A Case for getting rid of borders - The Atlantic - Oct 10, 2015
This article was written in The Atlantic back on October 10th 2015 by an economics professor from George Mason University.At least philosophically, there are strong reasons to eliminate borders.
They mostly only prevent the migration of people and infringe upon human rights.
Read the article first before commenting. Thanks.
In response to: The Case for Getting Rid of Borders—Completely
No defensible moral framework regards foreigners as less deserving of rights than people born in the right place at the right time.
Alex Tabarrok
Oct 10, 2015
NASA / Reuters
To paraphrase Rousseau, man is born free, yet everywhere he is caged. Barbed-wire, concrete walls, and gun-toting guards confine people to the nation-state of their birth. But why? The argument for open borders is both economic and moral. All people should be free to move about the earth, uncaged by the arbitrary lines known as borders.
Not every place in the world is equally well-suited to mass economic activity. Nature’s bounty is divided unevenly. Variations in wealth and income created by these differences are magnified by governments that suppress entrepreneurship and promote religious intolerance, gender discrimination, or other bigotry. Closed borders compound these injustices, cementing inequality into place and sentencing their victims to a life of penury.
The overwhelming majority of would-be immigrants want little more than to make a better life for themselves and their families by moving to economic opportunity and participating in peaceful, voluntary trade. But lawmakers and heads of state quash these dreams with state-sanctioned violence—forced repatriation, involuntary detention, or worse—often while paying lip service to “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Wage differences are a revealing metric of border discrimination. When a worker from a poorer country moves to a richer one, her wages might double, triple, or rise even tenfold. These extreme wage differences reflect restrictions as stifling as the laws that separated white and black South Africans at the height of Apartheid. Geographical differences in wages also signal opportunity—for financially empowering the migrants, of course, but also for increasing total world output. On the other side of discrimination lies untapped potential. Economists have estimated that a world of open borders would double world GDP.
Even relatively small increases in immigration flows can have enormous benefits. If the developed world were to take in enough immigrants to enlarge its labor force by a mere one percent, it is estimated that the additional economic value created would be worth more to the migrants than all of the world’s official foreign aid combined. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised.
And while the benefits of cross-border movements are tremendous for the immigrants, they are also significant for those born in destination countries. Immigration unleashes economic forces that raise real wages throughout an economy. New immigrants possess skills different from those of their hosts, and these differences enable workers in both groups to better exploit their special talents and leverage their comparative advantages. The effect is to improve the welfare of newcomers and natives alike. The immigrant who mows the lawn of the nuclear physicist indirectly helps to unlock the secrets of the universe.
What moral theory justifies using wire, wall, and weapon to prevent people from moving to opportunity? What moral theory justifies using tools of exclusion to prevent people from exercising their right to vote with their feet?
No defensible moral framework regards foreigners as less deserving of rights than people born in the right place at the right time.
Alex Tabarrok
Oct 10, 2015
NASA / Reuters
To paraphrase Rousseau, man is born free, yet everywhere he is caged. Barbed-wire, concrete walls, and gun-toting guards confine people to the nation-state of their birth. But why? The argument for open borders is both economic and moral. All people should be free to move about the earth, uncaged by the arbitrary lines known as borders.
Not every place in the world is equally well-suited to mass economic activity. Nature’s bounty is divided unevenly. Variations in wealth and income created by these differences are magnified by governments that suppress entrepreneurship and promote religious intolerance, gender discrimination, or other bigotry. Closed borders compound these injustices, cementing inequality into place and sentencing their victims to a life of penury.
The overwhelming majority of would-be immigrants want little more than to make a better life for themselves and their families by moving to economic opportunity and participating in peaceful, voluntary trade. But lawmakers and heads of state quash these dreams with state-sanctioned violence—forced repatriation, involuntary detention, or worse—often while paying lip service to “huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
Wage differences are a revealing metric of border discrimination. When a worker from a poorer country moves to a richer one, her wages might double, triple, or rise even tenfold. These extreme wage differences reflect restrictions as stifling as the laws that separated white and black South Africans at the height of Apartheid. Geographical differences in wages also signal opportunity—for financially empowering the migrants, of course, but also for increasing total world output. On the other side of discrimination lies untapped potential. Economists have estimated that a world of open borders would double world GDP.
Even relatively small increases in immigration flows can have enormous benefits. If the developed world were to take in enough immigrants to enlarge its labor force by a mere one percent, it is estimated that the additional economic value created would be worth more to the migrants than all of the world’s official foreign aid combined. Immigration is the greatest anti-poverty program ever devised.
