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?
All that to say, that if a bordertarians argument rests on: the majority owners of public infrastructure can vote to exclude whomever they want from said public infrastructure, they must still accept a lot more than just a few immigrants taking jobs in farms along the border, since a lot of public infrastructure is not owned by the Federal government.
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.
Do you think your point 1 happened prior to the 1920's, when the US had open immigration for most of the world's population?
You are assuming that immigration makes the country worse off. But in a reasonably laissez-faire society it makes it better off by bringing in productive people. National income isn't a fixed good being shared out.
Point 1 has no time limit. So it was vacuously true even prior to the 1920s, when travel was so difficult and expensive that no restrictions were immediately required.
Of course this is not “assuming that immigration makes the country worse off”. It is only assuming that unlimited immigration will do this (with various background assumptions: that there are many worse places, many millions want to immigrate, they can well afford to do so, etc.).
This makes your claim unfalsifiable, no? Literally any evidence to the contrary could be dismissed on the basis that the predicted outcome is just further down the road.
If the assertion were to have been made a sufficiently long time ago, then it would have been contingently unfalsifiable at that particular time. But as it is made now it appears to be refutable by opening the borders now and seeing that the country does not become “as bad as the countries that they are coming from” (the implication being that this would happen relatively quickly). But those countries that in recent years have allowed more than normal immigration (Sweden and Germany, for instance) already appear to have problems as a result.
Have you eliminated other potentially relevant factors, though?
Couple considerations: Government-sponsored immigration (which circumvents immigration control, anyway) vs. natural immigration, and refugee corralling and work restrictions. Not to mention entirely separate policies.
It's possible that a yet more permissive immigration policy may be counterfactually beneficial relative to either the current or prior status quo. After all, it's not as though either of the mentioned countries have "open borders" in the proper sense of the term. Immigration to Sweden and Germany are still subject to government vetting. This suggests the hypothesis isn't really being tested.
western immigrants as a group were net positive and non western as a group were net negative, with different subgroups being different of course. the same has been studied in the netherlands and i think sweden too. so yes, these people made denmark more like their home country.
now a gulf state open borders model would probably work. but that's a far different society than any western state is or seems likely to go in.
thanks for replying david. i don't think that changes the conclusion. the US isn't going to return to its former policies, and so the policy must be evaluated in the context and people of 2024. i'm very curious about what you think of the danish data? they aren't going to machine freedom, so what should they do within the context of their society?
1. Borders is not the only thing that prevents people from migration.
2. People willing to uproot themselves and move to a foreign land are generally much smaller % of people.
3. Your observation that people from worse off lands are going to move to better off lands is right but how many people will move does not scale linearly with difference between the nations but rather logarithmically.
This is not to say open borders can't cause harm. But there is no evidence what so ever that existence of open borders and peaceful individual centric migration somehow destroyed a better off society that I am aware of.
India has below replacement fertility rate now. Maybe it’s time for India to let in a billion Somalis, Pakistanis, Venezuelans, and Nigerians to indulge in the glorious economic boom that immigration will provide.
That is a likely scenario for India. At least 20M bangladeshis are currently in India. Nepalis have pretty much open border with India. Chances are that India will attract a lot of talent from nations that are poorer than her and it will likely benefit India.
Figures of 20 million Bangladeshis is certainly exaggerated propaganda. And very few people from Nepal live in India. Regardless Bangladesh and Nepal are both South Asian countries that share a lot of cultural, historical, linguistic, and genetic overlap with India. There’s a much bigger difference with African or Pakistani migrants in Europe.
Regardless, I’m happy you’re at least consistent. Lots of people don’t want high immigration to their native countries, but hypocritically support higher immigration in their adoptive countries.
If anything 20M is underestimate and not over estimate. India being poor country and given that better options like Europe or Canada exist there is very little reason why a Pakistani or Nigerian would come to India. Pakistan for example had better HDI than India until 2000s or so.
I don't think the cultural differences matter. Good cultures would survived bad cultures would mutate and mix with other cultures eventually. In short term some people will be upset. In the long run it won't matter.
