Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

A lot of people say this little graphic book is a lot deeper than it looks

Which is why it's such a shame that, at least in America (and from what I understand many other countries) it's such a unifying position in the wrong direction. Very few positions have such bi-partisan opposition!

I know YOU didn't come here to plug this, but I have no such scruples:

Hey everyone! Check out this book: https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960/ref=sr_1_1

Anybody wanna weigh in on this amazon review of Bryan caplan’s open borders book?

I’m pretty sure that “magic dirt theory” is a white nationalist talking point but I’m not an economist

“The Magic Dirt Theory (Now Illustrated)

A surprisingly shallow treatise compared to Caplan's last book, especially considering that this topic is his bread and butter. It has to be said that right out of the gate, the cover has all of the hallmarks of a saccharine teenage libertarian fantasy, wherein every imagined immigrant is stylized to look just like Caplan.

Where to begin? The most immediate issue with this book is that its rationalization for open borders relies on a type of straw man argument that involves Caplan being very selective with his empirical rigor. He covers the territory of the debate broadly but, in many cases, quite superficially.

His social arguments fall squarely into the superficial category. One can find this in the section comparing crime rates of natives to immigrants. Caplan uses incarceration data as a means of assuaging fears that with immigration comes an increase in crime. He attempts to show that there is no concerning difference between the in-group and the out-group, so to speak. (As an aside, it should be mentioned that much of this data comes via Alex Nowrasteh and the Cato Institute which is funded and founded by the Koch brothers).

The smoking gun in the presented data is the glaring omission of race, which is actually not omitted in Nowrasteh's original 2016 study. One of the first tables in his study shows that Hispanic illegal immigrants commit more crime per capita than any other legal immigrant group, and at more than 3 times the rate than that of White illegal immigrants. Additionally, the study shows that Hispanic natives commit more than double the crime per capita than native Whites, and even under the legal immigrant category, we see that Hispanics commit more crime per capita than any other legal group. We also see that elevated Black and Hispanic crime rates completely skew the larger bucket of ‘native’ population crime rates, despite their being minority groups. So, for instance, if you removed 'Hispanics' from the native crime column, you would see that illegal immigrants now commit crime at a higher per capita rate than natives (and so on and so forth).

Simply put, by their very own numbers, we find that an increase in Hispanic immigration would significantly increase crime. Considering that the vast majority of immigration would be coming from Latin America, you would think this angle of analysis would be an entry-level requirement for an open borders argument.

Caplan’s strength is in economics, but the growth model underpinning his proposed "doubling of world GDP" is already under fire from other economists (see: Garret Jones). The issue being that the economic mechanisms for his claim are vague and rely on intangible, unquantifiable, and unexplained 'qualities' unique to American soil. In other words, more magic dirt theory. Many of his other economic assumptions rest on the notion that western institutions are so robust so as to absorb an incredibly sharp influx of immigrants successfully. Yet the 2015 refugee crisis, which resulted in distinct harm to institutions and created major political shockwaves across Europe, betrays this belief. The broader thesis that he and other anarcho-capitalists rely on is that mass immigration will kill the welfare state. Good luck with that plan when the overwhelming majority of immigrants support expanding government programs.

That this book is presented in comic format is perfectly emblematic of the increasingly patronizing (and seemingly desperate) 'explainer' style tactic of Vox/technocrat/Silicon Valley culture. It is truly an 'ivory tower' brand of communication to introduce potentially the most consequential policy proposal in world history via...a comic book. Incredible stuff.”

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

Austrian Economics for visual learners

It would be cool if Man, Economy and State or any other Austrian Economics books were a graphic novel. I'm more of a visual learner, so reading or listening to Man, Economy and State has been brutal for me.

An Infographic or illustrated Man, Economy and State would be awesome, but I know that doesn't exist. Does anyone know of any books that are illustrated for Austrian economics?

Thanks!

Edit: Thanks everyone for being understanding of my situation. Here's some recommendations I received and I'll try to look at visual graphs/aids in MES to piece it together with these recommendations. I hope one day an Austrian Economist and illustrator get together to collaborate on Man, Economy and State or something similar.

1. Open Borders - Bryan Caplan
2. The Economics Book Big Ideas Simply Explained - DK
3. Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume I - Yoram Bauman Ph.D
4. Cartoon Introduction to Economics, Volume II - Yoram Bauman Ph.D
5. Easy Economics: A Visual Guide to What You Need to Know - Leonard Wolfe
6. Economix: How and Why Our Economy Works (And Doesn't) - Michael Goodwin
7. Keynesian vs Austrian Economics visual

Open Borders is an entertaining and well-sourced overview of the arguments against immigration and why they aren't strong.

