We should have open borders. The only thing needed to get in should be a background check. But anyone who hasn’t committed violent crimes should be able to live and work in the country.
No. I’m not worried about being swamped by a flood of people from poorer countries. Why? Because no one wants to leave their family and entire home behind just to move to a wealthy country to live on the street as a homeless person. We will only ever attract as many immigrants as there are jobs to support them.
Of course, I would want reciprocity. I would support signing mutual open border agreements with poorer countries. They can send workers in need of work here. We can send retirees in need of low cost of living places there. The flow in both directions is kept in check by market forces, the same way we regulate the production of every good and service in our economies.
Life as a homeless person can be better than life in a war torn country.
Immigrants however are extremely unlikely to be homeless. People who take the initiative to flee across a continent tend to be self-starters and highly motivated. There’s a reason immigrants start businesses at far higher rates than native born citizens. By accepting immigrants, you are selecting for a population of the most motivated and driven people in the regions you’re drawing from.
Libertarian ah take
So? This is how we regulated immigration for the vast, vast majority of the history of human civilization. People move to areas with more opportunities. If too many people move to those areas, the opportunities available to immigrants decrease, and the flow of people slows. It’s a self-regulating system. It only ever becomes a thing to worry about if you’re concerned about the skin color of your neighbors.
Watch this video. Market inefficiency will have people freezing to death in the streets, unable to afford travelling to a place with work, unable even to afford accurate information on where to find work. Many turned to crime to survive.
In Tudor England’s case, they “solved” this by kidnapping people ICE-style and deporting them to the colonies as indentured servants or putting them in for-profit prisons.
Open borders are good, but you need to be anarchocommunist about it. People need to base their migration patterns on accurate information, which means information given as mutual aid rather than for profit or for manipulation (e.g. if people constantly say “we have no space” when they have space, people learn that “we have no space” means “we probably have space”, so if there is no space you get disaster).
It also needs to be mutual aid when people are there. Expecting people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to slot into the economy of a foreign culture is “leaving money on the table”. It’s much more economically productive to get people everything they need to be comfortable so they can instead spend their labor on efficient tasks they are specialized in (which then help other get what they need faster in the positive sum game we call society).
I understand what you’re saying about immigration, but that holds less true with respect to war forcing people to move.
So?
I was more pointing towards the suggestion that market forces kept everything in check, which, no, they don’t. The market does not magically stay afloat without intervention. Production is not just regulated by market forces.
But most importantly, countries have capacities. America, for example, can hold many more people than it is, comfortably. But if you have a place that’s smaller, like Britain or sweden, free border immigration will result in strains in both the cultural and infrastructure situation in the countries at hand as they rapidly grow beyond present capacity, which they will if free immigration is allowed.
Excess workers willing to work for lower pay can also drive wages down, and allow companies to exploit workers more easily(often regardless of the actual law).
I’m generally in favor of reasonably lax immigration policies, but free border immigration is not a good idea. People need time to adjust to the culture of where they’re going, and you don’t want to overload that
Because no one wants to leave their family and entire home behind just to move to a wealthy country to live on the street as a homeless person. We will only ever attract as many immigrants as there are jobs to support them.
At least up here in northern Europe that is sadly not true. I’m not claiming immigrants come here seeking free welfare (some probably do but there’s always people like that everywhere); but there’s plenty of people being actively lied to in their own countries, and sold this idea that you can just go up north and get a job and send money to your family etc. get a better life! So they gather all the money they have and give it to these liars, who then traffic them into EU and up here.
There’s barely any jobs in my country you can get without speaking the native language (which is difficult to learn and useless outside our 5mil population), and at this moment we even have massive unemployment crisis so there’s no jobs even for the natives. Still people are sold lies and come here, then get stuck trying to scrap any money they can, and get taken advantage of and have to live in poverty. Some even have big loans on them, they took to just get here. All in vain
Open borders are a great idea if you want to average out the standard of living across the world.
Personally, as an American, I don’t want that to be a fast process. I am interested in helping the rest of the world to raise their standard of living, especially in the long term. That’s in everyone’s interest.
I’m not interested in making huge sacrifices in the American standard of living in order to accomplish that.
I believe that everyone in the country should have free medical care, free or deeply subsidized minimal housing, and free or deeply subsidized food. (I believe this for everyone, but it has to happen somewhere before it can happen everywhere.)
This is not possible if we allow unlimited access to absolutely anyone (and their families) regardless of whether there is employment to sustain them.
We should have work visas sufficiently available for all the jobs that we need filled, and we should have harsh enforcement against employers who hire undocumented workers. (Treat them like slavers because that’s what they are). Deportations should be done compassionately and should not treat immigrants as criminals or national security threats.