That is precisely the study I had in my mind when I wrote that comment but could not remember the source. Looks like your reading of it differs from mine.
The study claims 158M people currently wants to move into USA. over last many years USA has allowed in around 50M foreign born people in USA. USA is unlikely to be come worse with mere 158M more people coming over in a reasonably long time window.
1. 158m prefer to move to the USA as a first choice. But if the USA is the only desirable country with open borders, then most of the rest of the would-be migrants would probably also opt for the USA as better than staying where they are.
2. More people will probably want to come once it is generally known to be a real possibility. And more people are always becoming adults many of whom will also want to come.
3. You can have a “reasonably long time window” with immigration restrictions. But with open borders you can expect to be relatively quickly swamped until the USA is no longer a more desirable country. Why take the risk rather than control immigration?
I think from my position whether than number is 158M or 750M or 2B has no real relevance as I think more people is better.*
* The only genuine unknown variable for me is whether there is some group out there which when enters a society like USA can destroy it completely. Each anti-immigrant person has their own favourite demographics here such as Ms13 gang members, Hispanics, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Communists, CCP agents, Blacks, Wester Africans, White Straight Males, Gays etc. etc.
If someone can convince me that such group exists, then I would be open borders with caveats against such group. But my position is completely opposite of yours.
It is a very bold thesis that a country’s economic optimum number of immigrants is always “more people is better”. When this is presented without any theoretical explanation from economics, it begins to look like an unfalsifiable ideological dogma rather than a serious empirical conjecture.
As is often observed, past a certain point quantity can become a quality in itself. A sufficiently large unregulated deluge of immigrants (as “desirable” as anyone cares to define) into a country “like USA can destroy it completely”.
He provided a comic book length treatment to be fair.
There are already a wealth of sources that have debated Caplan on this. Noah Carl and Emil kirkegard have questioned his work directly to his face. Jason Richwine did a whole phd thesis on this and follow up work. I could go on and on with many others.
The basic premise on welfare spending should be quite simple. People with below average iqs earn less then average. People that earn less then average pay less in taxes and receive more in benefits. You can easily do calculations of the puts and takes by ethnicity or iq bucket and add up the lifetime total. Low iq immigrants are net drains the same way low iq natives are net drains. Why would one expect a different outcome?
Think for a moment what $10,000 in net subsidy a year would mean over a lifetime. 75 x 10,000 = $750,000.
$10,000 a year isn’t much. It’s around the cost of Medicaid yearly. It’s a lot less then most states spend on k-12 funding (nyc is up to like $25k a kid). Social security and Medicare are a lot more.
Almost all below average income people pay no federal income tax and limited other taxes.
The figures I’ve seen indicate that the net is higher than 10k a year on a Hispanic immigrant. Lifetime drain is in the seven figures in today’s dollars. Worse for worse demographics (say Muslims in Europe). It’s a bit at a time, but it basically adds up to the equivilaint of robbing a bank.
As far as voting goes the record of non-whites is quite clear.
I agree with some of your points but when I think of the “shithole” aspects of California, I mainly think of drug addicts and power outages—things that prog whites seem to be responsible for. Although Mexicans have higher crime rates than whites, they have significantly lowered crime rates in many areas by displacing blacks.
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.
When Scott Alexander reviewed my first book, where I sketched what an anarcho-capitalist society might look like, he ended the review with the statement that he hoped my proposed system was tried — somewhere far from him.
That reminds me of a favorite line from the movie "Fiddler on the Roof." Asked if the rabbi has a blessing for the czar, the rabbi replies, "A blessing for the czar? May the lord bless him -- and keep him far away from us."
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.
Interesting point. In your scheme, if the immigrant commits a crime, does the US citizen sponsor have the price he is charged paid by Big Agro Co? Can his children attend a local public school? If he shows up at the emergency ward is he treated?
Hoppe's proposal, like the current H1B, is better than keeping people out, but it has the same political problem as my proposal, since the same people will object to foreigners not being taken care of to US standards. And it produces a lot less flexible an outcome.