Read this book.

Then I'll ridicule your views on immigration, but not before.

\> I'm definitely not s shoot on sight guy

Yeah, I don't want to caricature anyone, that guy took the most extreme position, maybe to turn heads.

I think your distinction between "temporary" workers and "illegal" workers is a good one. To your point, we get exploitation under both the legal H1-B system, because it's hard for workers to switch companies, and with the undocumented, who can be blackmailed. Different forms, but exploitation is a core issue to address on both sides of the system.

But while I'm worried about exploitation, I don't necessarily think cracking down on the undocumented is a useful way to solve it. We don't have a good track record of protecting vulnerable groups by making their conduct illegal.

Maybe... we should just make the exploitation itself illegal, then simultaneously make it easier for undocumenteds to come help law enforcement shut down any predatory behavior.

Sending money back home is a tougher issue for me. If I met someone who tried to live simply, then diverted as much of their earnings as possible to the poor in some low income country, I wouldn't be upset with them. I'd think it was pretty virtuous, and wish more people would live like that.

If I can praise my neighbor for that level of selflessness, why not migrants?

I guess the most important implication is that this comes at the cost of the local economy. But if my neighbor suddenly stopped spending -- that will definitely subtract something from the local economy as he changes his spending habits. But the newcomer only adds to the local economy relative to where it was before.

It's additive because it's nearly impossible to live anywhere and not take part in the local economy. Sure, migrant workers aren't buying rolexes, but they're buying food, maybe simple clothes. Most of us are more interested in supporting farmers and grocers than rolex dealers anyway.

But if your point is that we need to provide more paths for the temporary workers here already to set up roots, I'm for that. If we can provide a path for hardworking nonviolent migrants who pay their taxes, maybe that would help everybody.

Even though we differ, thanks for the careful and thoughtful comment. I think people on my side are way too eager to bring race and racism into it, when there are really layered complex arguments involved, like the ones you mentioned.

For me, I found Caplan's work in Open Borders really compelling. Although he has a side he's pushing, it's a very thorough study of impacts and evidence, and he has some really good "keyhole" policy suggestions in there to meet immigration opponents halfway, to address concerns just like those you mention.

Well..... it gets some resistance.

Better yet:

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

I meant addressing the root problem, but I do agree that "open boarders" aren't as scary as the right would portray.

I'm still reading through this: https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960 It's facinating.

Since I have it on y clipboard, if you'd like to learn more about the topics you mention, you might try reading Open Borders, which covers those topics explicitly. The more you know about it, the more effectively you can argue against it!

Caplan is really awesome, especially his advocacy for Open Borders.

My door is private property the entire country isn’t. And as for who I’m voting for, it’s going to be a democrat this time around because trump is, among many other things, a xenophobic nut.

Also, I recommend this book that answers a lot of the typical anti open borders questions you brought up:

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960/ref=nodl_

You should read Bryan Caplan's new work on open borders. Some of the things you're assuming in your argument are at least worth analyzing some of the data over to see how it's been playing out. Also, when you look at the economy more broadly, there is some argument that it's helpful to look at more than a few facts or principles.

Last, I'm not entirely convinced that immigration would look so different in a completely private ancap world. It's not like in a totally private society suddenly people can't purchase houses, rent homes, attend schools, or travel around. They would still do these things.

I understand that the argument is that people are incentivized to act in ways they might not in the absence of state intervention. But on the other side of the coin, by shutting down the borders without considering the relevant economic effects is just as bad.

So the question shouldn't be whether people should be prevented from moving across imaginary borders, the question should be attempting to show where there are economic losses in the system, and try to remove the state's role in creating those specific incentives.

This is a fun read that covers the counterarguments https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

!ping IMMIGRATION

Your group has been added! Here's one of my favorite bits about open borders from /ourguy/, Zach Weinersmith who also illustrated a book on the topic and went on the podcast -- but you probably already knew that.

Actually though, I do have a question for you all. I thought that the book did a great job of addressing all the common arguments against open borders. Is there something like that online, available for free? Alternatively, would anyone be interested in contributing to our wiki page on open borders.

> People aren’t pro-Open Borders, just anti-anti-Open Borders.

Except for Bryan Caplan, anyway.

Sovereign state obligations (bond payments for example) may remain long after the residents that made them passed away. Likewise benefits (the location of a border for example) also transfer from generation to generation.

