If he could respond, Dr Friedman would presumably point out that you're ignoring the selection effect. Babies are a cross-section of the existing population and presumably inherit their traits more-or-less proportionally; you cannot reason from them to immigrants. Likewise, current immigrants are Really Quite Strongly Selected for all the traits we want: They have to either convince an immigration officer that they'll be good citizens, or else have the resourcefulness and guts to work through literally deadly obstacles. Neither population can support any argument about what immigrants we might get if the borders were fully open and we kept welfare as-is, or even more so if we kept it as it was in 1978. It's at least possible that those immigrants would instead self-select for living off welfare payments.
My belief is that with immigration we are dealing with a matter of scale and cultural impact on the citizens who are in place. There is an acceptable absorption pace a population can and wants to deal with and that level should be a by-partisan decision not policies decided by utopian seeking elites who happen to have political power at the moment. The economics are sound for positive impact on the country and the mental model of the USA being an accepting place for immigrants is in place, but these choices ought to be agreed to by the population, not bureaucrats on a mission.
Though man is indeed homo economicus he is not ONLY that.
Every person crossing the border you laud in economic terms comes laden and encoded with “cultural features” that may not--and are currently proving WILL not fit our social/cultural “machine” of which the economy is but a part. Widen your perspective beyond GDP. Look around and see something greater than a balance sheet
That’s a totally reasonable objection, and if you look at his book Open Borders Bryan definitely acknowledges and grapples with just the issues you raise. Even if you disagree, his book is worth a read.
Friedman might have had a point if instead of open borders he said frictionless migration. If switching tax/benefit jurisdictions were as easy as checking a box on one's tax return, high earners would all opt into low tax/low benefit jurisdictions and low earners into high tax/high benefit ones. But this sort of extreme adverse selection is not observed even when no legal migration barriers exist (e.g. between US states or within Schengen)
The observed and well-documented advantageous selection effects arise because migration is costly.
However even in the absence of government impediments there are major costs to moving internationally. Differences in language and culture; leaving one's family and friends behind; etc.
Of course many (all?) governments expect many categories of immigrant to pay the full tax rate and receive only partial access to public services. (IIRC this was Friedman's case for preferring illegal immigration). I'm not sure whether, properly considered, this is a government impediment to migration or simply another friction, but it's another contributor to the advantageous selection effects of immigration.
Bryan, considering your arguments for more open immigration policies and my impression that you support Pareto optimality as a reasonable metric, how do you reconcile this with public concerns about unconstrained illegal immigration, particularly regarding the entry of criminal organizations such as Venezuelan gangs and Mexican drug cartels into the U.S. and the resulting decline of high trust communities into lower trust environments? Given these challenges, do you believe there are any limits to immigration that could be justified by your economic principles to maintain both economic benefits and the safety of high trust communities?
Most immigrants to the US pull their own weight and fiscally outperform natives in large part because the US is quite selective with non-mexican immigrants and usually still gets the cream of the crop.
But contrast with European data (Europe doesn't get to be as selective) on lifetime fiscal net contribution by immigrants such as Denmark's - there's a widely circulated graph from the Economist on this.
*That* gets closer to painting an accurate picture of what open borders + welfare would look like, in my opinion.
If he could respond, Dr Friedman would presumably point out that you're ignoring the selection effect. Babies are a cross-section of the existing population and presumably inherit their traits more-or-less proportionally; you cannot reason from them to immigrants. Likewise, current immigrants are Really Quite Strongly Selected for all the traits we want: They have to either convince an immigration officer that they'll be good citizens, or else have the resourcefulness and guts to work through literally deadly obstacles. Neither population can support any argument about what immigrants we might get if the borders were fully open and we kept welfare as-is, or even more so if we kept it as it was in 1978. It's at least possible that those immigrants would instead self-select for living off welfare payments.
My belief is that with immigration we are dealing with a matter of scale and cultural impact on the citizens who are in place. There is an acceptable absorption pace a population can and wants to deal with and that level should be a by-partisan decision not policies decided by utopian seeking elites who happen to have political power at the moment. The economics are sound for positive impact on the country and the mental model of the USA being an accepting place for immigrants is in place, but these choices ought to be agreed to by the population, not bureaucrats on a mission.
Forget Friedman.
YOU are wrong on open borders.
Though man is indeed homo economicus he is not ONLY that.
Every person crossing the border you laud in economic terms comes laden and encoded with “cultural features” that may not--and are currently proving WILL not fit our social/cultural “machine” of which the economy is but a part. Widen your perspective beyond GDP. Look around and see something greater than a balance sheet
That’s a totally reasonable objection, and if you look at his book Open Borders Bryan definitely acknowledges and grapples with just the issues you raise. Even if you disagree, his book is worth a read.
He doesn't look at just GDP. He spends a significant portion of the book addressing culture issues.
Friedman might have had a point if instead of open borders he said frictionless migration. If switching tax/benefit jurisdictions were as easy as checking a box on one's tax return, high earners would all opt into low tax/low benefit jurisdictions and low earners into high tax/high benefit ones. But this sort of extreme adverse selection is not observed even when no legal migration barriers exist (e.g. between US states or within Schengen)
The observed and well-documented advantageous selection effects arise because migration is costly.
However even in the absence of government impediments there are major costs to moving internationally. Differences in language and culture; leaving one's family and friends behind; etc.
Of course many (all?) governments expect many categories of immigrant to pay the full tax rate and receive only partial access to public services. (IIRC this was Friedman's case for preferring illegal immigration). I'm not sure whether, properly considered, this is a government impediment to migration or simply another friction, but it's another contributor to the advantageous selection effects of immigration.
Bryan, considering your arguments for more open immigration policies and my impression that you support Pareto optimality as a reasonable metric, how do you reconcile this with public concerns about unconstrained illegal immigration, particularly regarding the entry of criminal organizations such as Venezuelan gangs and Mexican drug cartels into the U.S. and the resulting decline of high trust communities into lower trust environments? Given these challenges, do you believe there are any limits to immigration that could be justified by your economic principles to maintain both economic benefits and the safety of high trust communities?
Are you for completely unrestricted immigration?
Bryan Caplan has written a staggering amount about this. If you can't bother to Google the most basic question, you shouldn't expect an answer.
Most immigrants to the US pull their own weight and fiscally outperform natives in large part because the US is quite selective with non-mexican immigrants and usually still gets the cream of the crop.
But contrast with European data (Europe doesn't get to be as selective) on lifetime fiscal net contribution by immigrants such as Denmark's - there's a widely circulated graph from the Economist on this.
*That* gets closer to painting an accurate picture of what open borders + welfare would look like, in my opinion.