“Contentious Issues in Classical Liberalism” was the theme of this year’s Mont Pelerin Society. This gave me a chance to explore a major puzzle: Sociologically, immigration clearly deserves to be on the agenda. After all, many people otherwise sympathetic to human freedom and free markets support even more immigration restrictions than we already have. Intellectually, however, it’s hard to see why.
The plot thickens when you notice that pro-freedom immigration skeptics routinely use arguments that almost never use in any other context, starting with:
1. Collective ownership. Yes, if countries are the collective property of their citizens, then they have a right to regulate immigration. But this also implies nations’ right to regulate everything else, too! You can’t live on my land without my consent, but neither can you open a store on my land without my consent, or even hire someone to work on my land for less than the minimum wage without my consent.
2. Collective guilt. Yes, if e.g. foreign Muslims are collectively guilty for whatever wrongs foreign Muslims have done in the past, then immigration restrictions against Muslims would be justified. But this also implies that other people can legitimately hold us collectively guilty for whatever wrongs “we’ve” done in the past. So affirmative action, reparations for slavery and colonialism, returning land to American Indians, and much more are suddenly on the agenda.
3. Shocking anecdotes. Yes, if we ought to take shocking anecdotes seriously, then any awful immigrant action on CNN justifies a major policy response. But this also implies that shocking anecdotes about poverty, health care, worker safety, and the environment on CNN also justify major policy responses.
4. Popular support. Yes, if “This is what citizens want, and they’re entitled to get their way,” then immigration restrictions easily pass muster. But so do virtually all the policies classical liberals traditionally oppose, starting with protectionism and a bunch of price controls.
Unless you’re going to abandon the whole classical liberal framework, basic intellectual hygiene requires you to excise any argument along these lines. What remains? Only arguments claiming that the consequences of immigration are awful enough to overcome the standard classical liberal presumption against government action.
How does that approach fare? See my full presentation to find out. Bonus: A bunch of Zach Weinersmith cartoons!
READER COMMENTS
John Alcorn
Jun 3 2019 at 11:28am
Do Classical Liberals who are immigration skeptics actually routinely use arguments from “collective guilt”?
More likely, they advocate statistical discrimination against, say, Muslims. In doing so, they exhibit either innumeracy or extreme risk-aversion (or both).
Weir
Jun 3 2019 at 9:06pm
I wonder if a lot of people make the argument that males aged 16 to 24 are collectively guilty for whatever wrongs males aged 16 to 24 have done in the past?
I guess some people are making that argument. The more common argument has to do with the statistics, and just extrapolating from there. So if there’s another boom in the number of males aged 16 to 24 that will be correlated with a repeat of what has happened in the past when there was a boom in the number of males aged 16 to 24. It’s not as if the future is completely random and unpredictable.
And if “the past” includes last night’s police blotter, then that’s the extremely recent past. Why not just call it the present? The present tells us something about the future. An honest discussion, with the rhetoric left out, would accept that the statistics for males aged 16 to 24 are bad, worse than the statistics for women at the same age, but that adults can discuss those statistics, and talk about both good things and bad things, because in life things aren’t purely good or purely bad. There are trade-offs, and if you’re honest you acknowledge that. That would be the baseline. That would be the starting point.
Bier
Jun 3 2019 at 1:04pm
I would add #5: “Using more aggressive and broader government intervention to reverse the unintended distortions caused by previous interventions.”
This justification for the ratchet of state regulation is rejected literally everywhere else by free market supporters, but when it comes to the welfare state, many suddenly support regulation of the entire country’s labor market (not mention intrusive controls on housing, car sales, banking, investment, etc) as the best way to reduce the distortions of welfare.
Swami
Jun 3 2019 at 2:52pm
I enjoyed the cartoons, but as a Classical Liberal I need to push back on your logic.