A more open immigration policy does not preclude improving wages and living conditions of current citizens. You may read this if you are interested.

Yes.

Source: Open Borders and the ethics of Immigration by Bryan Caplan

u/davidjricardo I was listening to a podcast interview with the author of this book. Curious if you'd heard of it or had any thoughts? I like what I heard.

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=open+borders&qid=1597969458&sr=8-3

If you care to spend $14 to challenge your worldview, this book disproves almost everything you just said, with sources. It's a collaboration of a cartoonist and a libertarian economist.

> No, I haven't read any books.

Alright, so you don't actually understand the policies you're criticizing. You're just attacking the strawman you've built up in your mind.

If you want an easy and accessible primer on the topic that's relatively inexpensive, I recommend checking out Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration. It directly deals with the objection your raising here.

> If you can prevent people from entering your country, then it's no an open border. Open borders implies no control and that individuals have the freedom of movement to go where they want.

Open borders is about minimizing the restrictions on freedom of movement. Its understood that there are very specific and narrow cases where this freedom must be limited, but these are very narrow exceptions. By and large, people should be allowed to immigrate where they want. Right now, we are nowhere near the minimum. There are limitations on who can work and live here and stay here for extended periods of time. These limitations should be basically done away with to maximize freedom of movement.

Bryan Caplan's works probably demonstrate this, such as his new comic on open borders. His academic works probably are more informative, though. You might also try just googling "open borders economists" as the economists are likely to be approaching from the GDP angle rather than the morality angle.

Personally, I think it's a form of observation bias: happiness is hard to measure and quantify, whereas you can relatively easily quantify GDP. They focus on what they can measure rather than what they can't, so happiness, flourishing, etc all get put in the circular file so that GDP can be prioritized.

Caplan actually addresses all your concerns in his book and he makes a pretty convincing case.

If you’re ever curious about the academic reasoning behind immigration advocacy then I’d suggest picking up his book. amazon link

check out Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration

> if you allow everyone into your country, it will create a problem with the wealthy coming in from other countries and essentially buying everything outright and essentially owning the country

But it's not a problem if the wealthy who already live in the country just buy and own everything? Actually, forget the whataboutism. The wealthy can use trans-national corporations to buy everything before they pay off whomever for citizenship.

If you think his is the strongest case, then I honestly suggest you read Bryan Caplan’s new book, Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration. He addresses pretty much all of OP’s points and dismantles them, with strong data. And Caplan is one of the most libertarian, free-market economists in America.

I’m not trying to be cheeky. Seriously, it’s a well-researched and smartly-argued book.

There's an economic case for open borders, which Brian Caplan makes in this delightfully illustrated book.

There's also a labor rights case for it. When you have closed borders for people and open borders for goods, that allows manufacturing labor to be relegated to low-wage low standard of living places - particularly ones with no labor protections. In essence it lets us in the US outsource labor abuses to other parts of the world.

Read this, it covers virtually all counter arguments to open borders

Education and politics. Try reading, and informing others. Here is some literature that helps us collectively better understand our situation.

For a modern look at an old debate: Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration https://www.amazon.com/dp/1250316960/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_i_gTsyEb6CRJ29D

For fiction, The Jungle by Upton Sinclair.

As far as historical literature on the topic: https://gkbhambra.net/2017/05/28/undoing-the-silencing-of-the-haitian-revolution/

Studying the Haitian revolution is an excellent way to understand that slavery is inherently an evil that even completely isolated and illiterate humans shrug off.

Beyond that, vote/campaign for candidates like Bernie Sanders at the national and local level.

It gives people in poorer countries access to greater levels of wealth than they would have access to in their home country, while giving richer countries access to cheaper labor than they would have had. Both sides come out with more money than they would have had otherwise. Governments can tax this new legal workforce and they'll make more money than they would have otherwise. That means more money for government services, and lower a tax burden per person.

If your want to read a whole book on how awesome this would be, check out the book Open Borders, which explains it in comic book form. It's co-authored by the guy who does SMBC.

Green cards for everyone:

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

Check out this book about open borders: https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

It’s written by an economist and illustrated by the guy from smbc. It digs deeply into the ethics, science, and economics behind immigration.

You should check out Open Borders by Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith. They go in depth about the downsides of the current immigration system and the benefits of open borders.

Best for the global economy, yes. Not for places like the USA.

Just curious, how do you view the economic consensus in other areas, like say, neoliberal economics?

Plug for the excellent comic book by Bryan Caplan and illustrated by Zach Weinersmith:

https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

>How will open borders help socialism? >How will open borders hinder socialism?