You may well be correct that current anti-immigration people would also disapprove, for different reasons.
> In your scheme, if the immigrant commits a crime, does the US citizen sponsor have the price he is charged paid by Big Agro Co?
I think this will be fluid. Based on my knowledge of existing H1B/H2B programs which are very similar, I think this will lead to an exchange of sorts where different body shoppers will assume different kind of risks. Big Agri co will contract out to Big Agri Workers Consultancy which will subcontract to LocalJose Inc. run by Jose who assumes most risk and earns maximum reward everyone takes a small cut and citizen sponsor gets some money. When punishment is purely financial, LocalJose Inc. will declare bankruptcy and Big Agri Co will raise its hands claiming it is really their contractor who did it and not them. CEOs of LocalJose will occasionally end up in jail but overall the reward will be worth it for a lot of hustlers.
This is how a lot of alphabet soup visas work today. H1B, H2B/A, EB2, EB3, R1, O1, TN, E1, E2 etc. work
> Can his children attend a local public school? If he shows up at the emergency ward is he treated?
I think such esoteric questions be safely settled in favor of Hoppians. Let them pick whatever they want and there still would be massive supply of such people and if such a system is created in USA TODAY, purely as a consequentialist, I would see as it as a net win as bring more willing immigrants into the country.
> but it has the same political problem as my proposal, since the same people will object to foreigners not being taken care of to US standards. And it produces a lot less flexible an outcome.
I agree. But I am more interested in knowing if Hoppians themselves understand this and whether Hoppians themselves would be onboard if such a program is politically feasible.
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.
That was a worry in the 19th century with regard to Catholic immigration, largely from Ireland and Italy.
I think people who are successful in a reasonably laissez-faire economy are likely to have the cultural characteristics that make for a functioning economy whatever their religion. Hindus in India are poor but the Hindu diaspora, not only in the US but in Africa, does very well for itself and the economies they are in. Iranian immigrants to the US seem to function fine.
Or in other words, I don't think the Christian nature of our culture is critical. What matters is respect for property rights, honesty, and the like.
I don't think those characteristics are exclusive to Christian culture. There are multiple ethnic groups that have that reputation. By casual observation, half the motels in the US are owned by Indian immigrants — I am told mostly Gujarati.
My point was that if we don't make welfare available to immigrants, they tend to sort themselves, since supporting yourself in America works better with those characteristics.
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! 😛
That's certainly an interesting point. People who feel they would never need such services would be incentivized to drop them, as with people who may choose to not have medical insurance.
The problem with both is unintended future need. I may have a great health at one point in my life and get very sick at another point in my life. If I'm allowed to change my stance later then I'm extremely incentivized to save the money now and spend later. If I can't change my mind then society will watch me suffer from preventable conditions due to decisions made potentially decades before. Personally I don't feel like society would allow someone to starve to death under such circumstances, even if that's the only incentive structure that would make this work. So, it would not work, and the only workable alternative is to deny someone the ability to opt-out.
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.
The biggest gains from immigration are likely to involve immigrants from much poorer countries, just as the biggest gains from trade are with partners very different from yourself.
I think many conservatives would be content with a system that reviewed applicants and approved those with a reasonable expectation of being able to support themselves and not cause problems.
The not-causing-problems portion would obviously include a criminal background check and similar.
The reasonable expectation of self support is trickier, but on the stricter end could include demonstrated ability in a particular function, a certain level of education, or a job offer from a US company.
I suspect that most of the currently illegal immigrants coming across the border could pass such tests, leaving immigration rates similar to now but with assurances that obvious problems are weeded out and that the people coming much more likely to have or obtain work.
Of course, as David mentioned, you need to make it legal for such people to work once they're here. I think our current system of denying them legal access but allowing illegal access and *then* denying them work but allowing some types of welfare may be the worst possible of all solutions.
