I feel like this topic will become more and more relevant in the coming years. What's going to happen when islands in the Pacific begin to shrink or disappear? What happens when drought in Central America makes areas unlivable? At that point, do closed borders become passive genocide? Or even active genocide, considering per-capita CO2 emissions are much higher in areas that will be less affected. I know what the socialist perspective is: open all the borders. Just curious about what TWW liberals and conservatives think.

[Edited on October 15, 2019 at 3:05 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2019 3:03:34 PM

I don’t have any answers but any country who isn’t actively making this priority one is being absolutely foolish. Climate-displaced migration is going to be THE issue of the next 100 years.

(I’m an open borders, open trade type in general so where I fall is fairly easy to guess)

[Edited on October 15, 2019 at 3:37 PM. Reason : X]

10/15/2019 3:36:10 PM

Capitalism requires borders to be enforced on laborers. Capitalism depends on externalized costs and without borders being enforced on the global poor, companies aren't able to externalize labor costs.

GM can move a manufacturing plant to Mexico and get the exact same labor for less than half the price but still sell the vehicles in the USA for the same price. This only works because borders don't allow the workers to move to a place where they can demand higher wages.

As a consumer, we pay less for goods made in Asia not because those goods cost less to produce in those countries, but simply because people are trapped within a border where labor prices are artificially low but the products produced in that country have freedom to move.

10/15/2019 3:59:51 PM

^
Didn't want to go there yet, but yeah, exactly on point. Multinational corporations are the new imperialists. Even without climate change, borders as they exist are violence against the third world.

[Edited on October 15, 2019 at 4:16 PM. Reason : .]

10/15/2019 4:11:15 PM

In 12 years it won't matter, we'll all be dead.

10/15/2019 5:34:48 PM

^^^ Wages are not magic, and they certainly are not pulled out of the ground as a feature of a place. When capitalists moved their factories to Taiwan in 1962 the per-capita income was $170 a year. When they By 2011 per-capita income was $37,000 a year. Taiwan has no resources to speak of and the people living there cannot leave, they are very much trapped on an island and cannot move, yet they demand high wages now.

The desperately poor Taiwanese workers in 1962 are not identical to those now comparatively rich Taiwanese workers in 2011: the 2011 workers are highly educated, skilled, and reliable to the point that they have lots of businesses desperate to hire them. Not so their 1962 counter-parts. Allowing business to move and provide more wage competition for the poor is an unquestionable great thing.

As for the "What about those trapped in borders by Climate Change": Las Vegas is a desert, the inhabitants are fine. As long as goods and capital is free to move and labor markets are free to adjust, good workers will get good work. It won't be as good as the work they could have if they moved, but it won't be dramatically different. Local wages will fall until local employers enjoy a sufficiently large labor cost advantage to exceed the higher costs of doing business in that location (higher costs of water, power, cooling, etc. etc).

That said, I am an open border Libertarian. It is a violation of an innate human right to prevent someone from crossing a border.

10/15/2019 11:35:04 PM

Quote :

"Las Vegas is a desert, the inhabitants are fine."

Third world countries aren't going to be able to handle the growing infrastructure requirements that come with climate change. And tens of millions of people will be affected by shrinking islands and coastlines. The worst estimates put New York City and Shanghai underwater by 2100.

But either way, glad we agree that borders are inhumane.

[Edited on October 16, 2019 at 6:27 PM. Reason : .]

10/16/2019 6:19:50 PM

I've always been for open borders, albeit with minimal screening. Using borders to restrict the mass flow of people has resulted in failure and catastrophe ever since the Roman Empire and probably before.

Quote :

"Climate-displaced migration is going to be THE issue of the next 100 years."

Migration is pretty much always a central issue. The climate aspect will change some of the particulars, but the basics are the same. This isn't to downplay climate change as an issue - it's a huge one, and should be a top priority - but I think any conception of migration in the coming decades as a principally climatic concern is misguided.

