As for the third libertarian line of argument, sir, you say: "Since public property includes almost the entire highway system, that makes it hard for an immigrant not approved by the government to do anything in the country much beyond employment in a farm on the border."
Well, actually... America is a federation and hwhilst most roads are owned by some government. But not necessarily the federal government. Yes, the interstate is owned by the federal government. But most local roads are not. And you can actually get around quite a bit without taking the interstate. (I can attest to this as my girlfriend is too scared to drive on the Interstate!)
Consider the San Francisco Bay Area (which I believe you are familiar with):
* SFO airport is owned by the City and County of San Francisco
* The streets of San Francisco are owned by the city of San Francisco
* BART trains are owned by the BART district.
* Other local streets in the Bay Area are owned by local cities and counties in the Bay Area
* State roads are owned by the State of California
* Bay Area businesses are private entities owned by individuals, partnerships or shareholders
* There are many private landlords in the Bay Area and perhaps some public housing owned by the State of California, local governments, etc. Little, if any, housing in the Bay Area is owned by the Federal government.
* California is a "Sanctuary State"
* San Francisco and Berkeley are "Sanctuary cities."
So, if an immigrant named Juan were to fly into SFO airport and take a BART train into San Francisco, take a job from a private employer willing to hire them and rent from a landlord willing to rent to them (assuming the BART district has no objections to fare-paying, rule-abiding immigrants riding their trains), what business is it of the Federal government or voters in Arizona, for example? None!
Obviously, this isn't a slam-dunk argument in favour of open-borders across America, but, simply if Joe the "bordertarian" is opposed to immigration along the lines of the third argument you mentioned, he should not block one or the State of California, private landlords, private businesses, BART or the city of San Francisco from interacting with Juan. He should allow open borders in San Francisco if that's what San Francisco wants! And that is hwhat San Francisco (and San Franciscans) wants. Even if Joe happens to live in San Francisco and doesn't want this, too bad! Majority rules, right Joe? If the majority owners of a corporation vote to allow something, it's allowed. If the majority owners of San Francisco vote to allow something, it should be allowed. Right, Joe?
The most relevant arguments from economics and libertarianism, respectively, can be expressed in two short sentences. 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). 2) All of the land that the government has monopolised or regulated would otherwise have belonged to the populace who would not have allowed unlimited immigration.
I have a feeling that Hoppian ideas have become a dog whistle in LP to attract otherwise libertarians but anti-immigrant people. It kind of helps leaders sound ideological pure without being one.
Here is a thought experiment. Let me take Hoppe's idea as it is:
> Hoppe’s proposal along these lines was that any immigrant should be allowed in if a citizen is willing to sponsor him, where the sponsor would then be responsible for any costs the immigrant imposed on others, paying fines for any crimes he committed, damage payments for any torts, presumably also paying the cost of sending the immigrant’s children to a public school.
This is a pretty much open-border proposal that any anti-immigrant GOP or those from Tanton Network (CIS, FAIR, NumbersUSA etc.) would instantly oppose as "open border amnesty".
Here is how this proposal play out:
A lot of naturalized US citizens would instantly be able to bring their old parents/ spouses/children from other countries. Today there is a lengthy process and wait time involved. This basically replaces a huge chunk of family based immigration with this better Hoppian system.
If this rule is implemented soon there will be a massive market that would match willing sponsors with willing immigrants. For example Big Agro Co. can pay $1000 to a US citizen to sponsor a Mexican farm worker. 1000 such farmworkers are flown in and kept in company town where they work for 6 months under company law enforcement supervisors and fly back to Mexico once the job is done. US citizen earns $1000 as risk premium, Big Co saves $$$ by bringing cheaper labor and Mexican worker is happy to get paid. This basically replaces entire H2B visa system with something that is vastly better and cheaper and has no caps.
With some modifications this principle can entirely replace our otherwise broken asylum process. Say a person wants to escape his high crime country. He offers $20K to a US citizen instead of a cartel. Flies in legally and then straight goes to a Big Co managed meat processing plant. Where he is monitored 24x7 for all his activities, his freedom is completely restricted by Big Co at the behest of his sponsor (this is all voluntary and the person can go back to his country any time he wants). He though can earn a good wage, eat good food and watch netflix in the evening. Life of lot of Afghani women is worse than this. So they might actually prefer to come to USA under this program and lot of well meaning Americans would be willing to sponsor.