The migration-union thing has been tested successfully in the EEA for some decades now, where GDP/capita ranges by more than factor of seven (from Norway to Bulgaria), so I think your 70% may be a bit unnecessarily strict. I'm personally a beneficiary of this policy, having moved countries with minimal hassle. One thing that libertarians/anarchists should like about this (and any other policy that makes migration cheaper), that I don't hear being talked about much, is that it increases competition between countries for residents, which one would expect to make residents better off and governments worse off (as a zero-sum approximation, at least).
A fee I think would be great for individuals from outside the migration union – it could replace both the income tax and the work-permit system, under which immigrants are basically indentured to their employer under the threat of deportation, which obviously isn't great for human flourishing or for the functioning of the labour market. Amnesty International or whoever could pay the fee for any refugees they want in the country.
"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?
One reason is that even if it were possible to calculate total utility of society, individual actors in a socialist economy, as in a capitalist economy, are trying to maximize their utility not the total utility of society.
The basic problem is to establish institutions under which individual rationality produces group rationality. Capitalist institutions come closer to doing so than socialist ones:
Well, "scientific socialism" tried to maximise the total utility of society, and as a result the utility of the individual. That was the goal, the welfare of the individual, but who must get rid of narrow-minded egoism (individual rationality). The socialist of these days believed that socialism was the "group rationality" per se, which beats the individual rationality. The vast majority would benefit from socialism, only a few former capitalists would lose, but rightly so. Total utility would vastly greater, and even the former capitalists could live a good life. The socialist state was the institution that would prevent the individual from falling back into egoism. To this end, it expropriated the individual owner of all his productive assets. Now the individual had to follow the grand production plan of socialist society, i.e. the group rational use of all scarce resources.
And you said that socialism failed because it did not prevent individuals from being selfish. Well, I grew up in the former GDR (socialist part of Germany) and you are right, people were still individuals with their own will and individual rationality. Only a few of them corresponded to the ideal of a real socialist.
But if the egoism of the individual could be prevented, socialism could be superior, i.e. lead to a much higher total utility than capitalism.
But I deny that. Because there is no such thing as a social or common utility that can be objectively calculated or measured. So the whole basis of socialism collapses.
So there is no objective calculus of whether it is better for Ukraine to fight Russia or to surrender on the first day. There is no group rationale. There are different ideas about what would be best. And there is no objective utility score that says that idea A has a score of 100 and idea B has a score of 120, and therefore everyone should bow down to idea B. In practice, the supporters of idea A will follow their idea A, and the opponents of A will follow idea B or C, and so on. And they will try to force the others to follow their preferred idea. No different on the question of borders and immigration.
Of course there is coalition building: to pursue a common goal, to win a war against another coalition. But this is not a group rationality, it is still an individual rationality that thinks of a coalition for its own good. There are, of course, dilemmas, the problem of mistrust, the possibility of defects that could prevent a coalition, but there is no total or objective solution to it, only a fallible belief, a hope, a leap of faith. The state cannot replace the need for such faith, because you have to believe that the state will not defect, will not break its promises and so on.
I think not. I said "one reason" not "the only reason." For another reason consider the arguments offered in the Calculation Controversy for what centrally planned socialism was unworkable.
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.
Good point. H1B is better than nothing given that the alternative is not being allowed in at all, but it is not a sensible way of handling immigration.
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?
All that to say, that if a bordertarians argument rests on: the majority owners of public infrastructure can vote to exclude whomever they want from said public infrastructure, they must still accept a lot more than just a few immigrants taking jobs in farms along the border, since a lot of public infrastructure is not owned by the Federal government.
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
Do you think your point 1 happened prior to the 1920's, when the US had open immigration for most of the world's population?
You are assuming that immigration makes the country worse off. But in a reasonably laissez-faire society it makes it better off by bringing in productive people. National income isn't a fixed good being shared out.
Point 1 has no time limit. So it was vacuously true even prior to the 1920s, when travel was so difficult and expensive that no restrictions were immediately required.
