This is a silly argument, and you used a bunch of preposterous examples to support it.
If ever a libertarian society were established, it would have to go to great pains to maintain that freedom. One of the measures that would be necessary, because we definitely do not live in a libertarian world, is immigration control. This doesn’t infringe on the rights of actual citizens AND it prevents being overrun with those whose worldview may not - in fact certainly DO NOT - agree with libertarian principles. To think otherwise is childish naivety.
What a stupid fucking argument. A society isn’t libertarian unless it imports friends for you? You would live in a free society and still bitch that it’s not free enough if you can’t “associate”, specifically, with people you don’t know from other countries? C’mon man. Stop trying to prove your purism with garbage theoretical logic.
We import goods, not people; societies don't import, individuals and organizations do; and someone does not have to be my friend for me to want to associate with them. If I was writing at that level of nonsense, I would have deserved the harsh words.
One of the defining characteristics of a right is that it has no arbitrary limits. "You can associate with anyone WhatWillisWasTalkingAbout says you can" is not a right.
Incidentally, I have not found much correlation between derision and cogency.
I thought of a way that, even an An-Cap Libertopia (tm) could be less open to the immigration than, say, Canada is now.
Currently, Canadian law prohibits discrimination based on immigration status. For example, a private employer cannot discriminate against permanent residence holders vs citizens. In fact, they can't even discriminate against temporary work permit holders, even though, such discrimination may be sensible if you're looking to hire an employee for the long term. Ironically, the government itself can and does routinely discriminate in favour of hiring Canadian citizens for government jobs.
One could imagine a world hwhere the government is not stopping any employer from hiring foreign-born employees. But employers have such an anti-foreign bias that most of them choose not to. For some immigrants who would have been accepted for legal immigration in the old system, it's not HARDER to work in Canada than before.
So, yea, if you have a libertarian country filled with un-libertarian people, it could be bad. Very, very bad.
> Out of all the conceivable forms of statism for freedom, why oh why are immigration restrictions the exception you’re swiftest to condone?
Maybe because immigration in its current form became another statist tool of social control?
Uncontrolled immigration would be bearable (& acceptable) if there was no 'safety net' at all: then those immigrants who couldn't make a living under their own steam would migrate back (or elsewhere), thus ensuring that those who stay participate productively in the economy. (Even then those who make a living by engaging in criminal enterprises would pose a problem.)
Immigration restrictions are a necessary policy in an environment where immigrants can become a public charge from day one. Sure it isn't a libertarian policy preference; but neither is the unqualified provision of public goods which disincentivize (some) immigrants (to some extent) to engage in gainful employment or entrepreneurship.
OK, this has nothing to do with immigration, per se. I'm for Open Borders, like you, Dr. Caplan. You don't need to convince me on that.
But I am skeptical of libertarianism on some things. For one: I fear that libertarianism can lead to less free speech. For example, you are generally allowed to protest on government property, like sidewalks, diba? But not on private property, like malls, diba? Libertarianism calls for the privatization of public property. So even sidewalks would be privatized. You can't protest on the sidewalks inside Disney World... So you might not be able to protest on any privatized sidewalks. So, libertarianism might make you LESS free.
This is hwhy I'm careful not to attach myself too much to the "libertarian" label. I call myself "libertarian-ish" cause I believe libertarianism should be tried, but I'm ready to abandon libertarianism if it's just not working.
In 2019, Kaufmann conducted an interesting experiment with British students. Before asking students to ask whether we should prioritize freedom of speech or the feelings of people who would be made uncomfortable by certain expressions, Kaufmann
---
asked a third to read a passage in favor of academic freedom, a third to read about the importance of protecting minority groups from harmful speech, and a third to read nothing. … students who read the free speech paragraph shifted some fifteen points toward the free speech position. It turns out that even a short paragraph can swing opinion among a third of students. Reading about harmful speech, however, had a much bigger impact on young women than young men, shifting women fourteen points toward emotional safety compared to a mere two points among men. p. 293
---
This suggests that young people can be influenced by how they are taught.
We live in a world of nation states. This may be regrettable, but it's a fact. I would argue that there's a difference between taking action within a country, which might impinge on libertarian values, and taking similar action at a country's borders. Of course, this doesn't mean such action is right: only that there may be a relevant difference as far as your analogies are concerned. In addition, if a nation state is following non-libertarian principles, it may well be the case that additional immigration worsens the liberty situation of existing inhabitants.
