrants are bad actors. Or that their culture produces bad actors in subsequent generations.
I understand that stone-age tribes behaved like that. It wasn’t private property, it was shared land that was excluded from others, presumably quite often on threat of violence.
Just because there MIGHT be some innate aspects to this sort of reaction doesn’t mean that it should be the basis of law or social relations in the modern day. I think the for/against arguments should be more focused on benefits/costs and shared notions of justice.
As opposed to private property, which is land that excluded from others, presumably quite often [nb: always] on threat of violence. How many people have to have ownership rights in a piece of property before those rights become morally reprehensible. Two? Three? Help me out here.
More than three, less than 7 billion? I don’t know.
The way you frame the question is far more conducive to reasonable thinking about the matter than claiming that it’s like a right to waltz into my living room.
“Stone age tribes” embraced the concept of private property. They just had a hard time rationalizing that one particular ephemeral individual could lay exclusive claim to a portion of the earth’s surface, something that has been around since before time and will be around a lot longer. It’s easy to understand private ownership of a baseball bat or a wheelchair or a cow. It’s not so easy to accept that Ted Turner should own huge portions of Montana, Weyerhauser have deeds to much of the Pacific Northwest, and the US federal government declare sovereignty over most of the US west and even Pacific Islands and parts of Antarctica. Of course, ultimately private ownership of property is contingent on the cooperation of the state, which determines who owns the land. Since we live in the moment, maybe that makes some kind of sense but there are unresolved philosophical questions.
It is, somewhat. You have an implied social contract in the US – the people here are part of your country, and so you work to benefit them, and they work to benefit you. That mutual benefit creates a stable society.
If our society has an implicit social contract, that implies that the people already here have an interest in who they extend that social contract to.
Alex, Tyler, whatever
@preacher —good analogy, and TC/AlexT would leave the door open for you, if their house is big enough. The USA is big enough to accept more people from all over the world, so indeed the door should be open. For a small country that’s unique, like Tibet maybe, or Greece, or some Micronesian island nation, or some American Indian reservation, arguably the people should be allowed to keep out foreigners to maintain their sense of culture. But America has no culture and is multinational, so that argument fails.
Actually, studies have shown that Americans are uniquely individualistic compared to people in other countries.
We have a culture. What we don’t have is a single ethnicity.
sorry, who leaves their door open for strangers to come in just because they have a big house? How does that work?
I understand you’re an expat living it up, but how can you say that about your country? That it has no culture and is multinational. Maybe after your traitor groups in politics and business opened the country up in 1965 and hobbled its ability to absorb new people. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has a fine Anglo-Saxon derived culture with lots of regional variations that has led to one of the most successful societies that ever existed. It might be weighted towards the low and middle brow, but it’s there, and it has expanded its reach throughout the world, which is why you feel that there really isn’t anything. Like people calling Lord of the Rings cliched because it developed all of the tropes that later became cliches.
The US is already pretty crowded – many of us don’t particularly want to be packed in tightly and we don’t want to further stress the environment, which is already having issues in many desirable areas (lack of water in the west and in Florida, pollution in the Chesapeake, etc.)
The US does in fact have a distinct culture, and while that culture has many subcultures with contributions from many nations, it’s not truly a multinational culture.
The zeroth amendment clearly states this fundamental human right.
18th century revolutionaries monopolize all things that we are permitted to ever agree upon as a fundamental human right.
20th/21st century revolutionaries are trying to change that. Early indications lead me to believe the 18th century dudes had a better grasp of human nature than this new crop.
Indeed, in fact most moral improvement between now and then has come from consistently applying those principles that were touted in the Englightenment. In those days, some of them, made torturued arguments that somehow justified slavery, or maintained evidence-free beliefs about the inferiority of women.
Not too familiar with the 9th, are you?
Immigration might be what breaks nationalism once and for all.
And replace it with what? Internationalism? Do you want to live in a place with standards based on international averages?
The international standard for life is to live in a oligarcy or dictatorship where you exist on a few dollars a day and you can be put in prision or even executed if you cause the rulers any problem
@DJF – how is your UN standard parade of horribles different from living in the USA today, where not paying your taxes on time, or walking while black, or doing some minor thing like rigging securities (Enron, MCI etc), will land you in jail for a long time or possibly cost you your life? I’m perfectly happy for example not being able to vote here in the Philippines on a US tourist visa, and with the corruption. As Socrates once said, you must be a citizen of the world (and it helps to have money).
Wasn’t Socrates’ world mostly Greek? The oikomene and such. Do we have such a universal culture that renders regional affiliations into the narcissism of small differences? There is limited applicability for what Socrates said, who was more likely speaking about going from one Greek colony to another.
Rigging securities isn’t a minor thing, and I’m quite happy to see folks who do it in jail for a long time. We don’t normally execute people for securities fraud, that I can recall.
The worldwide norm is in fact far greater poverty, far less individual freedom, and a far less predictable and stable state.
Open borders doesn’t mean you have to weaken your laws, accept dictatorship or tolerate draconian punishment for minor anti-establishment actions.
He didn’t say immigration would destroy the state. He said it might break nationalism. Nationalism is perhaps better than servile acceptance of divine right of kings, but it also has some pretty nasty streaks.
Time to level up and broaden the tribe once again.
“”Time to level up and broaden the tribe once again.”‘
But you are not going up, as I pointed out international standards are down, not up.
Why would it lower the standards?
He’s not advocating erasing borders or streamlining the laws of all nations to be equal. He’s advocating free movement of labour, which would allow people to vote with their feet and goes where the laws, systems and opportunities are best.
“””Why would it lower the standards?””
100 million move to Switzerland and Switzerland collapses?
Oh, no he will say, once two many people start moving to Switzerland its standard of living will drop and once it gets worse then the worse of the world nobody will move to Switzerland. But the problem is that living standards will drop and it will have to get pretty bad to make people in very poor countries to want to stop moving to Switzerland.
And in this world there are at least 4 billion who would think they would get a great increase in standard of living if they moved to North America, Europe and a few parts of Asia, and South America. Yet 4 billion poor would overwhelm these places
I think you highly overestimate the number of people who would move. For starters, most of that 4 billion can’t afford to get to Switzerland, let alone afford a couple month’s rent before finding a job.
Yes, if you introduce 50 million people to Switzerland, the statistic which indicates average income will be lower. But this is not the same as saying that people who already live there will have lower income. They will be able to enjoy lower prices. And meanwhile, most of the prospective newcomers don’t have the qualifications or language skills sought by Swiss employers, so it is easy to overestimate the challenges that low-skilled employees would face.
Anyways, you’re talking about average economic statistical indicators, whereas by “standards” I thought you referred to things like, well, standards, like laws and such. We’re not even talking about the same thing.
The “ruin Switzerland” idea in essence denies us any collective goods. In an open borders world, a country or area with substantially higher standards will attract migrants until its standards are lowered to the global value. This also means it is pointless or a net negative for any individual to invest in such goods.
“Open borders doesn’t mean you have to weaken your laws, accept dictatorship or tolerate draconian punishment for minor anti-establishment actions.”
But this is what it has meant in practice, even though you can see, in theory, a more benign outcome. Western multi-ethnic empires in the past have all had reduced political rights and a secret police in order to keep ethnic conflict at a minimum. Today, your freedom of speech, freedom of association, ownership of institutional normative commons, of social capital and of cultural icons (the Confederate flag, heroes, monuments, street names issues) are rapidly diminishing because of pre-existing diversity given new political tools or because of new diversity. The presumption of equal punishment for equal crime is out the window, as the non-European rapists in Europe have learned from their slaps on the wrists. History gives us plenty of examples of what can go bad and what does go bad, while the success stories (like Swiss multiculturalism or the blend of peoples and cultures) are viewed without taking into account certain circumstances or by ignoring the hundreds of years of hardship, conflict, pain that preceded the blending.
