DISQUS

John Doe · 2 years ago

I’m trying to draw attention to the fact that the basic structure of the global system of border enforcement and legal exclusion from labor market participation badly disadvantages millions and possibly billions.

Billions? Come on. If billions of illiterate and impoverished people immigrated to America, they wouldn't all suddenly have a median income of $30,000. They'd just drag down America to their level. What's really keeping them down is not their inability to migrate to America, but the lack of good government, property rights, intellectual capital (i.e., the formation of businesses), and possibly cultural habits, in their own countries.

Will Wilkinson · 2 years ago

John, I'm talking about the global system of border and migration control, not just America's, which is just a part of the overall system. Massively improved institutions and growth in many poor countries would still leave them terribly relatively impoverished even after a century. There is a good case to be made that the reduced ability of autocrats to retain their subjects in a world where the better societies are willing to welcome poorer workers, together with the ability of natives to gain human capital and absorb liberal cultural norms abroad, would have a salutary effect on their home institutions.

Tom Myers · 2 years ago

I certainly don't want to oppose your freedom of "voluntary association"; the thing is, I want you to have the freedom to form voluntary associations which exclude me. For instance, you might be forming an association with generous medical benefits, in which case you might say that an influx of 55-year-olds would put too much stress on your projected costs. Then again, you might be forming an association dependent on shared culture, in which case you might say that guys whose phuds are in computer science would be too hard to assimilate amongst the philosophically economical group you'd probably be forming. Note that both of these arguments relate to your "Do No Harm": there are some associations, with some combinations of goals and by-laws, whose members would actually be harmed by admitting too many guys like me.
A whole lot of US voters, as members of a moderately voluntary association (which does, after all, derive its just powers from the consent of the governed), feel that both of these arguments apply...not necessarily to aging geeks, but to a lot of people that they think would like to come here. To the extent that their shared citizenship is consensual (never perfect, not that bad) I think it confers upon us the "positive duties" that we, through our representatives as limited by the Constitution as amended, say it does. :-) Our fellow-citizens look at regions with a lot of recent (legal+illegal) immigrants, and some think admitting more people involves a net social cost, i.e. less money left to spend on their own children, and that open immigration would bring in too many to be assimilated. That's harm. This strikes me as reasonable in principle, even though I think almost all of my fellow-citizens overestimate the costs, underestimate the benefits, and underestimate the effectiveness of assimilation; I would therefore favor a drastic increase in the openness of immigration. I guess that puts me on your side in practice, but I think you're disagreeing in principle, saying that even if they are right in practice, even if there's a net social cost (from education and emergency services), the "right" of (A,B,C,D,...Q) to form an exclusive voluntary association, called a "nation", must in principle yield to the "right" of Z to move in and voluntarily associate with citizen J who offers Z a job. I don't see this at all. Nor do I think it makes sense to say that Z is "harmed" by denying him the benefits of entrance. Summary? I therefore think you're denying the right of (A..Q) to form an exclusive voluntary association in the first place (as a matter of principle), and thus in practice you're denying their right to form associations with high per capita costs -- associations which by definition cannot survive an arbitrarily large proportion of low-income members. I'm thinking of a phone call, some years ago, telling me that my wife and very small daughter had been hit while in the cross-walk of our village's main stoplight; by the time I got to the local hospital, I was told that they'd been redirected (in separate ambulances) to the trauma center forty minutes off. Later, I was happy to pay the bill and add a donation, but no forms were required in advance. I do not want to tell my fellow-citizens that they must, as a matter of principle, extend such no-questions-asked emergency services (or even the yearly school budget vote) to everyone who wants to come, even if that breaks the budget. At some level, it might indeed.
Yes, I want more open immigration, we can certainly assimilate a lot more than we're doing now. But I don't believe that exclusive voluntary association, especially the sort of voluntary association which depends on some shared properties (culture, income level) is inherently wrong. Do you?

mik_infidelos · 2 years ago

"I may give my children everything, and others’ children nothing. But I may not kill anyone, no matter how much it helps my family."

I totally agree. Lets give our children and other compatriots whatever we can and others nothing.

Also, lets not kill wantonly anyone outside our borders.

Totally agreed. No immigration, no useless foreign aid, no idiotic military adventures.

Will Wilkinson · 2 years ago

Tom, Nation-states are a lot like clubs in many ways, but not in the respect of being voluntary associations. My citizenship was a fact of my birth, and I cannot avoid being taxed by the U.S. government. It is pretty complicated to renounce citizenship, and the government reserves the right to tax you or draft you anyway. It's not really a free choice to give up "membership," since without it, you can't travel internationally and your basic rights may not be protected unless you acquire a new membership to a different national club. And that is exceedingly hard to do. That it is far too hard is part of my point.

Tom Myers · 2 years ago

It is complicated to change your citizenship, especially as an adult -- two of my kids are adopted from Korea, my brother was born in Mexico; these caused minor complications. My co-author came as an adult from the Soviet Union; that's quite a bit harder, though it wasn't as hard for him as for some of the immigrants (refugees, mostly) I've known... and my daughter-in-law's green card travails have just begun. We'll see. Being an adult involves doing lots of complicated things. Sure, it should be easier, but when you say your membership is not voluntary because it's "exceedingly hard" to change, I do wonder about the standard being exceeded. Wikipedia claims about a million people per year coming in, and many other countries accepting quite a few yearly immigrants. If you've unsuccessfully tried to leave the US, or tried a bunch of other countries that all rejected you, then I'm sorry and I agree that your US citizenship is not consensual. Or at least that it's deplorably far from 100% consensuality; I view consensuality and therefore "just powers"/legitimacy as a matter of degree, where no plausible government is perfectly consensual or utterly fails of consensuality. But try a google search for "immigration Australia"; there are people who want your business. It's not the way it was for my g-g-g-uncle Edgar Metcalfe, shanghaied onto a whaling barque some years before the Civil War and jumped ship in Australia a couple of years later.
Seriously, my understanding is that US citizenship is importantly consensual, about as consensual as it currently gets (except for back-and-forth within the EU, I guess) and that North Korea, for example, is importantly non-consensual. This has a lot to do with the legitimacy of the governments thereof, as I see them.