If the Hoppians are willing to dilute this principle a bit, say such immigrants become naturalized citizens after 5 (or 10, or 20) years of clean life in USA then the market will be even bigger for such sponsorship. I expect such a system would bring in far more people to USA legally than it currently does while making American citizens richer and creating a strong bias for high compliant non criminal migration.
Now will the Hoppians be genuinely happy at such an outcome or angry that it brings in more people ? Will they demand that ALL Hoppian principles be applied or none ? (In which case they prove my argument that it is a mere dog whistle ?).
Off topic:
Libertarians generally support any movement in direction of their true north. For example most Libertarians oppose the fact that Americans don't have access to Cuban Cigars due to sanctions on Cuba. They support free trade between Cuba and USA. But they would happily agree to replace the current embargo with say 100% duty on Cigars as improvement in the right direction purely out of principles.
Libertarians generally support prostitution but it not a dog whistle to attract whores and johns to their group. Libertarians would be extremely happy if somehow our society reaches a level of prosperity where everyone is so rich that no women is willing to work as a whore at any price point even though it is legal. Libertarians wont drop their demand to make prostitutions legal even if there are 100% human like robots that can act like a whore. Because it is the principle of individual liberty they promote, not the outcome of existence of whores and johns.
David, your arguments are as usual excellent. Thank you.
The world is not culturally homogeneous. So what happens when a very large number of immigrants eventually change the native culture? The US is a Christian nation. What would it be like if, say, Muslims immigrate to the US in significantly large numbers to adversely affect the Christian culture of the US?
Disclosure: Born in India, a Hindu, I'm a naturalized American citizen.
I appreciate the breakdown and analysis, thank you.
I find I rather like the suggested compromises Caplan put forth in a debate some years back, of the "Ok, if you are worried immigrants won't work and will vote badly (etc.) how about until they become citizens they are not allowed to college welfare benefits or other support, and can't vote. Many would probably still take that deal," variety. I thought that covered most of the objections well, and honestly isn't a half bad idea just as a prudential measure.
Now the claim that those restrictions would never actually be maintained is kind of a fair counter, but it leads to a bigger problem I think, which is that the USA has a serious issue with actually enforcing laws. We have tons of laws, good and bad, and they are very unevenly enforced or followed. That goes lead me to believe that any negotiated restrictions would just be ignored.
However, that cuts the other direction, too, that our homegrown culture of ignoring the rules with little agreement on what constitutes propriety is a mess, and needs to be fixed. I am sympathetic to worries that the cultural assumptions of immigrants might be negative ("Eh, tyrannical governments are normal, don't get bent out of shape about yours, just do whatever they say.") and so too many will skew the country's culture negatively. On the other hand, our domestic culture is also deeply sick. So I don't know... the main problem with immigrants' culture is that they migrate then assimilate into domestic cultures that are just awful.
I have so many thoughts. I think I will separate them into separate comments to make it easier to keep track, in case anyone wants to argue against me. I hope you don't mind.
First of all, with regards to the second line of argument, you mention that it is only fair that, if immigrants are excluded from the welfare system, they shouldn't have to pay taxes towards the welfare system. Hmmmm... I suspect that, if that was the deal, many Americans would voluntarily renounce their citizenship and become immigrants! Certainly sounds tempting to me! 😛
Libertarians tend to argue up from foundational principles. The alternative is to instead accept that the world is complex, confusing and imperfect and that the best and most practical position may not always be perfectly compatible with foundational principles.
If open borders would lead to a much worse world, and I believe it would (dystopian actually), then I reject open borders for pragmatic reasons. One could argue whether I am right or wrong on the dystopian projection, but that is beside the point. My argument is that IF open borders leads to dystopian results, then I reject open borders and I reject the value of arguing up completely from first principles if it would lead me to argue for open borders.
If being a consistent libertarian leads to dystopia, maybe one should question being a libertarian. At a minimum, libertarians should question whether it is true that reality matches their rationality, or if they are trying to force some reverse version of the naturalistic fallacy (the way I hope the world works is how it does work).
My best concession to libertarians is that we should try to test their vision somewhere as long as they agree that if it goes to hell they will revise their opinions.
The second best is insightful: In the present discussion, A is a welfare state, B restrictions on immigration. If A exists, should libertarians support B?
