Immigration and laissez-faire

We have had much discussion over several months on many different paradigms in the way human beings go about their political-economic lives.

I touched on something in another thread:

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showpost.php?p=8020419&postcount=39

This is that other thread, as it is its own subject. An open question. Floor's open. Please feel free to discuss both legal and illegal immigration - I am sincerely interested in a discussion of the very concept of nationhood under an idea of a society optimized by an "invisible hand" of laissez-faire political economics.

 

it's a complex issue and I don't have the means nor the strength for a profound argument, but my short (and not very thought about) impression is that open borders just doesn't work.

 

Mine is more a theoretical question, cientifico, from the perspective of laissez-faire economics. It seems to me that under such a system, the idea of interfering in two actors wishing to engage in an economic relation - employer and employed - should not find currency. "Tortious interference with prospective economic advantage," to borrow from Law, on the broadest possible scale.

 

Interesting topic, just going to watch for now

 

OK. Will be interesting to see, since this seems this seems to me to go to the heart of any discussion on the right of any two individuals to pursue material relationship without interference.

 

I do believe the border however does come into play, something crossing a border of a nation does = it being different than two citizens of the nation itself.

My quick 2 cents.

 

Well, I've two quick main thoughts.

One, if the premise of laissez-faire - "leave things to proceed" - is that two individuals should be free to pursue relations with each other, without interference, why would the very idea of a border - necessarily, a barrier between willing actors - not be a gross intrusion on that freedom of choice?

Two, the normative end of the theory, which is that this kind of system bests all other political-economic constructs (some would say, it is a system based in "natural law") in benefits accruing to human beings. Given this, why not drop all borders, all barriers to free economic relationship, and allow the world to do what it would?

I just came across this - which is appropos...to quote Rothbard, from Mises.org:

http://mises.org/story/2639#immigration

I just cannot see how one can embrace both a laissez-faire political economic philosophy and argue from a position of immigration restrictions; indeed, how one can even say borders have a place in a laissez-faire worldview.

Grim, thoughts? Perhaps others will toss some in as well?

 

I'm more of a nationalist level thinker myself

Within the nation I can see it, however when it comes to the border in my eyes that changes everything.

I strongly believe in the US constitution as it was written, I also do not believe anyone is entitled to the protections or meanings of the constitution except for US citizens. = where I get much of my feelings on the border, or the question you have asked.

 

That's fine - I accept that. I am speaking more to those who espouse a laissez-faire environment as a matter of principle. I would argue you can't, and then also put attention on immigration as a social concern. The market either naturally cures, or it does not, whatever social ills one might find troubling from any number of immigration movements.

 

Laissez-faire is great if immigration is purely an economic issue. Unfortunately, it is often also framed as a social/cultural issue. It's easier to deal with economics but throw in the latter issue, it becomes emotional and highly political. So... it's very difficult to start the economic analysis without factoring in non-economic issues. To do so would be to deny practical realities on the ground.

Just my opinion.

 

A welfare state has to restrict immigration because it cannot afford to maintain the standard or "rights" it claims to provide for an unlimited number of people.

This leads to an inevitablely biased ethno-centrism: "Everyone deserves medicine - if they're American." This is the same root logic as racism, simply replaced with a national identity. By proposing to grant rights that cannot be extended to all humans, there is a division of the concept of universal human rights - all people cannot be treated equal as long as there is an arbitrary line in the sand that determines the value of the human individual and the assignment of such rights. This is my ethical problem with immigration and social welfare...

A key financial issue is what motivates the movement of migrants: if they come seeking entitlement, the welfare state will surely collapse under the disproportionate number of unproductive individuals. Sweden, France, or California cannot support a large migrant population unless its the type of immigrant that would not seek public services.

 

laissez-faire and free market economy is nothing but a pipe dream and utopia.
On the other hand, I think that limitation on immigration is stupid because it artificially pushes up the price of labor and lowers the competitiveness of a nation. In the long run will cause unemployment and transfer of wealth from some countries to others. It is better to have free immigration to avoid the problems in the long run.

 

North, we have been, essentially, laissez-faire for as long as we have been a country. It's only now that in lieu of actual content and substance that certain politicians decided to drag out the worst common denominator in us by provoking fear and hatred that it is suddenly an issue. It's as old as the hills. Look at what happened, for instance, immediately after the Johnstown Flood of 1889. It was the Bohunks what done it! Meanwhile the South Fork Fishing Club had, of it's sixty only members, names among it like Carnegie, Phipps, Mellon, Pitcairn... It was the richest men in the world who would not spend sixty cents to repair a damn that cost thousands their lives.

But it was the Bohunks what done it.

Today it's raising it's ugly head again. Sheer expediency to cover up shallow platforms.

Thank God, whoever wins, it looks like some sanity will finally be introduced on the subject before Congress with a real chance of progress.

 

Dead, there has been a contingent arguing we have never had anything approaching laissez-faire, and that true laissez-faire is best - with one of its members arguing an absolutist call, the abolition of the state and replacement of public goods by private, for profit entrepreneurs providing the service. This same call has been fairly vocal about immigration control. I'm interested in the apparent disconnect being addressed, if even from a theoretical perspective.

 

People who discuss laissez-faire are no different than Utopian socialists, both live in dream world without consideration for reality outside of their ideas. There has never been a true laissez-faire and there will never be one.
It can be an interesting theoretical discussion but that's about it.

 

I agree with you. But there are those on this forum who decry anything other than laissez-faire as a travesty against humanity, and misread history - such as saying Germany recovered fastest post-WWII due to a lassez-faire policy - to try and support their views. I would ask those who do believe this to explain their issue with immigration. So far, no one has had the courage to speak to this.

 

If anything Germany after WWI was closer to semi lassez-faire than Germany after WWII and hopefully we all know what happened to Germany after WWI. How can even be imagined that Germany was a free market economy with wast evidence of documents about Marshall Plan.

 

From my read of German history, Germany was never anywhere close, due to its earlier developments (beginning with at least industrialization, but really, before, in the kleindeutsch v. grossdeutsch national debates leading up to 1848 and beyond) of corporatist interests. Class politics had a saliency in Germany that didn't exist in other, more liberal societies, leading up to and through WWI. But agreed, the post-WWII polity was anything but a laissez-faire "solution," and the "economic miracle" was not based on a free-market society.

 

That is the problem with those who advocate "free market" economy that they remove the established classes and the class politics out of the equation and make it a pure economical discussion. It is kind of like discussing mechanical engineering and the design of new machine based on a planet that has no gravity or friction.

 

I was working in the area of Dusseldorf and there were a lot of decendents of Silesian Poles that came to the Ruhr to work in the coal mines.