However, it's possible that this is a distraction, even though it affects legitimacy of government. I do claim that, in this case, my (A,B,...Q) association is primarily voluntary, but suppose it isn't: it still has goals and by-laws to which the members, voting democratically under a supermajoritarian constitution, have consented; the system is voluntary in that sense. Among these goals and by-laws, we have some redistributive policies: education for all, paid for by all; emergency medical care, similarly funded; and (to use Adam Smith's phrasing) the "poor laws". These are largely per capita expenses; if you increase the head-count, you increase the expense, and if you increase the head-count without comparably increasing the total income, then you may break the system.

Now, I believe that increasing the head-count will in the long run increase the total income adequately, but I admit that in any given year, it might not. So I wouldn't let in everybody at once, even though I'd let in a lot more than we do now. Will, you appear to be saying: "Let people in, even if you're right about it breaking the system. It is a matter of principle; they have the right to come; you do not have the right to agree on a system of mutual benefits that depends on what you have in common (culture, income, whatever) and which therefore cannot survive letting in all who want to join it." This strikes me as a really remarkable principle.

John S Bolton · 2 years ago

It strikes me as a remarkably traitorous anti-principle. How can it be right to increase the level of aggression on fellow citizens, including the net taxpayers thereof, by claiming some fuzzball 'principle' of global free association which includes a privilege of bringing in an aggressor? If it were a sincere claim, those who wanted to associate more intimately with foreigners could move there, or if they want only products they can import them. Importing people is not a right, they could be aggressors. If free immigration made a country better, the Congo and Somalia and several other countries with no effective immigration control and lots of refugees would not be among the poorest and most anarchic. The anarcholibertarian, though, qua nihilist, cherishes freedom-for-aggression, and laments that we don't have enough hostile foreigners here, to make another eastern congo for his delectation.

John S Bolton · 2 years ago

How do we take away the rights of a foreigner to move around here when he is not known to have any such right? Is there a right to hostile immigration, or a right to invade? Our laws don't cover foreigners living abroad, but they do impose a responsibility on us to be loyal to fellow citizens, upon whom the level of aggression is increased by foreigners. I'm still waiting for an answer as to how foreigners living overseas are not chargeable with treason against America, if they have rights here and are morally not essentially in a different category than citizens. I doubt that anyone will ever feel strong enough to answer this though, and especially not here.

Will Wilkinson · 2 years ago

John, You're probably not going to get much of a response if you simply define peaceful migration, most of which is motivated by the prospect of mutually beneficial cooperation between natives and migrants as "aggression." I have a number of friends gainfully employed here in DC who are citizens of other countries. It is simply insulting and stupid to suggest that they are somehow aggressing against Americans when the obvious fact is that they are employed by Americans because they benefit them. Also, have you noticed that the men at the borders have guns? It is beyond doubt that border-control is coercive. The question is the conditions under which this is and is not legitimate coercion. You have the option of engaging that question constructively and not simply asserting manifest falsehoods as though they have helped your case.

stuart · 2 years ago

John, if the population of a region doubles but the crime rate increases by 50% would you fret about increase of crime? Do you envy the lives of hunter gatherers who experience so little violent crime? If not then immigration doesn't necessarily increase "the level of aggression on fellow citizens, including the net taxpayers"

Even if they did that doesn't clinch anything. You don't demand of American mothers that their future sons don't increase the level of aggression before "allowing" them to conceive. You don't demand it because of your views on duty to fellow citizens as opposed to foreigners. So argue for you stance on these duties rather than assuming them. The level of aggression angle isn't especially illuminating on this point.

Steve Burton · 2 years ago

http://www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2007/10/r...

John S Bolton · 2 years ago

The American children are juveniles, if they increase the level of aggression here the responsibility for many years is on their parents. This is not the case for foreigners coming in here on even the tiniest net public subsidy. If they are juveniles their parents are responsible, not the US net taxpayer, who is one to whom loyalty is owed in this case. If the foreigner takes net public subsidy here that is a hostile act by a foreigner within the borders, and the officials who supply it are traitors as defined in the US constitution, and those immigrants are accessory to treason, a capital offense. This status is hugely different from a newborn of our citizenry, so the analogy between an immigrant a newborn is not convincing in the least. Intent matters as well; we can constrain the locomotion of those who mean us harm, moving threateningly towards us. As to duties of a citizen, the nation means at least that we owe allegiance to other citizens when foreigners arrive in a manner which increase the level of aggression here, on the citizenry.

stuart · 2 years ago

I see you have really taken Will's comment to heart...

I suppose parents can prevent their children from turning 18? And the childs existence will not cause the parents to be more likely to go on net public subsidy? And juveniles never murder other citizens?

"and those immigrants are accessory to treason, a capital offense." Hmmm... I can't compete with this...

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Surviving A Recession · 9 months ago

You know the one thing that would correct all of this. The flat tax. It does not matter who you are how old you are or your physical, mental, marital or other, condition. Whether you are a person, corporation or LLC does not matter. You just have to pay 15% Federal tax and social security. No tax deductions, no write offs. 15% period. The same for rich and the same for poor. This way no one class can say they are being disenfranchised. Argument over. Fair across the board. It does not matter if the money is income or capital gains. You made it this year pay 15%.

If there is a budget shortfall tax imports 15% across the board no matter the country.

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