Unfortunately, because of the woke ideology currently holding sway in the West, such a system would never be politically palatable here.
- in Dubai you are only ever a temorarily tolerated guest
- there is no path to citizenship, no matter how long you live there or how much you invest in the country
- If you lose your job, you have a few weeks to leave the country, unless you own a home there
- they allocate jobs there based on nationality and gender - for example Muslims cannot get visas to be domestic staff, because they don't want Muslims working as servants
- unless you work in one of the free trade zones you are at the mercy of your local sponsor. My Sri Lankan houseboy (cleaner) had been living and working in the UAE for decades and built up a life there with his family, but he had to uproot and return to Sri Lanka with a few days notice because his sponsor didn't file his paperwork and didn't answer his phone
- if you bounce a check you go to jail and/or get kicked out of the country
- if a local takes a dislike to you he can get you in trouble for any number of things, for example it's technically not allowed to cohabit with your partner if you're not married. You have no recourse if they don't want you anymore
- locals and foreigners have totally different rights
- the UAE only takes in people who are useful to them, ie the very rich, professionals (aka "white niggers") and labourers or menial workers, and you're only allowed in AFTER you have have the confirmed job or show the money
This is why the system works so well for the UAE and for the foreigners who fit the bill, but none of this would be remotely acceptable to the craven politicians in the West with their fake morality and virtue-signalling.
Dude you’re literally describing a system where they have less rights than the Jim Crow south or apartheid South Africa. We’re far past “woke” at that point, we are describing a society completely beyond the pale of 99% of the publics Overton window.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I’d like Bryan Caplan to explain why specifically Dubai is acceptable and, say, Jim Crow or Apartheid wasn’t acceptable. Is it because Dubai is much richer? But Dubai has the luxury of sitting on a huge amount of oil, which both the Jim Crow and Apartheid South Africa did not.
So, what is the meaningful difference here? Couldn’t a white Southerner back in, say, 1920 that however bad or unfair Jim Crow might be for blacks, living under it for blacks would still be a much better deal than living in Haiti or Sub-Saharan Africa, with these blacks even having the option of moving to the Northern US, where Jim Crow did not exist (though racially restrictive housing covenants did exist)?
Yes precisely. Which is why "open borders" is really vague here, as this could mean totally different things depending on the place and the citizenship laws. The real issue with immigration, which very few talk about, is the specific egalitarian social texture of western nation states, connected to the idea of territorial sovereignty etc., where the distinction between mere territorial resident and citizen of a given polity is obscured. The premise being that all people residing within a national territory should be formally (legally) equal, and additionally that this formal equality should result in material equality. Now when these ideas rose to prominence in the 19th century the world looked very different indeed.
This is really the weakness inherent in all merely economic analysis of immigration, i.e. it fails to grasp relevant political-social distinctions. I don't disagree with Caplan's main point though, and I would like for the West to become more like the UAE, but that would entail a lot more than simply open borders.
I agree that the Dubai system works well.
Unfortunately, because of the woke ideology currently holding sway in the West, such a system would never be politically palatable here.
- in Dubai you are only ever a temorarily tolerated guest
- there is no path to citizenship, no matter how long you live there or how much you invest in the country
- If you lose your job, you have a few weeks to leave the country, unless you own a home there
- they allocate jobs there based on nationality and gender - for example Muslims cannot get visas to be domestic staff, because they don't want Muslims working as servants
- unless you work in one of the free trade zones you are at the mercy of your local sponsor. My Sri Lankan houseboy (cleaner) had been living and working in the UAE for decades and built up a life there with his family, but he had to uproot and return to Sri Lanka with a few days notice because his sponsor didn't file his paperwork and didn't answer his phone
- if you bounce a check you go to jail and/or get kicked out of the country
- if a local takes a dislike to you he can get you in trouble for any number of things, for example it's technically not allowed to cohabit with your partner if you're not married. You have no recourse if they don't want you anymore
- locals and foreigners have totally different rights
- the UAE only takes in people who are useful to them, ie the very rich, professionals (aka "white niggers") and labourers or menial workers, and you're only allowed in AFTER you have have the confirmed job or show the money
This is why the system works so well for the UAE and for the foreigners who fit the bill, but none of this would be remotely acceptable to the craven politicians in the West with their fake morality and virtue-signalling.
Dude you’re literally describing a system where they have less rights than the Jim Crow south or apartheid South Africa. We’re far past “woke” at that point, we are describing a society completely beyond the pale of 99% of the publics Overton window.
Yeah, I mean, honestly, I’d like Bryan Caplan to explain why specifically Dubai is acceptable and, say, Jim Crow or Apartheid wasn’t acceptable. Is it because Dubai is much richer? But Dubai has the luxury of sitting on a huge amount of oil, which both the Jim Crow and Apartheid South Africa did not.
So, what is the meaningful difference here? Couldn’t a white Southerner back in, say, 1920 that however bad or unfair Jim Crow might be for blacks, living under it for blacks would still be a much better deal than living in Haiti or Sub-Saharan Africa, with these blacks even having the option of moving to the Northern US, where Jim Crow did not exist (though racially restrictive housing covenants did exist)?
Yes precisely. Which is why "open borders" is really vague here, as this could mean totally different things depending on the place and the citizenship laws. The real issue with immigration, which very few talk about, is the specific egalitarian social texture of western nation states, connected to the idea of territorial sovereignty etc., where the distinction between mere territorial resident and citizen of a given polity is obscured. The premise being that all people residing within a national territory should be formally (legally) equal, and additionally that this formal equality should result in material equality. Now when these ideas rose to prominence in the 19th century the world looked very different indeed.
This is really the weakness inherent in all merely economic analysis of immigration, i.e. it fails to grasp relevant political-social distinctions. I don't disagree with Caplan's main point though, and I would like for the West to become more like the UAE, but that would entail a lot more than simply open borders.