Quote :

"Capitalism requires borders to be enforced on laborers. "

This whole post is nonsense. For one thing, a country can contain regions with widely varying labor costs within its borders. GM doesn't have to move to Mexico to get cheaper labor, they can move (and have moved) to the American south.

Multinational companies don't love borders. They love cheaper labor, yes, but having / crossing borders isn't the best way for them to get it. Hard borders cost money - fees, tariffs, different standards and requirements - and they restrict the movement of labor, which most large capitalist enterprises despise - hence work visas to allow them to import labor.

Quote :

"Even without climate change, borders as they exist are violence against the third world."

Hogwash. Hard borders have a lot of problems, but by this logic, you're committing manslaughter by not boarding a refugee family in your home.

Quote :

"As for the "What about those trapped in borders by Climate Change": Las Vegas is a desert, the inhabitants are fine."

Er...well, yeah, but I'm not sure what we're supposed to take away from this. People moved to Las Vegas voluntarily and created a thing with outside capital. People in much of the developing world (and particularly the Pacific islands) are having new conditions thrust upon them. Not so much the capital.

Quote :

"As long as goods and capital is free to move and labor markets are free to adjust"

They aren't, though. None of these conditions apply. As long as we all live on the Big Rock Candy Mountain we'll be fine, too, for all the good it does us.

10/16/2019 9:38:37 PM

Quote :

"This whole post is nonsense. For one thing, a country can contain regions with widely varying labor costs within its borders. GM doesn't have to move to Mexico to get cheaper labor, they can move (and have moved) to the American south."

Are you really trying to say that companies aren't moving their labor overseas? Not sure what point you're trying to make here.

Quote :

"Multinational companies don't love borders. They love cheaper labor, yes, but having / crossing borders isn't the best way for them to get it. Hard borders cost money - fees, tariffs, different standards and requirements"

Hard borders cost money to transport product over, of course, but agreements like NAFTA and TPP are meant to reduce those costs. They wouldn't be exporting labor if it weren't cost efficient.

Quote :

"and they restrict the movement of labor, which most large capitalist enterprises despise - hence work visas to allow them to import labor."

Work visas are temporary for a reason. Workers on visas can't unionize or speak up about labor conditions. Capitalists want controlled, limited movement of labor, not open borders.

Quote :

"Hogwash. Hard borders have a lot of problems, but by this logic, you're committing manslaughter by not boarding a refugee family in your home."

Come on. Households are not governments. This is as dumb as comparing the national budget to a household budget.

[Edited on October 24, 2019 at 12:21 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2019 12:16:26 PM

Quote :

"I’m an open borders, open trade type in general so where I fall is fairly easy to guess"

I'd be okay with open borders in principle, but in practice, it's essentially a giveaway. How do you square this circle?
- Open borders
- Everyone should get free health care/college/probably more

We could confiscate 100% of the wealth of the top 1% and wouldn't even be able to fund systems for more than a few years. How would we do it if the population doubled over the course of a decade?

I just can't understand the willingness to hand over insane amounts of your income to anyone who wants it.

[Edited on October 24, 2019 at 5:03 PM. Reason : ]

10/24/2019 5:02:25 PM

You think 320,000,000 people want to immigrate to the US over the next 10 years?

10/24/2019 5:11:59 PM

They will with open borders and a lot of free stuff. That's specifically what I'm trying to extract here - do you think both of those conditions can coexist? I don't think they can, at least not for very long.

Unless you think that free health care should only go to citizens, but given that every single Democrat on the debate stage said they would support free health care for illegal immigrants, I can only assume they think it should go to legal immigrants too.

10/24/2019 5:23:06 PM

I don't see open borders being possible without a broad coalition that guarantees labor rights and a certain standard of living for everyone. And I think settler-colonial states like the US and UK have a duty to the third world countries we've looted and continue to loot via debt owed to the IMF & World Bank, and national infrastructure that has been fraudulently sold to multinational corporations. We would need to help those countries nation build in a way that is actually fair to them.

