I recently finished teaching my Immigration class at the University of Palermo. During the last week, we visited a Catholic charity that helps Sicily’s migrants. The workers seemed like nice people, but they were deeply economically illiterate. They didn’t have a bad word to say about the Italian government, the organization that makes immigration a presumptive crime. Quite the opposite. According to the workers, the government of Italy heroically cared for migrants, giving them food, shelter, clothing, and much more. The idea that the migrants could have cared for themselves if the government just got out of the way never passed their lips.
Effective charity requires a good grasp of the workings of society. If economics is “not your strong suit,” your efforts will be compromised, perhaps even fatally.
I remember a similar discussion I had with a friend on the topic of gig workers: my friend, a STEM Phd from a top italian university, was of the opinion that we should ban all delivery apps as they are "exploiting" poor people to provide a cheap service. It never occurred to him that the real problem was the government creating so many barriers for these people, mostly immigrants, that the price of labor simply felt very low.
And I had similar discussions with other Italian friends. I blame the Church, which has still a strong impact on Italian culture: profit seeking, and the idea of building wealth is frowned upon in Italy.
Everyone has the right to choose who to hire. If you want to hire only Americans (or rich college-educated Americans) that's your right. But it's wrong of the government to ban me from hiring who I want for my private business, or who I rent out a home to.
Same thing for a theoretical private city state. You can invite whoever you want.
What's the big difference between organization hiring and an organization deciding who can reside on land owned by the organization? Almost everywhere, no one but governments has allodial title to land. The land owner can do what he wants with his land and the ultimate owner of the land is the corporate entity we call a government.
The difference is that the government doesn't own the land. The government doesn't own my house. I do. They assert their authority over me without my consent and may pretend like they own my house, but they don't. Just because they conquered or declared authority over my land years ago through force doesn't give them the right over my property and who I can associate with on my property.
If you don't like it louisiana-purchase some land and start a new government. But existing governments aren't obligated morally or legally to conform to your preference of having no borders.
Where is the land? Antarctica? The ocean? Somewhere else it is unreasonable to live?
"If you don't like me banning you from associating with people, you can move" isn't a good excuse. If anyone (the mafia, a normal citizen) were to do that to you, it would be called a rights violation. The government has an obligation to conform to this preference of no freedom of association restrictions.
I have the exact same question for you. Why does the government get to declare their authority arbitrarily over human beings and threaten to lock us in cages for not complying? Other people can't do that. Why do they get to do "immigration controls" and not us? If I did that to you it would be widely considered a violation of your freedom of association as I point out in my other comment.
Immigration controls are the same thing as kicking an unwelcome guest out of your house.
You're free to go live in whichever country acquiesces to your presence, or make a charter city in an existing country. But the way most countries are currently organized is that none of the citizens own an absolute title to the land. There are essentially some entails attached to it by the sovereign. One of those entails is that you have to pay property tax (sort of like rent to the sovereign). Another is that you can't use the land without the permission of the sovereign. This is analogous to an HOA that reserves the right to make prospective buyers apply and pass a background check before buying a house in the HOA, to make sure they're not a methamphetamine manufacturer or whatever. A government is just a really really big HOA.
No, it is not the same thing. If the United States is like a house, then someone driving on an interstate somewhere in Kansas is driving around in your living room.
The fact that I can move is irrelevant. If the mafia comes to my house and says they are going to ban Mexicans associating with me and that if I don't like it I can move, they are in the wrong. The soveriegn, unlike the HOA, has no right to do those things (like the mafia).
It is a very typical behaviour around Europe. Especially among the political left. What many people do not realise despite all socialist style storytelling is that historically seen, many workers have been acting in bad way against other workers as by imposing nativist, nationalist and repressive immigration systems.
"illegal businesses are the best-available remedy.'
Wow that's great and better yet Italy has a long standing tradition of these sorts of libertarian de-regulated underground associations. They don't just provide recreational pharmaceuticals, sexual entertainments, undocumented travel and high stakes games of chance either. They can also provide protection and security, finance and dispute resolution.
