In their new book Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith do everything you’d think that good policy pundits should do. They don’t just track trends or scold rivals, they identify and focus on a feasible positive policy change. They don’t just pick any old change, but focus on one of the biggest possible gains they can identify. And it isn’t a complex fragile proposal that most people couldn’t understand, or that would go badly if not implemented exactly as recommended; their proposal is simple and robust. They don’t pick a topic that has little emotional-resonance, regarding which few would act even if they were persuaded; their topic is quite emotionally-engaging. They don’t pick a change so abstract (like
Denmark calculated the fiscal impacts of immigration recently, it didn't look very good, with non-western migrants being a net negative in the first generation
In his book, Caplan quotes estimates from a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences. The study concludes that the average migrant has a net positive long-run fiscal effect (though the effect may be net negative for specific classes of migrants).
Explicit freedom of religion is just one that's particularly salient to me personally; women's rights and sexual freedom (non-criminalization of premarital or extramarital sex, LGBT+ acceptance, etc.) are also a big deal to many people, as are other religion-inspired laws that I would consider oppressive. There are genuine value differences that bother me, and I'd rather not have to live in the kind of society that the average religous traditionalist would want to have.
Exclusion of others from one’s state is an act of defense of his property or his person when said state takes a portion of his wealth and gives it to immigrants or he reasonably concludes said immigrants might be dangerous.
Most modern states have some sort of decision making process widely regarded or at least accepted as legitimate and the admission of other people to the polity would seem to be a matter for that decision making process, not the whim of some portion of the population.
The net economic benefits of immigration to the US are real and have been studied, and they accrue to the immigrants and their employers, not the pre-immigration population.
Does the book acknowledge the very real possibility that certain ethnic groups are unlikely to be of any benefit to service economies because of insufficient mental abilities and a high likelihood to have a temperament unsuited to civilized society, but one that is a good fit for say, a horticultural tribal one ?
Denmark calculated the fiscal impacts of immigration recently, it didn't look very good, with non-western migrants being a net negative in the first generation
Freedom of religion is worth much less to me than 40% of my income. I might be reluctant to move away from all my friends, but freedom of religion isn't the reason I'd hesitate about moving to Iran.
Any one person with an infinite value outweighs all others with finite values in a cost-benefit calculation. But the rest of us can be forgiven if we are skeptical about such a claim of infinite value.
Imagine one person who doesn't want more immigration, no matter how much income you give him. You can't pay him off to consent. In what philosophical sense do the benefit outweigh the costs then? To be clear, this argument isn't specific to immigration. It can apply to any claim that the social benefits outweigh the social costs. There are no coherent social indifference curves. There is no coherent interpersonal preference aggregation. The entire philosophy is build on empty concepts. You may personally want a doubling of world product for some idiosyncratic reason, but world product doesn't have intrinsic value. It doesn't even matter if you win majority votes, as they can violate arbitrarily strong minority preferences.
I tend to agree but would still question that the over all assessment by the total population or some very important sub-populations would be positive. If not then we may easily see increased conflict and strife in the world with more "plenty".
Years ago I believe Vernon Smith ran some experiments that produced rather unexpected results. I want to say the participants were all econ majors. The expected gains from the trades did not play out. No one had a good explanation but James M Buchanan suggested that perhaps the issue was that it was the relative gains that matter and not the absolute gains.
And what's the Bayesian probability that not even one of them is not lying, in a world of 7 billion people?
The comment to which you are responding provided a link to the report that answers those questions.
"The averagr migrant"
That's even worse than separating migrants into Westerners and non-Westerners only. Which ethnic group? What education level? What age?
Time to further separate the results by ethnic group.
Denmark calculated the fiscal impacts of immigration recently, it didn't look very good, with non-western migrants being a net negative in the first generation
In his book, Caplan quotes estimates from a recent report by the National Academy of Sciences. The study concludes that the average migrant has a net positive long-run fiscal effect (though the effect may be net negative for specific classes of migrants).
Not only do people make such claims, but Caplan discusses them in his book.https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
Explicit freedom of religion is just one that's particularly salient to me personally; women's rights and sexual freedom (non-criminalization of premarital or extramarital sex, LGBT+ acceptance, etc.) are also a big deal to many people, as are other religion-inspired laws that I would consider oppressive. There are genuine value differences that bother me, and I'd rather not have to live in the kind of society that the average religous traditionalist would want to have.
Exclusion of others from one’s state is an act of defense of his property or his person when said state takes a portion of his wealth and gives it to immigrants or he reasonably concludes said immigrants might be dangerous.
Most modern states have some sort of decision making process widely regarded or at least accepted as legitimate and the admission of other people to the polity would seem to be a matter for that decision making process, not the whim of some portion of the population.
The net economic benefits of immigration to the US are real and have been studied, and they accrue to the immigrants and their employers, not the pre-immigration population.
Does the book acknowledge the very real possibility that certain ethnic groups are unlikely to be of any benefit to service economies because of insufficient mental abilities and a high likelihood to have a temperament unsuited to civilized society, but one that is a good fit for say, a horticultural tribal one ?
Denmark calculated the fiscal impacts of immigration recently, it didn't look very good, with non-western migrants being a net negative in the first generation
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol...
Freedom of religion is worth much less to me than 40% of my income. I might be reluctant to move away from all my friends, but freedom of religion isn't the reason I'd hesitate about moving to Iran.
Any one person with an infinite value outweighs all others with finite values in a cost-benefit calculation. But the rest of us can be forgiven if we are skeptical about such a claim of infinite value.
Imagine one person who doesn't want more immigration, no matter how much income you give him. You can't pay him off to consent. In what philosophical sense do the benefit outweigh the costs then? To be clear, this argument isn't specific to immigration. It can apply to any claim that the social benefits outweigh the social costs. There are no coherent social indifference curves. There is no coherent interpersonal preference aggregation. The entire philosophy is build on empty concepts. You may personally want a doubling of world product for some idiosyncratic reason, but world product doesn't have intrinsic value. It doesn't even matter if you win majority votes, as they can violate arbitrarily strong minority preferences.
I repeat: Would you, personally, move to any of the currently existing Muslim-majority countries for a 40% increase in income?
I tend to agree but would still question that the over all assessment by the total population or some very important sub-populations would be positive. If not then we may easily see increased conflict and strife in the world with more "plenty".
Years ago I believe Vernon Smith ran some experiments that produced rather unexpected results. I want to say the participants were all econ majors. The expected gains from the trades did not play out. No one had a good explanation but James M Buchanan suggested that perhaps the issue was that it was the relative gains that matter and not the absolute gains.
You'd need a WALL around it to keep the immigrants in, Hawaii provides a free, natural barrier.
If the world product doubled(which I doubt) it is reasonable to assume than more people will gain than lose.