The modal question about Open Borders is, “Do you talk about X?” The answer is “YES” for all of the following…
1. Do you talk about the historical pattern of global poverty rates?
2. Do you talk about people’s attachment to their country of birth?
3. Do you talk about overcrowding?
4. Do you talk about the global poor’s ability to function in a modern society?
5. Do you talk about global apartheid?
6. Do you talk about the level of illegal immigration?
7. Do you talk about human smuggling?
8. Do you talk about the effectiveness of immigration law at preventing and deterring illegal immigration?
9. Do you talk about immigration as a civil right?
10. Do you talk about whether the plight of the immigrant is our problem?
11. Do you talk about whether there is a right to immigrate?
12. Do you talk about whether this right is absolute?
13. Do you talk about America’s open borders era?
14. Do you talk about how America’s open borders era ended?
15. Do you talk about the potential dangers of open borders?
16. Do you talk about whether we should look before we leap?
17. Do you talk about the Antarctican farmer hypothetical?
18. Do you talk about the connection between mass consumption and mass production?
19. Do you talk about the benefits of immigration for immigrants?
20. Do you talk about the benefits of immigration for natives?
21. Do you talk about how much immigration actually helps immigrants?
22. Do you talk about why immigration helps immigrants?
23. Do you talk about how much a trillion dollars of gains really buys?
24. Do you talk about whether open borders is “trickle-down economics”?
25. Do you talk about how immigration affects native workers?
26. Do you talk about how immigration affects you personally?
27. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on average national incomes?
28. Do you talk about the Arithmetic Fallacy?
29. Do you talk about what open borders would really look like?
30. Do you talk about the effect of open borders on the visibility of poverty?
31. Do you talk about “swamping”?
32. Do you talk about diaspora dynamics?
33. Do you talk about Puerto Rico?
34. Do you talk about brain drain?
35. Do you talk about what good for places versus what’s good for people?
36. Do you talk about zombie economies?
37. Do you talk about how immigration’s fiscal effects vary by immigrant skill?
38. Do you talk about whether open borders and the welfare state are compatible?
39. Do you talk about rival versus non-rival government services?
40. Do you talk about how welfare states prioritize the old versus the poor?
41. Do you talk about the cost of educating immigrants’ children?
42. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on the sustainability of retirement systems?
43. Do you talk about the best way to measure immigrants’ overall fiscal effects?
44. Do you talk about Net Present Value?
45. Do you talk about empirical estimates of immigrants’ overall fiscal effects?
46. Do you talk about whether more immigration is likely to save Social Security and Medicare?
47. Do you talk about empirical estimates of immigrants’ overall fiscal effects as a function of their education and age?
48. Do you talk about Milton Friedman’s arguments against open borders?
49. Do you talk about the parallels between the fiscal effects of native births versus immigration?
50. Do you talk about how human beings value their cultures?
51. Do you talk about the value of Western civilization?
52. Do you talk about the cultural dangers of admitting non-Western immigrants?
53. Do you talk about terrorism, mass rape, human trafficking, Sharia, and the decline of English?
54. Do you talk about numeracy?
55. Do you talk about the statistics of terrorism, including the share of terrorism committed by foreigners?
56. Do you talk about the Skittles argument against refugees?
57. Do you talk about immigrant crime rates?
58. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on overall crime rates?
59. Do you talk about the “What if it happened to you?” objection to statistical evidence?
60. Do you talk about first-generation immigrant language acquisition?
61. Do you talk about later-generation immigrant language acquisition?
62. Do you talk about immigrant assimilation across generations?
63. Do you talk about how modernity makes assimilation slower?
64. Do you talk about how modernity makes assimilation faster?
65. Do you talk about the social importance of trust?
66. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on national trust?
67. Do you talk about trust assimilation?
68. Do you talk about how much trust a successful society needs?
69. Do you talk about the cultural benefits of immigration?
70. Do you talk about immigrants’ desire for freedom?
71. Do you talk about immigrants’ disdain for freedom?
72. Do you talk about the danger that immigrants will vote to “kill the goose that lays the golden eggs”?
73. Do you talk about how Democratic immigrant voters are?
74. Do you talk about Indian-American voting?
75. Do you talk about immigrants’ specific policy views?
76. Do you talk about how immigrants’ specific policy views vary by education?
77. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on actual government policy?