First, most classical liberals, myself included, are for more immigration, not less. Where some of us disagree, vehemently, is with the libertarian anarchy argument for totally open borders, often couched in terms of some vague “right” to freedom (which is never imo adequately explained). I am pretty sure Bryan qualifies as a full Open Border advocate.
The problem with Bryan’s arguments are that he continuously uses arguments that our current levels of immigration do not result in severe problems, therefore the arguments against unlimited migration are wrong. In brief, he is pivoting, Motte and Bailey styled, between arguments against immigration in general and arguments against unlimited immigration, or open borders. The defense that current levels of immigration have not led to disintegration of democracy, or enclaves of illiberalism, or major reductions in pay for unskilled labor,or bankruptcy of the welfare system is in absolutely no way an argument against the dangers of increasing immigration by several orders of magnitude
Let me give the concise argument against open borders. If we eliminate all restrictions on immigration, then the developed nations will be magnets for hundreds of millions of people who have already stated they would prefer to live here than where they are now. This will likely lead to an influx of huge numbers of non-English speaking, illiberal, often clan-based morality people with very low education. Many of these will live in the streets and canyons in the tens of millions, defecating openly and living off panhandling, theft and sponging off the welfare state. See LA for examples of this problem in miniature and multiply by a thousand. Or ten thousand
They will send their kids to school, leading to an explosion in education costs, with limited contribution to the tax base that funds their large families. This will lead to current residents taking their own kids out of these schools and funding their education in duplicate.
The new immigrants will be actively courted by politicians who seek to leverage their numbers in pursuit of political power. This will lead to a further destruction of democracy as these new people will seek to vote themselves goodies from the prior residents (aka the privileged set). Colleges will create new admission systems which discriminate against current residents in favor of these disadvantaged groups, employers will be forced to engage in “affirmative” hiring of these new arrivals, and the welfare state will explode. Progressive pundits will write arrives every day in The NY Times about how inequality and poverty is soaring in the US. They will blame capitalism and the 1% of course.
In response to the above, other politicians will campaign on ending this “invasion”. They will use racist terms and scare people with anecdotes. The response will be either a complete and total backlash against immigration, or the demise of liberal democracy altogether. This will lead to the collapse of free markets, a zero sum mentality of desperation from collapsing governments and the violent death and starvation of billions
Now, I can understand that nothing in the future is certain, and that includes my little prediction above. Societies are complex, dynamic adaptive entities as any student of Hayek can appreciate. As such, maybe everything will play out differently than I describe. But the same goes for Bryan’s sunny projections. Thus the only way to know for sure is to experiment. Allow a few (IMO crazy) locales to try open borders and “prove” that it works. If they do so, I truly hope they are right. Really. I think it would be swell if everything worked out great, and I promise to change my opinion.
Absent said experiments, I remain extremely suspect, and considering the downside (the destruction of human progress) of true Open Borders, I am strongly opposed.
Thaomas
Jun 3 2019 at 5:28pm
While there are many arguments about why things would PROBABLY not be nearly so bad as you paint (I suspect with some deliberate exaggeration), it still agree that it seems prudent to liberalize immigration a bit at a time. Set some merit criteria that will get us say a million additional immigrants per year for a few years and see what happens. If all goes well — this will be a multi-dimension judgement about economics, politics culture — lower the standard a bit. Ultimately this is a cost-benefit plan in which we discover the marginal costs and benefits at the margin.
Swami
Jun 4 2019 at 10:28am
Thaomas, I concur. I strongly support incremental expansions of immigration, such as for those with job sponsors (as an example).
The “Open Borders” arguments are functionally self negating in any real world situation.
Jim Dunning
Jun 3 2019 at 11:15pm
Based on this, I suspect we should be screening all arrivals at IAD for all flights from LAX for English language capability, criminal records, and job skills.
Swami
Jun 4 2019 at 10:32am
Jim,
I fail to see why this follows. Indeed, the comment seems to lack all seriousness. I would gladly join or create a society with free movement within the society for members, while also gladly joining a society which limits members in a way which rejects new members who would destroy the society. Think about it.