Of course this is not “assuming that immigration makes the country worse off”. It is only assuming that unlimited immigration will do this (with various background assumptions: that there are many worse places, many millions want to immigrate, they can well afford to do so, etc.).
>Point 1 has no time limit.
This makes your claim unfalsifiable, no? Literally any evidence to the contrary could be dismissed on the basis that the predicted outcome is just further down the road.
If the assertion were to have been made a sufficiently long time ago, then it would have been contingently unfalsifiable at that particular time. But as it is made now it appears to be refutable by opening the borders now and seeing that the country does not become “as bad as the countries that they are coming from” (the implication being that this would happen relatively quickly). But those countries that in recent years have allowed more than normal immigration (Sweden and Germany, for instance) already appear to have problems as a result.
Have you eliminated other potentially relevant factors, though?
Couple considerations: Government-sponsored immigration (which circumvents immigration control, anyway) vs. natural immigration, and refugee corralling and work restrictions. Not to mention entirely separate policies.
It's possible that a yet more permissive immigration policy may be counterfactually beneficial relative to either the current or prior status quo. After all, it's not as though either of the mentioned countries have "open borders" in the proper sense of the term. Immigration to Sweden and Germany are still subject to government vetting. This suggests the hypothesis isn't really being tested.
“eliminated” from what? “potentially relevant factors” to what?
What are the “Couple considerations…” supposed to show?
What “hypothesis isn't really being tested”?
"Do you think your point 1 happened prior to the 1920's, when the US had open immigration for most of the world's population?"
i've heard many libertarians make this same argument and they just assume that 19th century european immigration would be the same as for example 21st century african immigration. take a look at this from denmark https://inquisitivebird.substack.com/p/the-effects-of-immigration-in-denmark
western immigrants as a group were net positive and non western as a group were net negative, with different subgroups being different of course. the same has been studied in the netherlands and i think sweden too. so yes, these people made denmark more like their home country.
now a gulf state open borders model would probably work. but that's a far different society than any western state is or seems likely to go in.
All three of the countries you list are welfare states. The US in 1920 wasn't.
There weren’t many welfare states at all in 1920, but we live in 2024.
thanks for replying david. i don't think that changes the conclusion. the US isn't going to return to its former policies, and so the policy must be evaluated in the context and people of 2024. i'm very curious about what you think of the danish data? they aren't going to machine freedom, so what should they do within the context of their society?
Point 1 does not hold true at scale.
There is enough evidence to suggest:
1. Borders is not the only thing that prevents people from migration.
2. People willing to uproot themselves and move to a foreign land are generally much smaller % of people.
3. Your observation that people from worse off lands are going to move to better off lands is right but how many people will move does not scale linearly with difference between the nations but rather logarithmically.
This is not to say open borders can't cause harm. But there is no evidence what so ever that existence of open borders and peaceful individual centric migration somehow destroyed a better off society that I am aware of.
India has below replacement fertility rate now. Maybe it’s time for India to let in a billion Somalis, Pakistanis, Venezuelans, and Nigerians to indulge in the glorious economic boom that immigration will provide.
That is a likely scenario for India. At least 20M bangladeshis are currently in India. Nepalis have pretty much open border with India. Chances are that India will attract a lot of talent from nations that are poorer than her and it will likely benefit India.
Figures of 20 million Bangladeshis is certainly exaggerated propaganda. And very few people from Nepal live in India. Regardless Bangladesh and Nepal are both South Asian countries that share a lot of cultural, historical, linguistic, and genetic overlap with India. There’s a much bigger difference with African or Pakistani migrants in Europe.
Regardless, I’m happy you’re at least consistent. Lots of people don’t want high immigration to their native countries, but hypocritically support higher immigration in their adoptive countries.
If anything 20M is underestimate and not over estimate. India being poor country and given that better options like Europe or Canada exist there is very little reason why a Pakistani or Nigerian would come to India. Pakistan for example had better HDI than India until 2000s or so.
I don't think the cultural differences matter. Good cultures would survived bad cultures would mutate and mix with other cultures eventually. In short term some people will be upset. In the long run it won't matter.