78. Do you talk about immigrants’ political assimilation?
79. Do you talk about whether immigrants undermine natives’ support for the welfare state?
80. Do you talk about “Magic Dirt”?
81. Do you talk about research on “Deep Roots”?
82. Do you talk about whether Deep Roots research shows that “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk” are illusory?
83. Do you talk about national IQ?
84. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on national IQ?
85. Do you talk about whether you’re virtue signaling?
86. Do you talk about whether IQ research shows that “trillion-dollar bills on the sidewalk” are illusory?
87. Do you talk about the effect of immigration on immigrants’ IQs?
88. Do you talk about human genetics?
89. Do you talk about “keyhole solutions”?
90. Do you talk about imposing admission fees and surtaxes on immigrants to help less-fortune natives?
91. Do you talk about why tax-and-transfer schemes are any better than simple exclusion?
92. Do you talk about restricting immigrants’ eligibility for government benefits?
93. Do you talk about requiring immigrants to learn English?
94. Do you talk about requiring immigrants to acquire cultural literacy?
95. Do you talk about the dangers of Islam?
96. Do you talk about Muslim bans?
97. Do you talk about keyhole solutions for the dangers of Islam?
98. Do you talk about restricting immigrant voting rights?
99. Do you talk about the political feasibility of keyhole solutions?
100. Do you talk about the bracero program?
101. Do you talk about H-1Bs and other work visas?
102. Do you talk about the fairness of keyhole solutions?
103. Do you talk about Sodom and Gomorrah?
104. Do you talk about what utilitarians, egalitarians, libertarians, wealth-maximizers, meritocrats, Christians, and Kantian should think about open borders?
105. Do you talk about whether immigrants have a right to immigrate to your house?
106. Do you talk about who Jesus would deport?
107. Do you talk about the connection between open borders and socialism?
108. Do you talk about immigration and political polarization?
109. Do you talk about why conservatives should favor open borders?
110. Do you talk about why liberals should favor open borders?
111. Do you talk about citizenism?
112. Do you talk about Trump’s views and policies?
113. Do you talk about the best argument against open borders?
114. Do you talk about whether any human is illegal?
115. Do you talk about the best way to frame the immigration debate?
116. Do you talk about immigration as charity?
117. Do you talk about immigration as justice and abundance?
118. Do you talk about open borders with Canada?
119. Do you talk about why you talk so much about the United States?
120. Do you talk about whether you hate America?
121. Do you talk about earlier cosmopolitan transformations?
122. Do you talk about Brexit?
123. Do you talk about public opinion on immigration?
124. Do you talk about scaring people with extremism?
125. Do you talk about the Overton Window?
126. Do you talk about whether open borders is another crazy Ivory Tower Proposal?
127. Do you talk about how to get there from here?
128. Do you have endnotes? Lots of them?
129. Do you have references? Lots of them?
130. Do you have acknowledgements? Lots of them?
READER COMMENTS
Thaomas
Oct 31 2019 at 10:11am
And nevertheless conclude that the optimum amount of restriction of immigration is zero point zero, zero, zero? Amazing. Economics are generally skeptical models that yield corner solutions.
AMT
Oct 31 2019 at 10:37am
Kinda like determining that the tax rate with the smallest deadweight loss is zero, point zero zero zero. Or that PERFECT competition leads to the greatest efficiency, absent externalities. Rofl. You think economists disagree with those conclusions?Try an Econ 101 textbook.
Wait never mind, you were just saying economists ARE models…
Thaomas
Nov 1 2019 at 10:19am
I don’t think that’s right. I believe that economists would say choose the tax with the lowest deadweight loss, not zero. I’m not persuaded that the book makes a case for open as opposed to more open borders.
