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Thanks for posting this, I must have read it at the time because it feels very familiar! Particularly the thread started by this comment from ChicagoBoy11 [0].

by J-dawg 8y ago

Thanks for posting this, I must have read it at the time because it feels very familiar! Particularly the thread started by this comment from ChicagoBoy11 [0]. I've often wondered what a world without borders would really be like. As ChicagoBoy11 said, it would be very difficult to oppress people if they were simply able to get up and go somewhere else. Eventually I think the world would be a better place. But in the short term, developed countries would be absolutely swamped. They'd have to completely rethink almost everything to do with work, welfare and housing. Maps like this make you realise how "small" the developed/western parts of the world are [1]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12622327 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12622327 [1] http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/earth-divided-in-ten-zones-of-equal-population http://bigthink.com/strange-maps/earth-divided-in-ten-zones-...

whatshisface 8y ago
>They'd have to completely rethink almost everything to do with work, welfare and housing. Here's my cynical take on what would happen: the well-to-do would benefit massively as the poor moved in to reduce unskilled and low-skill labor prices. Welfare would be stopped because society wouldn't be able to afford it. Housing would be worked out automatically by the free market, except in SF and other legally restricted jurisdictions. In the end, national inequality would rise to match global inequality, because all that's happening is that individuals are moving. Ironically, the old Republican conservatopia vision of society (no welfare, free market, not too much emphasis on the interests of the poor) would be able to handle mass migration better than almost any other that the west has considered. If there's no social safety net at all, there's almost no cost to having somebody new move in. (Police, sure, but you can tax the work of the new people.)

by J-dawg 8y ago

whatshisface 8y ago

>They'd have to completely rethink almost everything to do with work, welfare and housing. Here's my cynical take on what would happen: the well-to-do would benefit massively as the poor moved in to reduce unskilled and low-skill labor prices. Welfare would be stopped because society wouldn't be able to afford it. Housing would be worked out automatically by the free market, except in SF and other legally restricted jurisdictions. In the end, national inequality would rise to match global inequality, because all that's happening is that individuals are moving. Ironically, the old Republican conservatopia vision of society (no welfare, free market, not too much emphasis on the interests of the poor) would be able to handle mass migration better than almost any other that the west has considered. If there's no social safety net at all, there's almost no cost to having somebody new move in. (Police, sure, but you can tax the work of the new people.)