Well said. Immigration is core to libertarianism - it is freedom of movement, which, like freedom of trade & equal to it makes a free society. Of course you can have freedom of movement & trade and still not be free, but it is a lot harder, because as soon as they try to restrict other rights, people up & leave. And the better a place is, the more people move there. Anyone who calls themselves libertarian but is anti-immigration is not libertarian at all, but perhaps corporatist/oligarchic.
the reason to oppose open-borders immigration is the same reason to oppose those other policies: because they'd deleteriously affect the character of the nation--and the very reason there's anything worth fighting for
If libertarianism encourages strong protection of private propert, is not most of interesting part of the nation on private property? Can you refuse to let immigrants step foot on private property? And do libertarians support taxing private property and labor to support Free Riders, or can we just ignore them and let them starve?
My quasi-argument for "immigration" has always been to build a big difficult to penetrate wall around the country and let anyone who can get in stay. This would be coupled with taking all 18-year-olds and dropping them 500 or so miles outside of the wall with minimal resources (I used to say their every day clothing (one set), a change of underwear, and a $20 bill), and if they make their way back inside the wall on their own, they get to stay, too.
It's a riff on the Panshins' novel "Rite of Passage."
Basically if you want to 'join' a culture and enjoy the benefits of the culture, you have to be tested and earn your way in.
Ok that was fun. The blessing of immigration are real. The weight and danger of open immigration is also there. All immigrants will bring with them their view of what government should be. Most view that the rich should subsidize the poor - socialism. Yet they seem to fail to understand that is what they fled. Heck, we have that problems with the folks from CA - woke, liberal, clueless, and the drive like $h!+. Rather a noice 7 year path to full citizenship which would include lcasses on government, economics, ethics and yes English. English open all of citizenship to you it is the language of empowerment, just as French would be if you moved to France.
I side with Caplan, but maybe it is just bias. If playing this game was worth it, that would mean that most of the other things I know must be wrong (not impossible). But that does not amount to saying that there is some other viable path from the status quo to a world that makes sense. While immigration contributes to lots of problems, It looks overblown to say that fixing immigration would fix the country in some significant sense. From that viewpoint, immigration reform looks like a distraction.
(1) None of these other policies has the remotest chance of being adopted. As a practical matter, why *advocate* such a policy? In contrast, restrictions on immigration are popular, and are in place now, and might realistically be tweaked.
(2) If you view the U.S. as a semi-libertarian country in a thoroughly statist world, and statism/libertarianism as passed down from parents to children, then immigration restrictions into the U.S. are mere *self-defense*. Keep the statists *and their statist descendants* out!
"2. Discourage fertility of less libertarian groups."
I prefer encouraging fertility amongst pro-liberty groups, which could largely be achieved by reducing their tax burden. This might require higher taxes on the non-reproductive.
As to subsidizing birth control, this is already current policy in most countries. Insurance will pay for it.
Does Bryan object to the idea of cutting welfare payments to poor people who have lots of kids? Is that "un-libertarian"?
"3. Censor statist ideas."
Bryan has defended the censorship regime of Singapore, which allows free speech up to the point. They don't allow demagoguery, but will allow people to engage in meaningful policy criticism.
"4. Subsidize vacations for less libertarian groups on election day."
Bryan has advocated that such groups shouldn't be able to vote at all many times, which he calls "keyhole solutions".
---
Looking at the list at least half of it Bryan endorses. Singapore's guest worker program even verges on One Child Policy (women are given pregnancy tests monthly and deported if they are pregnant).
Anyway, the broader answer is "maintaining the border is politically and logistically easy to do, implementing a one child policy or racial apartheid is a lot harder." One is realistic to achieve with popular support, the other not so much.
I’m an AnCap, but do not invite the rest of the world to come stay in my home. While it makes sense to encourage immigration for entrepreneurs looking to build businesses in the US and workers needed to fill jobs that Americans cannot or will not perform, there are reasonable arguments to bar immigrants unable to support themselves and likely to burden our already overstretched Welfare State.
This is a silly argument, and you used a bunch of preposterous examples to support it.
If ever a libertarian society were established, it would have to go to great pains to maintain that freedom. One of the measures that would be necessary, because we definitely do not live in a libertarian world, is immigration control. This doesn’t infringe on the rights of actual citizens AND it prevents being overrun with those whose worldview may not - in fact certainly DO NOT - agree with libertarian principles. To think otherwise is childish naivety.
