11 ms·

If borders were open

69 points by kawera 9y ago

simonsarris 9y ago
A world of free economist articles would be _____ richer. Yet they built the paywall. There seem like a lot of obvious objections that are not addressed and raises more questions than it asks. > Workers in rich countries earn more than those in poor countries partly because they are better educated but mostly because they live in societies that have, over many years, developed institutions that foster prosperity and peace What are these institutions, and would they be damaged at all by free movement? If the people in good_country made the institutions, and they get demographically boxed out by people in other_countries, what happens? What are "institutions," exactly? Why did other_countries grow bad institutions? Would emigrants damage those countries further? The article semi asks these questions then drops the thread. I think articles like this tend to simplify or handwave the caveats in unrealistic ways, so their result is always a lopsided analysis. Example of such a simplification: > But most Western cities could build much higher than they do, creating more space. Yeah they could, but most won't. See: The bay area, Boston, NYC. (A few do: Montreal, or Tokyo, which added more housing than all of California last year)
- quickthrower2 9y ago
  A world of free whatever simonsarris does for a living would be _____ richer.
- pram 9y ago
  These guys basically believe in magic soil, and that the inhabitants of "rich countries" are inherently interchangeable. The institutions just magically appeared separate from culture and demographics.
  - ForHackernews 9y ago
    Institutions are mostly policies, procedures and process. What's the difference between a well-run company and poorly-run one? Would you rather work in a team of geniuses with no process, or a team of average developers who follow best practices?
    - shard972 9y ago
      > Institutions are mostly policies, procedures and process. Which are influenced by culture > What's the difference between a well-run company and poorly-run one? Mostly culture in my opinion
    - concede_pluto 9y ago
      "Don't hire the average developer" tops the list of best practices.
- kevindong 9y ago
  I believe the article is talking about the (lack of) corruption and general respect for rule of law (and the implications it entails; such as a independent judiciary and fair/transparent trails). The author really should've gone into detail and defended their assertion though.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  > A world of free economist articles would be _____ richer. Yet they built the paywall. The actual analogy would be a world where you need to get a visa per-magazine to read the articles they have, to the which you might not qualify. A newspaper-immigration-patrol would look at this comment of yours on HN and possible deny you access, you should watch out. > What are these institutions, and would they be damaged at all by free movement? If the people in good_country made the institutions, and they get demographically boxed out by people in other_countries, what happens? What are "institutions," exactly? Why did other_countries grow bad institutions? Would emigrants damage those countries further? The article semi asks these questions then drops the thread. A great open question is what happens to institutions when there are culture changes. But bear in mind that without immigration, there would be no institutions in the U.S. whatsoever. It is a point of view of past immigration being great, but current and future immigration being bad, which I think it makes very little sense holistically speaking. > Yeah they could, but most won't. There really isnt a limit on living space. The rent is high in places like the bay area precisely because moving there is still a good deal. Problems of residential prices are widely overstated.
Kazamai 9y ago
This is only a good idea if we ignore that a billion people would migrate in a few months in an attempt to escape poverty. The results would be catastrophic.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  FTA: > If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mnm2 9y ago
    Yeah, make the poor pay more That's the solution! They depend on government handouts or other donations and making them pay more will solve the problem now
  - fche 9y ago
    FTA: > open borders also FTA: > why not charge them more for visas Someone forgot what "open borders" means.
    - ForHackernews 9y ago
      Does anyone on HN actually read the article anymore? They specifically address this: > To clarify, “open borders” means that people are free to move to find work. It does not mean “no borders” or “the abolition of the nation-state”. On the contrary, the reason why migration is so attractive is that some countries are well-run and others, abysmally so. You're using a different (and unspecified) definition of "open borders" than the authors of the article.
      - fche 9y ago
        If his "open borders"' "free to move" does not include "free to move across borders", then it's a troll piece. If it's "free to move, if immigration law permits", then it's a tautological piece.
sattoshi 9y ago