Aristotle:
Another cause of revolution is difference of races which do not at once acquire a common spirit; for a state is not the growth of a day, any more than it grows out of a multitude brought together by accident. Hence the reception of strangers in colonies, either at the time of their foundation or afterwards, has generally produced revolution; for example, the Achaeans who joined the Troezenians in the foundation of Sybaris, becoming later the more numerous, expelled them; hence the curse fell upon Sybaris. At Thurii the Sybarites quarrelled with their fellow-colonists; thinking that the land belonged to them, they wanted too much of it and were driven out. At Byzantium the new colonists were detected in a conspiracy, and were expelled by force of arms; the people of Antissa, who had received the Chian exiles, fought with them, and drove them out; and the Zancleans, after having received the Samians, were driven by them out of their own city. The citizens of Apollonia on the Euxine, after the introduction of a fresh body of colonists, had a revolution; the Syracusans, after the expulsion of their tyrants, having admitted strangers and mercenaries to the rights of citizenship, quarrelled and came to blows; the people of Amphipolis, having received Chalcidian colonists, were nearly all expelled by them.
http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/politics.5.five.html
I disagree.
The issues of Confederate flags etc is about slavery, not Hispanics or others.
Non-European rapists don’t get a slap on the wrist.
Aristotle’s words may have applied in his time, but that was over 2000 years ago and need not be considered as universal truth. Moreover, I fully believe that people, in considering a migration decision, also take into account the culture of the place they will move to. Most people will prefer to move to a place where they agree with, or can at least get along with, the existing culture of the place.
Non-European rapists don’t get a slap on the wrist
The place is called “Rotherham”.
Art – yes, Rotheram happened. It doesn’t mean it’s the norm.
Yes, you kind of do have to accept the potential for large, and possibly unpleasant, change. Our culture – and, I would argue, much of our economic success – is based on a shared set of core values. If you bring in a very large number of people with very different values, you are going to change that culture, and not necessarily for the better.
For example,it seems quite likely that one result of open borders would seriously weaken the rights of women, because the international norm is not strongly supportive of women as equals.
Funny. Immigration seems to be reviving European nationalist movements that were petering out enough at the turn of the century to sublimate themselves within the EU.
As surely as communism broke selfishness. Oops, we actually ended up with anti-communist fascists.
Hey, look who’s rising in the polls.
Just out of curiosity, who are you libeling today, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump, Marine Le Pen, or Jimmie Akesson?
What makes something a basic human right or not? Are there non-basic humanrights? How do we seperate rights from mere desires?
Consensus.
Everyone who says “this is a basic human right” is really saying please put this in the bucket called basic human rights. Once in the bucket it will be treated differently.
Note the different societies can have different things in their buckets.
To that, I would add that perfect consensus is not necessary. There will always be some holdouts, and they cannot be allowed to sabotage the process of evolving social values. How much consensus would be necessary? I would apply similar reasoning, but in most countries this would be equal to the amount of consensus required to get a constitutional amendment.
Quelle horreur. People who disagree with us are committing “sabotage!”
No, they’re disagreeing with you and promoting their views, which is an actual basic right in America, not sabotage.
Moreover, what evolution of social values is taking place here? Where are the teeming throngs calling for unlimited immigration as a basic right? Unlike actual evolution of social values on issues like gay marriage, the popularity of unlimited migration exists solely within a hand full of academics.
I welcome disagreement and dialogue, and neither is sabotage. My point is that setting the bar at 100% consensus would be too high.
By no means am I arguing that open borders or a right to migration has any consensus whatsoever. I’m arguing that, hypothetically, were, say, 60 (too low?), 70, 80 (definitely enough) percent of people to agree and laws and constitutions were to be changed, that this would be sufficient.
For example, if 80% of people supported such a right, some 5% minority might threaten to take to arms to stop it. This would be sabotaging the process, an effort to subvert the “will of the people”. Such sabotage, were they to actually take to arms … well, I don’t support violence as a means to achieve policy, but I support violently suppressing those who WOULD take to violence.
It’s how the world works, no?
As for the nature of the popularity, I think it would depend on which question you asked. With zero primers, point blank, asking people “do you support the ideal of living in a world where people are free to live and work anywhere in the world they want?” would get enormous support. Of course, an alternative question like “do you support the right of anyone in the world, including Muslims, Africans and communists, to migrate to live, work and VOTE in the USA, if in such a world you would also have the right to live and work in other countries?”, you would get much less support.
The tyranny of the majority is the worst tyranny of all, because it can drape itself in righteousness. Most political thinkers throughout the ages, including those who wrote the US Constitution, understood this.
But today, there are those who view democracy not merely as an instrumental value (the worst form of government except for all the others) but as some kind of moral end all/ be all.
As someone with libertarianish leanings, I get serious heebie-jeebies when people talk like this.
B D – I think it is ALWAYS appropriate to evoke the “tyranny of the majority” when people evoke the notion that a majority proves that something is right. I absolutely appreciate that you do so.
But is that not what things like “rights” are for? You have a temporary majority who demands something that is “wrong”, but safeguards such as constitutions, courts, laws, etc. protect us from it?
Also, when that majority approaches, say 80%, it’s time to just acknowledge that the times are changing (assuming we’re not talking about 80% of people supporting the right to torture arbitrary people just for good ol’ fun, or something obviously evil like that) – which clearly is not the case for open borders in the present day.
But if you’re going to evoke the “tyranny of the majority”, would you evoke it for or against open borders with the hypothetical majority, or even super-majority, on one side of the argument or another?
It’s funny how you fudge the number (60%? 70%? 80%?). It sounds like at some point, something magical happens.
What percent of Southerners favored Jim Crow? Suppose for the sake of argument that it was 80%.
I’m imagining you taking up arms to suppress civil rights agitators / saboteurs.
B D – on fudging numbers.
OK, why don’t you try to define “consensus”? Here’s the Oxford Dictionary definition: http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/us/definition/american_english/consensus. Even Oxford Dictionary is fudging it.
I’m not sure if there’s a principled position here, but your exaltation of democracy sure ain’t it.
My own position is more like “live and let live”.
“Live and let live” sounds pretty open borders to me.
@ Nathan W:
It will get even more support once we’re up to 4.4 billion Africans. The question is always if you can get more this way than you already have. And the proportion of people for whom that is true grows daily.
Perhaps. I’m pretty sure I haven’t expressed an opinion on open borders one way or the other in this thread, but you can’t see that because your knee keeps snapping up and hitting you in the eye.
Anyway, the mask slipped and you showed your fangs above about how to deal with an inconvenient minority.
Oops… above comment is reply to Nathan W 1:15 PM.
We were talking about the nature of consensus in a context of a “tyranny of the majority”.
You refused to provide a definition for “consensus” and instead you are a “live and let live” kind of guy. I’m not trying to tell you what your opinion is on the matter, but if you’re against open borders, then this stands very strongly against “live and let live”. I’m not calling you a hypocrite, as we all hold many apparently contradictory values and positions for a variety of reasons. But I reiterate that “live and let live” sure sounds pretty pro open borders.
I simply don’t understand your comments about “masks”, “fangs” or “inconvenient minorities”. Or knees slapping in eyes. Please stick with some lexicon that makes sense.
Your fangs:
“There will always be some holdouts, and they cannot be allowed to sabotage the process of evolving social values.”
It’s right there, empixellated forever. The iron fist inside the velvet glove. Pretty far from “live and let live”.
I reiterate, I’m not sure there is a principled position here, but I want the Nathan W’s of this world as far from the levers of power as humanly possible.
B D – what’s your opinion of the constitutional amendement process?
I’m not promoting the tyranny of the majority. I’m asking how much consensus is needed before you say “tough luck” to the naysayers. It’s not like I’m defending slavery or something.