There's a bit of ambiguity depending on whether you mean "socialism" to refer to what Marx called the "real movement to abolish the present state of things", through such things as workers becoming aware of the class structure underlying society, or "socialism" as in some future hypothetical society with egalitarian principles.

If you meant the former sense:

Standard socialist theory suggests that capitalism has various self-effacing tendencies, such as a falling aggregate return-on-investment for capitalists as firms use more and more capital relative to labour. The claim is that these tendencies eventually lead to a large "reserve army of labour", low wages for workers, and frequent economic crises which serve to temporarily reverse the falling profitability. However, a developed country can prolong this tendency by essentially creating an asymmetrical movement of capital and labour globally, such that capitalists from the developed "core" country can move labour-intensive industries to other countries, transferring surplus value back to that country, but labour from those other countries cannot move into the developed country. This allows the core country to "live on reserves", affording the working class within that country high wages and low rates of exploitation (Karl Kautsky used the term "labour aristocracy" to refer to this phenomenon), fueled by a higher rate of exploitation in the countries to which capital was outsourced. As mentioned, this is only a prolonging of the tendencies described earlier, because this process also helps the other countries develop, much like we're seeing with China currently, and the profitability of this venture falls. A core country will eventually have to withdraw capital from those countries and find other reserves, which will also eventually become exhausted.

Given the above, creating open borders for labour as well as for capital may help socialism because it "accelerates" the tendencies described above. You can think about this using the terminology of mainstream economics: if labour and capital could freely be allocated, as in perfect competition, then there exists some "equilibrium" outcome once everyone has made their allocative choices, and there is no longer any country, industry, etc. which remains more profitable than the others. Without the asymmetrical barrier described above, which is very much a state-enforced policy that goes against the natural market incentives of capitalists, developed nations would no longer be able to sustain a standard of living which is artificially above this equilibrium at the expense of other countries being held below this equilibrium. The tendencies of capitalism described previously would be laid threadbare for all workers, regardless of country.

By the same token, open borders may hurt socialism because the above process would entail lowering wages of the working class in the developed country (although there's some dispute between mainstream economists and Marxists on this point), creating a conflict of economic interests between members of the working class rather than uniting them - an antagonism which can be exploited and intensified by the ruling class, through their outlets in media and politicians. There's a really good article in the Monthy Review about this, and it goes over some of Marx's writings on the issue of migration between Ireland and Britain at the time. He believed that Irish migrants to Britain would decrease the wages of British workers ("The ordinary English worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his standard of life."), harming the prospects of a united working class. At the same time, his proposal to labour organizing in England was not to oppose migration, but rather “to make the English workers realize that for them the national emancipation of Ireland is not a question of abstract justice or humanitarian sentiment but the first condition of their own social emancipation.”

I think the ideal outcome for capitalists (as in, owners of capital, not supporters of the ideology) is something resembling Dubai. Migrant labour in Dubai makes up a staggeringly high percentage of their workforce (I think up to 80-90% if I remember correctly), but at the same time, they form this silent underclass who are generally hidden from the wealthy Arabs and foreign expats who live in the city. The migrants who work there generally form alien work permits directly with companies/institutions, and thus have little influence over the conditions of their employment - if they don't like it, their permit can be terminated and they can be deported at any time. This seems to be very much the approach that capitalists in the US support, and the Democrats and Republicans almost play a "good cop, bad cop" type routine to accomplish it. Despite anti-migrant rhetoric, many wealthy Republican politicians and business owners rely on migrant labour - Trump himself has been exposed in employing undocumented immigrants in Trump Tower and some of his golf courses - but also want to prevent migrants from collectively organizing in the same way that American citizens are allowed to collectively organize. The idea is that organizations like ICE act as strikebreakers, and to generally harrass migrants; the goal is to make them understand that asking for higher wages would basically be a suicide note in terms of their employment and life in the US, as the employer can call an organization like ICE at any time.

>How will open borders help capitalism? >How will open borders hinder capitalism?

Again, it depends on what specifically you mean by "capitalism" here. If you mean it to refer to the ideology of free markets and voluntary exchange, and so on, then it's sort of a strange question. Open borders is by definition capitalism, taken in this sense, because anything less than open borders is a forceful infringement on a voluntary market transaction imposed by a government. So it's more that "open borders IS capitalism", rather than "open borders helps capitalism".