[Edited on October 24, 2019 at 6:13 PM. Reason : .]

10/24/2019 6:05:09 PM

Quote :

"I don't see open borders being possible without a broad coalition that guarantees labor rights and a certain standard of living for everyone."

If you could wave a magic wand, and put together some ideal set of labor rights and a minimum standard of living, and then transport the world's population into the borders of the United States, you wouldn't actually get a high standard of living as a result. The U.S. is very wealthy, but it isn't so wealthy that it can bear the burden of the world's needs.

This is kinda the clash that I see between a Bernie style take and a open-borders bleeding heart take. If you want this utopian living standard for workers, you need to prioritize Americans over foreigners.

10/24/2019 8:54:15 PM

Ohhh, I get it. Are daaave and horosho the same troll, or are they two different idiots? And, if the latter, are they working in concert or is this just a happy accident?

Quote :

"You think 320,000,000 people want to immigrate to the US over the next 10 years?"

Quote :

"They will with open borders and a lot of free stuff."

I don't think that's accurate, nor supported by any evidence we've ever seen, nor in fact based on reality.

It turns out that, unless the country your in is about to kill you, the vast majority of people want to stay where they're at. Moving from one country to another is immensely challenging logistically, culturally, socially, and economically. Meanwhile, you can't eat free healthcare, and unless you're so whip smart you get a housing stipend, free college doesn't put a roof over your head. Removing borders doesn't make moving costs go away, doesn't make you employable in the United States, doesn't make you fluent in English. It's also far from a guarantee that your family and social network are going to want to pick up and move with you.

Throughout history, virtually all mass migration is driven by one thing: mass death at the point of origin for the migrators. Nothing else has proven traumatic (or enticing) enough to motivate movement on anything like the scale you're hyperbolically describing here. Your nightmare scenario is just that, a figment of your panicked libertarian imagination.

10/24/2019 10:22:44 PM

Quote :

"If you could wave a magic wand, and put together some ideal set of labor rights and a minimum standard of living, and then transport the world's population into the borders of the United States, you wouldn't actually get a high standard of living as a result. The U.S. is very wealthy, but it isn't so wealthy that it can bear the burden of the world's needs."

I meant a coalition of different countries. I don't think one country could completely open its borders and it turn out well. I would like to see cooperation across borders to create a global standard of living between members of this coalition, along with a weakening of borders, eventually dissipating them altogether.

But obviously in the meantime we should completely open our borders to victims of climate change & conflict.

Quote :

"Ohhh, I get it. Are daaave and horosho the same troll, or are they two different idiots? And, if the latter, are they working in concert or is this just a happy accident?"

Well that's not very nice. Did you have a problem with something I said?

10/24/2019 11:18:15 PM

10/25/2019 11:40:32 AM

^I still miss them.

Borders >>> Barnes & Noble

10/25/2019 12:42:50 PM

I am surprised, shocked actually, that many of you are for open borders. I guess my question then would be what "open borders" means.

If "open borders" means what I think it means, you are agreeing to several million, perhaps tens of millions, people from around the world, mostly from poor Asian and African nations, coming to the US every year.

At what point would the US then close the borders and say, "Sorry, we don't have any more jobs or housing; we will open the borders again when we do."?

For numbers dying to have a chance to come to the US, see here:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/23/applications-for-u-s-visa-lottery-more-than-doubled-since-2007

And remember, that's also not a complete picture:

1) Having finished HS is a requirement for taking part in the lottery.
2) Citizens of certain countries can't apply as there are already too many people from those countries in the US.
3) People without access to the internet by some means are unable to apply.

Imagine if all those 3 restrictions were lifted--I wouldn't be surprised if the number of applicants reached around 100 million annually.

So, I must revise my earlier numbers in the post: You guys want to take in, say, 50 million, maybe more, in to the US every year?

