Caplan, as per the often, hasn't actually engaged with any of the real arguments here.
1) Givewell directly compares all interventions with giving cash directly, come on, this is due diligence 101
2) Yes, obviously, economic growth is best for reducing poverty. The problem is *we don't reliably know how to make that happen*; even if you're confident in the policies required, you cannot possibly be confident in your ability to persuade dysfunctional governments to adopt those policies, and as far as we can tell there is no 'bottom', no amount of shitty outcomes that makes bad governments reconsider.
3) Literally every EA-adjacent person I'm aware of is pro immigration. The problem is the political reality that the people who most desperately need help are going to be bottom on most countries' immigration priorities, and Western countries immigration tolerance seems to be somewhere below 1-2% of population per year.
The "effective" part involves checking if your solutions actually work in practice.
Even though I don't endorse how aggressive this write up is in places I agree with all 3 points and would love to hear Bryan's response.
For 3, for example, Bryan knows how hard it is to get his pro immigration agenda over the line given political realities. I'm very convinced by his arguments here and would love something like much more open borders. As someone who is trying to do the most good with my time and money, does Bryan think that on the margin I should be dedicating my time to pro-immigration work?
Yeah that's fair I was a bit salty, suppose I'm just a bit annoyed at Caplan not engaging with the many good counterpoints people consistently make. He's occasionally got interesting ideas but is unfortunately not intellectual serious or rigorous, so it's a fine balance for me to remain engaged.
100% agree with this. Also, the main thing EAs stereotypically support (high EV public health interventions) also enables potential future immigration or economic growth: a person can't immigrate or enjoy higher material prosperity if they're dead.
Immigration causes declines in wages for all (skilled and unskilled alike). Many of its (indigenous) victims may (a) cease being productive; and (b) choose public-relief options for maintaining their incomes/consumption levels. Those who do, revert to the "direct-transfer" mode of sustenance decried in the article we're commenting on. Those who eschew relief consume less (e.g., become homeless) and/or work harder to compete with immigrants.
Well it shows the immorality of tariffs. Not only do they act as an inefficient and regressive tax on your own people but they help condemn poor people in other countries to poverty. One reason why Henry George despised them.
Very powerful arguments. So, I’ll echo a tiny bit of Arbituram’s criticism, but perhaps more positively: what mechanism could we build to ease our way toward an economically efficient “transaction machine” that can identify those willing to work and those willing to engage, condition entry/remainder on a successful consummation of that transaction, perhaps stair step people into full eligibility for societal benefits, etc. It’s very clear that the realities of the Merkel-Biden approach to immigration are exceptionally negative. And how do we export the “free market” concepts in a constructive way to other countries. We and Europe, Korea and Japan, cannot sustain the 6 billion who don’t live in China and India.
I like the economic theory, but how can it work in practice? How can an electorate battered by historically terrible immigration policies be educated to try a better way?
I would say that a good method is to start businesses in those foreign countries. Find ways to "exploit" them. That has been the most consistent method of economic growth for poor countries in the past century: farm workers start working in factories making things for foreigners, first low value items but increasingly higher value as skills increase, then they start their own businesses etc. until they hit the limit of what their government will allow.
Once you are hard constrained by governmental issues, I don't know that there is a good way out other than hoping that the people find a way to get a better government, but the low end is achievable for foreigners to do.
Almost all ethnic groups entering the US are over-educated (ie have higher education than the average American):
In Europe being pro immigration is purely a political position (generally pro immigration advocates are economic- and financial illiterates - like most progressives).
Being pro immigration no matter what (selection at the gate, education levels, culture ((un))fit, crime stats of incumbent ethnicities etc) equals being a good person. And having doubts, however backed up by data, has you identified as a racist pretty quickly. But almost all EU immigrant groups are UNDER educated. And it shows for many in the results when it comes to labor participation and welfare benefits stats.
And while racism is typically used to explain immigrant inequality and unemployment - by both immigrants and progressives - the outcomes for several ethnicities differ greatly: east Europeans, Chinese, South Americans, Ghanaians, Indians are doing fine in terms of employment and general integration.
Some other ethnicities, which score (much) lower on employment (perhaps you should better say 'score low on KEEPING a job / score low on social skills, work with women' etc) are much more prevalent in the crime stats. Replace the hundreds of thousands of North Africans and Middle easterners for (more) Ghanaians or Indians and you'll see crime rates plummet...
Violent crime in my western European country is now almost entirely a N African thing (ok, THERE there is integration). These days, next to the introduction of AK 47s for shootouts, heavy explosives are also greatly appreciated (see also Sweden, Denmark, Germany etc). Big cities each experience hundreds of explosions annually in working and middle class neighborhoods. Sometimes half a block gets blasted - these criminals aren't that knowledgeable…
The UK has found a unique way to solve its immigration and crime crisis. After having accorded some forms of Sharia law years ago, and after pioneering lower sentencing for honor killings of women by Muslim families because of the cultural pressures they experienced (sic) (around 2005 the UK legal community got a bit tougher again), they are now trying to introduce two tier justice: https://x.com/StarkNakedBrief/status/1907116499673682415
Labour, although ideologically aligned to these ideas, understands it must prevent the sentencing board from achieving its objective as the backlash against Starmer’s gov grows and grows.
The working class neighborhood I grew up- and still live in is now completely atomized: the whole world lives there. Many for just a few years. Throughout working- and middle class neighborhoods you see the newest additions to the immigrant mix: groups of young Syrian and Eritrean men hanging around - they 'fled' conscription in their countries and obviously a western European welfare state is by far the most comfortable destination.
Caplan, as per the often, hasn't actually engaged with any of the real arguments here.
