"... Bryan Caplan, a libertarian economist at George Mason University, makes the radical pro-immigration argument that others don’t. In his view, immigration should be essentially unlimited.... Opening the world’s borders wouldn’t mean abolishing them, Caplan explains.... Governments would relinquish their exclusionary authority, so that anyone, regardless of citizenship, could 'accept a job offer from a willing employer or rent an apartment from a willing landlord.' In one illustration, a cartoon Caplan serves a trillion-dollar blueberry pie; its slices are distributed to landlords with apartments to rent, retirees with newly affordable elder care, and mothers reëntering the workforce thanks to lower child-care costs... Presumably, an open-border policy would lead to a mass exodus [from poorer countries]. And yet an illustrated version of Caplan, working as a Western Union teller, reassures these countries that they would be rewarded with compensatory, monumental remittances. Brain drain wouldn’t be an issue, since the total liberalization of movement would allow everyone—not just the highly skilled—to emigrate.... The illustrations in 'Open Borders' are playful, bright, and irreverent.... [but] they tend to reduce their subjects to caricature. 'Poor countries' are depicted using images of generic slums and anonymous, emaciated brown people; a person who smuggles migrants in the desert is represented as an actual coyote, wearing sunglasses.... "
From
"THE CASE FOR OPEN BORDERS/In a new graphic-nonfiction book, a libertarian economist conjures an alternative reality in which immigration is unlimited all over the world" (in The New Yorker).
Here's the book:
I love the way, amidst all that diversity, everyone, including the Statue of Liberty, has the same lipless smile. And every face is saying
I'm an optimistic person with simple, practical hopes and all I want is a fair chance to help and contribute. Is it even
possible for human eyebrows not to point upward? Everybody means well.
By the way, comic books are a great format for presenting political and policy arguments. I think it's silly, though, to call them "graphic-nonfiction books."
Posts
71 comments:
Among twenty snowy mountains the only moving thing was the pieman coming.
Who’s rules/laws?
Was he denied a job he wanted earlier on?
Sure open borders as long as the Dems understand that is the end of government welfare and hand-outs, labor laws and environmental laws.
Via Lucianne:
Donald Trump's rule changes the so-called "public charge" rule that withholds green cards from immigrants dependent on government services. Federal immigration law says that immigrants desiring permanent legal status can be denied if they are likely to become a "public charge." Previously the government defined "public charge" as anyone receiving cash benefits. Those getting food stamps or housing assistance were exempt. The rule change means that green cards will only go to those who are free of dependency on government.
don't Forget!
It's Not Just Open Borders!
It's Open Borders, AND MEDICARE FOR ALL
No one has to work, the goodies JUST Show Up!
Just hand over your paycheck Slave.
Governments would relinquish their exclusionary authority, so that anyone, regardless of citizenship, could
'accept a job offer from a willing employer or rent an apartment from a willing landlord.'
OK, let’s play “What if human evolution had happened completely differently?”
All I have to do is head to whatever shithole where desperation reigns most completely, and bring them to work in my restaurant for a couple of tortillas and a spoonful of beans each day! It’s paradise!
One point that it does make is that unlimited immigration essentially abrogates all workers’ rights, so good on him for that.
I would be willing to shack up my employees in the back ally in a hillbilly chicken coop Maybe sided with tarpaper. Or maybe I could find a disused school bus for them to sleep in!
This kind of nonsense is why I am not a libertarian. If I knew to a certainty that everybody else was pretty much exactly like me, then sure, I would give it a go, but in that case, we would probably already be libertarian.
If I knew to a certainty that everybody else was pretty much exactly like me, then sure, I would give it a go
which, explains why these things 'work' best in places like Norway; where everyone is related to each other. Or, DID work there; before the Open Borders
Back in the '80's, as i passed the joint to the next person in the circle;
a girl there said Authoritatively: If everyone would Just Get Along; there would be no conflicts!"
gilbar said...
...
Back in the '80's, as i passed the joint to the next person in the circle;
a girl there said Authoritatively: If everyone would Just Get Along; there would be no conflicts!"
2/23/20, 6:27 AM
ha! not just an 80s thing. Heard that (Getting along) from a young idealist a few months ago.
Here, take this pamphlet...
This kind of nonsense is why I am not a libertarian.
Not all libertarians agree on this issue (or on abortion). It's not a "plank".
makes the radical pro-immigration argument that others don’t.
Reason.com has been arguing the same stupid idea since forever.