>European countries, such as Sweden, migrants are more likely to get into trouble than locals, but this is mostly because they are more likely to be young and male. I don't even know where to start with this. Could it be that young and male aren't the core of the issue? I like how the article almost dismisses the realities of religious and racial conflicts. Then there is this: >If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants vote—for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is far kinder than not letting them in. If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges This seems like a very sane system. Why is this not something we do? Do we not care about local interests at all as long as immigration isn't "too high"? As an immigrant, I think this would be fair.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  > Could it be that young and male aren't the core of the issue? Young males commit most crimes all over the world. If you have an alternative explanation, I'd like to see strong statistical evidence to back it up.
  - orbifold 9y ago
    Even if you restrict yourself to young males then immigrants have a disproportionate share in crime at least in Germany, actually immigrants in Germany commited ~40% of all crimes in 2015, with a rapid increase in the last few years. It is also pretty obvious on the street level: drugs for example are primarily sold by immigrant gangs, for example africans with turkish bosses.
    - jayd16 9y ago
      Where are you getting this? >According to the Bundeskriminalamt, also known as the Federal Criminal Police Office or BKA, crimes by immigrants rose 79 percent in 2015. But at the same time, the number of refugees in the country rose more than fivefold — by 440 percent. In other words, the typical German was more likely to engage in crime than the average migrant. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/11/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-germany-now-riddled-crime-thanks/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
abhi3 9y ago
Sounds good, doesn't work. A world of free movement would be poorer as mass immigration would overwhelm developed societies, increase conflict and eventually lead to even more protectionism than existed before (Brexit). Rule of law and institutions in developed countries will suffer and mass migration would also destroy the economies of the migrant exporting societies (Puerto Rico).
- pmarreck 9y ago
  Article conclusions are based on evidence and reason. Your comment is based on speculation and belief. You are awarded no points
21 9y ago
> Gallup, a pollster, estimated in 2013 that ... 42m would move to Britain. That's about 5 London's. Where would these people live? Will cities magically appear from the ground? UK favellas?
- ben_w 9y ago
  I imagine the migrants would get paid by other migrants to build the hypothetical cities. That is the way literally every US city happened after all — well, migrants or their descendants.
  - fche 9y ago
    There's a bit of a chicken & egg problem there - if the immigrants come in a giant burst, they won't have any money to pay for new cities with.
  - programmarchy 9y ago
    Then why aren't the migrants doing that in the places they live now?
    - mnm2 9y ago
      It's the people that make up a country And the country itself
    - ben_w 9y ago
      A significant fraction of the builders in the UK are Polish.
futun 9y ago
Globalist propaganda alert. Exactly who would be richer? You? me? A fisherman in the Azores? This cartoon still says it best: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmJz4sUVEAAs5f5.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmJz4sUVEAAs5f5.jpg
ben_w 9y ago
The world will be richer, I personally will be poorer. I'm OK with that if it was evenly distributed, but I doubt my fellow rich caucasian men will be.
- fche 9y ago
  Even distribution is not appropriate when work value is so terribly unequal.
sergiotapia 9y ago
>One seemingly simple policy could make the world twice as rich as it is: open borders. In this utopian paradise the author describes is he willfully ignoring the fact that different cultures exist? Not all cultures are equal, no matter what the current narrative tells you. This is a terrible, empty article. >If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with them? It is an understandable fear (and one that anti-immigrant politicians play on), but there is little besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it. Alright now this empty article turned insidious.
- smrtinsert 9y ago
  The article doesn't purport to understand or comprehend cultural differences, it's simply exploring the economic case. It's not call The Culturalist. For an empty article, you've had a very strong reaction to it.
  - artursapek 9y ago
    > but there is little besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it. He had a strong reaction because he's tired of these kinds of lies being perpetuated by our media. Everybody knows mass immigration from problematic parts of the world brings a huge burden on the host population.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      Was that true for america when it had the immigrant influx in the previous centuries?
      - artursapek 9y ago
        It's true of Europe today. There are a lot of differences between the two obviously.
      - pixl97 9y ago
        >> Everybody knows mass immigration from problematic parts of the world brings a huge burden on the host population. >Was that true for america when it had the immigrant influx in the previous centuries? Lets ask all the dead native Americans about that.
tastythrowaway2 9y ago