Open borders are a naive notion, but we should be a lot closer to open borders than to what we have now.
Not sure needing any sort of check would be “open borders”, but let’s assume it’s open to anyone who doesn’t have a violent criminal record. Now all the non-violent people with criminal records are fleeing to your country to avoid prosecution. Do you allow them to be extradited?
Do you still have a military to protect your country from others? How do you prevent a foreign nation from just sending enough people over to instigate a coup? Way cheaper than going to war, and they wouldn’t even need to be sneaky or underhanded; just overwhelm the local population and overthrow their government.
Universal healthcare would completely collapse if people can move to a country, get treatment, then go back home. Are you doing a health screening and making sure they have a job and live in the country for a minimum amount of time?
Because no one wants to leave their family and entire home behind just to move to a wealthy country to live on the street as a homeless person
You can bring your family too so that’s a non-issue, and many people would be better off homeless in a wealthy country than making do in a poor one. People will travel within a country to be homeless in the more desirable places, if there’s essentially no boundary imagine how many people that would attract. Especially if the wealthy country continues to have outreach and support programs for the homeless and still enforces laws in the inevitable camps that spring up.
Now you’re arresting loads and people and it’s straining your resources to imprison them all. Do you start deporting people who break certain laws?
Seems like we’re starting to invent all the immigration rules that never used to exist but sprang up out of necessity.
You’re taking things way too literally. The US had open borders for most of its history, and it didn’t get invaded or fall to pieces. When people say “open boarder” they mean no restrictions on immigration other than criminal records.
Your speculation on vast camps is hogwash. Immigrants maintain much lower unemployment levels than native-born citizens. And you can have all your social welfare benefits tied to citizenship. These are problems the EU solved a long time ago. Look more into history and real world examples, less vague speculation.
Just because a social program worked in past doesn’t mean it will work in the future. Hell, just because a social program worked in another country doesn’t mean it will work in this country.
We can’t have people just coming in and immediately qualifying for government assistance. As selfish as it sounds people shouldn’t come into any country with the expectation of economic assistance. The U.S. is not the world’s welfare program; it cannot afford it.
This “overcorrection” was the case for the vast majority of human history. It only stopped being the case due to racism and nationalism. I’m not sure what you think you’re appealing to here but this is just not reflected in reality.
We should have open borders. The only thing needed to get in should be a background check. But anyone who hasn’t committed violent crimes should be able to live and work in the country.
No. I’m not worried about being swamped by a flood of people from poorer countries. Why? Because no one wants to leave their family and entire home behind just to move to a wealthy country to live on the street as a homeless person. We will only ever attract as many immigrants as there are jobs to support them.
Of course, I would want reciprocity. I would support signing mutual open border agreements with poorer countries. They can send workers in need of work here. We can send retirees in need of low cost of living places there. The flow in both directions is kept in check by market forces, the same way we regulate the production of every good and service in our economies.
Life as a homeless person can be better than life in a war torn country.
Libertarian ah take
Immigrants however are extremely unlikely to be homeless. People who take the initiative to flee across a continent tend to be self-starters and highly motivated. There’s a reason immigrants start businesses at far higher rates than native born citizens. By accepting immigrants, you are selecting for a population of the most motivated and driven people in the regions you’re drawing from.
So? This is how we regulated immigration for the vast, vast majority of the history of human civilization. People move to areas with more opportunities. If too many people move to those areas, the opportunities available to immigrants decrease, and the flow of people slows. It’s a self-regulating system. It only ever becomes a thing to worry about if you’re concerned about the skin color of your neighbors.
Watch this video. Market inefficiency will have people freezing to death in the streets, unable to afford travelling to a place with work, unable even to afford accurate information on where to find work. Many turned to crime to survive.
In Tudor England’s case, they “solved” this by kidnapping people ICE-style and deporting them to the colonies as indentured servants or putting them in for-profit prisons.
Open borders are good, but you need to be anarchocommunist about it. People need to base their migration patterns on accurate information, which means information given as mutual aid rather than for profit or for manipulation (e.g. if people constantly say “we have no space” when they have space, people learn that “we have no space” means “we probably have space”, so if there is no space you get disaster).
It also needs to be mutual aid when people are there. Expecting people to pull themselves up by their bootstraps to slot into the economy of a foreign culture is “leaving money on the table”. It’s much more economically productive to get people everything they need to be comfortable so they can instead spend their labor on efficient tasks they are specialized in (which then help other get what they need faster in the positive sum game we call society).
I understand what you’re saying about immigration, but that holds less true with respect to war forcing people to move.
I was more pointing towards the suggestion that market forces kept everything in check, which, no, they don’t. The market does not magically stay afloat without intervention. Production is not just regulated by market forces.