It's based on two false premises:
-- all races and populations of people are essentially the same.
-- the US has Magic Dirt.
The would-be immigrants and their "extended families" created the places they want to escape from. Just sayin'.
The authors blinded me with science!!!
Our borders should be safe, secure, orderly, and open - in that exact order.
My illegal immigrant serial rapist neighbor is certainly doing a job most Americans won't do.
The transfer of wealth from middle class payroll tax funded programs and healthcare costs to the indigent dependency class -- to the benefit of the wealthy who profit from expanded poor workforces living off middle class payroll taxes and property taxes and school taxes -- and the subsequent chaos and destruction of social stability that the rich can escape but the middle and working class can't -- is the economic story of the 21st Century. The rich steal from the middle class to cushily support the nonproductive poor. Cities empty out of middle class residents, but the financial consequences of leftist city politics follows the productive working and middle classes to the places they flee because it is taken from their federal payroll taxes and state education taxes. Illegals destroy wages for blue collar workers, turning them into a transient workforce. Illegals are the pets of think tank libertarians because libertarian fetishize the idea that they're special progressive heroes.
Libertarians pushing for this are morons and liars. At least the socialists tell us they're going to Dr. Zhivago our property.
@Ferd - "Not all libertarians agree" is a trope. To reframe an old joke: 9 libertarians, 10 opinions.
Zach is a terrific cartoonist and super duper bright. But I get the feeling he's never worked anywhere long (wiki check: two years on film and a talent agency) and doesn't rub shoulders very widely (wiki check: wife is a prof at Rice in Houston).
Not the guy I'd take policy recommendations from. The good news is that outside guns and free speech, the L's will never be in charge of (private) police forces, zoning, or borders.
-XC
"Comic Book" says it all..
Years ago, I spent two weeks at a residential Mercatus Center conference. I came away astonished at the utter ignorance of these highlt regarded scholars regarding simple facts about how taxarion works and how poverty gets paid for, let alone how welfare programs corrode social order. These people are very intelligent rubes.
And they are not our friends.
I'm libertarian and I am an open-borders person at my core. However, I understand that in reality an open-borders policy will easily demolish any society. I look at Californians streaming into Texas or Bay Staters moving to New Hampshire and see how Americans from other states affect things.
Now, I could hope everyone that comes here only brings their best ideals and social traits and drop their worst behaviors in favor of the best ones of my own country. Or, at least, their children and grand children can be taught to strive for the ideals that lead to their progenitors coming to this country in the first place.
Then I look at is going on in this country right now, a crisis of faith in the foundation of the country.
Philip Haney hardest hit, or I should say, surely hit.
"At least the socialists.."
Tina Trent--increasingly my one true luv..Your take on life is so close to mine that it's downright scary.. :)
@Tina Trent/
"These people are very intelligent rubes who are also highly committed ideologues TOTALLY blind to facts & reality.." FIFY
Open borders only works wih one world government because no one would voluntarily pay taxes to support a country where citizenship is meaningless; ergo, open borders isn't libertarian, it's Marxist.
California tried an experiment with Prop 187. It would have banned many welfare programs for illegals. It passed with about 60% of the vote including a majority in Hispanic districts. It was blocked by a federal judge and the state AG, Grey Davis, declined to appeal.
The destruction of California followed.
On November 8, 1994, California voters approved the proposition by a wide margin: 59% to 41%.[13] According to the Los Angeles Times exit polls, 63% of non-Hispanic white voters and 23% of Latino voters voted for Proposition 187; African-American and ethnic Asian voters split their voting equally for and against the law. Although non-Hispanic whites comprised 57% of California's population at the time, they comprised 81% of voters in the 1994 general election. Latinos totaled 8% of voters, although they comprised 26% of the state's population.
Among those who voted on the initiative, 78% of Republicans and 62% of Independents voted for it, while 64% of Democrats opposed it.[14]
Somewhere in the vast basin of the Amazon is a group of teens destined to replace the entire faculty of George Mason...
Open borders would require changes to our various safety-net, welfare and Medicaid-like programs to keep people from coming here just to get freebies and bankrupting the rest of us. Most libertarians understand that, and since it's unlikely that those changes are going to be made, open borders are a non-starter.
The next best thing is free trade, and that is happening even without changes to trade rules. More and more products and work are transportable via the Internet, and there's no practical way for governments to block them. Electronic goods and labor are pretty close to free markets already.