Starchild
Jun 5 2019 at 3:12am
Swami, your argument appears to exclusively take the perspective of people currently living in a “destination country”.
This is something I’ve noticed with most arguments in favor of Big Government border controls and restrictions on freedom of movement. They don’t even attempt to look at the situation objectively, taking into consideration the well-being of everyone. The effects of proposed policies on the people who are or will be most directly impacted by those policies isn’t just downplayed, it is typically ignored altogether.
To use a historical analogy, this is like arguing against ending plantation slavery by talking exclusively about the negative consequences that freeing large numbers of slaves might have on those who are already free. Focusing on feared outcomes like the prospect of more workers competing for jobs and driving down wages, new voters who might have different values entering the electorate, some politicians seeking to manipulate these new voters to advance statist policies, the possibility of more people turning to public assistance, etc., while saying nothing about the rights of the slaves, how their lives would likely change for the better or the worse under various policies, or what would be in the overall interests of fairness and justice.
Lest anyone think the comparison with plantation slavery is far-fetched, consider the parallels: Advocates of nationalist Big Government border controls are essentially arguing that people ought to be tied by birth to a particular “plantation” (government jurisdiction, i.e. country). That even if their masters who control this “plantation” treat them badly, they have no inherent right to leave this piece of land – their ability to do so being entirely subject to the whims of the other “plantation owners”. The people who, usually through little or no fault of their own, live on “plantations” with bad masters, are disproportionately black or brown-skinned, poor, and uneducated. When some of them are taken in by new “plantation owners”, family members are often involuntarily separated.
Any philosophy of “liberty” that excludes some members of the human family from consideration based on circumstances over which they have no control, is unworthy of the name.
Thaomas
Jun 3 2019 at 5:14pm
Is this true? Granted that even one is one too “many,” but does “many” mean >10%? >30% >50? For Liberals, at least, my guess is <10% and my limited reading in the comments sections here, Bleeding Heart Libertarians, and Cafe Hayak don’t show a lot of opposition to increases in immigration. Granted Marginal Revolution is think with alt Right trolls, but is that where your estimate of “many” comes from?
Mark Z
Jun 5 2019 at 5:32am
I’m guessing Bryan would not group most people identified as liberals as ‘pro-free market.’ And I’d agree. BLH and the Adam Smith Institute are out there, but they’re decidedly minorities.
Speaking relatively, and certainly from the perspective of one who has a relatively extreme position like Bryan’s, it’s a fair contention that immigration is one of the most salient exceptions made among people otherwise critical of state control. (By contrast: it’d be hard to find a person libertarian in other respects but favors illegal marijuana, or strict occupational licensing)
SamChevre
Jun 3 2019 at 6:21pm
My objection to immigration is an objection to immigration imposing costs on existing citizens.
I’d be perfectly happy to admit an unlimited number of immigrants, so long as someone–anyone–was committed to them not being a public burden. But that’s a much higher bar than most immigrants meet. Today, 42% of immigrants are part of households that rely on means-tested benefits–but the remaining 58% are still largely paying less than the costs to the public the pose.
US total government spending is around $20,000 per person, per year. If someone is willing to sponsor an immigrant, and for them and all their dependents make up any difference between the $20,000 of government spending they account for and the total taxes they pay (including sales tax, FICA, etc), I would support them regardless of how many immigrants that allowed.
Matthias Görgens
Jun 4 2019 at 9:20am
Handing out (near) unlimited work visa for everyone under the conditions that they have a job and won’t get any welfare would indeed be a huge leg up from the status quo. It would get most of the economic benefits of free migration.
(You can still have other visa categories in addition. Eg for rich investors, or geniuses or asylum for persecuted people.)
