I figured out a way to make my recent thought experiments on the Berlin Wall even starker.
Suppose you wake up one day and find yourself in a cage. You see a guy on the other side and the following conversation ensues.
You: Any idea how I got in this cage?
Guy: You’re not in a cage.
You: What do you mean?
Guy: You’re outside my border wall.
You: [stunned silence]
Guy: You’re free to go wherever you want, as long as you stay out of my territory.
You: I’m in a cage; where am I supposed to go?
Guy: Not my problem. After all, I’m not keeping you in; I’m keeping you out.
You: So it was you that built this “border wall” last night?
Guy: Yep.
You: And everything on the other side of these walls is your legitimate territory?
Guy: By Jove, I think he’s got it!
You: So you built a tiny square wall, and that entitles you to virtually all the land on Earth?
Guy: What, are you a communist?
You: No. You’re a kidnapper.
Guy: [offended] How so?
You: You make up a ridiculously lax rule of property acquisition, then use this sophistry to imprison me.
Guy: [offended] I repeat: To imprison you, I would have to hold you in. But I’m not; I’m keeping you out.
You: Pure sophistry! All you have to do to claim the world is build a tiny fence and say, “I own everything except the area inside it”?!
Guy: Well, what’s your theory of property?
You: I never worked one out. But yours is crazy.
Guy: Most of the people around here support me.
You: But plenty of them don’t?
Guy: True, but it’s a democracy – and the majority voted that you’re not allowed on any of our land.
You: I’ve heard enough. I’m climbing your “border wall.”
Guy: Communist!
You: You seem like the communist to me. I’m getting out before you start shooting on sight.
Guy: Good idea!
You: [facepalms; flees]
READER COMMENTS
Swami
Sep 13 2018 at 1:04pm
If there are only two states, then it is true that a border requiring you to stay within a state is the equivalent of a border not allowing you entrance into the other.
In an environment with hundreds of competing and cooperating states, there is a vast difference. The states can compete for the admission of value added individuals. This creates a positive dynamic where people develop themselves to be valuable additions and states compete to get and keep the best and brightest.
As I already explained in your original post, open borders is a naive dream which if enacted would undermine the very liberal institutions which attract immigrants in the first place. It would be awesome if the world worked as cleanly as we would like and good intentions grounded on universal libertarian principles could always lead to perfect outcomes. But that isn’t the world we live in, and when libertarians continue to pretend that it is, it causes others to dismiss libertarians as ungrounded dreamers and philosophical utopians.
There are liberal ways to extend liberty and prosperity. And their are liberal paths which will undermine future liberty and prosperity. Truly open borders is, sadly, among the latter.
BC
Sep 13 2018 at 2:29pm
“states can compete for the admission of value added individuals”
Just to be clear, immigration restrictions *prohibit* firms from competing to hire “value added individuals”. I still have yet to hear *any* explanation from immigration restrictionists about why government is better than markets at picking and choosing which immigrants immigrate and yet government is (presumably) worse than markets at determining which natives work and live where.
Swami
Sep 13 2018 at 3:58pm
BC,
See my comment to Boyle. I am not an immigration restrictionist. My argument is against Open Borders. Not the same thing. I have in the past made arguments for employer based sponsoring of immigration. Certainly worth a try.
Let me step back and frame the issue…
There are those who oppose immigration and wish to restrict it altogether.
There are those, like Bryan, who believe all restrictions are wrong for philosophical reasons, and thus must be eliminated altogether as a sacrosanct right.
And there are those who believe immigration is a good thing in general but needs to be controlled to avoid chaos and negative dynamics which could be existential in nature.
Most people are not in the first or second group, they instead are somewhere in the spectrum of the third group. To use an analogy, very few people support no traffic laws, very few support micro management of the law for everything one does while driving. The debate is on what set of parsimonious rules will be used in driving. Granted there is a wide range for debate
Bryan is arguing for the metaphorical equivalent of no traffic rules at all. I am arguing this is a bad idea which will lead to results that proponents will later regret based even on their values.
T Boyle
Sep 13 2018 at 2:13pm
Swami,
If only states actually competed for the admission of value added individuals! Our country is is absolutely determined to keep them out.
Try getting into the US is you are “merely” an engineer, teacher, accountant, dentist, airline pilot, nurse, etc., with an individual income comfortably above the US household average – but are not actually rich or famous. You can’t. And, by the way, it’s reciprocal: if you’re hardworking middle-class American, say, who has always dreamed of living in Paris, Rome, or London, well, that’s just tough.
