4 ms·

You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the

You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? A popular rebuttal is that immigrants will contribute to the growing economy and will pay taxes. But we are talking about completely open borders here (anything else is just some fiddling around current system), where anyone willing to do even minimum wage job can migrate. How can such people contribute enough in taxes, when the welfare cost needed to support them (schools, roads, sewers, hospitals...) and their families far exceeds the taxes paid by them? And while I admit that I don't have any stats to support my argument, I am just going by my gut feeling that generous welfare is usually paid for by the richest and not by the poorest. Another offered solution is to cap welfare for new migrants until they pay enough taxes. But that just creates a two-tier society and is a separate can of worms in itself.

geofft 10y ago
What is to stop millions of poor masses from being born? (And why does our inability to stop it not inhibit a welfare state?) The amount of a welfare state you can sustain is certainly dependent on your tax revenue, and in turn on the quality of your economy, on political willingness to set high enough taxes, etc. But I don't think there's a point at which a welfare state is flatly impossible. And there are certainly lots of unforeseen possibilities. Perhaps an economy where employers can hire anyone without bureaucracy will grow companies that generate enough revenue, even without lots of human employees on payroll, to sustain the welfare state.
- Buge 10y ago
  People can't choose what country to be born in. But they can choose to move to a country with better welfare. If you're thinking of women/couples having a lot of kids to collect those kids' welfare, it depends on how the welfare for those kids compares to the cost of raising the kid. Also many people would be morally against bringing a kid into a life of potential suffering just for their own monetary gain. But for someone with no dependents, moving to a new country poses no risks to anyone except themselves.
  - smspillaz 10y ago
    I support open borders and this is one of the points that I've grappled with for quite some time. I'm not convinced that the decision to move from developing country to a developed one is made purely on economic grounds. Permanently relocating your life is not an easy task. You pretty much have to give up all your social capital, all your community ties (which means that you could face ostracisation back in your birthplace), learn a new language, learn new cultural norms, spend significant funds on travel and relocation costs costs and whatever savings you have left will lose a decent chunk of their value due to exchange rate conversion. You also have no networks to exercise in finding employment in your new home and finding accommodation without any kind of reference is going to be difficult. In that sense, the risk to oneself is so great that only a privileged few in developing countries who wanted to relocate would actually have the resources to overcome them. So for many people, relocating might legally be a choice, but it would be practically impossible. Realistically, migration is only an option for you if you (1) have a job offer from a company based in the place you intend to migrate, (2) have sufficient funds + skills to cover yourself until you can find a job, (3) have family who can support you and lend you their networks until you can find employment, (4) have sufficient funds to start your own business. Incidentally, those criteria also form categories of US visas (H1-B/TN-1/E-3/L-1, O-1, Family Reunion, EB-5), though, they impose more stringent requirements than economics would.
    - RestlessMind 10y ago
      (Re: your first paragraph) - and yet, we see millions of folks undertaking dangerous journeys over the Middle East or Mediterranean or Central America or Indian Ocean to reach Europe/USA/Australia.... What gives? That life must be very shitty in many parts of the world??
    - Buge 10y ago
      Illegal immigrants from Mexico or Cuba don't have job offers, funds, or family.
      - dragonwriter 10y ago
ryukafalz 10y ago
>You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area, where some countries participating have welfare states and some (I believe) do not? Genuine question - I've heard other people make the same argument before and it seems like we have a pretty good real-world example to either verify or refute it.
- raquo 10y ago
  > What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area EU countries are much more uniform than the rest of the world in their level of welfare support and social development (e.g. UK and even Portugal are much more alike than say Bangladesh and the US). Besides, there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries to richer countries within the EU, and many people in the richer countries are angry about this. See Brexit etc.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries There has also been a lot of movement back towards such countries as soon as their wealth levels improved (or UK ones got worse), which happened in no small part thanks to remittance payments. It's the sort of movement you also observe in-country when industries in certain regions do better than others. How many people from Scotland moved to Southern England in the last 100 years? But that is the whole point of the European Union, which is also expressed in things like the infrastructure and development funds: we promote solidarity and cooperation between neighboring countries, rather than competition that will ultimately result in war. It's a shame how you only need a couple of generations to forget everything about their history.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- kyrre 10y ago
  This is what happened in the UK - millions of unemployed eastern European migrants receiving benefits, and those working driving down wages. The end result being Brexit.
eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? Well, the math on that doesn't work if you're taxing all income rather than just labor income. Driving down wages while doing the same work will increase profits, so the same taxes ought to get paid. And then there's the issue that adding labor to the economy should make it grow... unless for mysterious reasons like land-rents or parasitic finance systems all growth capacity is getting sucked away somehow.

