There were enough interesting comments on my immigration post that I decided to devote a second post to the comments and my responses. Two had to do with Hoppe’s proposal to let immigrants in if and only if they had a citizen sponsor willing to take responsibility for any costs they imposed. One commenter quoted my criticism of the idea:
I'd be all for trying open immigratin per the classic libertarian model. But I'm also pragmatic enough that maybe we try it in one polity. Let's say we pick a 1st world country surrounded by 3rd world countries, I don't know, in the Middle East or something. Have them try open borders. Let Israe let in millions of vibrant sub-saharan africans and arabs, help them further diversify their country, show the comparative advantage gains, etc. After 10 years of open borders Israel, then we have a look and see if we want to emulate the example in the West.
> That was an issue in the 19th century; opponents of immigration argued that large numbers of Catholic immigrants, initially mostly Irish, would corrupt the culture and leave America under the control of the Pope.
This argument could be seen as Russian Roulette where you can be fairly certain that MOST rounds are not live and every time such round is fired you get some economic benefit. But what you don't know is if there is any live round at all, a live round basically ends in your death.
>Possibly the most interesting comment, economically speaking:
Thank you for that kind remark.
>>… 1) If you have open borders, then people will inevitably keep arriving into your country until it is as bad as the countries that they are coming from (as perceived by those immigrants taking all costs and benefits into consideration)….
>The conclusion is still wrong, for two reasons. One is that the same opportunity, whether to migrate or to take a job, is worth more to some than to others. The marginal immigrant neither gains nor loses by immigrating but the average immigrant gains.
Perhaps I am missing something. How does this refute the conclusion to 1?
>The second reason is that the argument implicitly assumes that there is some fixed resource being divided among more and more people so that increasing the number reduces the amount available to each.
No such assumption is intended, implicit, or need be made. One of the main implicit assumptions (there are various others that brevity precluded from making explicit) is that people will arrive in such large numbers and so fast that the economy cannot adjust before disaster ensues. Some of the evidence is at Gallup.com. For instance:
When enough people arrive fast enough, then they will simply “homestead” all the most desirable “public” places and squat in many private places too. Policing them will not be practical. And there will be immediate increases in crime, disease, and the use of utilities that is far beyond what can be economically adjusted to at an optimal rate.
>All of this assumes immigration into a laissez-faire United States. …
You cannot have anything like “a laissez-faire United States” until the state (government) first distributes all state property to the existing populace (in some libertarian-enough way) and abolishes all state-imposed regulations concerning private property.
Our host writes: <i> Arguably the explanation is that the cost of immigration, not merely the travel cost but the cost of leaving the world you knew for a strange world where people spoke a language you didn’t know, had different customs than you had grown up with, were strangers, was high enough, for those who did not come, to more than balance the advantages. </i>
To me this completely affirms that there are also high costs to the destination culture of accepting, accommodating, assimilating ... people from a strange world speaking an unknown language with different customs, et cetera. At a time when the destination culture was comparatively harsh in treatment (and MIS-treatment) of new arrivals, the joint costs to both new and old residents was imposed largely on the newcomers. At present, by law and the modern philosophy of "celebrating diversity" the shares of the burdens of mutual costs have completely shifted. Argue, maybe, that the rich oldtimers can better afford their share than the newcomers can; and that fairness "dictates" (what happened to voting on such an issue?) the abilities of the richer established citizens be put in service of the needs of the poorer migrants -- itinerants who may or may not ever complete the process of becoming citizens. But let's recognize the burdens exist. And one may "fairly" wonder if this particular burden will prove more fruitful in the long term than, say, caring for military veterans (for the right) or paying off huge student loans (for the left). [ assuming everybody can have everything is fun, but not particularly well suited to an economics discussion. ]
I imagine most immigration fears come from the long debunked malthusian thinking that resources are scarce and more people means more mouths to feed (without also considering that it also means more hands to work).
An argument I find more persuasive, tho not one I often hear anyone bring up, is that an influx of people with foreign cultures coming into a place quickly can lead to a lot of social problems as cultures clash and people of various cultures not ending up acculturating to the local culture. The implication is that perhaps there's somewhat of a "maximum flow" of immigrants beyond which these problems start happening in significant amounts. Its been put forward to me that New York is particularly good at absorbing immigrants, and good at acculturating them (with their gruff intollerance of un-New-York behavior).