Well, if we keep a welfare state, and we need to restrict immigration, we can ask what kind of restrictions are to be imposed. Because the main fear is free riding on the welfare state, an obvious solution would be to charge an entry fee to immigrants. The entry fee could be reasonably calculated as an insurance premium for using the welfare system. And it would not necessarily favor the rich. Surely, lenders would emerge, so that the poor could borrow on expected future earnings. [Student loans, e.g., would exist without government involvement. I don't see how this hurts any groups on average.]
A different movement toward free immigration can be modeled on customs unions. Have free immigration with selected countries, where the probability of abuse is low. I'm thinking any country with at least 70% of US GDP per capita. Of course, like a customs union, I suppose such a policy can make some worse off [that's by analogy, not by model].
I suppose a fundamental question is whether incomplete steps to free immigration are worth it. With some caveats, I believe they are.
"A response some supporters of Hoppe’s position offer is that citizens, unlike non-citizen immigrants, are part owners of government property, entitled to use it even if they use drugs or are unvaccinated or whatever. That is not how partial ownership works in other contexts. As an Apple stockholder I am a part owner of the company, entitled to receive a fraction of whatever dividends the corporation chooses to pay out and to vote at the annual meeting. That does not prevent Apple from forbidding me to trespass on their property."
The difference is that owning a share of Apple is in reality a contract between private individuals: various shareholders and various managers. The contract specifies what rights each party has with respect to some set of assets. We only call shareholders "owners" because of the way the state classifies it, just as we call people "employees" because of state classifications. Moreover, Apple is not an inherently criminal organization. Thus the reason a shareholder cannot use Apple's HQ to throw a birthday party is because the complex web of contracts does not give her that usage right.
By contrast the state is inherently criminal. The citizens are the "rightful owners" of the roads, not because of a contract, but because the state is criminal and has no right to it and has in effect stolen the road, or funds used to purchase the road, from the taxpayers. This is why they are the rightful owners of the road and have a claim on it. So the analogy to Apple is weak.
The reason the citizens have a right to use the road is because they have a claim on it to compensate them for the damage that has been done to them, and if the state has monopolized the road business, if transportation is an important need in life, then so long as the government is using the road for transportation purposes, it ought to run it as a road so as to minimize the harm done to the citizens. If the state robbed people to build roads and monopolized the transportation function and then also did not let the citizens use the road, the damage done to them would be worse than if it had merely stolen from them.
Foreigners did not pay for the road so they are not rightful owners of the road. If the state refused to let immigrants use the roads, the point is that it does not violate *their* rights. It might violate the rights of the citizens not to let them use the road as they see fit--e.g., to carry an immigrant on it--but then Hoppe's solution of allowing immigration if there is a sponsor reduces this harm, which he calls "forced exclusion." Requiring a sponsor also reduces the other harm from immigration, "forced integration," since it would result in higher-quality immigrants and reduce the costs of forced integration by having some of these costs borne by the sponsor instead of the taxpayers.
Maybe the other way around: why are there borders? To exclude someone based on arbitrary criteria. In the end, to fragment and structure the world. What is the better state of the world, a world with borders or a world without borders? You cannot "calculate" it, you can only decide it, for or against, precisely because you cannot objectively calculate it. Otherwise, if you objectively have a higher "utility" score for the open-border world, what to do with the dissenters, with the utility losers? They will not bow to their lower "total utility" score, but will split off and draw and defend new borders. Secession is the libertarian movement.
If a "total utility" of society could be calculated, then a unique solution to social conflict would be possible. Scientific socialism hoped to do just that, to calculate such solutions for every economic problem(=conflict). I think this is not possible. But if I am wrong, why has socialism failed so spectacularly in practice, again and again?
Who opens or closes the "borders"? Whose borders? The state opens or closes its borders. What is a state? The state is the contained or frozen conflict, a public(open, nonprivate) space with enforced rules. Otherwise it is a so-called "failed state" or a non-state.
The state is always in a state of potential, latent conflict, prone to erupt again into open conflict - which threatens the state as such. For it is precisely that: a settled constellation between conflicting parties, often degenerating into a state of different parties of different influence and power, of oppressors and oppressed.