@Nathan W,
My opinion of the constitutional amendment process in the US is that the constitution will never again be successfully amended.
If 99% of the people in this country decided to repeal the First Amendment, I would find somewhere else to live.
What makes something a basic human right or not?
When someone wishes to engage in rhetorical gamesmanship and claim someone else’s property or forbearance when its never been customarily extended. My personal favorite was a chap who used to ride the shuttle at the University of Rochester, ca 1994. He had this button on his belt with a pink triangle or some such that said ‘LOVE is a BASIC HUMAN RIGHT”. I never did ask him who he was going to sue if he didn’t get it.
I think we need to get past one-liner ‘human rights’ ideologies and start to create goals, transitional frameworks, and international collaborations. We are in the 21st century and need to think, speak, and act in a more nuanced and less ‘bite-driven’ tone, so as to foster a more practicable socio-economic development path. The same type of verbiage which may attract street protests and popular news coverage often does not lend itself to dialogue and productive compromise. Which isn’t to say popular opinion should not be valued. Look at outlets like facebook that nudge their users by subtly avoiding many negative connotations – mind control or positive reinforcement? And of course, there should always be a compassionately-sensitive (whatever that means) business case for all. The problem is also the lack of meaningful and comprehensible data which can popularly accepted. There is a disconnect between the way the world ‘should’ work ‘popularly’ and the ‘actual’ affect it would have on people’s day-to-day lives outside of the specific issues (i.e. employment shocks, price shocks, immigrant values as suddenly imposed on a community, ability to get services)(putting aside the natural obstructions of people’s personal prejudices). There are few ‘modelled scenarios’ with publicly available results unsullied by newsmedia for the audience of a new initiative, so we get over-reaction, polarity, and obstruction.
If we are going to throw out some more ‘feel-good’ but heavily-contradictory-and-honestly-quite-arbitrary rights/ commandments, why not:
“Right to dignity”
“Right to meaningful work”
“Right to be free of human toxins”
“Right to not work under dignified conditions”
“Right to affordable energy and water”
“Right to refuse to be laid off”
“Right to refuse difficult employment conditions”…
and such. Useless. And frequently does not even get the conversation started in a meaningful way.
The point: better, at the start, to phrase something as the right to be free of something universally bad, than the right to acquire something universally good.
I think it’s good to say things like “it would be ideal if we lived in a world where it could be like X”, and it is often stated in the forms of “rights”.
Of course, very few rights are absolute, and there are good reasons to discussing the downsides of taking any sort of right to their logical (and sometimes illogical) extreme.
To pick one of your examples … a “right to meaningful work”. Well, this sounds like a nice ideal. But then the economy absolutely still needs people to shovel shit in many thousands of metaphorical ways. So all I can say is “sorry, sounds nice, let’s keep it on the backburner and see if it ever becomes realistic”.
I have the same opinion of Open Borders. I support the welfare state too much to allow it to be destroyed by 100% open borders, but the idea sounds inherently right. So let’s keep it on the backburner and keep on debating it until (if) we ever find a way for it to become workable without undermining (too much) other things that are widely valued.
No, it’s not a basic right. Because there are no such thing as basic rights. There are only rights the majority of people believe are universal in a given polity. Which rights those are varies depending where and when you live. Right now, the majority of people don’t believe migration is a basic right and therefore it is not.
Would we be better off if all people believed migration should be free and open? I don’t know. But I do know migration is driven principally by a failure to provide the basic rights that have driven modern prosperity. Perhaps we should try promoting those since we know they benefit everyone. The jury on whether migration is always beneficial is still very much hung.
Americans believe that migration is a basic right – for Americans and within the territory of the USA.
It just hasn’t been extended to the next level.
Moving within a country and between countries are both called migration, but they have separate definitions.
Alex’s article was on migration between countries, not within, so I stand by my statements. Support for moving around within a country rises from the belief that the residents of each state are all Americans with roughly shared values. Foreigners fail to meet this standard by default. Supporting internal migration is therefore not a stepping stone on the road to extended support to migration between countries.
And even that presumption of a right to internal migration is the product of hundreds of years of Western European political evolution. During manorialism, peasants were tied to the land and could not move elsewhere, or go through the important stages of life, such as marriage, without lordly approval.
This is a good article, a bit off-topic, quoting a Russian thinker from the early XXth century, which shows how much of your intellectual framework is not universal, but the specific outcome of a long evolution which has not happened in other parts of the world.
http://www.unz.com/akarlin/struggle-europe-mankind/
Comparison to peasants being tied to the land is interesting. I think bringing it up is supportive of the idea that more free movement of labour is a good ideal, but this does not itself water down the counterarguments.
Americans believe that, within the social contract, that people are entitled to a number of things, including a free public education, emergency medical care, and the ability to move freely within the territory covered by that social contract.
That does not imply that they feel obligated to provide a free education to everyone everywhere, or free medical care to everyone everywhere, or to allow everyone everywhere to move here and receive the benefits of free education and free medical care.
No. Next Question.
About as many people agree about private property as agree about national and community property.
If most of what makes you as wealthy as you are, and gives you a decent standard of living, is held in national and community property and rights in the form of citizenship (a person with citizenship X can do / use Y), and you’ve spent your life building and maintaining those, forsaking the path of building personal and private wealth for yourself, why respect private property rights, when your national and community property is debased, despoiled and sold off? Obviously you won’t, and if you’re talented enough, and focused enough and in sufficient numbers, you can create a lot of problems for the people you see as being the beneficiaries of the despoiling and selling off.
I think you start of well by making the “we collectively built this country and want to uphold it” sort of argument. I thought I was in the midst of reading a really well-poised argument in favour of the status quo.
But then I got to the part where you assume that newcomers will “debase” and “despoil” things. I guess some people will feel that way, but it is also so insulting to the sorts of enterprising people who would cross the world for economic reasons that it reeks of subtlely expressed racism, whether intended to or not.
The most talented people will not fear the competition. It is the least talented ones that I would be most concerned about.
“it is also so insulting to the sorts of enterprising people who would cross the world for economic reasons…” – America is not a business, and these people are not the descendants of those who fought for my liberty. In many cases, they are the descendants of people who actively fought AGAINST my liberty and sought to do my ancestors harm. I have no obligation to them.
Like Germans and Japanese (who actually fought against your liberty)?
Or do you just want to keep out the Africans, Muslims and Hispanics (who never fought against your liberty)?
“The most talented people will not fear the competition. It is the least talented ones that I would be most concerned about.”
Does talent include rigging the upward social mobility game to entrench elites and preserve all kinds of capital that you pass onto your children? Because immigration didn’t really step up in the US until elites were confident of the perpetual maintenance of their positions and how the new arrivals hobble the social mobility of the natives, which takes places through higher incomes, job security and better educational opportunity. Only around 20% of the Ivies student body are non-Jewish European-Americans, masked by the 40 something percent that they have with Jews. The Ivies are where future leaders are produced, at least through networking if not through educational excellence. 60% of the current American population and near 90% of the historic American nation, pre-1965, gets 20% of those places, squeezed by the excellence of some minorities and affirmative action afforded to others.
Class consciousness is one thing. In my country, I don’t go to the rough parts of town, I have certain consumption habits, a certain educational profile, a level of financial security and a certain social group etc. But my lower class countrymen are still my countrymen, even the uncouth ones, and it is proper that I reflexively prioritize their interests in the (inter)national arena over that of foreigners with whom I have lesser genetic and cultural ties. It wasn’t so long ago that the great mass of my people were uneducated peasants. Some rise, some fall, but we have a country in common. Maybe the reason why I and my richer or more successful countrymen maintain this loyalty in the face of EU pressure to identify more with members of similar classes in other EU countries, with whom contact is very easy, is because the education process itself was very class egalitarian, which left us with a wide assortment of inter-class contacts, friendships. The farther back you go, before testing sorted us by ability, the more diverse the outcomes.