One of the most interesting developments is the medical tourism industry. The physicians cartel in this country makes medical care here so much more expensive than it is overseas that it pays to go somewhere else for many kinds of care. The market finds ways to route around cartels and legal monopolies.
I dunno. Just read "Camp of the Saints". It has a different theory.
Still, I love Libertarians because they do think outside the box. And some...some of what they come up with is very useable. If only people would occasionally listen to them. They do tend to come up with more better ideas than our traditional left and right groups do. (the left hasn't had a new idea in 50 years).
Open borders has not existed for any major civilization in all of human history. Not Egypt, not Rome, not China, not Japan, not any of the European nations, not any of the smaller states I have studied (Venice, Sparta, Vietnam, Korea). It is an idea which has never been tried, ever. I argue, based on this history, that it is profoundly unwise to even try it as failure seems nearly certain. My suggestion: those people that believe in this idea should first acquire the power and wealth necessary to take control of a small country and THEN try it. Make the experiment on a small scale and see what happens. Until the supporters of Open Borders can prove, with a real world example, that it works, this idea should be treated as profoundly unwise.
@F, the United States borders were pretty much open until the twentieth century.
@F, the United States borders were pretty much open until the twentieth century.
Yeah...Ellis Island and Angel Island are fake history.
Caplan once argued only Libertarians really learned morality. He has argued he is exactly the right amount closed minded. He says he is a superior being - part of the cognitive and moral elite - and that it’s a good thing that he lives in a bubble.
I was banned from a Libertarian site for dissing Caplan. The site asked for a suggested cartoon image to encapsulate his open borders position. I suggested an upraised middle finger. I think that captures his attitude to those who disagree.
Being an ideologue completely out of touch with reality and human nature may be a necessary condition of open-borders nutjobbery, but I don't think it's sufficient, in most cases.
Avarice, of course, is a big motivator. It's human nature to come up with (or pay some clueless econo-sperg to come up with) rationalizations and justifications for why something that's of personal benefit is The Right Thing to Do, both morally and economically. But I've seen too much naked animus toward the populations of receiving countries in the propaganda to believe it's all motivated by 1) high ideals and well-intended, if lamentably ill-informed, reasoning, and 2) honest avarice.
The coronavirus infected all his comic book characters.
Maybe Captain Koch Brother will invent an antidote before 90% of the US is wiped out
"a suggested cartoon image to encapsulate his open borders position."
The best position for Caplan would be hanging from a lamppost.
When the other Koch Brother dies, Caplan then will schill for Tom Steyer.
He’s just a Call Girl
Just more Establishment propaganda. The Liberals want Democrat voters who'll vote for Bernie. Wall STreet wants cheap labor. Plus some ethnic groups seem to think immigration helps them. Some Jews have attacked Mickey Kaus and Stephen Miller for wanting to restrict immigration because "Immigration is good for the Jews". Some Black writers think the same thing, Blacks will do better in a white minority country.
Anyway, I have to handle it to rich people - they've learned from their mistakes. They've come up with a ridiculous "philosophy" that supports their greed. Before Rich guys just said "the PUblic be damned". now they're libertarians.
BTW, my tax dollars should not be supporting this anti-American piece of crap or the Perfesser who wrote it. Most of tHese so-called Economists are completely worthless and add no more value than a Marxist Philosopher.
Jeff: ...the United States borders were pretty much open until the twentieth century.
Come one, come all? No.
Even the periods of "great wave" immigration had restrictions on who could enter. And the restrictive policies of the mid-twentieth century were a direct response to the social disruption caused by the very high immigration levels of earlier decades. U.S. history was not "all immigration, all the time, no problems", pace the sentimentalists.
Very few people were turned away before the twentieth century. There were some exceptions, like the Chinese on the West Coast, but the vast majority of immigrants were allowed in. And there was very little border enforcement on the Canadian and Mexican borders. No green cards, no id cards of any kind. Employers didn't care where you came from, and neither did landlords or shopkeepers.
But there were no welfare programs either, so immigrants either worked or starved.
If you want to make anti-immigrant arguments, go right ahead. Just be aware that U.S. history contradicts many of them.
Open borders is at least congruent with a libertarian philosophy. But today the most vocal advocates are Democrats and they are the furthest thing from libertarian in their philosophy.
Open borders is at least congruent with a libertarian philosophy. But today the most vocal advocates are Democrats and they are the furthest thing from libertarian in their philosophy.
"If you want to make anti-immigrant arguments"
Someone here is making anti-immigrant arguments? Who?