So with the state there is always a certain degree of repression of interests. With open borders and with closed borders. There is no pure solution that will miraculously lead to unanimity. You need a state of unanimity or "free association", but you will always get a state of open or potential conflict.
Going off on a tangent here, but I do not see why would an owner of a private road require a driver's license. Wouldn't liability insurance by a well-capitalized insurance company be enough? Surely, a profit-oriented insurance company would test the driving skills of any applicant and only insure those who are able to drive safely; their incentives are much better aligned with those of the road owner that those of a licencing agency, let alone a government-operated DMV.
> Hoppe’s proposal also makes little sense in other ways. Unless he intends immigrants to function like slaves or indentured servants, working for a single employer or those he lends them out to, they will be engaged, like other people, in a multitude of voluntary transactions with lots of different people. It makes no sense for all of those transactions to hinge on the permission of a single sponsor who could withdraw that permission any time he chose or, if he cannot, is liable for acts over which he has no control.
But this is how H1B visa in USA currently works. An individual can come in legally only because an employer has sponsored him with government permission which can be revoked any time. The individual can not change his job or nature of the job, not job location nor job duties without explicit permission from both employer and the government every time there is a change. Such an employee is also barred from working or investing in non passive investments or starting a business etc.
Root cause of problems with immigration is welfare state.
However the harder question is this - how to design a governing system which does not devolve into self serving psychopathic bureaucracy. Which uses moral arguments to justify itself and corrupt its original purpose.
This is systematic problem and happens across all sorts of organizations and institutions. One great example is corporation.
Over time successful corporation grow into ossified oligopolistic monsters. Having all the same flaws and vices governments develop .
It feels to me some sort of paradigm shift here is needed. Having set rules against corruption does not work. The system should be evolving and dynamic, its defences against corruption have to work faster than corruption .
The new age of ai and ai agents will likely bring new systems of governance. But its open question if humans can evolve.
As for the third libertarian line of argument, sir, you say: "Since public property includes almost the entire highway system, that makes it hard for an immigrant not approved by the government to do anything in the country much beyond employment in a farm on the border."
Well, actually... America is a federation and hwhilst most roads are owned by some government. But not necessarily the federal government. Yes, the interstate is owned by the federal government. But most local roads are not. And you can actually get around quite a bit without taking the interstate. (I can attest to this as my girlfriend is too scared to drive on the Interstate!)
Consider the San Francisco Bay Area (which I believe you are familiar with):
* SFO airport is owned by the City and County of San Francisco
* The streets of San Francisco are owned by the city of San Francisco
* BART trains are owned by the BART district.
* Other local streets in the Bay Area are owned by local cities and counties in the Bay Area
* State roads are owned by the State of California
* Bay Area businesses are private entities owned by individuals, partnerships or shareholders
* There are many private landlords in the Bay Area and perhaps some public housing owned by the State of California, local governments, etc. Little, if any, housing in the Bay Area is owned by the Federal government.
* California is a "Sanctuary State"
* San Francisco and Berkeley are "Sanctuary cities."
So, if an immigrant named Juan were to fly into SFO airport and take a BART train into San Francisco, take a job from a private employer willing to hire them and rent from a landlord willing to rent to them (assuming the BART district has no objections to fare-paying, rule-abiding immigrants riding their trains), what business is it of the Federal government or voters in Arizona, for example? None!
Obviously, this isn't a slam-dunk argument in favour of open-borders across America, but, simply if Joe the "bordertarian" is opposed to immigration along the lines of the third argument you mentioned, he should not block one or the State of California, private landlords, private businesses, BART or the city of San Francisco from interacting with Juan. He should allow open borders in San Francisco if that's what San Francisco wants! And that is hwhat San Francisco (and San Franciscans) wants. Even if Joe happens to live in San Francisco and doesn't want this, too bad! Majority rules, right Joe? If the majority owners of a corporation vote to allow something, it's allowed. If the majority owners of San Francisco vote to allow something, it should be allowed. Right, Joe?
The most relevant arguments from economics and libertarianism, respectively, can be expressed in two short sentences. 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). 2) All of the land that the government has monopolised or regulated would otherwise have belonged to the populace who would not have allowed unlimited immigration.
But if anyone wants more details about both: https://jclester.substack.com/p/immigration-and-libertarianism?utm_source=publication-search
1) only whites (and specifically white men) have ever supported libertarianism in any reasonable numbers.
