Can someone point me to an explanation of why Rothbard changed his stance on immigration?
I recall reading something about after the breakup of the Soviet Union, Russia was pouring immigrants into the newly formed countries and drowning their cultures, and seeing this is what made Rothbard change his mind.
But now I can’t remember where I read it.
Anyone?
Found it: Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation State
“I began to rethink my views on immigration when, as the Soviet Union collapsed, it became clear that ethnic Russians had been encouraged to flood into Estonia and Latvia in order to destroy the cultures and languages of these peoples. Previously, it had been easy to dismiss as unrealistic Jean Raspail’s anti-immigration novel The Camp of the Saints, in which virtually the entire population of India decides to move, in small boats, into France, and the French, infected by liberal ideology, cannot summon the will to prevent economic and cultural national destruction. As cultural and welfare-state problems have intensified, it became impossible to dismiss Raspail’s concerns any longer.” - p.7
Rothbard’s shift to the right on immigration was part of his general move away from left-libertarian ideology that had emerged from the 60s counter-culture and opposition to the Vietnam War and was cause of his break the Libertarian Party in 1989 which remained stuck in that midset (and sadly continues to be so today). His contention was that a free society would inevitably result in a conservative society and that libertarian strategy should focus on a radical-populist appeal to conservative middle America. Much of his final work was in demonstrating why Libertarianism was compatible with conservativism. I think the relative success of populist Ron Paul revolution compared to the continuing impotence of the Left-leaning Libertarian Party demonstrates that Rothbards strategy is clearly the correct one.
I, personally, am afraid that the “Ron Paul Revolution” is full of protectionists who are obsessed with restoration of the old America more than a revolution of liberalism.
As for immigration, a “flooding” of immigrants would require material means of support. If an immigrant can’t pay their way and establish themselves, they will either have to return home, or find some other means. Most people won’t endeavour to go the way of poverty in their right minds. A lot of immigrants see the free education, free money, and benefits as their crux. Hell, I’d take advantage of it too if I were an “illegal”.
Cut off the free money, it’s causing unreal demand. As for “cultural integration”, I must note that the same fears were raised in the late 19th century with the influx of Chinese, Irish, and other non W.A.S.P. “undesirables”. Sure the first generation may never know the way of things, but the second and third surely speak english fluently, and are in almost every way besides perhaps race, “American”. Language is the main barrier, and through exchanges of trade we overcome those barriers peacefully. The whole concept of there being a static culture model troubles me greatly. Don’t persons realize that “culture”, like all human and world affairs, are in a constant state of flux, and who are you to impose one’s subjectively valued so-called superior culture ahead of anyone elses? Sure you can make the case that some traits better accomodate liberal ideas better than others; but really it is universal in it’s outreach. All that is required is private ownership of the means of production, and respect for life, liberty, and the forementioned property.
But let’s be clear here that MNR’s reservations about immigration concern the way in which it is used politically. It had nothing to do with economics. Also, note that he offered no solution for the issue. He was only pointing to the way in which immigration can be used to advance state interests. He had not considered this point of view before.
I wouldn’t read more into than that. He was still a free immigrationist in principle. What we have now are controlled markets and sometimes the analysis changes in light of that.
Not necessarily, and the balkanization is accelerating. I can show you not only neighborhoods that are 100% Mexican, but neighborhoods that are well on the way to becoming 100% Sikh. And don’t even think about trying to date their daughters.
America is no longer a viable proposition, and the current immigration model is one of the nails in the coffin. In a way this is good, because it’s high time the US hegemon got taken down a notch. On the other hand, I am not looking forward to my daughter coming of age as a stranger in her own land. People who think it’s such a great thing for Mexican, Haitian or Hindu culture to take root on US soil should ask themselves why so many Mexicans, Haitians or Hindus are looking to get the hell out of their homelands.
A liberal society is inevitably doomed, because its own charter prevents it from defending itself from illiberal incursion.
If their logic is that it is not something worth keeping in their “homeland” (accident of birth), perhaps then they are not taking that part with them? This part seems to contradict itself.
Umm, Sikh is a religion in case you are unaware. There is no reason someone could not be culturally American and Sikh just as there is no reason someone could not be culturally American and Jewish. My Undergrad college was
I think the earlier Rothbard (60’s/70’s) was more correct (the Rothbard who clearly distinguished conservatism from libertarianism and was in touch with the “leftish” roots of individualist anarchism). Rothbard’s change later in life was an unfortunate mistake in my view. And I don’t see how the LP is particularly left-libertarian at all. It’s minarchist at best and has taken on the role of conservative-lite as far as I’m concerned. Most left-libertarians tend to be against a political approach and express hostility to the LP. “Left-libertarian” does not usually refer to minarchists to begin with.
European civilizations emerged from a feudal system where people were tied to the land. Its political institutions are still based on that model. Other nations consider cultural bonds more important than land, and move around while staying who they are. This is incompatible with the land-based political model.
I think Stranger and Byzantine are more correct reading the replies in this post.
However I disagree with Byzantine’s statement here:
It is not necessarily doomed. Large numbers of “third world” immigrants from Mexico, India etc., are arriving here and are only able to “make it” financially because of state subsidies. Forced hospital care, free rides, loans given to them upon their arrival on US soil–it differs for each immigrant from each country but the influx of immigration we have is due to State support.