I do see that in the Bay Area (CA) for example, driving is significantly more chaotic, and it seems to be in part people coming in from various places around the country and around the world with very different driving cultures and driving skills. Without many common unspoken rules of driving, the roads are extra messy.
Sorry to be coming in late, but I wanted to respond to your statement: "I don't think the Christian nature of our culture is critical. What matters is respect for property rights, honesty, and the like."
There's wide variation in respect for property rights, honesty, women's equality, etc. among cultures on the planet. I worry that bringing in people from cultures that have communal or clan-based ethics will damage the trust level of our society. Someone raised to believe that anyone outside his clan may be robbed, assaulted, or raped without guilt is someone I don't want in my country.
Your advocacy of immigrants has a built in assumption that they'll all be honest and hard working. While I've met many like that, the evidence shows that's not true for all of them.
“The US is a Christian nation”—hm. Europe is still nominally Christian, but many of its people are now non-religious (as I am) or inactive Christians (as my wife is): they will say they’re Christian if asked, but don’t actually do anything about it. Genuinely religious Christians have become a minority in at least some European countries, and I think the USA is heading in the same direction, although more slowly.
The h1b system is pretty controversial as it is. Many people resent working side by side with a right less co workers.
Anyway, if Wikipedia is any guide, there are only 583,000 h1b total in the country today. There are 65 million Hispanics. Estimates of illegal immigrants top 10million.
So a tiny portion of our immigration system is for skilled net tax paying workers from Asia, and it’s still a controversy. If you tried to scale that up to slave caste levels to import the whole third world we all know it wouldn’t work.
I'd be all for trying open immigratin per the classic libertarian model. But I'm also pragmatic enough that maybe we try it in one polity. Let's say we pick a 1st world country surrounded by 3rd world countries, I don't know, in the Middle East or something. Have them try open borders. Let Israe let in millions of vibrant sub-saharan africans and arabs, help them further diversify their country, show the comparative advantage gains, etc. After 10 years of open borders Israel, then we have a look and see if we want to emulate the example in the West.
> That was an issue in the 19th century; opponents of immigration argued that large numbers of Catholic immigrants, initially mostly Irish, would corrupt the culture and leave America under the control of the Pope.
This argument could be seen as Russian Roulette where you can be fairly certain that MOST rounds are not live and every time such round is fired you get some economic benefit. But what you don't know is if there is any live round at all, a live round basically ends in your death.
Wow! My comment was featured in a post by THE David Friedman! I am truly honoured! 🤩🤩🤩
>Possibly the most interesting comment, economically speaking:
Thank you for that kind remark.
>>… 1) If you have open borders, then people will inevitably keep arriving into your country until it is as bad as the countries that they are coming from (as perceived by those immigrants taking all costs and benefits into consideration)….
>The conclusion is still wrong, for two reasons. One is that the same opportunity, whether to migrate or to take a job, is worth more to some than to others. The marginal immigrant neither gains nor loses by immigrating but the average immigrant gains.
Perhaps I am missing something. How does this refute the conclusion to 1?
>The second reason is that the argument implicitly assumes that there is some fixed resource being divided among more and more people so that increasing the number reduces the amount available to each.
No such assumption is intended, implicit, or need be made. One of the main implicit assumptions (there are various others that brevity precluded from making explicit) is that people will arrive in such large numbers and so fast that the economy cannot adjust before disaster ensues. Some of the evidence is at Gallup.com. For instance:
https://news.gallup.com/poll/245255/750-million-worldwide-migrate.aspx?g_source=link_NEWSV9&g_medium=NEWSFEED&g_campaign=item_&g_content=More%2520Than%2520750%2520Million%2520Worldwide%2520Would%2520Migrate%2520If%2520They%2520Could
>The obvious candidate is land. …
When enough people arrive fast enough, then they will simply “homestead” all the most desirable “public” places and squat in many private places too. Policing them will not be practical. And there will be immediate increases in crime, disease, and the use of utilities that is far beyond what can be economically adjusted to at an optimal rate.