Did I miss the part where they discuss the economics of having a larger worker pool? like how that would affect existing workers? that seems like an enormous question to not address fully.
- fche 9y ago
  Plus there is a delicious delirium of every migrant population being equally capable of or inclined to productive work.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Im not sure what you mean with this comment, can you clarify?
    - fche 9y ago
      Considering mass immigration in terms of increasing worker pools presupposes that the mass immigrants are workers.
      - conanbatt 9y ago
        They will quickly starve if they dont provide means to feed themselves.
        nostromo123 9y ago
        In Germany a healthy young migrant coming from a country that is not at war gets more money per month in welfare help than retired teachers get in Romania. What is their incentive to work?
        conanbatt 9y ago
        Might be a great argument against welfare
hugh4life 9y ago
All that money measures is the ability to entice someone else. It does not measure wellbeing. When it comes to migration, no one ever talks about the consequences of moving from a high context to a low context culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures Aladair Macintyre: "Consider what it is to share a culture. It is to share schemata which are at one and the same time constitutive of and normative for intelligible action by myself and are also means for my interpretations of the actions of others" https://toutcequimonte.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/macintyre-epistemological-crises-1.pdf https://toutcequimonte.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/macintyre... Low context cultures are more atomized and legalistic. Free migration is one of major the things that justifies the national security state powers... which ironically these days in the west there is no sense of a nation outside of the state. There is a weakness in that notion because the internet has weakened the state's ability to integrate minorities because those people can live mentally in their homelands. Aristotle on immigration: "Another cause of revolution is difference of races which do not at once acquire a common spirit; for a state is not the growth of a day, any more than it grows out of a multitude brought together by accident. Hence the reception of strangers in colonies, either at the time of their foundation or afterwards, has generally produced revolution;" Aquinas on immigration: "Thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. With regard to these a certain order was observed. For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 1). The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people."
kawera 9y ago
What if the flow happened from richer to poorer countries? Developing and undeveloped countries are notoriously protectionists, specially of their visa/labor markets. What would happen if they opened their borders to all, presumably including qualified/entrepreneurial people?
- conanbatt 9y ago
  I dont know how protectionist poorer countries are in general, but in south america there arent strong restrictions, because it is considered that people from developed countries are a lot more productive, precisely the effeect you are looking for. Sometimes there are rules meant to mimic the other ones as a deterrent (you dont let mine, i dont let yours kind of thing. Brazil and Argentina do this)
Mizza 9y ago
The neoliberal $78 trillion is the same as the nationalist £350m-a-week. Don't ever be fooled by these extrapolated figures.
- MistahKoala 9y ago
  'nationalist'...
abhi3 9y ago
> If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? What do you do when after a couple of years those very same immigrants starting protesting and rioting for civil rights like equal access to welfare benefits, equal taxes, right to vote and attribute racism as a motive for denying it to them rather than the original policy goal of making them pay their way and not overwhelm the locals in elections?
jarpschop 9y ago
When I see a post like this I just remember this plot. No matter how much wealth is produced if it is shared unequally. https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyTbD6T93Pd_8qE9cf-mTlqa6kU3HbwXfP2lB2ect61K_tlj8sdo9qQA0_ https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyTbD6...
0xbear 9y ago
Open borders == immediate destruction of the low-skilled and unskilled labor market due to oversupply of labor.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  This is the exact same argument to have collective bargaining rights and unions. I don't think the tech-crowd is a fan of unionization in general.
  - 0xbear 9y ago
    Tech crowd is doing pretty well as it is. Low skilled and unskilled workers are already kind of f#$ed, with more to come due to globalization, and (later) automation.
    - toomuchtodo 9y ago
      Enter raising taxes stage right. As long as productive and automation exists and can be taxed, we'll be fine.
      - 0xbear 9y ago
        Enter automation moving to China, stage left.
        true_religion 9y ago
        Factories need consumers. Already trade agreements require a certain percentage of American material on a product or allow import in exchange for US export.
        0xbear 9y ago
        But they're arguing for open borders, no?
drumttocs8 9y ago
Is this article assuming an infinite supply of jobs in any given location?