I guess you could make the case that had the US not restricted immigration in the 1920s there would be large amounts of Japanese that continued to come, and they had little if any government welfare given to them.
So far on my own readings, I have a bit of an ethical dilemma. One part of me says free immigration is necessary for a free society (and I think it is), but the other part says with that comes the erosion of the culture that made the society free. One has only to look at what our democratic society has produced. The more third worlders that have children in this country the more the idea of old liberalism in America disappears. I seem to agree the most with Hoppe in this argument on immigration.
The first and most important thing, though, is to remove the State and we get rid of the majority of the problem.
As an abolitionist, in that I wish to abolish the state, I could not agree with you more, but your talking about immigration under the statist quo. An open borders policy under our current welfare-afirmative action state is nothing but a massive assault on the rights of the domestic property owners, through a) socialising the cost of the ‘cheap’ immigrants labour onto domestic tax payers and b) by denying property owners their right of exclusion forcibly imposes unwanted aliens into their community lowering their property values, not to mention their quality of life.
Well actually no, race is the main barrier. Native Americans and Blacks have lived in America and spoken the language long before many millions of other whites immigrated and yet remain to this day very segregated, so much so that commentators talk of a Black Nation and Indian nations to define this separateness. Chinese immigration in the 19th century was largely stangled at birth by the Chinese exclusion act, those who remained largely lived separately in enclaves of cities like San Fransisco’s much publicised China Town.
I should add whilst ‘cultural integration’ might be the aim of centralised social democratic states they are not neccessarily the preference of the many diverse communities that suffer under their yoke - there preference might well be ‘cultural segregation’. Contemporary America remains largely segregated along race despite such abuses of state power like forced busing and compulsory non-discrimination in housing markets.
Cultural change should be voluntary not coercive and the cultural change inspired in the wake of the current statist immigration wave is coercive. Also I don’t subscribe to your relativistic attitude to culture since it was only western culture that gave birth to to science and liberty of the individual that are the cornerstones of modernity.
So you are saying that the liberal ideology is inherent only to white people,or non-immigrant americans(even though all americans are immigrants )? also you seem to be confusing the concept of culture with the one of ideology, and they are completely different things,one could enjoy eating tacos and listening to mariachi music and be an anarchist, while someone else could enjoy hot dogs and baseball and be a communist.
In a free society in witch information flows freely, people can adhere to any ideology they decide, regardless of their ethnicity or culture so having an homogenous society is not necessary for the prevalence of the liberal ideology.
And in terms of culture, culture starts with individuals and how they decides to live their lives, so as long as you are free to live your live however you please it shouldn’t affect you how other people live their lives, and besides, once you have separated culture from ideology, how could you rationally argue that one culture is better than other.
No, I’m sorry to phrase it that way. Let’s say millions of Britons that are hardcore Statists move to the USA and their children have no inherent idea of “liberalism” and are never taught it. Then, via democracy, they will increase the power of the State to the detriment of the more classically liberal natives.
Immigration influx is going to be accompanied by a lack of education on liberalism\anarchism, at least looking at it from what we know now.
And people who are already legal citezens are more educated on such matters? Hardly. Your average American doesn’t even care about political philosophy to begin with, and they vote based on superficialities. If anything, I would think that illegal immigrants are ripe material for being persuaded towards more libertarian ideas, since they are avoiding/breaking the law as it is. One would think that someone who personally does not have their negative rights recognized by the law would have good reason for skepticism or hostility towards the political authorities.
Besides, such arguments are entirely beside the principle of the matter. It’s irrelevant to the justice of state-enforced borders and migration restrictions (which simply cannot be established via libertarian principles).
What if millions of hardcore socialist/statis/fascist americans decide to vote for the communist party or for the nazis?
The problem is not wether if this people are immigrants or not, the problem would be that the are imposing their opinion over other individuals (through democracy).Or in a more realistic situation, what if you are being force to decide between two parties just because millions of americans support this parities.
that is not an issue of immigration, its an issue of majorities stepping over individuals natural rights.
Apparently an unjustified, unspoken moral distinction is being made between legal citezens and everyone else.
Sure they can. To go pick cabbages for Brainpolice, your workforce has to cross my land. I say no, I don’t want a bunch of cabbagepickers crossing my land. Fin.
Or, let’s say the sewage infrastructure used by you and the surrounding property owners is too small for the 1,000 people you intend to hire. You and your employees either pay for additional infrastructure, or do without your workforce. Or, maybe your neighbors say they don’t want the wastewater plant expanded.
Them mexicans never crossed YOUR land.
And they can rent apartments together with other workers.
The question was whether migration restrictions can be justified under libertarian principles. The answer is yes, since in a libertarian society all travel off your own land will require the permission of the adjoining property owner. Otherwise, you’re just a trespasser.
And what if the landlord refuses to rent to Mexicans? In a libertarian society, the landlord will be perfectly free to do so. BP and his employees will either have to build their own housing, or pay higher rent to overcome the landlord’s resistance to Mexicans. And again, what if this overloads the common infrastructure? They have to pay for its expansion, or if the other owners don’t want it expanded, then they are just SOL and the Mexicans have to stay in Mexico.
Point being, migration restriction is perfectly justified under libertarian principles.