geofft 10y ago

What is to stop millions of poor masses from being born? (And why does our inability to stop it not inhibit a welfare state?) The amount of a welfare state you can sustain is certainly dependent on your tax revenue, and in turn on the quality of your economy, on political willingness to set high enough taxes, etc. But I don't think there's a point at which a welfare state is flatly impossible. And there are certainly lots of unforeseen possibilities. Perhaps an economy where employers can hire anyone without bureaucracy will grow companies that generate enough revenue, even without lots of human employees on payroll, to sustain the welfare state.

Buge 10y ago
People can't choose what country to be born in. But they can choose to move to a country with better welfare. If you're thinking of women/couples having a lot of kids to collect those kids' welfare, it depends on how the welfare for those kids compares to the cost of raising the kid. Also many people would be morally against bringing a kid into a life of potential suffering just for their own monetary gain. But for someone with no dependents, moving to a new country poses no risks to anyone except themselves.
- smspillaz 10y ago
  I support open borders and this is one of the points that I've grappled with for quite some time. I'm not convinced that the decision to move from developing country to a developed one is made purely on economic grounds. Permanently relocating your life is not an easy task. You pretty much have to give up all your social capital, all your community ties (which means that you could face ostracisation back in your birthplace), learn a new language, learn new cultural norms, spend significant funds on travel and relocation costs costs and whatever savings you have left will lose a decent chunk of their value due to exchange rate conversion. You also have no networks to exercise in finding employment in your new home and finding accommodation without any kind of reference is going to be difficult. In that sense, the risk to oneself is so great that only a privileged few in developing countries who wanted to relocate would actually have the resources to overcome them. So for many people, relocating might legally be a choice, but it would be practically impossible. Realistically, migration is only an option for you if you (1) have a job offer from a company based in the place you intend to migrate, (2) have sufficient funds + skills to cover yourself until you can find a job, (3) have family who can support you and lend you their networks until you can find employment, (4) have sufficient funds to start your own business. Incidentally, those criteria also form categories of US visas (H1-B/TN-1/E-3/L-1, O-1, Family Reunion, EB-5), though, they impose more stringent requirements than economics would.
  - RestlessMind 10y ago
    (Re: your first paragraph) - and yet, we see millions of folks undertaking dangerous journeys over the Middle East or Mediterranean or Central America or Indian Ocean to reach Europe/USA/Australia.... What gives? That life must be very shitty in many parts of the world??
  - Buge 10y ago
    Illegal immigrants from Mexico or Cuba don't have job offers, funds, or family.
    - dragonwriter 10y ago

ryukafalz 10y ago

>You can either have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area, where some countries participating have welfare states and some (I believe) do not? Genuine question - I've heard other people make the same argument before and it seems like we have a pretty good real-world example to either verify or refute it.

raquo 10y ago
> What stops this from happening in the Schengen Area EU countries are much more uniform than the rest of the world in their level of welfare support and social development (e.g. UK and even Portugal are much more alike than say Bangladesh and the US). Besides, there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries to richer countries within the EU, and many people in the richer countries are angry about this. See Brexit etc.
- toyg 10y ago
  > there has been a lot of movement from poorer countries There has also been a lot of movement back towards such countries as soon as their wealth levels improved (or UK ones got worse), which happened in no small part thanks to remittance payments. It's the sort of movement you also observe in-country when industries in certain regions do better than others. How many people from Scotland moved to Southern England in the last 100 years? But that is the whole point of the European Union, which is also expressed in things like the infrastructure and development funds: we promote solidarity and cooperation between neighboring countries, rather than competition that will ultimately result in war. It's a shame how you only need a couple of generations to forget everything about their history.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
kyrre 10y ago
This is what happened in the UK - millions of unemployed eastern European migrants receiving benefits, and those working driving down wages. The end result being Brexit.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>Otherwise, what is to stop millions of poor masses from migrating to the country offering the best welfare and driving down the wages for locals (by, say, willing to work for a lower standard of living)? Well, the math on that doesn't work if you're taxing all income rather than just labor income. Driving down wages while doing the same work will increase profits, so the same taxes ought to get paid. And then there's the issue that adding labor to the economy should make it grow... unless for mysterious reasons like land-rents or parasitic finance systems all growth capacity is getting sucked away somehow.