conanbatt 9y ago
Any kind of immigration restriction is an act of oppression. Think of how insane a proposal to limit people moving from a state to another in the US would be, how many arguments would be concocted against that, but so many arguments in favour of international restrictions. I have no doubts that free movement would have drastic positive economic and social effects. What is truly incredible is how adamant people can be to categorize and justify creating rules to prevent other people from moving around.
- Zahlmeister 9y ago
  Hello from Germany. We effectively have "free" movement of people from Africa to Europe. Once they're ashore, we can't readily send them back. We also used to have movement from Iraq and Syria through Turkey, but that was curbed. We took in about a million refugees and we did not manage to integrate well over 90%+ into any form of employment. We don't have jobs for these people. It has cost us about 20 billion in 2016, about 3% of taxes earned total, to support these people. We've managed to "oppress" the flow of refugees with unpopular measures. If we didn't, how many more people are we supposed to take in?
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    For someone escaping a war torn country, finding a wall he cant surpass to escape death and destructive would surely be oppressive. He wants to do something that provokes no harm, and a state is telling him he can't. If you don't like that they represent a cost to the german state, you can take it up to the idea of welfare, and if you removed completely for the people that entered the country, they would still go to germany, because where they come from the situation is much worse. The case for germany to still provide financial support is that is a huge long term benefit that is tax beneficial, especially for a country with demographic issues. My understanding is that there are reports that justify the tax investment. > If we didn't, how many more people are we supposed to take in? This is the point : you are not supposed to take in anyone, the state shouldnt decide whatsoever what individuals do with their lives. The state doesn't own these people and neither does it own you. If you dont want to provide foreigners with resources then don't. Foreigners cant vote for such measures even if they wanted them. With free passage, you would not even know how many peope pass, and it would have a marginal cost to the state (and a much higher benefit!)
ilugaslifk 9y ago
I'm already on extremely high alert for an apparently rapidly-growing political movement whose primary demand is that I be forcibly expelled from my home and society for the crime of sharing an ethnic heritage with people who, it is charged, were genetically compelled to impose even a fraction of this onto an unwilling host society. Let's not.
panic 9y ago
It's worth remembering that before the 20th century, the US had more or less completely open borders. And we turned out OK, didn't we?
- pixl97 9y ago
  >And we turned out OK, didn't we? I'm going to have to ask if this was a monumental failure of thinking on your part? First there are some theories that huge numbers of native Americans died from disease leaving the US a very large empty land mass. Second, the native Americans that were left got a real bad deal from European immigration. Third, the US depended heavily on slave labor in the south, something that has left a terrible 170 legacy of racism on our country (so much so our crime demographics look nothing like western Europe's. Lastly, because the US was a large and empty land mass for one reason or another, it look a long time to 'fill it up'. Attempting to make any future assumptions based on past assumptions that are very different from now is not going to work out well at all.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
SomewhatLikely 9y ago
The article says the world would be twice as rich. World GDP/capita is $16k. Doubling this would make it $32k/person. U.S. GDP / capita is currently $57k. Assuming open borders lead to an equalizing effect in all countries, then Americans would need to get used to living twice as poor as today.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  > Assuming open borders lead to an equalizing effect in all countries That assumption is both onerous and preposterous
rwz 9y ago
As a legal immigrant myself I'm baffled at how little typical American knows about immigration. Everybody's usually very surprised when you tell them that even the in the best case scenario a highly-educated specialist with a degree, 5+ years or experience, and a job offer needs to eat a ton a shit, pay a lot of money, go through nine circles of bureaucratic hell, and wait a few years to fully immigrate and gain a permanent residency status. How many people get visa rejections with no explanation. How many people can't enter their country even temporary as a tourist. In a world where low skilled workers get replaced by automation more and more, where even local citizens are having troubles finding or keeping a job, where the most common source of income for non-educated people is freaking driving professionally, sure, let's let in 160m+ folks escaping poverty and running from countries with no education, oppressive regimes and weird religions. Surely it'll turn out just fine. Surely they all will find decent jobs real quick, learn the language, integrate and bring huge benefits. Uh-huh.