Low iq browns support welfarism.
High iq Asians are better but not particularly libertarian, far more collectivists.
2) browns are indeed net welfare recipients on a large scale and consistently vote for welfare expansion, these are just facts
3) attempts to deny welfare of franchisee to immigrants haven’t worked for reasons that should be obvious. Prop 187 did t work in California
Why guess at the fact? We can see that California has become a leftist shithole because if Mexicans.
I have a feeling that Hoppian ideas have become a dog whistle in LP to attract otherwise libertarians but anti-immigrant people. It kind of helps leaders sound ideological pure without being one.
Here is a thought experiment. Let me take Hoppe's idea as it is:
> Hoppe’s proposal along these lines was that any immigrant should be allowed in if a citizen is willing to sponsor him, where the sponsor would then be responsible for any costs the immigrant imposed on others, paying fines for any crimes he committed, damage payments for any torts, presumably also paying the cost of sending the immigrant’s children to a public school.
This is a pretty much open-border proposal that any anti-immigrant GOP or those from Tanton Network (CIS, FAIR, NumbersUSA etc.) would instantly oppose as "open border amnesty".
Here is how this proposal play out:
A lot of naturalized US citizens would instantly be able to bring their old parents/ spouses/children from other countries. Today there is a lengthy process and wait time involved. This basically replaces a huge chunk of family based immigration with this better Hoppian system.
If this rule is implemented soon there will be a massive market that would match willing sponsors with willing immigrants. For example Big Agro Co. can pay $1000 to a US citizen to sponsor a Mexican farm worker. 1000 such farmworkers are flown in and kept in company town where they work for 6 months under company law enforcement supervisors and fly back to Mexico once the job is done. US citizen earns $1000 as risk premium, Big Co saves $$$ by bringing cheaper labor and Mexican worker is happy to get paid. This basically replaces entire H2B visa system with something that is vastly better and cheaper and has no caps.
With some modifications this principle can entirely replace our otherwise broken asylum process. Say a person wants to escape his high crime country. He offers $20K to a US citizen instead of a cartel. Flies in legally and then straight goes to a Big Co managed meat processing plant. Where he is monitored 24x7 for all his activities, his freedom is completely restricted by Big Co at the behest of his sponsor (this is all voluntary and the person can go back to his country any time he wants). He though can earn a good wage, eat good food and watch netflix in the evening. Life of lot of Afghani women is worse than this. So they might actually prefer to come to USA under this program and lot of well meaning Americans would be willing to sponsor.
If the Hoppians are willing to dilute this principle a bit, say such immigrants become naturalized citizens after 5 (or 10, or 20) years of clean life in USA then the market will be even bigger for such sponsorship. I expect such a system would bring in far more people to USA legally than it currently does while making American citizens richer and creating a strong bias for high compliant non criminal migration.
Now will the Hoppians be genuinely happy at such an outcome or angry that it brings in more people ? Will they demand that ALL Hoppian principles be applied or none ? (In which case they prove my argument that it is a mere dog whistle ?).
Off topic:
Libertarians generally support any movement in direction of their true north. For example most Libertarians oppose the fact that Americans don't have access to Cuban Cigars due to sanctions on Cuba. They support free trade between Cuba and USA. But they would happily agree to replace the current embargo with say 100% duty on Cigars as improvement in the right direction purely out of principles.
Libertarians generally support prostitution but it not a dog whistle to attract whores and johns to their group. Libertarians would be extremely happy if somehow our society reaches a level of prosperity where everyone is so rich that no women is willing to work as a whore at any price point even though it is legal. Libertarians wont drop their demand to make prostitutions legal even if there are 100% human like robots that can act like a whore. Because it is the principle of individual liberty they promote, not the outcome of existence of whores and johns.
David, your arguments are as usual excellent. Thank you.
The world is not culturally homogeneous. So what happens when a very large number of immigrants eventually change the native culture? The US is a Christian nation. What would it be like if, say, Muslims immigrate to the US in significantly large numbers to adversely affect the Christian culture of the US?
Disclosure: Born in India, a Hindu, I'm a naturalized American citizen.
I appreciate the breakdown and analysis, thank you.