Alright then, maybe Somalia, Niger, or Mali are more reasonable sources for immigrants to India given they're without a doubt much poorer.
None of these three points appears to be inconsistent with “Point 1”.
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
That is precisely the study I had in my mind when I wrote that comment but could not remember the source. Looks like your reading of it differs from mine.
The study claims 158M people currently wants to move into USA. over last many years USA has allowed in around 50M foreign born people in USA. USA is unlikely to be come worse with mere 158M more people coming over in a reasonably long time window.
1. 158m prefer to move to the USA as a first choice. But if the USA is the only desirable country with open borders, then most of the rest of the would-be migrants would probably also opt for the USA as better than staying where they are.
2. More people will probably want to come once it is generally known to be a real possibility. And more people are always becoming adults many of whom will also want to come.
3. You can have a “reasonably long time window” with immigration restrictions. But with open borders you can expect to be relatively quickly swamped until the USA is no longer a more desirable country. Why take the risk rather than control immigration?
I think from my position whether than number is 158M or 750M or 2B has no real relevance as I think more people is better.*
* The only genuine unknown variable for me is whether there is some group out there which when enters a society like USA can destroy it completely. Each anti-immigrant person has their own favourite demographics here such as Ms13 gang members, Hispanics, Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Communists, CCP agents, Blacks, Wester Africans, White Straight Males, Gays etc. etc.
If someone can convince me that such group exists, then I would be open borders with caveats against such group. But my position is completely opposite of yours.
It is a very bold thesis that a country’s economic optimum number of immigrants is always “more people is better”. When this is presented without any theoretical explanation from economics, it begins to look like an unfalsifiable ideological dogma rather than a serious empirical conjecture.
As is often observed, past a certain point quantity can become a quality in itself. A sufficiently large unregulated deluge of immigrants (as “desirable” as anyone cares to define) into a country “like USA can destroy it completely”.
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.
How about supplying a source for these "just facts"? Brian Caplan has provided a book length treatment of the subject.
He provided a comic book length treatment to be fair.
There are already a wealth of sources that have debated Caplan on this. Noah Carl and Emil kirkegard have questioned his work directly to his face. Jason Richwine did a whole phd thesis on this and follow up work. I could go on and on with many others.
The basic premise on welfare spending should be quite simple. People with below average iqs earn less then average. People that earn less then average pay less in taxes and receive more in benefits. You can easily do calculations of the puts and takes by ethnicity or iq bucket and add up the lifetime total. Low iq immigrants are net drains the same way low iq natives are net drains. Why would one expect a different outcome?
Think for a moment what $10,000 in net subsidy a year would mean over a lifetime. 75 x 10,000 = $750,000.
$10,000 a year isn’t much. It’s around the cost of Medicaid yearly. It’s a lot less then most states spend on k-12 funding (nyc is up to like $25k a kid). Social security and Medicare are a lot more.
Almost all below average income people pay no federal income tax and limited other taxes.
The figures I’ve seen indicate that the net is higher than 10k a year on a Hispanic immigrant. Lifetime drain is in the seven figures in today’s dollars. Worse for worse demographics (say Muslims in Europe). It’s a bit at a time, but it basically adds up to the equivilaint of robbing a bank.
As far as voting goes the record of non-whites is quite clear.
Can you link the source to the $10,000 net subsidy figure?
I agree with some of your points but when I think of the “shithole” aspects of California, I mainly think of drug addicts and power outages—things that prog whites seem to be responsible for. Although Mexicans have higher crime rates than whites, they have significantly lowered crime rates in many areas by displacing blacks.
Prog whites have political power because of Mexican votes, so Mexicans are responsible. Everyone is responsible for the effect of their vote.
Those black people move somewhere. They don’t evaporate into sky.
I doubt the Mexicans are keen on the druggies and green agenda, but, yes, it’s a package deal.
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.
When Scott Alexander reviewed my first book, where I sketched what an anarcho-capitalist society might look like, he ended the review with the statement that he hoped my proposed system was tried — somewhere far from him.