And while the benefits of cross-border movements are tremendous for the immigrants, they are also significant for those born in destination countries. Immigration unleashes economic forces that raise real wages throughout an economy. New immigrants possess skills different from those of their hosts, and these differences enable workers in both groups to better exploit their special talents and leverage their comparative advantages. The effect is to improve the welfare of newcomers and natives alike. The immigrant who mows the lawn of the nuclear physicist indirectly helps to unlock the secrets of the universe.
What moral theory justifies using wire, wall, and weapon to prevent people from moving to opportunity? What moral theory justifies using tools of exclusion to prevent people from exercising their right to vote with their feet?
(Continued in first comment of mine below)
Comments (46)
You must have borders in order to have Identification as a Nation
You must have borders in order to preserve Rule of Law
You must have borders to ensure National Security.
You must have borders to ensure No Overpopulation
You must have borders to Control Leftists Ideals and Agendas
No one waited on me but there was a lot of dancing.
Probably should've been done following the Mexican War circa 1849.
And Cuba.
Should've held on to Cuba after the Spanish American War circa 1900.
The Gulf of Mexico would be essentially a U.S. lake...much as Hudson's Bay is Canadian.
It'd take time to work out details amenable to both the U.S. & Mexico, but I think it should be looked into.
Also Cuba.
Simply set right what once went wrong.
IMO
It is just widening them
Good thing The Donald has our back, at this Juncture
The U.S. population remains at replacement level/grows because the fertility rate of immigrants is higher than that of natural born Murkuns.
Yet another reason for annexation.
Mexico provides a valuable resource - people!
Amongst many other valuable resources, I should add.
But that's changing.
Won't be long until population (over or otherwise) will cease to be a concern.
Arctic methane's popping like a champagne cork...the 'methane veil' now extends Southward over the entire U.S. and expands at a km/day.
Climate Change is NOT the problem
Global Industrial Civilization is the problem.
Climate Change is the solution.
Mic - It would have been great to annex Mexico & Cuba.
You are talking about colonising independent countries.
Maybe your country would want to be colonised for a while to see what it feels like.
Yeah. Annex.
Like was done with Texas. It was once an independent country. It became a state. It was annexed.
I read somewhere that a poll of Mexicans some years ago showed a large majority favored annexation. Wasn't even close... something like 3 to 1 as I recall.
Makes sense if you think 'bout it.
Large numbers of 'em want to get into the U.S. & and get citizenship.
Annexation would do that, and they'd not have to pull up stakes & move.
There has been no case of colonisation where the people of the colonised country did better out of it.
Sometimes wonder it wouldn't be such a bad idea
Regardless, I wasn't talking about wealth, Texas reaps benefits by being part of the USA.
It is a well concealed fact that Texans are generally disgruntled and want out.
Even now, thousands of 'em are forming a caravan to head to Mexico.
They intend to cross the border illegally (assuming it still exists) and claim asylum.
But I'm sure they add more to the coffers than, say, Wyoming?
miclee•5 mins ago•North Of The Straits Of, Florida USA
uh oh
It is a well concealed fact that Texans are generally disgruntled and want out.
Even now, thousands of 'em are forming a caravan to head to Mexico.
They intend to cross the border illegally (assuming it still exists) and claim asylum.
yay
@Mic Uhoh is right and comical in a sorta way.
Speaking of the border.It seems that if Trump doesn't get the $5 billion to build the wall he'd be in favor of the government shut down.
But they do make everywhere feel like a 2* hotel and lower wages for people already on low wages. Human beings are not fungible and would prefer not to live by bread alone, they want something alternative to this soulless liberal capitalist Blade Runner future.
The truth is that people need a sense of fellow-feeling and a home to call their own, if you take this away from them in exchange for cheap sweated goods and a curry then you have no place to complain about Trump, you are the reason for Trump.
Now these nerds need shooting. Same goes for Elon Musk who would put our milliions of drivers out of work overnight. The nerds are so wrong about this that even the US Republican party is behaving in an anti-capitalist way and upsetting business in the interest of the common good i.e. what is to most people a better quality of life.
The truth is that immigration makes society less equal which is why inequality has increased throughout the years of mass immigration. It makes hiring people more profitable and working for people less profitable which is to say it grants more power to the bosses. There's a reason the opening of borders arose in tandem with soaring inequality, what trickles down from the bosses does not go to everyone but only a small sub-elite of the upper middle class. 80% of people are worse off and 80% of people were better off in 1968 or would have been had they been alive at the time.
And then we're left with liberal capitalism and the effect it had on global poverty. Well, if it wasn't for China - which is state capitalist not liberal capitalist - there wouldn't be any reduction in global poverty throughout the neoliberal era. China is the only country in the world where the prosperity of business has not all gone to the elite and sub-elite.
The problem of the melting pot is that it was never meant for people who are wildly different and divergent or super rich and mega poor. Internally America was built on a freebie for everyone, but a fair shake after this. Things start to break down when the chances in life are extremely different from one person to the next.