I find I rather like the suggested compromises Caplan put forth in a debate some years back, of the "Ok, if you are worried immigrants won't work and will vote badly (etc.) how about until they become citizens they are not allowed to college welfare benefits or other support, and can't vote. Many would probably still take that deal," variety. I thought that covered most of the objections well, and honestly isn't a half bad idea just as a prudential measure.
Now the claim that those restrictions would never actually be maintained is kind of a fair counter, but it leads to a bigger problem I think, which is that the USA has a serious issue with actually enforcing laws. We have tons of laws, good and bad, and they are very unevenly enforced or followed. That goes lead me to believe that any negotiated restrictions would just be ignored.
However, that cuts the other direction, too, that our homegrown culture of ignoring the rules with little agreement on what constitutes propriety is a mess, and needs to be fixed. I am sympathetic to worries that the cultural assumptions of immigrants might be negative ("Eh, tyrannical governments are normal, don't get bent out of shape about yours, just do whatever they say.") and so too many will skew the country's culture negatively. On the other hand, our domestic culture is also deeply sick. So I don't know... the main problem with immigrants' culture is that they migrate then assimilate into domestic cultures that are just awful.
Very insightful, sir, as usual.
I have so many thoughts. I think I will separate them into separate comments to make it easier to keep track, in case anyone wants to argue against me. I hope you don't mind.
First of all, with regards to the second line of argument, you mention that it is only fair that, if immigrants are excluded from the welfare system, they shouldn't have to pay taxes towards the welfare system. Hmmmm... I suspect that, if that was the deal, many Americans would voluntarily renounce their citizenship and become immigrants! Certainly sounds tempting to me! 😛
Libertarians tend to argue up from foundational principles. The alternative is to instead accept that the world is complex, confusing and imperfect and that the best and most practical position may not always be perfectly compatible with foundational principles.
If open borders would lead to a much worse world, and I believe it would (dystopian actually), then I reject open borders for pragmatic reasons. One could argue whether I am right or wrong on the dystopian projection, but that is beside the point. My argument is that IF open borders leads to dystopian results, then I reject open borders and I reject the value of arguing up completely from first principles if it would lead me to argue for open borders.
If being a consistent libertarian leads to dystopia, maybe one should question being a libertarian. At a minimum, libertarians should question whether it is true that reality matches their rationality, or if they are trying to force some reverse version of the naturalistic fallacy (the way I hope the world works is how it does work).
My best concession to libertarians is that we should try to test their vision somewhere as long as they agree that if it goes to hell they will revise their opinions.
Wonderful, and thorough.
The second best is insightful: In the present discussion, A is a welfare state, B restrictions on immigration. If A exists, should libertarians support B?
Well, if we keep a welfare state, and we need to restrict immigration, we can ask what kind of restrictions are to be imposed. Because the main fear is free riding on the welfare state, an obvious solution would be to charge an entry fee to immigrants. The entry fee could be reasonably calculated as an insurance premium for using the welfare system. And it would not necessarily favor the rich. Surely, lenders would emerge, so that the poor could borrow on expected future earnings. [Student loans, e.g., would exist without government involvement. I don't see how this hurts any groups on average.]
A different movement toward free immigration can be modeled on customs unions. Have free immigration with selected countries, where the probability of abuse is low. I'm thinking any country with at least 70% of US GDP per capita. Of course, like a customs union, I suppose such a policy can make some worse off [that's by analogy, not by model].
I suppose a fundamental question is whether incomplete steps to free immigration are worth it. With some caveats, I believe they are.
"A response some supporters of Hoppe’s position offer is that citizens, unlike non-citizen immigrants, are part owners of government property, entitled to use it even if they use drugs or are unvaccinated or whatever. That is not how partial ownership works in other contexts. As an Apple stockholder I am a part owner of the company, entitled to receive a fraction of whatever dividends the corporation chooses to pay out and to vote at the annual meeting. That does not prevent Apple from forbidding me to trespass on their property."
The difference is that owning a share of Apple is in reality a contract between private individuals: various shareholders and various managers. The contract specifies what rights each party has with respect to some set of assets. We only call shareholders "owners" because of the way the state classifies it, just as we call people "employees" because of state classifications. Moreover, Apple is not an inherently criminal organization. Thus the reason a shareholder cannot use Apple's HQ to throw a birthday party is because the complex web of contracts does not give her that usage right.