>All of this assumes immigration into a laissez-faire United States. …
You cannot have anything like “a laissez-faire United States” until the state (government) first distributes all state property to the existing populace (in some libertarian-enough way) and abolishes all state-imposed regulations concerning private property.
Our host writes: <i> Arguably the explanation is that the cost of immigration, not merely the travel cost but the cost of leaving the world you knew for a strange world where people spoke a language you didn’t know, had different customs than you had grown up with, were strangers, was high enough, for those who did not come, to more than balance the advantages. </i>
To me this completely affirms that there are also high costs to the destination culture of accepting, accommodating, assimilating ... people from a strange world speaking an unknown language with different customs, et cetera. At a time when the destination culture was comparatively harsh in treatment (and MIS-treatment) of new arrivals, the joint costs to both new and old residents was imposed largely on the newcomers. At present, by law and the modern philosophy of "celebrating diversity" the shares of the burdens of mutual costs have completely shifted. Argue, maybe, that the rich oldtimers can better afford their share than the newcomers can; and that fairness "dictates" (what happened to voting on such an issue?) the abilities of the richer established citizens be put in service of the needs of the poorer migrants -- itinerants who may or may not ever complete the process of becoming citizens. But let's recognize the burdens exist. And one may "fairly" wonder if this particular burden will prove more fruitful in the long term than, say, caring for military veterans (for the right) or paying off huge student loans (for the left). [ assuming everybody can have everything is fun, but not particularly well suited to an economics discussion. ]
I imagine most immigration fears come from the long debunked malthusian thinking that resources are scarce and more people means more mouths to feed (without also considering that it also means more hands to work).
An argument I find more persuasive, tho not one I often hear anyone bring up, is that an influx of people with foreign cultures coming into a place quickly can lead to a lot of social problems as cultures clash and people of various cultures not ending up acculturating to the local culture. The implication is that perhaps there's somewhat of a "maximum flow" of immigrants beyond which these problems start happening in significant amounts. Its been put forward to me that New York is particularly good at absorbing immigrants, and good at acculturating them (with their gruff intollerance of un-New-York behavior).
I do see that in the Bay Area (CA) for example, driving is significantly more chaotic, and it seems to be in part people coming in from various places around the country and around the world with very different driving cultures and driving skills. Without many common unspoken rules of driving, the roads are extra messy.
Migration is now a UN plan on its march to world government.
Sorry to be coming in late, but I wanted to respond to your statement: "I don't think the Christian nature of our culture is critical. What matters is respect for property rights, honesty, and the like."
There's wide variation in respect for property rights, honesty, women's equality, etc. among cultures on the planet. I worry that bringing in people from cultures that have communal or clan-based ethics will damage the trust level of our society. Someone raised to believe that anyone outside his clan may be robbed, assaulted, or raped without guilt is someone I don't want in my country.
Your advocacy of immigrants has a built in assumption that they'll all be honest and hard working. While I've met many like that, the evidence shows that's not true for all of them.
It's time to privatize immigration
Getting into America should be almost as easy as getting into Disneyland.
It's a pipe dream, like so many libertarian solutions to government-created economic and social problems, but why not sell tickets to AmericaLand?
https://clips.substack.com/p/its-time-to-privatize-immigration
“The US is a Christian nation”—hm. Europe is still nominally Christian, but many of its people are now non-religious (as I am) or inactive Christians (as my wife is): they will say they’re Christian if asked, but don’t actually do anything about it. Genuinely religious Christians have become a minority in at least some European countries, and I think the USA is heading in the same direction, although more slowly.
The h1b system is pretty controversial as it is. Many people resent working side by side with a right less co workers.
Anyway, if Wikipedia is any guide, there are only 583,000 h1b total in the country today. There are 65 million Hispanics. Estimates of illegal immigrants top 10million.
So a tiny portion of our immigration system is for skilled net tax paying workers from Asia, and it’s still a controversy. If you tried to scale that up to slave caste levels to import the whole third world we all know it wouldn’t work.