Jonathan S
Jun 4 2019 at 9:23am
You are forgetting to add the economic benefit of migrants that wouldn’t have occurred otherwise, which is almost certainly greater than a migrant’s net cost on the government. Here is a recent breakdown of the numbers: https://www.cato.org/blog/fairs-fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-study-fatally-flawed
Mark Z
Jun 5 2019 at 5:42am
Those numbers aren’t that remarkable compared to Americans in general: 36% of households receive some means tested benefit, and 52% of households with children. If immigrant households are more likely to have children, this may not be disproportionate at all.
I got my numbers from the first site that showed up in my google search: https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/521-percent-kids-live-households-getting-means-tested-government
Mark Brady
Jun 3 2019 at 10:40pm
Bryan, in your presentation you state that,
• Standard trade models say that this regulation has enormous deadweight costs.
• Huge price wedge (often 1000%+)=> ≈50% reduction in Gross World Product
Please provide a link to the scholarship that supports this bold statement so that we can understand the assumptions and analysis that lie behind this assertion.
Walt
Jun 4 2019 at 12:36am
Swami, aside from whatever Caplan’s views are with regard to total open borders, this particular post is not an argument for it. Instead, it is a post identifying the *stupid reasons* typically cited against it. In particular, it is a reductio ad absurdum of those reasons. Suppose someone says “Obama is no longer president.” Now suppose I ask the person his reasons for believing this, and he replies “an astrologer told me.” Even though he is correct that Obama is no longer president, the reason he cites for his belief is a dumb reason because astrology is not a reliable way to find out the truth. Neither I, nor Caplan, would say because his reason is dumb “therefore we should think Obama is still president” or “therefore we should have total open borders.”
Similarly, if someone offers a bad argument against the existence of God, it doesn’t follow that we should believe God exists. It only means his argument against the existence of God is a poor one.
Swami
Jun 4 2019 at 10:23am
Walt, I would agree that there are some really bad arguments against immigration. My comment took the liberty of expanding the conversation (based on Bryan’s links) that his arguments for Open Borders (not to be confused with more immigration) are similarly deficient.
Henry
Jun 4 2019 at 12:50am
I think the crucial factor is the linkage of immigration status and political rights in modern democracies such as the U.S. (different dynamics apply in places like the Gulf States and Singapore where this does not apply). In order to maintain a classically liberal society the voters must be classically liberal. This is also a reason why classical liberals frequently favored restricted suffrage in the 19th century. Also, the economic case for low-skilled immigration (the vast majority of immigration under true open borders) breaks down when a welfare state exists.
Matthias Görgens
Jun 4 2019 at 9:22am
I am not sure what you are trying to say?
In any case, I don’t think anyone is arguing for giving migrants voting rights just for showing up.
The discussion is about whether you want to restrict your citizens from renting to foreigners and employing them.
Starchild
Jun 5 2019 at 3:23am
One of the slogans of the American Revolution (which was actually a war of secession, not a revolution) was “No Taxation Without Representation”. According to this foundational American principle, if immigrants are legally required to pay taxes, they should absolutely have the legal right to vote.
Henry
Jun 4 2019 at 1:06am
It’s also important to understand why the cultural Marxist left supports open borders. It isn’t in order to achieve a win-win like Caplan’s conception but to effect a global redistribution of wealth by exploitation of the developed country through welfare and affirmative action. It’s based on a conviction that wealth is zero-sum and Lenin’s flawed theory of imperialism in particular.
Thaomas
Jun 6 2019 at 11:59am
Amazing insight into the collective mind of “cultural Marxist left” if such a thing exists.
Now can we get back to discussing arguments for greater immigration that may or may not justify unlimited immigration.
Mark Z
Jun 4 2019 at 1:13am
I think you may neglect the most compelling reason for some classical liberals’ skepticism of unrestricted immigration: democracy. In a democratic polity, every new entrant will be able to impose their will on you in the voting booth. Whether one believes being shackled to the will of the majority confers any moral right to regulate entry, it does make who comes and goes directly relevant to what rights one enjoys. Now, I don’t currently popular applications of this class of argument are without flaws, but it’s certainly a valid argument.