In countries where private education as a means of segregating the blue bloods and controlling the peer group has been a thing for many generations, the links between the hereditary elites (older money, older political connections etc – present even in my former Communist nation, but whose children were publicly educated with those of the lower classes) and the general population are very weak, which accounts for the lack of political capital invested by the haves in the welfare and social mobility of the have-less-es. The private schools that explicitly offer an International milieu meant to acculturate your children to the global overclass, internationalist thinking, continuing education abroad for credentialism etc have appeared only recently in my country, and it will be interesting to see what happens when these people mature and become part of the next generation of leaders.
“Does talent include rigging the upward social mobility game to entrench elites and preserve all kinds of capital that you pass onto your children?”
Very good point. I’m pretty critical of this sort of thing. Truly, I do feel for the risks of those who presently hold low skills and cannot likely change that within their own lifetime. It’s a very good reason for open borders to be politically unfeasible. But I observe that the anti side of the argument does not generally seem to be expressing concern for the lower class who would like lose out (in the space of this generation and next, at least).
I’m pretty critical of educational inequality, but if you point it out on this board there are always lots of naysayers, and there’s not even any point in introducing evidence because whatever the evidence is, all that matters is that there’s some flaw in quibble about or that at some other level of aggregation it’s muddy, or that there exists some single counterexample.
Private education need not provide better education to provide benefits. Success has a lot to do with social networks too, and when your entire social networks is monied people with access to movers and shakers, it’s obviously easier than when you go to a school full of impoverished drug dealers and whose parents work in factories and night shifts at convenience stores, etc.
“But I observe that the anti side of the argument does not generally seem to be expressing concern for the lower class who would like lose out”
It is the great unsung story of our age that, for all the talk of unity and universal values, class and identity divisions have never been sharper for so many people since the last century began and the political class so un-representative socially, or in the context of the pursuit of every sizable group’s interests.
And then they scratch their heads wondering why the guillotines come out and why various political groups whom they would term as extremists are empowered to expropriate them of wealth, social capital, political influence, personal safety etc. Even in my country, the story of social mobility under Communism is one of three sides – the holding down of the prior elites through artificial means based on prior class identification, the rise of elites connected to the revolutionary process, and the simple social mobility of people who had no education before, but had access to it now, which is how my family rose to be comfortably middle class just as soon as they finished their education, and Communism fell.
Private education masking social group segregation is one way of disrupting social ties and capital (even love ties, marriage, worldview formation etc) between elites and the commons, even without attacking the ethnic homogeneity of society.
The most talented people can and do still get smoked by sheer numbers. For example, heavy use of H1b by IT outsourcing companies has greatly increased age discrimination in tech, and has undermined wage growth in many areas. That’s happening in a field that tend to attract extremely intelligent and talented individuals who live “lifetime learning.”
In a utilitarian sense, supporting international development does more to improve human welfare than migration.
Foreign aid might seem like a sop, a consolation, but it has done more than migration to improve lives.
I will now go make another cup of Fair Trade coffee (purchased in part because as a premium coffee, it tastes better).
Please, as taught at MRU, drinking fair trade coffee is making things worse for the poor. As noted by Don Boudreaux, former chair of the GMU econ dept. – ‘And, if fair trade isn’t the best way to improve living standards in developing countries, how else can we maximize employment options and well-being for poor workers?’ http://www.mruniversity.com/courses/everyday-economics/fair-trade-economic-development
Don’t be fooled by the idea that simply paying producers of a good more leads to an increase in well being, as any member of the Mercatus Center (sponsor and funder of MRU) can easily prove such a belief is not only delusional, but absolutely harmful.
Depends which fair trade coffee you get. Those with good practices will be only too happy to make sure that you can get all the information you need to know that it’s really “fair trade”.
The idea that it hurts farmers to pay them more for their product is crazy (at least counterintuitive). But yeah, I’m aware that there are examples of how it doesn’t always work very well.
That was a bit overwrought.
I followed some more links as well. I think if you have reasonable expectations and are explicitly choosing origin anyway, Fair Trade coffee is a mild plus. This might be more true in new normal of expensive coffee, and FT as a subset of premium coffee.
A marginal improvement and definitely not suggested as an alternative to the entire constellation of drivers for international development, public and private, For-profit and charitable.
Very revealing how free-market libertarians have apparently discovered that the optimal price for entering any nation, at any time, under any political circumstances, is zero. May we see the proof of this amazing theorem? So much for the pretense of knowledge.
Would you support a policy that anyone can buy an entry visa (terrorists and criminals exempt, of course)?
Sure, but the potential seller also has no requirement to sell. Just like you have no requirement on you to rent out your spare bedroom or your couch.
Actually, it is quite clear in the law that if I am in the business of renting things, that I cannot discriminate.
If you wish to discriminate, you have to lie and make up some other excuse. Doing so loudly and proudly will only get you sued.
I have two spare bedrooms in my apartment. But since I’m not in the business of renting them out, no law anywhere on the planet requires me to rent them to anyone.
“Actually, it is quite clear in the law that if I am in the business of renting things, that I cannot discriminate.”
Actually, you don’t understand the law. It’s perfectly legal to choose a white person over a black person to rent your spare bedroom or couch for racial reasons. Renting an apartment from a 50 unit complex that you own is another story.
If you listen to the podcast you will also find a discussion of that idea.
This isn’t much of a counter-argument. The United States — with the approval of both free-market libertarians as well as many people who would refuse to identify as such — has decided that acts such as moving from one state to another, starting up a newspaper, holding a protest on public property, and voting have a price of zero as far as the government is concerned. That’s because they are considered rights and if the government encumbers the exercise of a right by charging a permit or license fee, it becomes less of a right.
Your argument amounts to question begging. Since you have decided migration isn’t a right, you then change the subject to the utilitarian calculus of how much to charge would-be migrants. But if migration is a fundamental right — like the right of U.S. citizens to move from one state to another or voting — then employing differential calculus and theorems to figure out how much to charge people misses the whole point of rights.
Ricardo, that’s because those rights are explicitly set into the founding document of our government. There’s an implicit social contract – we have these rights. Those rights can be limited, in some cases, too.
You don’t just get to think up rights because you like the idea. The rest of us have a say too.
“There are fundamental human rights.” Bollocks. What he probably means is ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if everyone had certain rights that I approve of’.
Prof. Tabarrok is a Canadian immigrant who holds American citizenship. In this area, he is in no sense a hypocrite, as he merely advocates for others to enjoy the same benefits he does.
Maybe your willingness to close the door behind you should be a good sign of assimilating to regarding the interests of your fellow Americans more than those of foreigners. If every immigrant has some sort of moral duty to keep the door open for others, regardless of the effect to the society that received him, then full immigration restrictionism should be considered by those affected.
Less than Everybody on the planet actually has those rights. Rights which are defined as the ones that Everybody has. Some religious beliefs are easier to disprove than others.
The fact that someone has been deprived of a right does not mean that we should not agree that the right should be upheld.
I think we all agree that everyone should have the right to live without being murdered. But we don’t give up on the right to life, having observed that some people are in fact murdered.
So you agree. Rights that everyone *should have* are no not the same as ones that everyone *does have*. Therefore, there is no Fundamental Human Right, *as defined above*, to go wherever you want.
No one is saying that this right exists. Some people thinks it’s a good idea to work to promoting it.
Is it possible in the 21st century that “rights” have some kind of Platonic existence outside of convention? Whether a right should be conferred or not ought only to be a matter of public policy. If granting a right makes all people better off then yes. If not, then no.
Change “all people” to “all citizens.”
If a right makes 99% of people WAY better off, but 1% of people a little bit worse off, should we do it? Of course! If a right makes 99% of people a little bit better off, but 1% of people WAY worse off (say, dead), should we do it? I think not.
Aiming for Pareto improvements is too high a bar for many things that would make things generally better.