1) Givewell directly compares all interventions with giving cash directly, come on, this is due diligence 101
2) Yes, obviously, economic growth is best for reducing poverty. The problem is *we don't reliably know how to make that happen*; even if you're confident in the policies required, you cannot possibly be confident in your ability to persuade dysfunctional governments to adopt those policies, and as far as we can tell there is no 'bottom', no amount of shitty outcomes that makes bad governments reconsider.
3) Literally every EA-adjacent person I'm aware of is pro immigration. The problem is the political reality that the people who most desperately need help are going to be bottom on most countries' immigration priorities, and Western countries immigration tolerance seems to be somewhere below 1-2% of population per year.
The "effective" part involves checking if your solutions actually work in practice.
Even though I don't endorse how aggressive this write up is in places I agree with all 3 points and would love to hear Bryan's response.
For 3, for example, Bryan knows how hard it is to get his pro immigration agenda over the line given political realities. I'm very convinced by his arguments here and would love something like much more open borders. As someone who is trying to do the most good with my time and money, does Bryan think that on the margin I should be dedicating my time to pro-immigration work?
Yeah that's fair I was a bit salty, suppose I'm just a bit annoyed at Caplan not engaging with the many good counterpoints people consistently make. He's occasionally got interesting ideas but is unfortunately not intellectual serious or rigorous, so it's a fine balance for me to remain engaged.
100% agree with this. Also, the main thing EAs stereotypically support (high EV public health interventions) also enables potential future immigration or economic growth: a person can't immigrate or enjoy higher material prosperity if they're dead.
Immigration causes declines in wages for all (skilled and unskilled alike). Many of its (indigenous) victims may (a) cease being productive; and (b) choose public-relief options for maintaining their incomes/consumption levels. Those who do, revert to the "direct-transfer" mode of sustenance decried in the article we're commenting on. Those who eschew relief consume less (e.g., become homeless) and/or work harder to compete with immigrants.
Well it shows the immorality of tariffs. Not only do they act as an inefficient and regressive tax on your own people but they help condemn poor people in other countries to poverty. One reason why Henry George despised them.
Very powerful arguments. So, I’ll echo a tiny bit of Arbituram’s criticism, but perhaps more positively: what mechanism could we build to ease our way toward an economically efficient “transaction machine” that can identify those willing to work and those willing to engage, condition entry/remainder on a successful consummation of that transaction, perhaps stair step people into full eligibility for societal benefits, etc. It’s very clear that the realities of the Merkel-Biden approach to immigration are exceptionally negative. And how do we export the “free market” concepts in a constructive way to other countries. We and Europe, Korea and Japan, cannot sustain the 6 billion who don’t live in China and India.
I like the economic theory, but how can it work in practice? How can an electorate battered by historically terrible immigration policies be educated to try a better way?
I would say that a good method is to start businesses in those foreign countries. Find ways to "exploit" them. That has been the most consistent method of economic growth for poor countries in the past century: farm workers start working in factories making things for foreigners, first low value items but increasingly higher value as skills increase, then they start their own businesses etc. until they hit the limit of what their government will allow.
Once you are hard constrained by governmental issues, I don't know that there is a good way out other than hoping that the people find a way to get a better government, but the low end is achievable for foreigners to do.
Only an economist can leave out all other items that matter to produce his preferred final product: a sterilized world view.
This data-rich essay breaks down US vs EU immigrants, their education and their outcomes.
The Mirage of America's Special Sauce Theory
https://www.philippelemoine.com/p/the-mirage-of-americas-special-sauce
Almost all ethnic groups entering the US are over-educated (ie have higher education than the average American):
In Europe being pro immigration is purely a political position (generally pro immigration advocates are economic- and financial illiterates - like most progressives).
Being pro immigration no matter what (selection at the gate, education levels, culture ((un))fit, crime stats of incumbent ethnicities etc) equals being a good person. And having doubts, however backed up by data, has you identified as a racist pretty quickly. But almost all EU immigrant groups are UNDER educated. And it shows for many in the results when it comes to labor participation and welfare benefits stats.
And while racism is typically used to explain immigrant inequality and unemployment - by both immigrants and progressives - the outcomes for several ethnicities differ greatly: east Europeans, Chinese, South Americans, Ghanaians, Indians are doing fine in terms of employment and general integration.
Some other ethnicities, which score (much) lower on employment (perhaps you should better say 'score low on KEEPING a job / score low on social skills, work with women' etc) are much more prevalent in the crime stats. Replace the hundreds of thousands of North Africans and Middle easterners for (more) Ghanaians or Indians and you'll see crime rates plummet...
Violent crime in my western European country is now almost entirely a N African thing (ok, THERE there is integration). These days, next to the introduction of AK 47s for shootouts, heavy explosives are also greatly appreciated (see also Sweden, Denmark, Germany etc). Big cities each experience hundreds of explosions annually in working and middle class neighborhoods. Sometimes half a block gets blasted - these criminals aren't that knowledgeable…
The UK has found a unique way to solve its immigration and crime crisis. After having accorded some forms of Sharia law years ago, and after pioneering lower sentencing for honor killings of women by Muslim families because of the cultural pressures they experienced (sic) (around 2005 the UK legal community got a bit tougher again), they are now trying to introduce two tier justice: https://x.com/StarkNakedBrief/status/1907116499673682415
Labour, although ideologically aligned to these ideas, understands it must prevent the sentencing board from achieving its objective as the backlash against Starmer’s gov grows and grows.
The working class neighborhood I grew up- and still live in is now completely atomized: the whole world lives there. Many for just a few years. Throughout working- and middle class neighborhoods you see the newest additions to the immigrant mix: groups of young Syrian and Eritrean men hanging around - they 'fled' conscription in their countries and obviously a western European welfare state is by far the most comfortable destination.
Can this teach us anything about the effectiveness of efforts to combat poverty in America?