This has to be some of the best rhetoric I’ve ever read:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2011/01/the_stranger.html
Thanks Wheylous! Amazing post of Bryan!
I’m actually fairly impressed… and this was after I just got done reading Hulsmann’s evisceration of Caplan’s “Why I am Not an Austrian Economist”.
I really like this guy. Also his Anarchist FAQ was quite helpful.
Thanks for the link to Hulsmann’s article.
The biggest takeaway I got from following that link is that Bryan Caplan’s readers have extremely limited reasoning ability. 
I like Bryan Caplan and was with him until he mentioned the “open borders” nonsense. What a profoundly unlibertarian concept.
Can you elaborate a bit on this?
Hoppe-worship probably, ha. Open immigration is not “unlibertarian”. If a property owner or employer wants to hire someone or let them live/pass through their property, that’s their business, and they shouldn’t need a rubber stamp from the state.
I think a lot of the posters here get caught up in declaring a few things they’ve read as the be-all-end-all of the philosophy and end up speaking like libertarianism is a monolithic block.
@ LogisticEarth,
Maybe it was just sarcasm of him, but if something is in a written from only without clear indicators like “/sarcasm” at the end I never am really sure…
@LogisticEarth - excuse me?
On Free Immigration and Forced Integration
In an anarcho-capitalist society there is no government and, accordingly, no clear-cut distinction between inlanders (domestic citizens) and foreigners. This distinction comes into existence only with the establishment of a government, i.e., an institution which possesses a territorial monopoly of aggression (taxation). The territory over which a government’s taxing power extends becomes “inland,” and everyone residing outside of this territory becomes a foreigner. State borders (and passports), are an “unnatural” (coercive) institution. Indeed, their existence (and that of a domestic government) implies a two-fold distortion with respect to peoples’ natural inclination to associate with others. First, inlanders cannot exclude the government (the taxman) from their own property, but are subject to what one might call “forced integration” by government agents. Second, in order to be able to intrude on its subjects’ private property so as to tax them, a government must invariably take control of existing roads, and it will employ its tax revenue to produce even more roads to gain even better access to all private property, as a potential tax source. Thus, this over-production of roads does not involve merely an innocent facilitation of interregional trade - a lowering of transaction costs - as starry-eyed economists would have us believe, but it involves forced domestic integration (artificial desegregation of separate localities).
Moreover, with the establishment of a government and state borders, immigration takes on an entirely new meaning. Immigration becomes immigration by foreigners across state borders, and the decision as to whether or not a person should be admitted no longer rests with private property owners or associations of such owners but with the government as the ultimate sovereign of all domestic residents and the ultimate super-owner of all their properties. Now, if the government excludes a person while even one domestic resident wants to admit this very person onto his property, the result is forced exclusion (a phenomenon that does not exist under private property anarchism). Furthermore, if the government admits a person while there is not even one domestic resident who wants to have this person on his property, the result is forced integration (also non-existent under private property anarchism). – http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/hermann-hoppe1.html
How is that different to anything you said? Besides the misnomer of wrongly chararchterising it as “open” borders.
I was not being sarcastic.
State sponsored immigration restrictions are not neccesarilly libertarian, but neither are state sponsored open borders (OB), in fact they are much worse; restricted immigration represents the second-best option to a problem that is created by the state. Conza summed it up perfectly.
If all property is privately owned then OB would not exist. OB (if you want to call it that) would be the very last thing that happens to a dissolving state; in fact OB cannot exist when a state exists. To use a marxist term: OB would occur once the state “whithers away;” the so-called border would then be regulated by private property owners. Until the state “withers away” there must be restrictions on immigration, epsecially with any form of (welfare) state.
Libertarians simply do not take their pro-private property arguments to their logical conclusions on this one. Mises, Rothbard, Hoppe, and Ron Paul all agree with me on this (not to say that their opinions are devine), but if they all think this, then why don’t you? This is because OB advocates are under the spell of cultural marxisim which has infected nearly everyone born after 1960; OB are merely a socialist, leftist/egalitarian concept that has been drilled into libertarians. It’s very unfortunate…
Freedom to travel is a pretty libertarian value. If it’s not, I don’t want to be considered a libertarian.
And yes, that means the ability to cross private land regardless of the owner’s objections, under certain circumstances.
How is this argument any different than the socialist argument? The socialists say: it’s okay to take from the haves to give to the have-nots, under certain circumstances. In other words, you’re in favor of violating private property rights.
private land, private garden, private house, private flat.. private wife. 
reductio ad absurdum.
so wait a second… are you saying that i won’t be “free to gambol” in ancapistan?
MJG - why do you think so?
@ FunkedUp
I don’t know but when I hear libertarians speak of “open” borders I never understood that to include forced immigration/integration as it is mentioned in Conza’s quote and as it seems to worry you. So I am only for abolishing artificial state restrictions nothing more.
And also please show me where Bryan Caplan argues for that kind of immigration you speak of. See for example this article of him:
If libertarians talk about “open borders” in a state-context, usually they just mean they don’t want the State to forcefully prevent anyone from coming into the country. If the immigrant conflicted with a property owner who didn’t want them on their particular property, then the libertarian would mostly side with the property owner. The State is concerned with forcing citizenship requirements which libertarians reject. It is another matter if you have a whole welfare scheme set up and public ownership of goods, which is why I think Ron Paul sounds like a border hawk. The state steals your money and now they have all this money; Paul doesn’t want it to be a magnet for poor people flooding the place looking for welfare and free services. Short-term, it is easier to enforce the border than it is to remove the entitlement system.
The question is: what should be done regarding the immigration situation right now? The state could do either one of the following three things:
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Open borders completely; no immigration restrictions at all.
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Close borders completely; no immigration at all.
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Adopt a discriminatory immigration policy; let some in and keep some out.
Pursuing option #1 would overwhelm social programs on a grand scale and would turn parts of the southern United States into Mexico. Thousands of people from every country in Central and South America would flood this country. They would send their kids to public schools; they would be entitled to all of the benefits that a citizen is. This would be a complete disaster.
Pursuing option #2 would be better than #1, but it would clearly be a case of forced segregation.
Pursuing option #3 also has its problems (though it’s the best solution in an unperfect world). The problem is that the government gets to decide who comes in; not private individuals. As a result, the government doesn’t care whether an accomplished person comes in or whether a bum comes in; after all, one man one vote! In fact, most politicians would like the bum to come in since he will likely be more supportive of the their statist welfare schemes. Governments, especially ones controlled by liberals, have an incentive to loosen immigration standards; it will help them maintain power.
How liberal one thinks the immigration standards should be is obviously a personal matter; it is subjective and involves value judgements. Left libertarians may not care who comes in, and right libertarians may not want anyone to come in. Any attempt to put a value on this judgement (assuming one doesn’t support options #1 or #2) leads to externalizing one’s own view on the rest of society. Again, this probelm is caused by the state and there isn’t a perfect solution (except for abolishing the state of course!), but “open borders,” (if you’re advocating for them at this point right now) is just a socialist scheme and would destroy this country even more than it already is.
So many libertarians try to get theoretical on this subject and they base their analysis as it exists in some kind of perfect world. We aren’t in a perfect world. Immigration policies have to be practical until this Leviathan is abolished. Until then, there must be discriminatory immigration policies; the more restrictive, the better.
If you disagree with me, then what is your immigration solution right now?
Open borders, solution for what? The fact that statism is unsustainable doesnt have a “solution” per se, it just is. Free trade and open borders and the sooner the better.