In the case of open borders, I would be concerned about the 20, 30 or 50% of Americans who would not be able to compete very well with the influx of labour, and who could lose out quite significantly. Maybe it would be better for 100% of people in 100 years time, but the cost is too high for a large number of people in current generations to disregard their situation.
“If a right makes 99% of people WAY better off, but 1% of people a little bit worse off, should we do it?”- If the 1% involves my family, and “a little bit worse off” means “erase 40 years of social and economic progress,” what do you think my answer will be?
The other 99% of people are free to disagree. I suggest routing all complaints to Strategic Air Command. I pay them to handle “disagreements” with the 99%.
In the case of open borders, it would be more along the 95% of people who would not be able to compete very well with the influx of labor. As you can see in IT, large numbers of people willing to do the same work – even at a lower skill level – tends to drive down wages, drive down working conditions, and increase age discrimination. The topmost people – the tiny percentage of superstars in the world – do very well – possibly better. But most are worse off.
I don’t think open borders would make things better for people in 100 years time, either – the US doesn’t need to become incredibly crowded, and degrade our environment. I like us to have some open space – in fact, to me, the increase in population I’ve seen over the past twenty years is in many ways a loss, not a benefit.
“And I believe they should also include the right to move about the Earth.”
Why doesnt he just consult whatever oracle told him what the other Fundamental Human Rights are? Then he could tell us what he “knows”.
Alex, do I have the right to move about the earth, onto your property, into your house? You have the right to determine who is a guest in your house, i presume.
if you can own property that is reserved for your personal use, what is the distinction between that and reserving a country for it’s own citizens personal use as well as whichever immigrants the polity deems welcome?
@Mike the white guy in China – fallacy of composition noted. If Alex’s house is big enough, I’m sure he has a guest house for you. You just can’t stay there forever. Same with foreigners: if they misbehave, they would be deported. Works for me, here as a US tourist in the Philippines. In fact, a youngster from the Netherlands with his Filipina gf got kicked out of this country a few years ago for mildly threatening a policeman during a political protest rally (he clenched his fist) and, more importantly in this face-saving nation (not unlike China) the policeman cried. When that photo circulated –crying native man in front of a Dutch man, who historically has exploited SE Asia–the Dutchman was soon flying back home with his gf.
Hence I’m in favor of immigration with the proviso that the immigrant is a guest, not a permanent resident. Makes the immigrant stay on their toes. The Greeks also practiced this by allowing noxious citizens to be voted into exile for a brief period of time. Imagine being allowed to vote one of the Kardashians or their kin into exile for a year! Wow, the thought of that makes me smile.
Being able to deport them for misbehaving sounds like a good idea.
But I would be concerned about protections to ensure that employers couldn’t abuse this, saying “if you don’t do X, Y, Z I’ll report you for some petty act”. Say, set him up to actually do something minor that’s against the law (say, filed some tax forms wrong and ergo cheated on his taxes,even if accidentally), then demand unpaid overtime or you turn him in. I would argue that the bar for “misbehaving” would have to be pretty high.
Mike in Shenzhen,
I also have a right to determine what is said in my house. Does it follow from that right that a nation has a right to determine what people say within its borders? No, it does not follow. Put differently, the First Amendment is not inconsistent with property rights, indeed it depends on property rights. The same is true for the right to move about.
You have limited options on what to do about it if they are also “citizen” of your house. What do you do when your 13 year old child says something you determine he does not have a right to say? You can’t kick him out or harm him physically. That would be illegal. You restrict his ability to function, ground him, maybe shame him. Does that mean your child is going to stop saying what you dislike? Not necessarily. He can just keep saying it and accept the consequences for it. The left uses similar tactics for speech which they dislike but cannot outright ban.
No “right” is absolute. You are simply trying to dress up your personal value preference as a “right”. Nothing more.
He states the following “And I believe they should also include the right to move about the Earth.”
He’s not trying to dress up anything. He proposing something.
No. He is not simply “proposing something”. He is proposing something as a “right”. Also, read the headline to this post.
The headline is a question, not a statement.
And proposing something as a right is proposing something.
Perhaps you post so many comments here that you don’t have time to read any original blog posts. Given A.T.’s track record on open borders, whaddy’a suppose the suggested answer is to that rather rhetorical question? The discussion of “rights” inevitably brings out the reaction from many (see above in this thread) that “rights” are like manna dropped from heaven. As such, this reduces any serious policy discussion as to pro’s and con’s. It’s just a given.
Rights most certainly are absolute. Whether they are absolutely respected is a different matter.
The liberty to move about the earth without being assaulted or deprived is an absolute right. Migration does not violate property rights in itself. The government does not have a property right in the territory over which it claims jurisdiction. The government doesn’t have any rights at all, in fact. It has only those powers which can be legitimately delegated by the populace, and assaulting immigrants is not one of those powers.
I can’t believe you are so naive.
It’s not a right, much less an absolute right. Societies have implicit social contracts, and that includes choosing who they contract with.
A belief in the philosophy of liberty and restrictions on political power is most certainly not naive. It is the only practical method for organizing human society.
The “social contract” has much less substantiation for its existence than the right to freedom of movement.
Rights don’t exist because you think they ought to. There is no right of freedom of movement.
There has never been a right to go wherever one wants, without regard to the people living there and whether or not they want you.
The government, in this case, does not have separate rights – its power comes from its citizens, and that actually is what the social contract refers to.
Right. The border conveniently starts at Alex’s front yard.
Governments do not have property rights. Only individuals have property rights. If you can demonstrate an immigrant is violating your property rights in a court of law, go right ahead.
Really? Go back to school. You mean the federal government has no property “right” to Yellowstone? The White House? Government has no right of imminent domain?
Also, no “right” to tax or to control borders?
The reason to bring up the “rights” thing is a feeble attempt to avoid the real issue—whether “open borders” are a good thing, all things considered, and for whom.
eminent
Ah, commanding I go back to the government indoctrination camp because I wasn’t sufficiently “educated” the first time? That’s a real winner of an argument.
No, the government does not have property rights. To presume it has property rights would suggest those rights are prior to itself, since rights are prior to government. Governments exist to protect the rights of individuals, not its own “rights.”
No, the government does not have a property right in Yellowstone Park, or the White House, despite whatever muddled reasoning it uses to justify its claim over that land. In actuality, it maintains control over those lands for as long as it retains the authority to govern, which is a privilege extended by the People and one that can be revoked by the People at any time. It has no enforceable “rights” that it may defend if the People no longer recognize its legitimate claim to rule, and it most certainly has no “right” to rule.
The migration issue is a head-on attempt to attack the argument that states have any legitimate authority to assault the rights of those who choose to exercise their right to move about the earth. There is no other “good” argument for restricting migration. Economic arguments fail on all fronts.
Rights seem to be treated as binary, on or off concepts.
What about some gradation or distinction between rights, or is asking that akin to noticing?
How are responsibilities addressed along with, or in spite of, rights?
What sort of responsibilities do you have in mind? 100 hours a year proven volunteer service? Or would paying taxes and not breaking any major law be enough?
At the moment, those folks only think there is a “right to migrate” because they believe most migrants will vote like they do, contributing to their power and influence. Were migrants suddenly Republicans that belief in a right to migrate would vanish overnight.
Yeah, libertarians really think the influx of newcomers will all be libertarian.
Some people support things for actual reasons and values, not because of tribal partisan affiliation.
Conditional support of a policy because of its effects is different than belief in an absolute right.
You all realize that universal human rights are the by and large the province of the West, right? Those that you allow to migrate may not share these values, and may not practice them towards you (or your children).
That this *should* be a shared belief system globally is far different than *it is* and *let’s have them move in next door to you*.
I really wish the impassioned theorists would put their money where their mouth is and let migrants move in their house, or pool their money for a home purchase in their neighborhood. Otherwise, this conversation is just theories to make oneself feel good while others bear the costs.