"Let's abolish borders, then people will come only when someone offers them a job. See? no need for the state to enforce any rule (sorry: exclusionary authority)."
The most stupid idea of the decade? Evidently, there are a lot of people convinced that absolute libertarianism produces order and progress.
"Bryan Caplan, a libertarian economist at George Mason University, makes the radical pro-immigration argument that others don’t. In his view, immigration should be essentially unlimited ..."
I'm not ready to go that far, but it would be nice if we could deport Bryan Caplan. He seems kind of like an Antarctican to me. Maybe the penguins would enjoy him.
Diversity (i.e. color judgment), including: racism, sexism, denies individual dignity and breeds adversity. Catastrophic anthropogenic immigration reform should not be tolerated as a cover-up of social justice zones and collateral damage. Immigration reform should not exceed the rate of assimilation and integration before planned parenthood (e.g. selective-child).
We'll always have administrative districts, a border by another name.
As Narr, I confidently and authoritatively speak for all who agree with me.
I don't want open borders and unbridled population movements, which are aimed at nothing more than the fundamental transformation of my country into a shithole.
Narr
We have natives working on that already
But there were no welfare programs either, so immigrants either worked or starved.
That's the rest of the libertarian open borders argument - no welfare state, or put better, no state welfare; outfits like 'Reason' and Caplan tend to omit that part of it. But "no welfare" doesn't address population density, and not everyone wants to live in a overcrowded place like Hong Kong or the East coast.
And, AFAIK, nobody in the US ever starved to death, unless they were lost in the wilderness or some such.
"Open borders" advocate Bryan Caplan, an economist at George Mason University, makes a 'suicide case' that immigration should be essentially unlimited. I guess he's not a follower of Adam Smith who said, "...the 'doctrinaire theorist' who is 'wise in his own conceit' and who 'seems to imagine that he can arrange the different pieces of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board..." Bryan Caplan seems to ignore that we humans have our own individual preferences, values, plans and wills, all of which can conflict with and even thwart the goals of the "Open Borders" social experiment.
I have a proposal that, frankly, is designed to test the sincerity of the open borders lobby. How about a green card and a license to practice law anywhere’s in the US -automatic admission to the state Bar of their choice- for any lawyer licensed to practice law in any foreign country? Let’s see the ABA and the Democratic Party (but I repeat myself) get behind this proposal.
In response to Jeff's comment, "@F, the United States borders were pretty much open until the twentieth century," Gahrie said..."Yeah...Ellis Island and Angel Island are fake history."
To be fair to Jeff, Ellis Island, the first federal immigration station, opened in 1892, which is much later than most people seem to realize, and Angel Island opened as a federal immigration station in 1910. At least as far as federal immigration control goes, it has been largely a 20th century phenomenon. Obviously, there were programs to manage immigration by state and local authorities before then, especially in high density targets like New York City, but, in practice, Jeff's point is largely correct.
If the population of the third world moved to the United States, the United States would turn into the third world. It really is that simple.
Caplan is a smart guy- I have been a daily reader of his and his colleagues blog for over 15 years now, but on the topic of immigration the man is just a fool. No culture will survive an influx of immigrants from very alien cultures beyond a certain level that is governed by the iron laws that set cultural assimilation rates.
Someone above mentioned what this open borders idea is- it is the Magic Dirt theory of cultural differences.
Jeff: "If you want to make anti-immigrant arguments, go right ahead.
Ditto Paco's comment. Who is making anti-immigrant arguments?
Pretty ham-handed attempt at sleight-of-hand there, Jeff.
"Just be aware that U.S. history contradicts many of them."
Disregarding the fact that nobody is making the arguments you refer to (and at any rate I think the 20th century counts as part of American history), even if the U.S. historically had pretty much open borders for most of its history, that's not a convincing argument for open-borders being a good idea now. (Odd that a historically aware guy like you can't discern any differences between 1840, 1900, and 2020.)
As long as we're "awaring" one another, if you want to push an implicit "muh nation of immigrants" position, just be aware that history informs us that being a nation that experienced large-scale immigration in recent history is not unique to the United States, so immigration per se cannot be the defining essence of "who we are".
The "Open Borders" movement is a trojan horse, and not much of one because it's so obvious. But the globalists don't care--if they can ram the policy thru, they don't CARE if the average citizen can see right through. It's not like those citizens can DO anything about it.