Immigration restrictions infringe on my right to associate with people from other countries.
Hahaha not a “right”
You yourself implied a libertarian society with rights. If I don't have the right to freely associate, it's not libertarian.
What a stupid fucking argument. A society isn’t libertarian unless it imports friends for you? You would live in a free society and still bitch that it’s not free enough if you can’t “associate”, specifically, with people you don’t know from other countries? C’mon man. Stop trying to prove your purism with garbage theoretical logic.
We import goods, not people; societies don't import, individuals and organizations do; and someone does not have to be my friend for me to want to associate with them. If I was writing at that level of nonsense, I would have deserved the harsh words.
One of the defining characteristics of a right is that it has no arbitrary limits. "You can associate with anyone WhatWillisWasTalkingAbout says you can" is not a right.
Incidentally, I have not found much correlation between derision and cogency.
No? Ok well keep looking. There’s a strong one in cases where the point being made is this ridiculous.
I thought of a way that, even an An-Cap Libertopia (tm) could be less open to the immigration than, say, Canada is now.
Currently, Canadian law prohibits discrimination based on immigration status. For example, a private employer cannot discriminate against permanent residence holders vs citizens. In fact, they can't even discriminate against temporary work permit holders, even though, such discrimination may be sensible if you're looking to hire an employee for the long term. Ironically, the government itself can and does routinely discriminate in favour of hiring Canadian citizens for government jobs.
One could imagine a world hwhere the government is not stopping any employer from hiring foreign-born employees. But employers have such an anti-foreign bias that most of them choose not to. For some immigrants who would have been accepted for legal immigration in the old system, it's not HARDER to work in Canada than before.
So, yea, if you have a libertarian country filled with un-libertarian people, it could be bad. Very, very bad.
> Out of all the conceivable forms of statism for freedom, why oh why are immigration restrictions the exception you’re swiftest to condone?
Maybe because immigration in its current form became another statist tool of social control?
Uncontrolled immigration would be bearable (& acceptable) if there was no 'safety net' at all: then those immigrants who couldn't make a living under their own steam would migrate back (or elsewhere), thus ensuring that those who stay participate productively in the economy. (Even then those who make a living by engaging in criminal enterprises would pose a problem.)
Immigration restrictions are a necessary policy in an environment where immigrants can become a public charge from day one. Sure it isn't a libertarian policy preference; but neither is the unqualified provision of public goods which disincentivize (some) immigrants (to some extent) to engage in gainful employment or entrepreneurship.
OK, this has nothing to do with immigration, per se. I'm for Open Borders, like you, Dr. Caplan. You don't need to convince me on that.
But I am skeptical of libertarianism on some things. For one: I fear that libertarianism can lead to less free speech. For example, you are generally allowed to protest on government property, like sidewalks, diba? But not on private property, like malls, diba? Libertarianism calls for the privatization of public property. So even sidewalks would be privatized. You can't protest on the sidewalks inside Disney World... So you might not be able to protest on any privatized sidewalks. So, libertarianism might make you LESS free.
This is hwhy I'm careful not to attach myself too much to the "libertarian" label. I call myself "libertarian-ish" cause I believe libertarianism should be tried, but I'm ready to abandon libertarianism if it's just not working.
Will no one rid us of these damnable utilitarians?
"1. Make public schools teach libertarianism."
Funny enough, Arnold reviews a book that makes this point.
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/the-woke-virus-and-its-hosts
In 2019, Kaufmann conducted an interesting experiment with British students. Before asking students to ask whether we should prioritize freedom of speech or the feelings of people who would be made uncomfortable by certain expressions, Kaufmann
---
asked a third to read a passage in favor of academic freedom, a third to read about the importance of protecting minority groups from harmful speech, and a third to read nothing. … students who read the free speech paragraph shifted some fifteen points toward the free speech position. It turns out that even a short paragraph can swing opinion among a third of students. Reading about harmful speech, however, had a much bigger impact on young women than young men, shifting women fourteen points toward emotional safety compared to a mere two points among men. p. 293
---
This suggests that young people can be influenced by how they are taught.