Which I thought was a fair comment.
That reminds me of a favorite line from the movie "Fiddler on the Roof." Asked if the rabbi has a blessing for the czar, the rabbi replies, "A blessing for the czar? May the lord bless him -- and keep him far away from us."
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.
Interesting point. In your scheme, if the immigrant commits a crime, does the US citizen sponsor have the price he is charged paid by Big Agro Co? Can his children attend a local public school? If he shows up at the emergency ward is he treated?
Hoppe's proposal, like the current H1B, is better than keeping people out, but it has the same political problem as my proposal, since the same people will object to foreigners not being taken care of to US standards. And it produces a lot less flexible an outcome.
You may well be correct that current anti-immigration people would also disapprove, for different reasons.
> In your scheme, if the immigrant commits a crime, does the US citizen sponsor have the price he is charged paid by Big Agro Co?
I think this will be fluid. Based on my knowledge of existing H1B/H2B programs which are very similar, I think this will lead to an exchange of sorts where different body shoppers will assume different kind of risks. Big Agri co will contract out to Big Agri Workers Consultancy which will subcontract to LocalJose Inc. run by Jose who assumes most risk and earns maximum reward everyone takes a small cut and citizen sponsor gets some money. When punishment is purely financial, LocalJose Inc. will declare bankruptcy and Big Agri Co will raise its hands claiming it is really their contractor who did it and not them. CEOs of LocalJose will occasionally end up in jail but overall the reward will be worth it for a lot of hustlers.
This is how a lot of alphabet soup visas work today. H1B, H2B/A, EB2, EB3, R1, O1, TN, E1, E2 etc. work
> Can his children attend a local public school? If he shows up at the emergency ward is he treated?
I think such esoteric questions be safely settled in favor of Hoppians. Let them pick whatever they want and there still would be massive supply of such people and if such a system is created in USA TODAY, purely as a consequentialist, I would see as it as a net win as bring more willing immigrants into the country.
> but it has the same political problem as my proposal, since the same people will object to foreigners not being taken care of to US standards. And it produces a lot less flexible an outcome.
I agree. But I am more interested in knowing if Hoppians themselves understand this and whether Hoppians themselves would be onboard if such a program is politically feasible.
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.
That was a worry in the 19th century with regard to Catholic immigration, largely from Ireland and Italy.
I think people who are successful in a reasonably laissez-faire economy are likely to have the cultural characteristics that make for a functioning economy whatever their religion. Hindus in India are poor but the Hindu diaspora, not only in the US but in Africa, does very well for itself and the economies they are in. Iranian immigrants to the US seem to function fine.
Or in other words, I don't think the Christian nature of our culture is critical. What matters is respect for property rights, honesty, and the like.
“What matters is respect for property rights, honesty, and the like.”
Did you just assume the cultural equivalent of a can opener?
I don't think those characteristics are exclusive to Christian culture. There are multiple ethnic groups that have that reputation. By casual observation, half the motels in the US are owned by Indian immigrants — I am told mostly Gujarati.
My point was that if we don't make welfare available to immigrants, they tend to sort themselves, since supporting yourself in America works better with those characteristics.
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! 😛
That's certainly an interesting point. People who feel they would never need such services would be incentivized to drop them, as with people who may choose to not have medical insurance.
The problem with both is unintended future need. I may have a great health at one point in my life and get very sick at another point in my life. If I'm allowed to change my stance later then I'm extremely incentivized to save the money now and spend later. If I can't change my mind then society will watch me suffer from preventable conditions due to decisions made potentially decades before. Personally I don't feel like society would allow someone to starve to death under such circumstances, even if that's the only incentive structure that would make this work. So, it would not work, and the only workable alternative is to deny someone the ability to opt-out.
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.
The biggest gains from immigration are likely to involve immigrants from much poorer countries, just as the biggest gains from trade are with partners very different from yourself.
I think many conservatives would be content with a system that reviewed applicants and approved those with a reasonable expectation of being able to support themselves and not cause problems.