69 points by kawera 9y ago

A world of free economist articles would be _____ richer. Yet they built the paywall. There seem like a lot of obvious objections that are not addressed and raises more questions than it asks. > Workers in rich countries earn more than those in poor countries partly because they are better educated but mostly because they live in societies that have, over many years, developed institutions that foster prosperity and peace What are these institutions, and would they be damaged at all by free movement? If the people in good_country made the institutions, and they get demographically boxed out by people in other_countries, what happens? What are "institutions," exactly? Why did other_countries grow bad institutions? Would emigrants damage those countries further? The article semi asks these questions then drops the thread. I think articles like this tend to simplify or handwave the caveats in unrealistic ways, so their result is always a lopsided analysis. Example of such a simplification: > But most Western cities could build much higher than they do, creating more space. Yeah they could, but most won't. See: The bay area, Boston, NYC. (A few do: Montreal, or Tokyo, which added more housing than all of California last year)

quickthrower2 9y ago
A world of free whatever simonsarris does for a living would be _____ richer.
pram 9y ago
These guys basically believe in magic soil, and that the inhabitants of "rich countries" are inherently interchangeable. The institutions just magically appeared separate from culture and demographics.
- ForHackernews 9y ago
  Institutions are mostly policies, procedures and process. What's the difference between a well-run company and poorly-run one? Would you rather work in a team of geniuses with no process, or a team of average developers who follow best practices?
  - shard972 9y ago
    > Institutions are mostly policies, procedures and process. Which are influenced by culture > What's the difference between a well-run company and poorly-run one? Mostly culture in my opinion
  - concede_pluto 9y ago
    "Don't hire the average developer" tops the list of best practices.
kevindong 9y ago
I believe the article is talking about the (lack of) corruption and general respect for rule of law (and the implications it entails; such as a independent judiciary and fair/transparent trails). The author really should've gone into detail and defended their assertion though.
conanbatt 9y ago
> A world of free economist articles would be _____ richer. Yet they built the paywall. The actual analogy would be a world where you need to get a visa per-magazine to read the articles they have, to the which you might not qualify. A newspaper-immigration-patrol would look at this comment of yours on HN and possible deny you access, you should watch out. > What are these institutions, and would they be damaged at all by free movement? If the people in good_country made the institutions, and they get demographically boxed out by people in other_countries, what happens? What are "institutions," exactly? Why did other_countries grow bad institutions? Would emigrants damage those countries further? The article semi asks these questions then drops the thread. A great open question is what happens to institutions when there are culture changes. But bear in mind that without immigration, there would be no institutions in the U.S. whatsoever. It is a point of view of past immigration being great, but current and future immigration being bad, which I think it makes very little sense holistically speaking. > Yeah they could, but most won't. There really isnt a limit on living space. The rent is high in places like the bay area precisely because moving there is still a good deal. Problems of residential prices are widely overstated.

Kazamai 9y ago

This is only a good idea if we ignore that a billion people would migrate in a few months in an attempt to escape poverty. The results would be catastrophic.

ForHackernews 9y ago
FTA: > If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mnm2 9y ago
  Yeah, make the poor pay more That's the solution! They depend on government handouts or other donations and making them pay more will solve the problem now
- fche 9y ago
  FTA: > open borders also FTA: > why not charge them more for visas Someone forgot what "open borders" means.
  - ForHackernews 9y ago
    Does anyone on HN actually read the article anymore? They specifically address this: > To clarify, “open borders” means that people are free to move to find work. It does not mean “no borders” or “the abolition of the nation-state”. On the contrary, the reason why migration is so attractive is that some countries are well-run and others, abysmally so. You're using a different (and unspecified) definition of "open borders" than the authors of the article.
    - fche 9y ago
      If his "open borders"' "free to move" does not include "free to move across borders", then it's a troll piece. If it's "free to move, if immigration law permits", then it's a tautological piece.

sattoshi 9y ago

>European countries, such as Sweden, migrants are more likely to get into trouble than locals, but this is mostly because they are more likely to be young and male. I don't even know where to start with this. Could it be that young and male aren't the core of the issue? I like how the article almost dismisses the realities of religious and racial conflicts. Then there is this: >If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants vote—for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is far kinder than not letting them in. If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? Such levies could also be used to regulate the flow of migrants, thus avoiding big, sudden surges This seems like a very sane system. Why is this not something we do? Do we not care about local interests at all as long as immigration isn't "too high"? As an immigrant, I think this would be fair.