At the public universities Caplan is employed at, do they have an open borders admission policy? Can any student just walk over, purchase market price tuition, and enroll in a class for credit? When parents pay human smugglers outrageous fees, as Lori Loughlin paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their children in, how does the university treat such illegally admitted students? The University fought to get Lori Loughlin imprisoned, actually thrown behind bars, for the crime of paying giant sums money she lawfully earned so her daughters could pursue a better life as students at a government funded institution.
I was thinking of UT Austin, with which Caplan is affiliated. UT absolutely rejects most students who want to attend. Do they have a moral right to decline people the right to study math or engineering at the prestigious campus of Texas as a public institution?
"The idea that the migrants could have cared for themselves if the government just got out of the way never passed their lips."
Because they aren't going to care for themselves. These immigrants and/or their children are going to avail themselves of the free healthcare, education, retirement, and infrastructure that the natives pay for.
"Farmers pay two Euros an hour, plus substandard room and board, to migrant workers."
Are they going to pay enough in taxes on those $2 to provide for their own healthcare?
"But the reason for these unfavorable market conditions is the oppression of the Italian government."
If the Italian government is so oppressive, why are they migrating there?
Could it be that in the long run they plan to leech off that government.
"Human smugglers and illegal employers, in contrast, have helped millions."
They took advantage of an arbitrage where they could get the government to subsize their workers wages, pocketing most of the value for themselves at others expense. Once they have brought over enough Africans to change the countries demographics the host country will be as poor as the place the immigrants came from.
"To be blunt, I’m right and they’re wrong."
You're an arrogant blowhard who should know better, but you're too deep into your branding to back out now.
The migrants should stay in their host countries and try to fix them. If they can't its likely something wrong with the migrants themselves that they will simply transfer to whatever country they migrate to.
I'm an open border skeptic, but these are poor arguments.
> If the Italian government is so oppressive, why are they migrating there?
Easy. The opportunity overshadows the risks.
> The migrants should stay in their host countries and try to fix them.
Reasonably, I expect people to pursue their selfish interests. If I was born in a crappy country, I presume I would want to migrate to a nicer country.
> ... they plan to leech off that government.
Some do, some don't. The standard, good response is cut back the welfare state and make it harder to leach off the government for everyone regardless of citizenship or migrant status. One counter argument is this a hypothetical government-wide policy that regular people can't choose. Poor migrants often do consume more services than they produce, and at some level citizens eat that cost in one form or another. The counter argument to that is that large shocks of ethnic diversity will undermine political support for the welfare state and enact all kinds of beneficial free market reforms. That's not impossible, I hope that is true, but I'm not convinced.
The better argument is along identity and culture: normal people want to see their culture perpetuate into future generations; this involves undermining and destroying the Italian ethnic and probably the linguistic identity, while promoting non-Italian, non-white identities. And this involves co-opting the power of the Italian government, to assist, which is the official institution that is supposed to preserve and extend the Italian cultural identities. Caplan's book and posts address this, but less convincingly.
Simple: make a law that only citizens get free health care. Migrants should be free to come and work for private businesses, but you're right that Italians shouldn't have to pay for them.
They can buy private health insurance (maybe even be forced to,
if you're worried they'll show up at the ER ), or go without.
Just make a law that creates a huge class of desperately poor second class citizens that permanately can't vote and whose poverty never effects anyone around them.
Of course! Why didn't I think of that. Nothing about that situation is completely combustable and non-sustainable. We are just swimming in real world examples where that worked out just fine.
The alternative is not that they be first class citizens, it's that they're not citizens (or legal residents) at all. They also wouldn't be desperately poor if they were legal residents.
For the record I, like most immigrants, am a "second-class citizen" who can't vote and would be deported if I committed a crime. I would prefer to be a US citizen, but since that's not an option right now I prefer being in the US legally with citizenship than being in my home country.
Regardless of migration status: some people are productive members of society, and others mooch of the welfare state. Even if migrants have a higher ratio of moochers: The Caplan solution which I'm quite sympathetic to is reform the welfare state so people have less opportunity to exploit it and mooch off of others. Native born moochers also shouldn't have the right to mooch either. And many potentially productive foreigners shouldn't have their rights to migrate and be productive abridged by the mooching tendencies of others.
Effective charity requires a good grasp of the workings of society. If economics is “not your strong suit,” your efforts will be compromised, perhaps even fatally.