It’s like arguing that on the current margin emissions of some pollutant causes harm and then concluding that the optimum amount of emission is zero.
AMT
Nov 1 2019 at 1:31pm
“Choose the tax with the lowest deadweight loss, not zero.” Of course, zero isn’t the smallest number, How could I be so stupid! Thank you for your insight. I believe you may have proved that this is not a corner solution, because it is possible that the optimal policy may be to subsidize immigration. Or maybe you think zero > other positive numbers, in which case I’ll recommend you read a math for fourth graders book before you try tackling the Econ 101 textbook.
Governments need to raise some revenue, but there is no need to restrict immigration.
It’s like saying how can you be sure burning just some of your money is not optimal, rather than the “corner solution” of burning zero.
Or how can you be sure zero rent control regulations are better than zero?
Because less of a thing that on net only causes harm is better than more of it, and zero of a bad thing is better than some.
Thaomas
Nov 3 2019 at 3:20pm
Maybe calling open borders a “corner solution” is causing more trouble than it is worth. Sorry.
My approach to this is that changes in immigration policy lead to changes in immigration and that this produces costs and benefits to residents. Kaplan’s arguments all point to the conclusion that more immigration than we have — probably a lot more — would produce more benefits than costs to existing residents. I do not see how those argument lead to the conclusion that no immigration restrictions at all produce the maximum net benefits. Just as taxes and pollution can be too high or too low and a firm can have either too much or too little debt, employees, inventory, etc. we can have either too little or too much immigration.
AMT
Nov 1 2019 at 1:34pm
…or how can you be sure Zero rent control regulations are better than some*
Mark Z
Nov 1 2019 at 3:49pm
I think this is a questionable analogy: the optimal level of immigration may be finite, but that doesn’t mean the optimal policy isn’t unlimited immigration, and that net immigration will decline to 0 once the optimum is reached.
Suppose there’s a price floor for some good. If someone proposes eliminating the price floor, you might retort “but the optimal price isn’t 0, so we should merely lower the price floor, not eliminate it.” But that’s not true; if the optimal price is >0, a price floor is unnecessary to keep it above 0.
This is of course assuming no externalities. But hypothetical externalities shouldn’t drive practical policy-making; often we can’t even be sure whether net externalities are even positive or negative. It’s unlikely an intervention will be efficiency increasing when we can’t even be sure in what direction to intervene, let alone how much.
robc
Nov 1 2019 at 6:32am
Deontology leads to those kind of results regularly.
That is a good thing.
Christophe Biocca
Nov 1 2019 at 7:05pm
Open borders is only a “corner solution” if you rule out policies like “legalize kidnapping foreigners to bring in as workers”, “subsidize immigration”, and so on. Otherwise Caplan’s preferred policy sits squarely in the middle of the continuum between the corner solutions “Forcefully import everyone from outside” and “Forcefully deport everyone from inside”.
Mark Z
Nov 2 2019 at 12:32am
If I oppose a price floor for a good, does it follow that I think the price should be 0? Assuming, reasonably, that the optimal rate of immigration is an intermediate number somewhere between 0 and infinity, it doesn’t follow that the optimal extent of immigration restriction is also > 0. To justify that, you have to argue that, whatever the optimal rate of immigration is, the state is better at finding and setting it than the market is.
Henri Hein
Nov 3 2019 at 12:56pm
Nice, Mark! I think that hits the nail on the head.
Thaomas
Nov 3 2019 at 3:32pm
Not all the effects of immigration are mediated through markets. Most of Kaplan’s 130 points are not about market outcomes.
Floccina
Oct 31 2019 at 10:16am
I seldom talk about most of them but I think about most of them.
nobody.really
Oct 31 2019 at 11:10am
What an important public service announcement on Halloween. Kids, if someone tries to slip a Syrian refugee into your candy bag tonight, don’t eat him!
aretae
Oct 31 2019 at 5:08pm
Important takeawaya
John Arthur
Oct 31 2019 at 7:44pm
The biggest problem with open borders is it has never been tried before. We have never seen a high IQ country saw its own citizens become minorities to low IQ minorities, and see what has happened.