In many ways, western countries – which steadfastly refuse entry to each others’ middle classes – almost appear to be colluding to prevent competition for value added individuals. Which, from a game theory perspective, assuming a fairly dark view of how those countries see their middle classes (i.e., as livestock), would make sense.
Swami
Sep 13 2018 at 3:45pm
T Boyle,
Thanks for the response. Your reply reminds me of a problem I have run into on other blogs (BHL for example). In my counter to arguments for Open Borders, I find the discussion gets accidentally derailed by those argue for more legal immigration, who think they are arguing with me.
I am staunchly pro immigration. I support higher levels of legal immigration in the US and in other developed nations. My argument is vehemently against no borders at all, because if the existential risk of unlimited numbers of immigrants with massively different culture (including language, norms, religious beliefs, moral standards, hygiene, attitudes toward extended family/clan, and beliefs in individualism and human rights.)
Bryan is giving an argument against borders and is proposing the freedom of people to go anywhere (even within nation states which have defined citizenship based upon place of birth). I am pointing out that regardless of how nice that is in principle, that in reality it could and probably would lead to the demise of liberal states adopting it. It is a self undermining idea. Any state adopting it in modern times with rapid and cheap travel with orders of magnitude differences in living standards risks existential threats to survival as a liberal state.
I strongly support allowing businesses the freedom to hire who they like. The details need to be worked out (perhaps they can bond immigrants they sponsor or whatever). But that is a world of difference from open borders. I also support charter cities, neutral zones of temporary immigration and international pressure for states with emigration to change their domestic institutions.
Ben Kennedy
Sep 13 2018 at 2:14pm
I see. So if I lock my doors at night, I am trapping my neighbor in the cage of his house? Yeah…
Thales
Sep 13 2018 at 3:01pm
You’re “trapping” your neighbor “inside” the “cage” of not-your-house. Apparently, not-your-house is a cage so vast that people “inside” it don’t even realize they’re trapped most of the time — it’s like the Matrix or something…
Ben Kennedy
Sep 15 2018 at 11:34am
If I understand Caplan’s model correctly, the “Guy” is an amalgamation of all countries that bother to enforce borders. The issue is that Caplan’s attack on closed borders, if correct, would also succeed on any theory of private property
Leonard
Sep 13 2018 at 4:25pm
Don’t be absurd. You’re not merely trapping your neighbor in the cage of his house. The crime is much bigger than that! You’re viciously trapping your neighbor in <i>the cage of the entire world outside of your house</i>.
Hazel Meade
Sep 13 2018 at 5:00pm
Girl interjects.
Girl: Excuse me, I would like this person to come work for me on my property. May I open the gate to let him it?
You: Yes please. I would love to come work for you. When do I start?
Guy: What? No. You can’t let him in unless you follow the procedures?
You: Oh what are those procedures?
Guy: Well, first she has to prove that there’s nobody else around in this country who she could hire to do the same job.
You: Well that’s disappointing. That’s a nearly impossible standard to meet.
Girl: What? Who are you to tell me who I can hire?
Guy: We’re the majority. This is a democracy and the majority gets to decide what the rules are.
Girl: What happened to private property?
Guy: The majority gets to decide what you do with your property.
Girl: Oh good. So you’re in favor of public accomodations laws then.
Guy: Well, no. People have a right to not bake cakes for gay weddings.
Girl: But not a right to hire a foreigner.
Guy: Exactly.
Girl: Can I buy a car made in China?
Guy: No, you can’t do that either.
Girl: I’m beginning to think your commitment to liberty is somewhat less than unwavering.
Alina
Sep 14 2018 at 2:10am
But… the caged part of Berlin was *West* Berlin, and West Berliners were in fact free to leave.
John Hare
Sep 14 2018 at 12:18pm
This was the item I kept missing. Thanks.
Robert Simmons
Sep 14 2018 at 10:41am
Bryan, I’m sympathetic to your view, but this is a terrible argument, and I’m surprised that you can’t see that. Show me one person it’s convinced, or even swayed a bit, and I’ll be surprised.
Jay
Sep 14 2018 at 6:14pm
You seem to have intended this as an argument against national territory, but it works just as well as an argument against private property. As Thales noted above, private property restricts the indigent to the cage of “not someone else’s property”, which is a very small cage indeed. It’s a rather problematic argument for a libertarian to make.
Thaomas
Sep 17 2018 at 9:47pm
Libertarians have a problem supporting any immigration policy other than Open Borders because anything less is a Slippery Slope (TM) with “Unintended Consequences” (TM) to … Liberalism. 🙂
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