A new website, Open Borders: The Case, started up a few weeks ago (ht Bryan Caplan). The site, run by one Vipul Naik, gathers many of the arguments for and against open borders in one place. Naik's viewpoint is clear-- he supports open borders, and much of the site is dedicated to various arguments for that position. The pages featuring arguments against open borders sometimes include counter-arguments, though not always. Despite his viewpoint, Naik seems to take a special interest in overcoming his own bias, even including a specific feedback form to let him know whether he's treating the other side fairly.
Some highlights:
Doubling world GDP: Various studies have found that removing barriers to labor mobility would increase world GDP by at least 67% and possibly as much as 147%. [For comparison, world GDP increased about 67% from 2003-2010, and about 147% from 1993-2010. In other words, with open borders we could see an extra decade's worth of economic growth, bringing new meaning to the term "lost decade."]
Competitive government: Free movement between US states allows Americans to "vote with their feet," putting a check on state and local government power. Open borders would do the same to national governments.
Interesting analogies: In making the moral case for open borders, Naik raises some interesting thought exercises, such as Starving Marvin, which asks whether it's right to use force to keep a starving man out of a grocery store; John and Julio, which asks what level of force is appropriate to keep a competitor out of a job interview; and the Drowning Child, which asks whether we can use force to prevent someone else from saving a drowning child.
On the whole, the site is still very new. Many of its pages are just
short blurbs, especially in the list of objections. Bryan Caplan quotes
also dominate quite a few pages; at times, you could be forgiven for thinking
Caplan set up the site himself. But websites unfortunately
don't spring forth fully formed from the internet ether, so hopefully
both of those issues will fade away as the site matures.
The case presented is explicitly based on libertarian, utilitarian and egalitarian reasons to support open borders. Those with strong objections to one or more of those philosophies might not find the site as interesting as I did. Either way, the site certainly has the potential to become a valuable resource to anyone who wants to learn more about the issue, and I will definitely be keeping an eye on it as it grows.
The embedded video on that site is tiny, so I've embedded a larger version above. If my embedding doesn't work for you, the Youtube page is here.
In the video, Roy Beck uses gumballs to argue against increasing immigration. The thrust of his argument is that the people who are allowed to immigrate to the US (about a million per year) are so very few compared to the three billion "desperately poor" that it doesn't make enough of a difference. Therefore, he is against allowing even more people to immigrate. Wait, what?
Beck says that there's too little immigration to make a difference, therefore there should be even less immigration. He makes this argument with a straight face, so either he's a better actor than me, or he honestly believes this nonsense (or both-- I'm really bad at acting). Either way, I don't support immigration just because I think it will help other countries (even though it does, however small the effect might be). I support (legal) immigration because I think it will help my country, the good ol' U.S. of A. Maybe that's selfish, but it's true.
There are undeniable benefits to increased immigration. The greatest natural resource available to the United States (or any other country) is the human mind. Only people can innovate, and we need innovation if we want to grow. The more legal immigrants who come to the US, who go to our schools, who work for our companies, the better off we will be. They will bring their own ideas, or improve on American ideas, or work with Americans to develop totally new ideas. Think of Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi, I.M. Pei, Joseph Pulitzer, Irving Berling, Andrew Carnegie, Levi Strauss or Muhammad Yunus, all of them immigrants. (Never mind the children of immigrants, or their children!) We would be a far poorer society, both economically and culturally, without the steady influence of immigrants throughout American history.
What about the downsides? Roy Beck makes some vague and unsubstantiated references to the effect of legal immigration "on our unemployed, the working poor, the most vulnerable members of our society," and "on our natural resources." It is true that immigration increases labor supply, and when supply increases, the price falls, if everything else is kept constant. But everything else is not kept constant, because all these immigrants want to eat and buy homes and go on vacations and find other ways to spend the money they're earning. This means businesses have to expand to serve them, which means they have to hire new employees. This increases labor demand, and when labor demand increases, wages rise. Since immigration increases both labor supply and labor demand, there is very little to no net effect on wages or native employment. The downsides that Beck is afraid of simply don't exist, which might be why he spends so little time talking about them.
What this boils down to is the freedom of individuals to act in their own best interests without the government getting in the way. Immigration is one of those bizarre issues where many people who otherwise recognize the power and beauty of the free market beg for government control. As in so many other areas, the best thing the government can do is get out of the way. If people want to move to America, I say let them in.
Ex-expat. This blog tends to be about politics, economics, border issues, and of course optimism!
"The more we prosper, the more we can prosper. The more we invent, the more inventions become possible. The world of things is often subject to diminishing returns. The world of ideas is not." ~ Matt Ridley
"Seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper." ~ Jeremiah 29:7
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