By contrast the state is inherently criminal. The citizens are the "rightful owners" of the roads, not because of a contract, but because the state is criminal and has no right to it and has in effect stolen the road, or funds used to purchase the road, from the taxpayers. This is why they are the rightful owners of the road and have a claim on it. So the analogy to Apple is weak.
The reason the citizens have a right to use the road is because they have a claim on it to compensate them for the damage that has been done to them, and if the state has monopolized the road business, if transportation is an important need in life, then so long as the government is using the road for transportation purposes, it ought to run it as a road so as to minimize the harm done to the citizens. If the state robbed people to build roads and monopolized the transportation function and then also did not let the citizens use the road, the damage done to them would be worse than if it had merely stolen from them.
Foreigners did not pay for the road so they are not rightful owners of the road. If the state refused to let immigrants use the roads, the point is that it does not violate *their* rights. It might violate the rights of the citizens not to let them use the road as they see fit--e.g., to carry an immigrant on it--but then Hoppe's solution of allowing immigration if there is a sponsor reduces this harm, which he calls "forced exclusion." Requiring a sponsor also reduces the other harm from immigration, "forced integration," since it would result in higher-quality immigrants and reduce the costs of forced integration by having some of these costs borne by the sponsor instead of the taxpayers.
Maybe the other way around: why are there borders? To exclude someone based on arbitrary criteria. In the end, to fragment and structure the world. What is the better state of the world, a world with borders or a world without borders? You cannot "calculate" it, you can only decide it, for or against, precisely because you cannot objectively calculate it. Otherwise, if you objectively have a higher "utility" score for the open-border world, what to do with the dissenters, with the utility losers? They will not bow to their lower "total utility" score, but will split off and draw and defend new borders. Secession is the libertarian movement.
If a "total utility" of society could be calculated, then a unique solution to social conflict would be possible. Scientific socialism hoped to do just that, to calculate such solutions for every economic problem(=conflict). I think this is not possible. But if I am wrong, why has socialism failed so spectacularly in practice, again and again?
Who opens or closes the "borders"? Whose borders? The state opens or closes its borders. What is a state? The state is the contained or frozen conflict, a public(open, nonprivate) space with enforced rules. Otherwise it is a so-called "failed state" or a non-state.
The state is always in a state of potential, latent conflict, prone to erupt again into open conflict - which threatens the state as such. For it is precisely that: a settled constellation between conflicting parties, often degenerating into a state of different parties of different influence and power, of oppressors and oppressed.
So with the state there is always a certain degree of repression of interests. With open borders and with closed borders. There is no pure solution that will miraculously lead to unanimity. You need a state of unanimity or "free association", but you will always get a state of open or potential conflict.
Going off on a tangent here, but I do not see why would an owner of a private road require a driver's license. Wouldn't liability insurance by a well-capitalized insurance company be enough? Surely, a profit-oriented insurance company would test the driving skills of any applicant and only insure those who are able to drive safely; their incentives are much better aligned with those of the road owner that those of a licencing agency, let alone a government-operated DMV.
> Hoppe’s proposal also makes little sense in other ways. Unless he intends immigrants to function like slaves or indentured servants, working for a single employer or those he lends them out to, they will be engaged, like other people, in a multitude of voluntary transactions with lots of different people. It makes no sense for all of those transactions to hinge on the permission of a single sponsor who could withdraw that permission any time he chose or, if he cannot, is liable for acts over which he has no control.
But this is how H1B visa in USA currently works. An individual can come in legally only because an employer has sponsored him with government permission which can be revoked any time. The individual can not change his job or nature of the job, not job location nor job duties without explicit permission from both employer and the government every time there is a change. Such an employee is also barred from working or investing in non passive investments or starting a business etc.
Entirely in agreement here.
Root cause of problems with immigration is welfare state.
However the harder question is this - how to design a governing system which does not devolve into self serving psychopathic bureaucracy. Which uses moral arguments to justify itself and corrupt its original purpose.
This is systematic problem and happens across all sorts of organizations and institutions. One great example is corporation.
Over time successful corporation grow into ossified oligopolistic monsters. Having all the same flaws and vices governments develop .
It feels to me some sort of paradigm shift here is needed. Having set rules against corruption does not work. The system should be evolving and dynamic, its defences against corruption have to work faster than corruption .
The new age of ai and ai agents will likely bring new systems of governance. But its open question if humans can evolve.