But most importantly, countries have capacities. America, for example, can hold many more people than it is, comfortably. But if you have a place that’s smaller, like Britain or sweden, free border immigration will result in strains in both the cultural and infrastructure situation in the countries at hand as they rapidly grow beyond present capacity, which they will if free immigration is allowed.
Excess workers willing to work for lower pay can also drive wages down, and allow companies to exploit workers more easily(often regardless of the actual law).
I’m generally in favor of reasonably lax immigration policies, but free border immigration is not a good idea. People need time to adjust to the culture of where they’re going, and you don’t want to overload that
There is less war today that at any point of human history.
I know. It’s also easier to ever than flee, and that’s also meaningless to this point
At least up here in northern Europe that is sadly not true. I’m not claiming immigrants come here seeking free welfare (some probably do but there’s always people like that everywhere); but there’s plenty of people being actively lied to in their own countries, and sold this idea that you can just go up north and get a job and send money to your family etc. get a better life! So they gather all the money they have and give it to these liars, who then traffic them into EU and up here.
There’s barely any jobs in my country you can get without speaking the native language (which is difficult to learn and useless outside our 5mil population), and at this moment we even have massive unemployment crisis so there’s no jobs even for the natives. Still people are sold lies and come here, then get stuck trying to scrap any money they can, and get taken advantage of and have to live in poverty. Some even have big loans on them, they took to just get here. All in vain
Open borders are a great idea if you want to average out the standard of living across the world.
Personally, as an American, I don’t want that to be a fast process. I am interested in helping the rest of the world to raise their standard of living, especially in the long term. That’s in everyone’s interest.
I’m not interested in making huge sacrifices in the American standard of living in order to accomplish that.
Removed by mod
You must be unaware of:
Remittances, a big part of the economy of some countries
The whole fucking EU
Removed by mod
If you have any requirement for entry then it’s not really an open border and you need some kind of enforcement to enforce those requirements.
I believe that everyone in the country should have free medical care, free or deeply subsidized minimal housing, and free or deeply subsidized food. (I believe this for everyone, but it has to happen somewhere before it can happen everywhere.)
This is not possible if we allow unlimited access to absolutely anyone (and their families) regardless of whether there is employment to sustain them.
We should have work visas sufficiently available for all the jobs that we need filled, and we should have harsh enforcement against employers who hire undocumented workers. (Treat them like slavers because that’s what they are). Deportations should be done compassionately and should not treat immigrants as criminals or national security threats.
Open borders are a naive notion, but we should be a lot closer to open borders than to what we have now.
Not sure needing any sort of check would be “open borders”, but let’s assume it’s open to anyone who doesn’t have a violent criminal record. Now all the non-violent people with criminal records are fleeing to your country to avoid prosecution. Do you allow them to be extradited?
Do you still have a military to protect your country from others? How do you prevent a foreign nation from just sending enough people over to instigate a coup? Way cheaper than going to war, and they wouldn’t even need to be sneaky or underhanded; just overwhelm the local population and overthrow their government.
Universal healthcare would completely collapse if people can move to a country, get treatment, then go back home. Are you doing a health screening and making sure they have a job and live in the country for a minimum amount of time?
You can bring your family too so that’s a non-issue, and many people would be better off homeless in a wealthy country than making do in a poor one. People will travel within a country to be homeless in the more desirable places, if there’s essentially no boundary imagine how many people that would attract. Especially if the wealthy country continues to have outreach and support programs for the homeless and still enforces laws in the inevitable camps that spring up.
Now you’re arresting loads and people and it’s straining your resources to imprison them all. Do you start deporting people who break certain laws?
Seems like we’re starting to invent all the immigration rules that never used to exist but sprang up out of necessity.
You’re taking things way too literally. The US had open borders for most of its history, and it didn’t get invaded or fall to pieces. When people say “open boarder” they mean no restrictions on immigration other than criminal records.
Your speculation on vast camps is hogwash. Immigrants maintain much lower unemployment levels than native-born citizens. And you can have all your social welfare benefits tied to citizenship. These are problems the EU solved a long time ago. Look more into history and real world examples, less vague speculation.
Just because a social program worked in past doesn’t mean it will work in the future. Hell, just because a social program worked in another country doesn’t mean it will work in this country.
We can’t have people just coming in and immediately qualifying for government assistance. As selfish as it sounds people shouldn’t come into any country with the expectation of economic assistance. The U.S. is not the world’s welfare program; it cannot afford it.
You mean out of racism?
I’m not American, but won’t say every immigration law is right; just that going full-open is an over-correction.
This “overcorrection” was the case for the vast majority of human history. It only stopped being the case due to racism and nationalism. I’m not sure what you think you’re appealing to here but this is just not reflected in reality.