ForHackernews 9y ago
> Could it be that young and male aren't the core of the issue? Young males commit most crimes all over the world. If you have an alternative explanation, I'd like to see strong statistical evidence to back it up.
- orbifold 9y ago
  Even if you restrict yourself to young males then immigrants have a disproportionate share in crime at least in Germany, actually immigrants in Germany commited ~40% of all crimes in 2015, with a rapid increase in the last few years. It is also pretty obvious on the street level: drugs for example are primarily sold by immigrant gangs, for example africans with turkish bosses.
  - jayd16 9y ago
    Where are you getting this? >According to the Bundeskriminalamt, also known as the Federal Criminal Police Office or BKA, crimes by immigrants rose 79 percent in 2015. But at the same time, the number of refugees in the country rose more than fivefold — by 440 percent. In other words, the typical German was more likely to engage in crime than the average migrant. http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/11/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-germany-now-riddled-crime-thanks/ http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/may/...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

abhi3 9y ago

Sounds good, doesn't work. A world of free movement would be poorer as mass immigration would overwhelm developed societies, increase conflict and eventually lead to even more protectionism than existed before (Brexit). Rule of law and institutions in developed countries will suffer and mass migration would also destroy the economies of the migrant exporting societies (Puerto Rico).

pmarreck 9y ago
Article conclusions are based on evidence and reason. Your comment is based on speculation and belief. You are awarded no points

21 9y ago

> Gallup, a pollster, estimated in 2013 that ... 42m would move to Britain. That's about 5 London's. Where would these people live? Will cities magically appear from the ground? UK favellas?

ben_w 9y ago
I imagine the migrants would get paid by other migrants to build the hypothetical cities. That is the way literally every US city happened after all — well, migrants or their descendants.
- fche 9y ago
  There's a bit of a chicken & egg problem there - if the immigrants come in a giant burst, they won't have any money to pay for new cities with.
- programmarchy 9y ago
  Then why aren't the migrants doing that in the places they live now?
  - mnm2 9y ago
    It's the people that make up a country And the country itself
  - ben_w 9y ago
    A significant fraction of the builders in the UK are Polish.

futun 9y ago

Globalist propaganda alert. Exactly who would be richer? You? me? A fisherman in the Azores? This cartoon still says it best: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmJz4sUVEAAs5f5.jpg https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CmJz4sUVEAAs5f5.jpg

ben_w 9y ago

The world will be richer, I personally will be poorer. I'm OK with that if it was evenly distributed, but I doubt my fellow rich caucasian men will be.

fche 9y ago
Even distribution is not appropriate when work value is so terribly unequal.

sergiotapia 9y ago

>One seemingly simple policy could make the world twice as rich as it is: open borders. In this utopian paradise the author describes is he willfully ignoring the fact that different cultures exist? Not all cultures are equal, no matter what the current narrative tells you. This is a terrible, empty article. >If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with them? It is an understandable fear (and one that anti-immigrant politicians play on), but there is little besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it. Alright now this empty article turned insidious.

smrtinsert 9y ago
The article doesn't purport to understand or comprehend cultural differences, it's simply exploring the economic case. It's not call The Culturalist. For an empty article, you've had a very strong reaction to it.
- artursapek 9y ago
  > but there is little besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it. He had a strong reaction because he's tired of these kinds of lies being perpetuated by our media. Everybody knows mass immigration from problematic parts of the world brings a huge burden on the host population.
  - conanbatt 9y ago
    Was that true for america when it had the immigrant influx in the previous centuries?
    - artursapek 9y ago
      It's true of Europe today. There are a lot of differences between the two obviously.
    - pixl97 9y ago
      >> Everybody knows mass immigration from problematic parts of the world brings a huge burden on the host population. >Was that true for america when it had the immigrant influx in the previous centuries? Lets ask all the dead native Americans about that.

tastythrowaway2 9y ago

Did I miss the part where they discuss the economics of having a larger worker pool? like how that would affect existing workers? that seems like an enormous question to not address fully.

