1) Foreign aid and open borders are intensely unpopular in first world democracies.
2) Running on these platforms will cause leftist parties to lose elections while not passing the preferred policies.
3) When leftist parties lose elections the first world welfare state will be smaller then otherwise.
This seems like the most obvious line of argument. The goal of leftists is to transfer resources from rich first worlders to poor first worlders because poor first worlders can vote and thus have he actual political power necessary to take from rich first worlders, while poor third worlders don't have political power.
Now, if you think poor first worlders stealing from rich first worlders is bad, this won't be appealing, but I think you are starting from the viewpoint that they are leftists, so they view it as a good thing.
If you put a gun to his head and forced Matt Yglesias to choose between the welfare state and One Billion Americans, he would choose the welfare state, at least in his role as a pundit.
I think you're right. In my review of Yglesias's book, in which I was generally favorable, I pointed out that he put way more effort (though not thought) into the idea of subsidizing Americans to have children than he put into the details of how to get more immigration, even though the latter is far more likely to get us anywhere close to 1 billion Americans.
How practical is the concept of “open borders”? That seems like a hypothetical argument with no basis in reality. How do you get the peoples of all countries in the world to enact/allow open borders?
Would people in your country accept open borders?
So what can you do instead? It seems wealth redistribution via taxation is something that each nation-state can at least enact on its own.
If you can’t do the perfect, by helping all the global poor (by letting all of them come to your country), you shouldn’t let that be the enemy of good, which is helping some of your local poor.
the leftist generally does not believe that poor americans are better off than poor botswanans because of economic growth, because he believes that market economies do nothing but capture the surplus created by the productive classes. therefore, in the leftist mind, the american welfare state (as well as unions, regulation, and other forms of coercion) are the sole reason why the american poor are better off than the congolese poor
or, in other words, the leftist believes that poor Americans are poor because they are exploited by the upper class, and poor Congolese are poorer because they are more exploited
so to the cosmopolitan leftist, eliminating the welfare state and opening the borders does little or nothing to help the economic situation of the world's poor; the vaults are thrown open but the treasure is already gone. the trade you offer, in his mind, is for the relatively poor to become absolutely poor, in exchange for allowing foreigners the privilege of being exploited here instead of there
the relationship of this view to reality is left as an exercise for the reader
1) Foreign aid and open borders are intensely unpopular in first world democracies.
2) Running on these platforms will cause leftist parties to lose elections while not passing the preferred policies.
3) When leftist parties lose elections the first world welfare state will be smaller then otherwise.
This seems like the most obvious line of argument. The goal of leftists is to transfer resources from rich first worlders to poor first worlders because poor first worlders can vote and thus have he actual political power necessary to take from rich first worlders, while poor third worlders don't have political power.
Now, if you think poor first worlders stealing from rich first worlders is bad, this won't be appealing, but I think you are starting from the viewpoint that they are leftists, so they view it as a good thing.
If you put a gun to his head and forced Matt Yglesias to choose between the welfare state and One Billion Americans, he would choose the welfare state, at least in his role as a pundit.
I think you're right. In my review of Yglesias's book, in which I was generally favorable, I pointed out that he put way more effort (though not thought) into the idea of subsidizing Americans to have children than he put into the details of how to get more immigration, even though the latter is far more likely to get us anywhere close to 1 billion Americans.
Ending the welfare state is the beginning of a better world, not the end of it.
How practical is the concept of “open borders”? That seems like a hypothetical argument with no basis in reality. How do you get the peoples of all countries in the world to enact/allow open borders?
Would people in your country accept open borders?
So what can you do instead? It seems wealth redistribution via taxation is something that each nation-state can at least enact on its own.
If you can’t do the perfect, by helping all the global poor (by letting all of them come to your country), you shouldn’t let that be the enemy of good, which is helping some of your local poor.
Where can I buy that mug?
the leftist generally does not believe that poor americans are better off than poor botswanans because of economic growth, because he believes that market economies do nothing but capture the surplus created by the productive classes. therefore, in the leftist mind, the american welfare state (as well as unions, regulation, and other forms of coercion) are the sole reason why the american poor are better off than the congolese poor
or, in other words, the leftist believes that poor Americans are poor because they are exploited by the upper class, and poor Congolese are poorer because they are more exploited
so to the cosmopolitan leftist, eliminating the welfare state and opening the borders does little or nothing to help the economic situation of the world's poor; the vaults are thrown open but the treasure is already gone. the trade you offer, in his mind, is for the relatively poor to become absolutely poor, in exchange for allowing foreigners the privilege of being exploited here instead of there
the relationship of this view to reality is left as an exercise for the reader
Is a policy of open borders combined with a welfare state a good idea? Which of us has an "open border" policy for our homes?
I've made similar arguments myself. I either get a non-response or nonsense similar to what you've described.