Another argument, though not necessarily a peculiarly classical liberal one, is that there are game theoretic reasons why an increase in the turnover rate of the population of a community will erode useful spontaneous social and economic conventions. The cultivation of norms that lead people to treat each other well depends, in part at least, on repeated interactions, which imposes future costs on bad behavior now. However, lots of migration (be it intranational or international) increases the inconsistency of one’s social interactions across time, making cooperation less beneficial and ‘defection’ (to use the prisoner’s dilemma term) more appealing. This seems like a good explanation for why immigration may reduce social trust. In short, migration may have negative social externalities. I don’t know whether this has been studied empirically, it’d be interesting to see whether people who move around a lot deviate more from useful social conventions, or if communities with higher resident turnover rate have weaker social conventions (e.g., higher rates of theft, disputes, lower rates of mutually beneficial cooperation).
Niko Davor
Jun 6 2019 at 1:19am
I feel that I can present the pro-open borders response to this specific issue well
Caplan advocates against voting entirely. Foreigners shouldn’t tell you what to do through voting, but fellow citizens shouldn’t either. And open borders is a way to undermine the premise of democracy style voting.
Mark Z
Jun 7 2019 at 4:18am
While open borders may undermine the logic of democracy, I doubt it would undermine it in practice. Rather, one could argue that this simply means a country should become less democratic (more ‘constitutional,’ ideally) in order for open borders to be more viable, not the other way around.
Niko Davor
Jun 6 2019 at 1:16am
One big argument against open borders that isn’t listed or mentioned is that normal humans care deeply about their identity and culture. Open Borders expects some people to have their identity and privilege shrink while others grow. I don’t see that as reasonable. I believe Caplan when he says he doesn’t personally have attachments to ethnic or national or religious identity or culture. But his entire career is within a
fully government owned university system that is all about culture and exclusion. He defends his own government protected non-market culture and privilege, he’s just expecting others to forfeit theirs.
Mark Z
Jun 7 2019 at 4:27am
For a bit of a role reversal: I think Bryan might point out that his culture is a voluntary, chosen one (you may of course point out that it wasn’t voluntary for taxpayers to help subsidize it, but I think this isn’t an essential point; one could as easily seek out like-minded private institutions or people who and work and live among them). Cultural identity is not a voluntary group. To preserve homogeneity with respect to an identity is to control what others do – to prevent people who one deems culturally similar from leaving, to prevent people one deems as culturally different from coming. To use the state toward such an end is to assert that some commonality confers a right to have a say in another person’s decision. If an Italian living in an Italian neighborhood wants to move elsewhere and sell his house to German, does he need the permission of the other Italians in the neighborhood to do so, because the identity of the neighborhood is some form of common asset?
Bedarz Iliachi
Jun 6 2019 at 3:57am
Collective ownership?
What kind of thing it is? Is it a standard part of economics theory?
How is the national territory being a collective property related to private properties that are embedded in the national territory.
Private property is real. We encounter it every day.But collective property?
Is it a figment of liberals or Caplan? It is not even a coherent concept.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Jun 6 2019 at 11:59am
Party at Bryan’s place this Saturday. Dibs on the Guinness and the couch after 2 a.m.
Malcolm Kirkpatrick
Jun 7 2019 at 2:40am
Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and Vaclav Klaus disagree.
Nations are experiments in legal organization. Open borders destroy valuable information. Also, the common property of a nation is the property of the citizens of that nation, not of Earth’s entire human population. If you buy a share of McDonald’s stock, it’s still theft to give everything in the store to street people.
All life on Earth descended from a common ancestor. Locusts are distant cousins.
Please read Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons”, _Science_, 1968
Why did you delete my earlier argument? I was neither hostile nor vulgar.
Keith
Jun 16 2019 at 9:39am
Does on-the-ground recognition and enforcement of individual liberty rights require some threshold level of social cohesion?
Are we at levels of immigration that reduce our social cohesion to a level below that threshold?
Comments are closed.