And remember, this will include people of all sorts: honest and dishonest, educated and uneducated, people who want to come and make an honest living and those who want to come and run scams/commit crimes, English-speaking and non-English-speaking (most), people who will use bins and those (majority?) who will litter public spaces, etc.

But even if they were all honest and hardworking and didn't litter everywhere, that's still a crazy number of people. If the numbers from the lottery are any indication, and keeping in mind the restrictions, the population of the US would double in well under 10 years.


[Edited on October 26, 2019 at 12:55 AM. Reason : Let's see if I get called racist for perhaps some of the things I said in my post.]

10/26/2019 12:54:41 AM

Quote :

"And remember, this will include people of all sorts: honest and dishonest, educated and uneducated, people who want to come and make an honest living and those who want to come and run scams/commit crimes"

Quote :

" “They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”"

^Donald Trump exposed??

[Edited on October 26, 2019 at 1:02 AM. Reason : .]

10/26/2019 1:00:29 AM

^ Just go ahead and call me racist.

I am assuming open borders means anybody can come, except violent criminals (murderers, rapists, armed robbers, etc). If so, then yes, all sorts of people will come. Why wouldn't they? Or maybe dishonest, uneducated people don't exist outside the US? Or acknowledging that they do is a no-no?

10/26/2019 1:09:40 AM

open borders requires a lot of other political frameworks to be in place. It basically works within the EU.

Definitely couldn't be something you implement overnight, it wouldn't be an isolated policy.

10/26/2019 1:37:27 AM

What would it look like if we forced the entirety of North America (Canada to Panama) to operate in an EU like set up?

10/26/2019 7:56:36 AM

I think the biggest difference is businesses would be able to relocate very easily and operate under predictable regulations and be able to move money around easily.

Americans have so much more wealth than our neighbors this would probably be devastating for those countries as we bought up all their capital.

10/26/2019 1:21:54 PM

I don’t see this as any different then the brain drain experienced by Eastern Europe into Western Europe. It leveled out to a certain extent.

Also Mexico City and Panama City are economic hubs which might attract higher skilled individuals.

10/26/2019 1:47:26 PM

Quote :

"I guess my question then would be what "open borders" means."

I think of it in terms of a border that is open, but not invisible. People coming in should still pass through customs and immigration checks. We want to know who is coming in and make sure they aren't bringing anything bad. Where things would change, though, is that anybody with a clean record could come in and stay. If you come up with a serious criminal record, or pop on a terrorist watch list, you don't get to come in. Obviously such a system would be porous enough to allow plenty of criminals to come in, but you could say the same thing about the current system.

Having come in, they could stay. They wouldn't automatically become citizens, and as non-citizens they would be subject to deportation if they acted up. I'd also like to alter the citizenship process, but that's another discussion.

Ultimately, closed borders and strict immigration laws make a pretty flimsy barrier. They're not great at keeping people out - certainly they didn't do much to stop the 11-12 million illegal immigrants who currently live in the country. Mostly they're good at making it harder to count, tax, insure, and integrate immigrants. You see them as a way to keep out the teeming hordes - I see them as an obstacle to governing.

Quote :

"If "open borders" means what I think it means, you are agreeing to several million, perhaps tens of millions, people from around the world, mostly from poor Asian and African nations, coming to the US every year."

Doubtful. As I've already pointed out, "Moving from one country to another is immensely challenging logistically, culturally, socially, and economically." Our dumb immigration laws are just one part of a patchwork of factors that keep people from moving here en masse. For the most part, people like to stay where they're from, where their families are, where they're used to, and even if they'd like to move, intercontinental transportation don't come free.

Quote :

"If the numbers from the lottery are any indication"

They aren't.