I remember a similar discussion I had with a friend on the topic of gig workers: my friend, a STEM Phd from a top italian university, was of the opinion that we should ban all delivery apps as they are "exploiting" poor people to provide a cheap service. It never occurred to him that the real problem was the government creating so many barriers for these people, mostly immigrants, that the price of labor simply felt very low.
And I had similar discussions with other Italian friends. I blame the Church, which has still a strong impact on Italian culture: profit seeking, and the idea of building wealth is frowned upon in Italy.
Would a privately owned city-state be “oppressing” potential migrants by being picky about whom to “hire” as a new citizen?
Everyone has the right to choose who to hire. If you want to hire only Americans (or rich college-educated Americans) that's your right. But it's wrong of the government to ban me from hiring who I want for my private business, or who I rent out a home to.
Same thing for a theoretical private city state. You can invite whoever you want.
What's the big difference between organization hiring and an organization deciding who can reside on land owned by the organization? Almost everywhere, no one but governments has allodial title to land. The land owner can do what he wants with his land and the ultimate owner of the land is the corporate entity we call a government.
The difference is that the government doesn't own the land. The government doesn't own my house. I do. They assert their authority over me without my consent and may pretend like they own my house, but they don't. Just because they conquered or declared authority over my land years ago through force doesn't give them the right over my property and who I can associate with on my property.
If you don't like it louisiana-purchase some land and start a new government. But existing governments aren't obligated morally or legally to conform to your preference of having no borders.
Where is the land? Antarctica? The ocean? Somewhere else it is unreasonable to live?
"If you don't like me banning you from associating with people, you can move" isn't a good excuse. If anyone (the mafia, a normal citizen) were to do that to you, it would be called a rights violation. The government has an obligation to conform to this preference of no freedom of association restrictions.
it would open borders b/c people are the ultimate resource
Or more generally, why should completely different moral rules apply to private clubs and polities?
I have the exact same question for you. Why does the government get to declare their authority arbitrarily over human beings and threaten to lock us in cages for not complying? Other people can't do that. Why do they get to do "immigration controls" and not us? If I did that to you it would be widely considered a violation of your freedom of association as I point out in my other comment.
Immigration controls are the same thing as kicking an unwelcome guest out of your house.
You're free to go live in whichever country acquiesces to your presence, or make a charter city in an existing country. But the way most countries are currently organized is that none of the citizens own an absolute title to the land. There are essentially some entails attached to it by the sovereign. One of those entails is that you have to pay property tax (sort of like rent to the sovereign). Another is that you can't use the land without the permission of the sovereign. This is analogous to an HOA that reserves the right to make prospective buyers apply and pass a background check before buying a house in the HOA, to make sure they're not a methamphetamine manufacturer or whatever. A government is just a really really big HOA.
No, it is not the same thing. If the United States is like a house, then someone driving on an interstate somewhere in Kansas is driving around in your living room.
The fact that I can move is irrelevant. If the mafia comes to my house and says they are going to ban Mexicans associating with me and that if I don't like it I can move, they are in the wrong. The soveriegn, unlike the HOA, has no right to do those things (like the mafia).
It is a very typical behaviour around Europe. Especially among the political left. What many people do not realise despite all socialist style storytelling is that historically seen, many workers have been acting in bad way against other workers as by imposing nativist, nationalist and repressive immigration systems.
"illegal businesses are the best-available remedy.'
Wow that's great and better yet Italy has a long standing tradition of these sorts of libertarian de-regulated underground associations. They don't just provide recreational pharmaceuticals, sexual entertainments, undocumented travel and high stakes games of chance either. They can also provide protection and security, finance and dispute resolution.
Ohhh ! Fuggedabout it already !
La vera definizione dell’altruismo è quando Kaplan prova a cambiare il governo Italiano con gli economici!
At the public universities Caplan is employed at, do they have an open borders admission policy? Can any student just walk over, purchase market price tuition, and enroll in a class for credit? When parents pay human smugglers outrageous fees, as Lori Loughlin paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their children in, how does the university treat such illegally admitted students? The University fought to get Lori Loughlin imprisoned, actually thrown behind bars, for the crime of paying giant sums money she lawfully earned so her daughters could pursue a better life as students at a government funded institution.