I live in Chicago, I have no illusions.
Yeah, people who don’t bear 100% of the cost themselves shouldn’t advocate for things they aren’t willing to pay for out of pocket, otherwise they are hypocrites.
Unless it’s arguing for expensive foreign invasions which enrich arms dealers and create blowback which justifies the expansion of the spy state.
Yep, just like the ‘impassioned theorists’ who want a war with Syria/ISIS/Iran/Russia put their money where their mouth is and grab a gun for themselves, and their kids, and go make it happen. Otherwise, hypocrites.
Does this mean we should change all the history books to say the Vandals migrated to Rome rather than invaded, and that the British deprived the Germans of their basic rights rather than won the Battle of Britain.
I look forward to the new bumper stickers: instead of Save Tibet here’s to Support Chinese Migrants
I think your jumping off point is retarded. Also, there’s no Santa Claus. And Nathan continues to be so perfectly naïve that one wonders if he is more real than Santa.
Please explain why you hold the opinion that I’m being naive.
It’s pretty easy to disregard the perspectives of those who turn to insult without substantiating themselves.
The “how about they move you into your house then, huh” argument is one of the stupidest things I’ve ever heard.
You could counter it with “how about send a $100,000 cheque to the treasury before you’re allowed to support military invasions”.
But they’re both stupid. Nations act collectively in many ways, and costs of any given action will always be partially born by some people who oppose it.
There are a million ways to counter it. I felt no need to, beyond pointing out its ridiculousness, because you already have.
It’s right there with ‘if Warren Buffett wants the rich to pay more taxes he should just send in a bigger check’
Actually both are great arguments and that’s why you hate hearing them. I never going around saying how trivial and shallow your and Nathan Ws comments are (though you both are certainly among the least insightful commenters on this site) because I love you guys running your mouths. Nothing helps my side more than your tedious, smarmy comments.
You mad, bro?
When all you’ve got to offer is insults and nothing much concrete, I conclude that I must be on to something.
I can’t speak for Warren Buffett, but if he, or anyone else, thinks this is a moral issue, they really should send in a bigger check regardless of what anyone else does, right?
I don’t think he thinks it’s a moral issue, I think he thinks it’s a fairness issue, combined with a belief about how best to fund government. You’d have to ask him. Sure he could send in more but that would be a drop in the bucket re: funding the government. But if the rich pay more maybe it has an effect. Note I’m not endorsing his claim, just pointing out that the opposition taunt is silly.
Maybe. Is “fairness” something apart from morality?
I find it weird for someone to say” “People SHOULD behave a certain way, but only if everyone else is forced to as well.”
If you’re a lefty and sitting on a big pile, you know what you should do.
If it’s merely a practical matter, why is so much effort poured into shaming the rich and casting them in morally dubious terms?
Contrast that with campaign finance reform. Bill Clinton famously said he’d like to see limits on campaign spending, but hey, he’s gotta play under the current rules, and he’s not gonna shoot himself in the foot.
No hypocrisy there. It’s a purely practical matter.
No. Rights exists within communities, not between them.
A different question. To what extent is a nation a membership association, empowered to expel people not loyal to its purposes? Can we properly load people into a trebuchet and send them sailing across the border?
Welcome to the global community. All within, no more between. (Ideal end game, without the goal of seeking a mono-culture).
You raise an interesting question (even funny in the way you put it). But the idea of loyalty tests scares me. Is it not enough that I NOT plot to violently take down the state?
Open borders need not imply abolishing the state. The idea of international free movement of labour is not inconsistent with the idea that nations could still reserve the right to expel newcomers who failed to follow the rules (presumably far worse than parking violations).
I hardly share a culture with the Scots-Irish. What “community” do I have with the Islamic Chinese of Xinjiang?
I eat at a Xinjiang Muslim restaurant several times a week. They seem pretty much like most people to me.
But hey, if you have closed notions of community that’s your right.
“I eat at a Xinjiang Muslim restaurant several times a week. They seem pretty much like most people to me.”
Are you making a parody of yourself? You know nothing of what peoples political and social views are by eating at their restaurant. People don’t really “know” another person by simply casually hanging out, either. You could have ISIS members as coworkers and be thinking “they’re such nice people”.
Eating at obscure ethnic restaurants is a basic human right.
(That’s something of a theme on this blog, right?)
This must be the progressive version of “I have black friends.”
Harun – I’m saying they aren’t very different. I don’t care who thinks I’m how multicultural, blah blah blah.
All I’m saying is that people are fundamentally not that different basically wherever you go. We mostly care about pretty similar things, like friends, family, social status and for some people more transcendental things like religion/philosophy/spirituality.
“Global community” is a bit of humbug which exists only in the minds of people who strike attitudes in newspaper editorials and in comboxes.
Meh, if you’ve actually been some places you might not find we’re all that different.
http://koreandogs.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/dog-elixir2.jpg
https://leaksource.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/kaseasbeh-4.png
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csDvzZD7ZFE
This is true and untrue.
For example, North Koreans eat food, and so South Koreans!
They are the same!
Except they are not.
And if you really have traveled and lived in other countries, you can find certain cultures are much better matches for American culture than others.
For example, in Indonesia, Batak and other tribes are more direct in communication than Javanese. They seem far more “American” to Americans. Some Indonesians are super religious, more so than Americans, but it would probably really freak out Europeans.
Taiwan has a very American cultural feel to it, too. Lots of small business and democracy, and everyman bootstrapping, and freedom of worship,
Europe may appear “American” but often you will run into Germans having very un-American views.
Mexico shares many aspects with America…from country music to a car culture. (Frankly why some Americans are scared of Mexicans is beyond me…)
But, most people truly are very similar. (Its like we’re all the same species or something.)
Governments do not have rights.
Go back to school. Governments do not have “rights”? You mean, like, no “right to tax”? Etc. Or, no “right” to control its border?! The whole discussion of “rights” is an attempt to avoid the real issue and that is whether open borders are a good thing, all things considered. “Rights” don’t fall from the sky, like manna.
Rights are prior to government. Governments have no rights. There is no “right” to tax. The issue of rights is the most important issue when it comes to human relationships and the relationship between people and authority. Avoiding the issue of rights is an attempt to legitimize infringements of rights.
We aren’t one global community, and I would seriously question if most people in the world would even want us to be.
There are huge differences in the role of religion – which is a primary driver of life choices for a very significant number of people in the world – in the role of women, in acceptance of non-traditional sexual mores and preferences, in tolerance of free speech and free exercise of non-majority religions, in tolerance of political dissent, in ideas about the role of due process of law, and in many other key factors to ordering a society.
When you have open borders in the US, you are implicitly changing the composition of the country. A largely secular public life, free speech, tolerance of dissent and differences – those are not the universal state of the world, and open borders would tend to push the US back towards the international mean, which is culturally quite different.
It’s easy to think of our international well-educated, well to do friends and think that’s what global culture is about. The large majority of the world is not made up of well educated, well to do cosmopolitans. There are real, and large, differences in culture, in ideas about the role of the state, in ideas about the role of religion, in ideas about the role of women. I like the way we do things here, and it would not be to my personal preference to lose what we have.
I used to support open borders based on the following simple premise: if econ 101 teaches us that free markets are so good, then if capital can move freely than labour must also be able to move freely in order for supply and demand to be properly matched (otherwise capital will simply move to wherever it can be most exploitative and labour loses out big time – both unfair and suboptimal).
But until someone figures out how to ensure that a) everyone gets access to a good education b) everyone has some sort of insurance against job loss and injury/illness which prevents them from earning a living, then I don’t actually support it as much as I like the ideal.
I can only imagine that for a) it would significantly reduce aggregate investment in human capital (no country will support public education much at all if all the investment bleeds away) and for b) it would significantly increase the vulnerability of us humans who labour for our money (no system can sustain high health and unemployment benefits if anyone can move to the system with the best benefits).