Bryan, I have a simple question for you.
Your results all rely on America’s institutions remaining the same after mass immigration than without, and even with admitting IQ, it would still create a net benefit.
Do you honestly think that America’s institutions are a result of the laws that we have, and not the social capital that our country has due to its high IQ population?
That if 100 million Africans entered the United States, that those institutions would remain?
Nearly your entire book is based on the notions that these institutions will remain even after mass immigration, and so the issues won’t be too bad, but do you know any place that it has retained its institutions after low-IQ immigration?
Also, have you ever lived in a location where social capital is low, crime is high, where these things aren’t abstracts but tangible and real.
I have the distinct feeling that you live in a very White neighborhood, where Median Household Income is some ridiculously high number…
P.S: I agree that current immigrants have low crime rates and high socioeconomic mobility, and that the Alt-Right had badly underestimated the intelligence of Hispanic and Asian immigrants. But if birthrates are any indication, it looks like our future are African immigrants, and we don’t need more Somalians in America…
robc
Nov 1 2019 at 6:36am
The USA had open borders for what, the first 100 years?
Thaomas
Nov 1 2019 at 11:01am
And based on what we can surmise about the marginal immigrants, we should move back in that direction.
gregor
Nov 1 2019 at 10:43pm
From the founding through the mid-1820s there were under 10,000 immigrants per year. The flows only started getting significant in the late 1840s once steamships made the journey tremendously easier.
Also, the 1790 Naturalization Act restricted citizenship to free white persons of good character. Citizenship was extended with the 14th amendment but even by 1906, naturalization was still limited to whites and blacks. In United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind (1923) the supreme court ruled that a Sikh from India was ineligible for naturalization because he was insufficiently white, despite his claims of being a “high caste Aryan.” Native Americans were not granted citizenship until 1924.
There were also no civil rights, fair housing laws, etc. It was not like today where natives are legally obligated to accommodate and subsidize whoever shows up.
Alistair
Nov 1 2019 at 1:49pm
I’ve never seen Caplan previously engage with the serious criticisms of his proposals (some referenced above), apart from the odd strawman.
Yet here he claims he does.
So, *Deep Breath*, despite my first inclinations, I think I will have to buy the book, and try my very best to consider the arguments fairly. He’s earned that much.
But I swear, if I find he is sh*ting me with another bunch of strawmen, I will not only reduce my belief in open borders, I will also reduce my belief in every other damn libertarian findings I have accepted from Caplan over the years and drop him from my ‘A’ list commentators faster than you can say Krugman.
Bob Jensen
Nov 1 2019 at 2:41pm
nd nevertheless conclude that the optimum amount of restriction of immigration is zero point zero, zero, zero? Amazing. Economics are generally skeptical models that yield corner solutions –—
https://stageeconlib.wpengine.com/do-you-talk-about-it-in-open-borders-yes/
Jensen Comment
To the list of questions I would add
“Do your talk about the Tragedy of the Commons?”
The problem with open borders is somewhat related to the economic problem of “The Sharing of the Commons” where giving everybody the right to use a free resource leads to everybody losing that resource. At what point will allowing billions of people share in the free medical care, free college, and other scarce resources ruin it for everybody —
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
History will prove former President Donald Trump was correct about Mexico one day funding an impenetrable wall — to keep out over 2 billion starving green immigrants seeking to enter Mexico from the north.
lxm
Nov 2 2019 at 1:21pm
I am looking forward to reading your book.
Paul Brassey
Nov 2 2019 at 3:20pm
I received a complimentary copy of OB from Amazon, who said it was a gift. If you sent it, thanks! I do have one question: how do you respond to the claim made by environmental activists that the worst thing that could happen to the planet is economic growth and US-level prosperity?
Abelard Lindsey
Nov 2 2019 at 11:00pm
You left one point out, that is the issue of cost-effective construction of infrastructure that would be necessary to accommodate the increased population (and its aspirations) resulting from increased immigration. I posted a comment about this issue on your more recent article on open borders policy.
Comments are closed.