At George Mason? They’re about as close to open to anyone as you can reasonably get.
I was thinking of UT Austin, with which Caplan is affiliated. UT absolutely rejects most students who want to attend. Do they have a moral right to decline people the right to study math or engineering at the prestigious campus of Texas as a public institution?
We back people into a corner, and then we get surprised that they start making desperate choices
"The idea that the migrants could have cared for themselves if the government just got out of the way never passed their lips."
Because they aren't going to care for themselves. These immigrants and/or their children are going to avail themselves of the free healthcare, education, retirement, and infrastructure that the natives pay for.
"Farmers pay two Euros an hour, plus substandard room and board, to migrant workers."
Are they going to pay enough in taxes on those $2 to provide for their own healthcare?
"But the reason for these unfavorable market conditions is the oppression of the Italian government."
If the Italian government is so oppressive, why are they migrating there?
Could it be that in the long run they plan to leech off that government.
"Human smugglers and illegal employers, in contrast, have helped millions."
They took advantage of an arbitrage where they could get the government to subsize their workers wages, pocketing most of the value for themselves at others expense. Once they have brought over enough Africans to change the countries demographics the host country will be as poor as the place the immigrants came from.
"To be blunt, I’m right and they’re wrong."
You're an arrogant blowhard who should know better, but you're too deep into your branding to back out now.
The migrants should stay in their host countries and try to fix them. If they can't its likely something wrong with the migrants themselves that they will simply transfer to whatever country they migrate to.
I'm an open border skeptic, but these are poor arguments.
> If the Italian government is so oppressive, why are they migrating there?
Easy. The opportunity overshadows the risks.
> The migrants should stay in their host countries and try to fix them.
Reasonably, I expect people to pursue their selfish interests. If I was born in a crappy country, I presume I would want to migrate to a nicer country.
> ... they plan to leech off that government.
Some do, some don't. The standard, good response is cut back the welfare state and make it harder to leach off the government for everyone regardless of citizenship or migrant status. One counter argument is this a hypothetical government-wide policy that regular people can't choose. Poor migrants often do consume more services than they produce, and at some level citizens eat that cost in one form or another. The counter argument to that is that large shocks of ethnic diversity will undermine political support for the welfare state and enact all kinds of beneficial free market reforms. That's not impossible, I hope that is true, but I'm not convinced.
The better argument is along identity and culture: normal people want to see their culture perpetuate into future generations; this involves undermining and destroying the Italian ethnic and probably the linguistic identity, while promoting non-Italian, non-white identities. And this involves co-opting the power of the Italian government, to assist, which is the official institution that is supposed to preserve and extend the Italian cultural identities. Caplan's book and posts address this, but less convincingly.
Simple: make a law that only citizens get free health care. Migrants should be free to come and work for private businesses, but you're right that Italians shouldn't have to pay for them.
They can buy private health insurance (maybe even be forced to,
if you're worried they'll show up at the ER ), or go without.
Just make a law that creates a huge class of desperately poor second class citizens that permanately can't vote and whose poverty never effects anyone around them.
Of course! Why didn't I think of that. Nothing about that situation is completely combustable and non-sustainable. We are just swimming in real world examples where that worked out just fine.
The alternative is not that they be first class citizens, it's that they're not citizens (or legal residents) at all. They also wouldn't be desperately poor if they were legal residents.
For the record I, like most immigrants, am a "second-class citizen" who can't vote and would be deported if I committed a crime. I would prefer to be a US citizen, but since that's not an option right now I prefer being in the US legally with citizenship than being in my home country.
I don't know how accurate that is in Italy. Here is someone arguing that immigrants did not pay their own way in Sweden:
https://twitter.com/aClassicLiberal/status/1538943733454061570
And the same under Merkel in Germany:
https://westhunt.wordpress.com/2018/08/08/economists-and-merkels-migrants/
Regardless of migration status: some people are productive members of society, and others mooch of the welfare state. Even if migrants have a higher ratio of moochers: The Caplan solution which I'm quite sympathetic to is reform the welfare state so people have less opportunity to exploit it and mooch off of others. Native born moochers also shouldn't have the right to mooch either. And many potentially productive foreigners shouldn't have their rights to migrate and be productive abridged by the mooching tendencies of others.