Goods = Capital = Labour
Something is wrong with that argument. You should listen carefuly to your econ teacher if you really believe there is no major differences between capital and HUMANS.
Individuals are not like cars or apples or a haircut. Alex Tabarok can read than in any intro econ textbook.
It is kind of interesting how you like the ideal, but then not in the real world because you realize it would have some very negative consequences.
Socialists and communists have a lot a ideals as well, even some they call basic human rights. It all sounds really nice, and how can anybody be againts all those rights. The problem is only there when you think of the consequences and look at societies that tried it.
And then there is also the immoral part of the “open borders” argument. That some americans can even get themselves to claim that they have a basic human right that give them the right to move to Japan or the Maldives whenever they want, and that the japanese or maldivians dont have anything to say. That they just have the right to enjoy whatever the japanese og maldivian society has to offer, even though they have never contributed. That the japanese don’t have any special right to enjoy the fruits of the institutions they have created (or there forefathers). The country they have died for in wars, have paid taxes for, have build infrastructure, the good institutions they have created as product of their culture and their willingness to compromise and sacrifise. But then out of nowwhere every single american, pakistani, german, congolese in this world have exactly the same right to enjoy that japanese society.
Come on – thats clearly not a basic human right. It is a depraved idea.
How the hell do you read goods=capital=labour out of that? It’s like if one guy says A+B=C and the other guys says “you’re dumb for thinking A=B=C”. This is what I said: if it’s a free market, then shouldn’t all inputs and outputs be allowed to move freely? In economics, labour is an input.
What’s wrong with ideals? I’m quite explicit as what I see about the downside and am interested in ideas to mitigate them.
Open borders isn’t about the right to go to other countries and try to change everything. It’s about free movement of labour.
OMG, and to pick the example of Japan for the “special right to enjoy the fruits of the institutions they have created”. Japan lost the war, was occupied by America, and developed those institutions which America permitted it to develop. I get the argument, but Japan is not the right example.
Open borders very much is about going to other countries and changing everything. You can’t change the composition of the population without greatly changing society, and in the US, children born here are citizens with full rights to vote and to stay indefinitely.
“I used to support open borders based on the following simple premise: if econ 101”
Alright, fair point, but let’s hold up there.
Adam Smith divided “Theory of Moral Sentiments” from “Wealth of Nations.”
Rights and markets are two entirely different concepts. If you support a fundamental human right because “econ 101,” you have missed the point of “rights,” my friend.m
He didn’t divide the books. He wrote them decades apart.
I don’t support the right “because econ 101”. I was explaining a previous reason that I supported it. In a free marketist perspective, all production factors should face zero barriers. This is required for the mythical “optimum” of a free market with zero imperfections.
I support the ideal, not because econ 101, but because I have enjoyed a hell of a lot of free movement of labour and wish other people could too. I’ve been to dozens of countries where I’ve met soooo many smart, hard working and entrepreunerial people who will always always always be poor because they hold the wrong passport. That is wrong. So, you might say, they should build up their own institutions. But how will they build the economy when all rungs on the ladder are already filled and expert advice is “stick to farming”?
Why has no one mentioned the recent history of parts of Eastern Europe, where emigration was forbidden and punished with death? There seems to have been a lot of antipathy to that policy in the west, people shouting about “tearing down walls” and such. If that policy was abandoned, where were the would-be emigrants to go? Or was all the blather just moral preening?
Yeah, because there can only be complety open borders or complety closed borders.
If you think of something in between the to extremes, that makes you a bigot. Right?
For the billionth time a right to emigration is controversial with anyone. For the same reason that no matter how bored guests get at your Christmas party if you pull a gun on them to make them stay then you will go to jail. The difference is that when you guests file out of your lame Christmas they can’t just go invite themselves to my Christmas party. See the difference. I desperately want people to be free to leave your crappy Christmas party/ their crappy countries but only if they have been promised a place to go by someone else.
Full freedom of migration is incompatible with democracy, universal suffrage, and almost all human organizations throughout history. Even in the days of pre-nation tribes, tribes generally didn’t observe open admission standards and selfishly selected people who could join their tribe. Democracy is overrated and the past of humanity doesn’t mean things shouldn’t be changed in the future.
But this general line of open borders reasoning seems completely daft.
A potential compromise would be to push the private city concept that is fundamentally built to oppose any ethnic, religious, or demographic identity or bias. Even private cities impose laws which arguably impede the basic right of mobility. Private property is similar. I’m fine with that trade off, but it does seem to conflict with the underlying morality of open borders.
Selectively demanding the nations of Europe, US, Canada, and possibly Israel to abandon any ethnic and religious affiliation and giving most of the rest of the world a free pass to aggressively discriminate along those lines seems wildly biased and unreasonable.
Private cities is an idea whose time has come. Millions of people leave their political rights when they migrate. What gain is there in them going to democracies instead of corporate cities? (which have free exit)
If I wanted to think more meta, then I think that correct incentivization of government employees is the better issue to fight on. It is simple and fairly unpolitical on both sides. The political issue is defining the parameters on which they are to be judged and that is where the fight may shift.
The Islamic State actually seems to have an open borders policy.
They attract immigrants from all over the world.
Has that helped the political culture in the area or hurt it?
Its almost an argumentum ad absurdum brought to real life, if you think about it!
I think the pro-immigration people should accept that culture matters and too rapid and too much immigration causes angst about changing culture too fast: imagine if your city had 1 million Bangladeshis arrive overnight. Elections were held, and new rules were put into law. Acceptable?
But if that happened over 50 years, it would give everyone time to adapt to each other.
Exactly. Why does the argument at this site always come down to ‘totally open borders’ and ‘totally closed ones’. The obvious correct position is there should be immigration. How much is what the debate should be. That may not work for Alex because to him any restriction on immigration infringes on a human right. But that’s a very minority position. Almost everyone is in the middle.
Gochujang nailed it in the very first post: “On a basic level we should have a freedom to leave, but recognize restrictions to enter. Sure, decide to immigrate, and then find a place to take you. This is an ancient reality.”
Thread should have ended right there.
How much of immigration angst will essentially disappear when global labor arbitrage is over?
I think a lot.
Imagine a world where everyone basically can make a comparable wage in any country.
You’d only leave your own country for tourism, study, or work duty.
You might fall in love with some locale, or marry someone, or what not, but there would be no extreme push to move to some land of opportunity. (This may be idealized, but something approximating this exists for the Anglosphere / EU/ Japan.)
Would anyone fear this kind of immigration? No, not really, I don’t think so because it would be low level and diverse.
Next question, to myself…would immigration to politically simpatico countries really work out the best?
You like individual freedom, capitalism, and guns…come to America.
You want a large nanny state where women are free to walk the street at night? Go to Sweden.
You’d like to live in an Islamic Caliphate? Go to Saudi Arabia.
The issue becomes when Sweden is a better deal for money only, so much that you’ll go there even though you’d really prefer women to be covered completely, and not allowed to drive.
A neat non-Islamic example was the German home-schooling Christians. They really will be much happier in America.
You will never bring the rest of the World, especially Africa, to the level of Western countries (unless they self-destroy, like they did once before, but they could rebuild). The reasons are too many to list, and go from culture, to natural resources, to already accumulated capital and, yes, to IQ and personality trait distribution, social organization, reproductive patterns etc. Some countries, which simply started later, can get there – S Korea and Japan did, China might. Therefore, labor arbitrage opportunities will always be with us. Even if Africa were to grow 10% a year, it would still be behind the West growing at 0.5% per year for the foreseeable future.