If by "capitalism" you mean to refer to the actual system that exists, then you have to clarify what normative criterion you're using to measure good outcomes. If by "help" you mean "improves aggregate social welfare", regardless of who the benefits accrue to, then I don't think there's any question that open borders helps capitalism. It's probably one of the closest things to a consensus that mainstream economists have. However, if your normative criterion involves other things (like whether particular subsets of the population will be harmed, and to what extent), or more intangible things like culture, then it's impossible to answer the question without knowing more about your criterion.

>What are some historical examples on open borders?

Keep in mind that borders, as we currently know them, are an incredibly recent phenomenon, so there's not really that much to go off of. Before the advent of the modern nation state, any concept of a border was predominantly/purely militaristic. There wasn't a clearly demarcated line which imposed legal constraints on every and any individual who tried to cross it, but rather fuzzy marchlands which were not considered to belong to any dominion. Individual merchants or peasants were generally able to cross these borders at a whim, and if any restrictions were enforced, it was usually done in an ad-hoc manner (e.g. payments on a toll bridge).

America's borders were pretty much open prior to about 1880, after which some exclusion acts started getting passed. This doesn't seem to have had any major harm - there was a lot of ethnic tensions between previous American citizens and the Irish and Italian migrants, especially since these groups tended to form enclaves at first, but this eventually subsided and we now see these groups as integral parts of American culture.

Some other examples of open borders are the borders between American states, between countries within the Schengen Zone, etc.

>What is some research on open borders?

Here's a couple papers from the Econ literature that I'm familiar with. The first one is a survey paper, so you can probably find a lot more by following the references.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w16736

https://www.nber.org/papers/w18307

While not research, there's also a book by the Libertarian economist Bryan Caplan, "Open Borders: the Science and Ethics of Immigration", which provides a defense of open borders. It's written in a sort of cutesy cartoon style, but is also includes very extensive references and does a rather good job at "steelmanning" some of the objections that Caplan considers.

Links & random stuff from today's hangout.

Chiller
https://www.amazon.com/Chiller-Gregory-Benford-ebook/dp/B005H8DI1I/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=gregory+benford+chiller&qid=1606680247&s=digital-text&sr=1-1

Gaseous signs of life on Venus aren't seen in follow-up observations
https://www.salon.com/2020/10/28/phosphine-life-in-venus-atmosphere-called-into-question/

Harvard Scientists Reconsider the Possibility of Life on Venus
https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2020/11/2/venus-life-researchers-question/

Alcor’s email regarding their new app.
Alcor is excited to announce we recently finished alpha testing a new check-in service and we signed an agreement with one of our strategic partners! The service supports live daily calls, at a predetermined time, from an Emergency Medical Technician (EMT) to confirm you are well and inquire about any changes to your health status. If you do not answer the call after several tries, the EMT will alert a designated contact, such as a friend or neighbor, to check on you!

In addition to live daily calls from an EMT, the service comes with a smartphone app! The app supports several features, including:
• Member electronic check-in to skip a call from an EMT for the day;
• Mobile Emergency Response Service to immediately connect you to an EMT 24/7;
• Geolocation enabled Pin Drop feature so you can be found in case of an emergency;
• And other features!
Alcor is starting a beta phase for the next few months with a limited number of members to field test the check-in service. Alcor plans to announce general availability and pricing for the service in Spring 2021.

A real thing we can do to avert the next sad Cryonics story
https://www.reddit.com/r/cryonics/comments/jwwgk0/a_real_thing_we_can_do_to_avert_the_next_sad/

Arrhenius equation
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arrhenius_equation

Howey Test
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h/howey-test.asp

Create ERC20 Token
https://vittominacori.github.io/erc20-generator/create-token/

INTERMEDIATE TEMPERATURE STORAGE IN CRYONICS
https://www.biostasis.com/intermediate-temperature-storage-in-cryonics/

William Constitution O'Rights (Bill O'Rights) - The Cryonics Institute’s 93rd Patient
https://www.cryonics.org/case-reports/the-cryonics-institutes-93rd-patient-by-ben-best

Seasteading (1)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_barges

Seasteading (2)
https://www.seasteading.org/

Blueseed
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blueseed

THE CRYPTO CRUISE SHIP
https://www.satoshishores.com/

Ocean Builders
https://oceanbuilders.com/cruiseship/

Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration
https://www.amazon.com/Open-Borders-Science-Ethics-Immigration/dp/1250316960

End of Western Union Remittance Service to Cuba a Boon for Crypto
https://news.bitcoin.com/end-of-western-union-remittance-service-to-cuba-a-boon-for-crypto/

Coinbase
https://www.coinbase.com/dashboard