The not-causing-problems portion would obviously include a criminal background check and similar.
The reasonable expectation of self support is trickier, but on the stricter end could include demonstrated ability in a particular function, a certain level of education, or a job offer from a US company.
I suspect that most of the currently illegal immigrants coming across the border could pass such tests, leaving immigration rates similar to now but with assurances that obvious problems are weeded out and that the people coming much more likely to have or obtain work.
Of course, as David mentioned, you need to make it legal for such people to work once they're here. I think our current system of denying them legal access but allowing illegal access and *then* denying them work but allowing some types of welfare may be the worst possible of all solutions.
The migration-union thing has been tested successfully in the EEA for some decades now, where GDP/capita ranges by more than factor of seven (from Norway to Bulgaria), so I think your 70% may be a bit unnecessarily strict. I'm personally a beneficiary of this policy, having moved countries with minimal hassle. One thing that libertarians/anarchists should like about this (and any other policy that makes migration cheaper), that I don't hear being talked about much, is that it increases competition between countries for residents, which one would expect to make residents better off and governments worse off (as a zero-sum approximation, at least).
A fee I think would be great for individuals from outside the migration union – it could replace both the income tax and the work-permit system, under which immigrants are basically indentured to their employer under the threat of deportation, which obviously isn't great for human flourishing or for the functioning of the labour market. Amnesty International or whoever could pay the fee for any refugees they want in the country.
"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?
One reason is that even if it were possible to calculate total utility of society, individual actors in a socialist economy, as in a capitalist economy, are trying to maximize their utility not the total utility of society.
The basic problem is to establish institutions under which individual rationality produces group rationality. Capitalist institutions come closer to doing so than socialist ones:
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Machinery_3d_Edition/Market%20Failure.htm
Well, "scientific socialism" tried to maximise the total utility of society, and as a result the utility of the individual. That was the goal, the welfare of the individual, but who must get rid of narrow-minded egoism (individual rationality). The socialist of these days believed that socialism was the "group rationality" per se, which beats the individual rationality. The vast majority would benefit from socialism, only a few former capitalists would lose, but rightly so. Total utility would vastly greater, and even the former capitalists could live a good life. The socialist state was the institution that would prevent the individual from falling back into egoism. To this end, it expropriated the individual owner of all his productive assets. Now the individual had to follow the grand production plan of socialist society, i.e. the group rational use of all scarce resources.
And you said that socialism failed because it did not prevent individuals from being selfish. Well, I grew up in the former GDR (socialist part of Germany) and you are right, people were still individuals with their own will and individual rationality. Only a few of them corresponded to the ideal of a real socialist.
But if the egoism of the individual could be prevented, socialism could be superior, i.e. lead to a much higher total utility than capitalism.
But I deny that. Because there is no such thing as a social or common utility that can be objectively calculated or measured. So the whole basis of socialism collapses.
So there is no objective calculus of whether it is better for Ukraine to fight Russia or to surrender on the first day. There is no group rationale. There are different ideas about what would be best. And there is no objective utility score that says that idea A has a score of 100 and idea B has a score of 120, and therefore everyone should bow down to idea B. In practice, the supporters of idea A will follow their idea A, and the opponents of A will follow idea B or C, and so on. And they will try to force the others to follow their preferred idea. No different on the question of borders and immigration.
Of course there is coalition building: to pursue a common goal, to win a war against another coalition. But this is not a group rationality, it is still an individual rationality that thinks of a coalition for its own good. There are, of course, dilemmas, the problem of mistrust, the possibility of defects that could prevent a coalition, but there is no total or objective solution to it, only a fallible belief, a hope, a leap of faith. The state cannot replace the need for such faith, because you have to believe that the state will not defect, will not break its promises and so on.
I think not. I said "one reason" not "the only reason." For another reason consider the arguments offered in the Calculation Controversy for what centrally planned socialism was unworkable.
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.
Good point. H1B is better than nothing given that the alternative is not being allowed in at all, but it is not a sensible way of handling immigration.
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.