Taking part of the lottery is free, and the process is shrouded in misinformation and misunderstanding. People sign up for it because it doesn't really cost them anything to do so, and/or because they don't realize that it isn't a free plane ticket to a waiting home and job. Many who win the lottery don't pursue the process to the point of receiving a visa, which is why last year the State Department informed more than twice as many people as they intended to allow in that they could apply for a visa.

The fact of the matter is that "open borders" doesn't mean free transportation, housing, and employment. That alone will keep the numbers far more manageable than your doomsday scenario.

Quote :

"At what point would the US then close the borders and say, "Sorry, we don't have any more jobs or housing"

What are you even talking about? Do you think that housing developers are going to quit building, or that there is some artificial cap on the number of jobs in America?

If immigration increases, demand for housing will increase, which means the construction industry will build more housing. That means they'll have to employ more people, which means more jobs. Meanwhile all these new people have to be fed, clothed, and have iPhones repaired - more jobs. This isn't rocket science. When the Irish started showing up during the potato famine, we didn't say, "Fuck! We're out of rooms." No. We built more rooms. They were shitty tenement rooms, but they worked. I don't promise that every Afghan immigrant who scrapes their way to the United States will move right into a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath house in the suburbs. I don't even promise that they'll die in one. But somebody is going to build something for them to live in - and pay rent on.

There will be some initial shocks, as there always are when a major policy change takes place. But demand for housing will generate supply, and a supply of labor will generate its own demand. These are not the principle concerns. As d357r0y3r pointed out, demand for public services is a more likely stress point. I think that, on balance, you can limit the damage here by limiting many benefits to full citizens. Public education would have to remain free and compulsory regardless of citizenship, because an illiterate, non-English-speaking labor pool does not generate its own demand here, but many other things would be negotiable.

10/28/2019 8:18:54 AM

Quote :

"The worst estimates put New York City and Shanghai underwater by 2100."

The worst estimates are an alarmists pipe dream, that nobody with scientific credibility remotely believes. Since NYC has been inhabited by white people, about 2 feet of sea level rise has occurred (all natural rises, BTW). And the land mass of Manhattan hasn't shrunk one bit.

And islands (mainly referring to volcanic ones in middle of oceans) aren't permanent and never have been. They erode. Ditto some that are built on coral manage to grow/sustain themselves enough to stay just above sea level. Some even sink. Hawaii is currently sinking. Maybe some nutjobs will try to figure out a way to blame that on humanity as well.

10/28/2019 8:49:31 AM

^lol, you felt the need to address one single sentence from a comment made a couple weeks ago?

why are you soooo passionate about denying climate change?

10/28/2019 9:58:03 AM

Quote :

"How do you square this circle? - Open borders - Everyone should get free health care/college/probably more"

Easy. Don't. Trivial solution to a non-problem. Governments would love doing everything for everyone, but that would cut into their pork barrel spending. As such, confronted with an overwhelming flood of demand for "free shit", governments will just stop giving away so much free shit. Or merely restrict who gets it: "only natural born citizens get free shit" is a similarly easy to enforce rule.

Quote :

"If you could wave a magic wand, and put together some ideal set of labor rights and a minimum standard of living, and then transport the world's population into the borders of the United States, you wouldn't actually get a high standard of living as a result."

People don't move somewhere without some hope of finding access to a place to live and hope of finding somewhere to work. Recent immigrants usually crash on a distant relative's couch that is already living in America, for example. Given the limited Couch Space Supply and the tolerance of their owners to have barely known relatives crash on their property, there is a fundamental limit to the rate immigration can occur.

Given this fundamental limit, I believe America is more than capable of keeping up with unfettered immigration. It will mean a major shift in government priorities towards infrastructure (almost exclusively road construction, the rest is just rezoning approval to allow private developers to chase the demand) but as more move here, the tax base grows, and the work force available to perform construction grows to keep up with the booming demand for housing/commerce/transport/etc. After-all, most rural construction sites I've been to were being worked almost exclusively by first generation immigrants.

10/30/2019 2:06:10 AM