We live in a world of nation states. This may be regrettable, but it's a fact. I would argue that there's a difference between taking action within a country, which might impinge on libertarian values, and taking similar action at a country's borders. Of course, this doesn't mean such action is right: only that there may be a relevant difference as far as your analogies are concerned. In addition, if a nation state is following non-libertarian principles, it may well be the case that additional immigration worsens the liberty situation of existing inhabitants.
Well said. Immigration is core to libertarianism - it is freedom of movement, which, like freedom of trade & equal to it makes a free society. Of course you can have freedom of movement & trade and still not be free, but it is a lot harder, because as soon as they try to restrict other rights, people up & leave. And the better a place is, the more people move there. Anyone who calls themselves libertarian but is anti-immigration is not libertarian at all, but perhaps corporatist/oligarchic.
the reason to oppose open-borders immigration is the same reason to oppose those other policies: because they'd deleteriously affect the character of the nation--and the very reason there's anything worth fighting for
If libertarianism encourages strong protection of private propert, is not most of interesting part of the nation on private property? Can you refuse to let immigrants step foot on private property? And do libertarians support taxing private property and labor to support Free Riders, or can we just ignore them and let them starve?
My quasi-argument for "immigration" has always been to build a big difficult to penetrate wall around the country and let anyone who can get in stay. This would be coupled with taking all 18-year-olds and dropping them 500 or so miles outside of the wall with minimal resources (I used to say their every day clothing (one set), a change of underwear, and a $20 bill), and if they make their way back inside the wall on their own, they get to stay, too.
It's a riff on the Panshins' novel "Rite of Passage."
Basically if you want to 'join' a culture and enjoy the benefits of the culture, you have to be tested and earn your way in.
Maybe 75% kojing.
Ok that was fun. The blessing of immigration are real. The weight and danger of open immigration is also there. All immigrants will bring with them their view of what government should be. Most view that the rich should subsidize the poor - socialism. Yet they seem to fail to understand that is what they fled. Heck, we have that problems with the folks from CA - woke, liberal, clueless, and the drive like $h!+. Rather a noice 7 year path to full citizenship which would include lcasses on government, economics, ethics and yes English. English open all of citizenship to you it is the language of empowerment, just as French would be if you moved to France.
I side with Caplan, but maybe it is just bias. If playing this game was worth it, that would mean that most of the other things I know must be wrong (not impossible). But that does not amount to saying that there is some other viable path from the status quo to a world that makes sense. While immigration contributes to lots of problems, It looks overblown to say that fixing immigration would fix the country in some significant sense. From that viewpoint, immigration reform looks like a distraction.
(1) None of these other policies has the remotest chance of being adopted. As a practical matter, why *advocate* such a policy? In contrast, restrictions on immigration are popular, and are in place now, and might realistically be tweaked.
(2) If you view the U.S. as a semi-libertarian country in a thoroughly statist world, and statism/libertarianism as passed down from parents to children, then immigration restrictions into the U.S. are mere *self-defense*. Keep the statists *and their statist descendants* out!
"2. Discourage fertility of less libertarian groups."
I prefer encouraging fertility amongst pro-liberty groups, which could largely be achieved by reducing their tax burden. This might require higher taxes on the non-reproductive.
As to subsidizing birth control, this is already current policy in most countries. Insurance will pay for it.
Does Bryan object to the idea of cutting welfare payments to poor people who have lots of kids? Is that "un-libertarian"?
"3. Censor statist ideas."
Bryan has defended the censorship regime of Singapore, which allows free speech up to the point. They don't allow demagoguery, but will allow people to engage in meaningful policy criticism.
"4. Subsidize vacations for less libertarian groups on election day."
Bryan has advocated that such groups shouldn't be able to vote at all many times, which he calls "keyhole solutions".
---
Looking at the list at least half of it Bryan endorses. Singapore's guest worker program even verges on One Child Policy (women are given pregnancy tests monthly and deported if they are pregnant).
Anyway, the broader answer is "maintaining the border is politically and logistically easy to do, implementing a one child policy or racial apartheid is a lot harder." One is realistic to achieve with popular support, the other not so much.
I’m an AnCap, but do not invite the rest of the world to come stay in my home. While it makes sense to encourage immigration for entrepreneurs looking to build businesses in the US and workers needed to fill jobs that Americans cannot or will not perform, there are reasonable arguments to bar immigrants unable to support themselves and likely to burden our already overstretched Welfare State.