Want to dissolve the distinctly American culture here? The one with rule of law, property rights, high trust among citizens, and a belief in hard work to achieve your goals? Just flood the nation with new "citizens" who come from dysfunctional, kleptocratic, tribal/familial cultures and watch the chaos that follows.
There's an essay I've seen a couple of times (but didn't bookmark, sadly) from a guy who joined the Peace Corps, and learned to love the USA as a result. He went to one of those kleptocratic nations and quickly discovered that it isn't only the government leaders who practice that crap. It's cultural. National bonds mean notion. Only family matters, extended family, to whom you must give your loyalty--and your support. Jobs exist only as a means to loot the business that hired you and provide the goods or cash to your family. Business ownership is all but impossible there except for foreigners because any local who owned a business would be expected to hire family, who a) will steal everything not nailed down, and b) mostly don't want to WORK anyhow.
Enough such people poured into the USA will dilute our culture, and drag us down into the same cultural/economic quagmire, where looting others is the only way to achieve prosperity. Which is exactly what the globalists want--a nation full of dependents who will reliably vote for more government power to forcibly loot one another. Their dream voters.
Business ownership is all but impossible there except for foreigners because any local who owned a business would be expected to hire family, who a) will steal everything not nailed down, and b) mostly don't want to WORK anyhow.
You might be thinking of Theodore Dalrymple's "After Empire."
Is Kate Steinle in one of his cartoons?
By the way, comic books are a great format for presenting political and policy arguments.
I ran across this one at a junk shop in the 70s (appropriate in some way). Here is more about it.
CoronaVirus will kill open borders in the US for a generation.
"You might be thinking of Theodor Dalrymple's 'After Empire.'"
No, though it makes similar points. I found the article I was referencing:
www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/01/what_i_learned_in_peace_corps_in_africa_trump_is_right.html
His lesson: the Protestant work ethic (and other cultural features of life in the USA) is far from universal. Culture matters.
At least it's an honest title, not some misleading term like "undocumented".
I wonder if they go literal when illustrating a drug mule.
If you can get rid of naturalization/ changeable citizenship many argument become moot.
"In his view, immigration should be essentially unlimited"
Ah, now I understand why Althouse started crying when she found herself in the company of libertarians some years back.
Hanging around with liberals turns one into a conservative.
Hanging around with conservatives turns one into a libertarian.
Hanging around with libertarians turns one into a liberal.
You cannot expect that a large number of people will move into your country and your country will remain the same or even remotely the same. And it does not really matter if you give the immigrants citizenship or not; once they have enough of the population they basically run the place unless you are willing to go to extreme measures. Anyone with even a passing understanding of world history can understand this. The only real exception I can think about this is China, which had a habit of being conquered by northern neighbors, only for those northern neighbors to become Chinese, at which point they could be overthrown. It helped that the northern neighbors were typically nomads who wanted the Chinese lifestyle, albeit with them in charge.
Or you can ask the Native Americans how that worked out for them.
I am still trying to understand what the democratic position is as it ranges from "We are not open boarders! Stop poisoning the well" to "It is a human right to come to america, you racist" It really depends on what Trump is proposing that week. Their reactions seem knee jerk and tactical with no overall strategy that I can see. I had a Tom Steyer leaflet stuffed in my hands as I was going to Costco this morning and as near as I can make out it says we need to "stop locking up women and children" and then it gets pretty vague after that.
BTW, since I don't see anyone has mentioned it, the art style is immediately recognizable as identical to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal, and in fact that is Zach Weinersmith's web comic.
I tend to find it a bit mean spirited if read in large doses, but I still think this one is a classic. (Mildly nsfw language).
I actually own this "book" and have read it. A friend of mine, who considers himself an Anarchist, sent it to me, because he supports open borders.
I don't recommend it. Even if you'll take it seriously, I don't recommend it.
The arguments in the book aren't any good. Maybe it's because of the comic style of the book, I dunno, but they are all quite silly. They actually help the economy, don't hurt it. They don't change our culture and even if they do, it's for the better. They aren't criminals, the percentage that are criminals are smaller than the current population percentage that are criminals.
It isn't an argument you haven't already heard and either accepted, or dismissed.
It's culture all the way down. See Landes, The Wealth and Poverty of Nations, for one.
Narr
I like Douglas's suggestion about competition
"If you want to make anti-immigrant arguments, go right ahead. Just be aware that U.S. history contradicts many of them.”
That was before there were so many billions of people on the planet, before California was running out of water, before cheap worldwide mass transportation.
As has often been pointed out, open borders didn’t work out so great for the Indians.
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