fche 9y ago
Plus there is a delicious delirium of every migrant population being equally capable of or inclined to productive work.
- conanbatt 9y ago
  Im not sure what you mean with this comment, can you clarify?
  - fche 9y ago
    Considering mass immigration in terms of increasing worker pools presupposes that the mass immigrants are workers.
    - conanbatt 9y ago
      They will quickly starve if they dont provide means to feed themselves.
      - nostromo123 9y ago
        In Germany a healthy young migrant coming from a country that is not at war gets more money per month in welfare help than retired teachers get in Romania. What is their incentive to work?
        conanbatt 9y ago
        Might be a great argument against welfare

hugh4life 9y ago

All that money measures is the ability to entice someone else. It does not measure wellbeing. When it comes to migration, no one ever talks about the consequences of moving from a high context to a low context culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-_and_low-context_cultures Aladair Macintyre: "Consider what it is to share a culture. It is to share schemata which are at one and the same time constitutive of and normative for intelligible action by myself and are also means for my interpretations of the actions of others" https://toutcequimonte.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/macintyre-epistemological-crises-1.pdf https://toutcequimonte.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/macintyre... Low context cultures are more atomized and legalistic. Free migration is one of major the things that justifies the national security state powers... which ironically these days in the west there is no sense of a nation outside of the state. There is a weakness in that notion because the internet has weakened the state's ability to integrate minorities because those people can live mentally in their homelands. Aristotle on immigration: "Another cause of revolution is difference of races which do not at once acquire a common spirit; for a state is not the growth of a day, any more than it grows out of a multitude brought together by accident. Hence the reception of strangers in colonies, either at the time of their foundation or afterwards, has generally produced revolution;" Aquinas on immigration: "Thirdly, when any foreigners wished to be admitted entirely to their fellowship and mode of worship. With regard to these a certain order was observed. For they were not at once admitted to citizenship: just as it was law with some nations that no one was deemed a citizen except after two or three generations, as the Philosopher says (Polit. iii, 1). The reason for this was that if foreigners were allowed to meddle with the affairs of a nation as soon as they settled down in its midst, many dangers might occur, since the foreigners not yet having the common good firmly at heart might attempt something hurtful to the people."

kawera 9y ago

What if the flow happened from richer to poorer countries? Developing and undeveloped countries are notoriously protectionists, specially of their visa/labor markets. What would happen if they opened their borders to all, presumably including qualified/entrepreneurial people?

conanbatt 9y ago
I dont know how protectionist poorer countries are in general, but in south america there arent strong restrictions, because it is considered that people from developed countries are a lot more productive, precisely the effeect you are looking for. Sometimes there are rules meant to mimic the other ones as a deterrent (you dont let mine, i dont let yours kind of thing. Brazil and Argentina do this)

Mizza 9y ago

The neoliberal $78 trillion is the same as the nationalist £350m-a-week. Don't ever be fooled by these extrapolated figures.

MistahKoala 9y ago
'nationalist'...

abhi3 9y ago

> If the worry is that future migrants might not pay their way, why not charge them more for visas, or make them pay extra taxes, or restrict their access to welfare benefits? What do you do when after a couple of years those very same immigrants starting protesting and rioting for civil rights like equal access to welfare benefits, equal taxes, right to vote and attribute racism as a motive for denying it to them rather than the original policy goal of making them pay their way and not overwhelm the locals in elections?

jarpschop 9y ago

When I see a post like this I just remember this plot. No matter how much wealth is produced if it is shared unequally. https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyTbD6T93Pd_8qE9cf-mTlqa6kU3HbwXfP2lB2ect61K_tlj8sdo9qQA0_ https://encrypted-tbn2.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQyTbD6...

0xbear 9y ago

Open borders == immediate destruction of the low-skilled and unskilled labor market due to oversupply of labor.

conanbatt 9y ago
This is the exact same argument to have collective bargaining rights and unions. I don't think the tech-crowd is a fan of unionization in general.
- 0xbear 9y ago
  Tech crowd is doing pretty well as it is. Low skilled and unskilled workers are already kind of f#$ed, with more to come due to globalization, and (later) automation.
  - toomuchtodo 9y ago
    Enter raising taxes stage right. As long as productive and automation exists and can be taxed, we'll be fine.
    - 0xbear 9y ago
      Enter automation moving to China, stage left.
      - true_religion 9y ago
        Factories need consumers. Already trade agreements require a certain percentage of American material on a product or allow import in exchange for US export.
        0xbear 9y ago
        But they're arguing for open borders, no?

drumttocs8 9y ago

Is this article assuming an infinite supply of jobs in any given location?

conanbatt 9y ago

Any kind of immigration restriction is an act of oppression. Think of how insane a proposal to limit people moving from a state to another in the US would be, how many arguments would be concocted against that, but so many arguments in favour of international restrictions. I have no doubts that free movement would have drastic positive economic and social effects. What is truly incredible is how adamant people can be to categorize and justify creating rules to prevent other people from moving around.