The only way I see for the equalization of wages (not just between countries, but also rural vs cities) is the dystopian prospect of so much immigration that the developed world falls to the level of the developing world, instead of the other way around. Of course, there is equality in poverty and slavery too. Maybe, if we do away with things like wages, then we fulfill the conditions of your scenario as well. Slavery does not have to be incompatible with mobility so long as there are no competing social models to undermine yours. Wherever you go, you have to be a virtual slave for room and board, otherwise you starve.
Interesting. So open borders becomes more politically feasible when when global labor arbitrage is over.
I agree that this kind of immigration would tend to cause few problems – but I don’t expect us to reach that state in my lifetime.
Among other things, the most poorly governed countries are unlikely to progress, and those are the ones that create great waves of emigration.
“There are fundamental human rights. There are rights which accrue to everyone, no matter who they are, no matter where they are on the globe. Those rights include the right to free expression. They include the right to freedom of religion.”
Tell that to a North Korean. This statement confuses “are” with “should be.” Rights are a legal concept. You don’t have a right to not be eaten by a shark.
Actually you do have that right, just perhaps no way to enforce it. Norks have those rights, but they are being withheld by their government. The rights are still there, just being blocked.
As far as the shark goes, some guy owns a shark and throws you in for dinner. He has violated your rights.
How many rights can dance on the tip of Alex’s bald spot.
Well, no, you’re wrong. So there’s that
Eloquent argument. I’m convinced.
Throwing trash on the streets isn’t a right. Drug trafficking isn’t a right. Human trafficking isn’t a right. Crowding 6 people into a space designed for 2 isn’t a right.
Sure migration can be framed as a right. What it really is is an invasion of trashy standards. No one cares about rights. They care about standards and results. Everyone knows 3rd worlders have trashy standards and can’t rise to appropriate results.
>I believe they should also include the right to move about the Earth.
Hey look, everyone! It’s a person who is full of crap!
There is no way in hell he believes this. For ironclad proof, ask to cut through his lawn every day. Or perhaps do some squatting.
Hey, shelter is a basic human right!
You would seriously suggest that an immigrant family who buys a house down the street from you is “trespassing” in the same way a burglar intrudes into your home?
Would your rights be violated if the burglar first obtained the government’s permission to intrude into your home?
I don’t think many people, if any, believe someone who immigrates legally is trespassing.
I think many people feel like immigrating illegally is a violation of the social contract.
Someone who immigrates illegally is often costing others – tax money for their kids to be educated, and, if poor, other benefits for their kids including things like WIC and Medicaid. The parents themselves are unlikely to get much, if anything, but there is still an associated cost to other people.
As a society, we want to be sure that everyone here has at least a minimal level of education, nutrition, and health care. Those are good things. But that costs money, and when illegal, it’s being done outside of the social contract. That, IMHO, is where the tension is arising – extending those benefits outside of that implicit societal contract.
In most cases, when people discuss the “legality” of immigration, they are not speaking within the context of rights – whether the immigrant legally bought a home, whether their employment is voluntary, etc. Most often, people are concerned with whether or not the immigrant first obtained permission from the state to first do those things. The irony is that they do not recognize an obligation to obtain permission from the state themselves to first do those things. They assume that this is a “privilege” bestowed by them through citizenship status, instead of a RIGHT that they retain inherently.
Sure, most people might feel like not first obtaining the permission of the state “violates” their privileges, since they assume that is some kind of privilege they retain through citizenship status. That doesn’t make this thinking correct or rational.
Those who immigrate without obtaining the state’s permission are not “costing” anyone, anything. If they have a job, they are paying taxes – all kinds. And if there is anyone imposing costs due to immigration, it is the politicians. They are the class that taxes, not the immigrants. They are the class that erects an enormous bureaucracy to “process” immigrants that eats up tens of millions of dollars a year.
As a society, we don’t need to the state to ensure we have a minimal level of education, nutrition, and health care. Those things are already valued by society, which means the market can provide them. The state can only provide that which society does not value, which means most people have no inclination to pay the real cost.
There is no such thing as a “social contract.” If you’re arguing about whether a right to migration exists, referencing an abstract “social contract” is not an effective strategy.
That’s probably because most of us agree on what legal means. The fact that the citizens have formed a government that allows them the benefits of being citizens is reflective of the will of the governed, not a state imposed privilege. That is both correct and rational.
Lower income people cost more in services than they pay in taxes, whether legal or illegal. They do, in fact, impose costs on taxpayers – costs to educate their children, provide them with health care, and to insure that they have a minimum level of nutrition. We are, in fact, taxed to provide these benefits, whether you think it’s a good idea or not.
In general, people are supportive of providing these benefits to poor citizens, which is the reason these benefits exist. However, this commitment does not extend to the entire population of the Earth – because the majority of people here feel that their taxes should go to fellow citizens and permanent residents, not random strangers who decided to drop in and partake of their largesse without permission.
Our entire system of government is based on a social contract. The reason you cannot find a right to migration in that social contract is that we, as a society, do not recognize such a right.
I’m not intending to listen to the podcast anytime soon, but maybe someone who has can say whether they mention the current case in Europe, especially the experience of Greece, Germany and Sweden with regards to the current limited open borders experiment.
I’d be interested in how they square their arguments with what’s happening in Europe (or if they ignore the issue altogether).
I’d try open borders only if reciprocated by both countries involved. I’m not sure if Mexico would really like to try that experiment. Open borders really means open European and US borders.
Right to migrate to where, my house?
These scholars who come up with such right to migration can grant all they want, but how do you get others to accept the right and then how do you give effect to the right?
” how do you get others to accept the right ”
government force?
In my youth I had a brief fling with libertarianism. Eventually my BS detector went off too many times for me due to the fact that they always seem to give glib, simplistic answers to important and complicated questions. This is a perfect example of that kind of garbage.
When discussing right-to-migrate, it is critical that do define how that is defined. A right to emigrate from a place and a right to immigrate to a place are different things.
First and foremost, if a right is to be considered a natural, universal, fundamental human right, then for any kind of logical consistency it has to be able to actually be universal in application. The right to free speech, for example, is not a zero-sum game. My exercise of speech does not impinge on your ability to do so. We are not competing over a scarce resource. Considering free speech to be a fundamental, universal human right is consistent with it being universally exercised.
For the sake of comparison, the “right” to say, an economic resource when considered in the positive rather than negative sense (i.e. that the right is constructed the ability to compel provision rather than as the forbidding of a legal barrier) cannot be a fundamental or universal right because it is constrained by technology and logistics. There is not enough platinum in the world to give all 7 billion people an electric car, for example. Defining ownership of an electric car as a positive right would only work if some people forego its exercise.
The right-to-emigrate generalizes (and more to the point it’s opposite is serfdom in the most literal sense), but the right to immigrate does not. For the moment ignore the welfare-state argument and simply think of the logistics. If Denmark were universally acclaimed as the best country in the world and all 7 billion people elected to move there, it would be impossible. Denmark is a country of 43,094 sq km. Cramming 7 billion people into that land area would make for a density of 162,435 persons/km. For comparison, the densest city in the world is Mumbai at around 30,000/km. Under the assumption every square inch of Denmark could support (in the literal, physical sense) the structures, to make the “right to immigrate to Denmark” universal would require achieving a population density higher than any city has achieved in human history. Even if it was physically possible, it would take decades to construct the capital assets necessary to accomplish that task. It is actually impossible for everyone in the world to exercise any “right to immigrate to Denmark” so as far as I am concerned, such a right cannot exist in any fundamental, universal, metaphysical sense. Living in Denmark is something only a fairly small proportion of humanity can do at any one time. It’s a luxury good.
Furthermore, the right-to-immigrate is incompatible with any conception of property rights, regardless of one considers property rights to exist individually (classical liberal) or collectively (socialist). Property rights have no meaning if they do not include the ability to exclude access to other people. That’s pretty obviously incompatible with any right-to-immigrate. If Libertarianism starts denying property rights, it will definitely have jumped the shark