Zahlmeister 9y ago
Hello from Germany. We effectively have "free" movement of people from Africa to Europe. Once they're ashore, we can't readily send them back. We also used to have movement from Iraq and Syria through Turkey, but that was curbed. We took in about a million refugees and we did not manage to integrate well over 90%+ into any form of employment. We don't have jobs for these people. It has cost us about 20 billion in 2016, about 3% of taxes earned total, to support these people. We've managed to "oppress" the flow of refugees with unpopular measures. If we didn't, how many more people are we supposed to take in?
- conanbatt 9y ago
  For someone escaping a war torn country, finding a wall he cant surpass to escape death and destructive would surely be oppressive. He wants to do something that provokes no harm, and a state is telling him he can't. If you don't like that they represent a cost to the german state, you can take it up to the idea of welfare, and if you removed completely for the people that entered the country, they would still go to germany, because where they come from the situation is much worse. The case for germany to still provide financial support is that is a huge long term benefit that is tax beneficial, especially for a country with demographic issues. My understanding is that there are reports that justify the tax investment. > If we didn't, how many more people are we supposed to take in? This is the point : you are not supposed to take in anyone, the state shouldnt decide whatsoever what individuals do with their lives. The state doesn't own these people and neither does it own you. If you dont want to provide foreigners with resources then don't. Foreigners cant vote for such measures even if they wanted them. With free passage, you would not even know how many peope pass, and it would have a marginal cost to the state (and a much higher benefit!)

ilugaslifk 9y ago

I'm already on extremely high alert for an apparently rapidly-growing political movement whose primary demand is that I be forcibly expelled from my home and society for the crime of sharing an ethnic heritage with people who, it is charged, were genetically compelled to impose even a fraction of this onto an unwilling host society. Let's not.

panic 9y ago

It's worth remembering that before the 20th century, the US had more or less completely open borders. And we turned out OK, didn't we?

pixl97 9y ago
>And we turned out OK, didn't we? I'm going to have to ask if this was a monumental failure of thinking on your part? First there are some theories that huge numbers of native Americans died from disease leaving the US a very large empty land mass. Second, the native Americans that were left got a real bad deal from European immigration. Third, the US depended heavily on slave labor in the south, something that has left a terrible 170 legacy of racism on our country (so much so our crime demographics look nothing like western Europe's. Lastly, because the US was a large and empty land mass for one reason or another, it look a long time to 'fill it up'. Attempting to make any future assumptions based on past assumptions that are very different from now is not going to work out well at all.
- deleted 9y ago
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SomewhatLikely 9y ago

The article says the world would be twice as rich. World GDP/capita is $16k. Doubling this would make it $32k/person. U.S. GDP / capita is currently $57k. Assuming open borders lead to an equalizing effect in all countries, then Americans would need to get used to living twice as poor as today.

conanbatt 9y ago
> Assuming open borders lead to an equalizing effect in all countries That assumption is both onerous and preposterous

rwz 9y ago

As a legal immigrant myself I'm baffled at how little typical American knows about immigration. Everybody's usually very surprised when you tell them that even the in the best case scenario a highly-educated specialist with a degree, 5+ years or experience, and a job offer needs to eat a ton a shit, pay a lot of money, go through nine circles of bureaucratic hell, and wait a few years to fully immigrate and gain a permanent residency status. How many people get visa rejections with no explanation. How many people can't enter their country even temporary as a tourist. In a world where low skilled workers get replaced by automation more and more, where even local citizens are having troubles finding or keeping a job, where the most common source of income for non-educated people is freaking driving professionally, sure, let's let in 160m+ folks escaping poverty and running from countries with no education, oppressive regimes and weird religions. Surely it'll turn out just fine. Surely they all will find decent jobs real quick, learn the language, integrate and bring huge benefits. Uh-huh.