I see your point, but I don’t see a material difference between public ownership and collective ownership such as gated communities or, say, Walt Disney World. Granted you are “born into” the government’s laws and can’t opt out the way you can a condominium or corporation but arguably you assent by virtue of staying here and paying your taxes.
The whole point of libertarianism is that it’s an honest understanding of natural human behavior, not some new religion exulting the individual to a new form of “sacrifice” for the collective. One does not have to read Human Action to become a libertarian. In fact, I doubt the majority of Ron Paul supporters ever read Human Action back to back; heck or even know that book exists. I just opened four of my wife’s relatives’ mind to Ron Paul (perhaps six), and I did not mention Human Action at all! How did I do it? I gave them a back of the envelope numbers illustration: an average voting American family makes about $65k a year, their tax burden including the 7.5% payroll tax is about $20k; after mortgage, car payment, gas, medical insurance etc. that are pre-determined payments just to stay alive, the left-over discretionary money is only about $800/mo; now, how would you like to see that triple! if you don’t have to pay income tax? how about get another 10-15% worth on your savings every year for your retirement and your kid’s education if there is no inflation to rob you? That’s how we libertarians win new support.
If immigrants, even Mexicans, wanted socialized medicine, education and retirement, they could have stayed home! Most of the world have socialized medicine, education and retirement. That’s why they are poor. Mexico is poor not because they are mexicans; Mexico is poor because their collectivist government has stifled the economy, and a big chunk of the most entreprenurial population of each generation emigrate to the US as a result. The irony is that while legal resettlement programs like some refugee programs indeed attract people who look for government handouts, Individualistic programs, including those “illegals” who took hazards into their own hands and made the trip probably are among the most entreprenuerial and libertarian among the immigrants. There is every reason for such individuals to vote libertarian if given the chance. It’s the anti-immigration threat posed by some of our fellow conservatives that push those people in to the waiting arms of the pandering politicians.
The non-dissociation argument holds no water. Unless the immigrant (papered or paperless) is driving on stolen gas, he/she is paying for the road through gasoline tax. Local school and hospitals are paid for through sales tax and property tax (which in turn often derives from rent). While I’m not for mandatory public school or mandatory hospital admission, since the non-citizens don’t vote, it’s hard to make the argument that they steal through nanny state government mandates. The robbery is due to the nanny-state mandates. It’s doubtful they actually take out more than they put in; e.g. the hundreds of thousands of ficticious social security in job applications, obviously they are paying into the system and never expecting to be paid back; they are literally paying for someone else’ retirement.
The whole anti-immigrant issue shows just how out of touch with reality our lives under fiat money have become. How many xenophobes have really though through:
(1) how much it would cost to deport them? and where the money will come from ?
(2) it’s your money and your house, right? why should your money not get the most labor value possible, and your house not the highest rent possible? Just because someone wants to set up a new Union with “nationality” as membership requirement?
(3) in practical terms, how is citizen vs. non-citizen going to be distinguished? Obviously, some kind of paper, ID and information network on every single person in this country will be required! doesn’t that raise a warning flag at all? Employers already need to verify wih Homeland Security for every new applicant for a job before hiring . . . doesn’t that remind anyone of 1984? A few keystrokes, and you the non-conformist is no longer employable! Don’t believe me? Remember how many errors they made with no-flight list again? That’s a list of exclusions of at most a few thousand; whereas the employability list runs into hundreds of million . . . if you are not on it, you can be hired, right? Is that the kind of country this Republic was supposed to be?
As to what flag people wave at their rallies, that’s just silly. I see Irish flags at pubs and Italian flags at pizza joints all the time . . . are they anti-American, too? Frankly, would you be upset if you see the Confederate Flag as advocacy for state-right? (not as a symbol violent intimidation like its use by the Klan) as a Libertarian, I surely don’t hope you object to that even if it was de jure flag for a rebellion. Integrate them, make them into Americans . . . better yet, make them into libertarian Americans! Let’s not let the politics of divide and conqure turn them into the waiting arms of the pandering politicans.
The politics of immigration once again illustrates just how insightful our Founding Fathers were: no taxation without representation. Without representation, there is a constant risk of political victimization of the group without voice . . . victimization that doesn’t really even help those supposedly getting the loot. What’s really needed is state citizenship, just like the Consitution origially had; every state is free to define what citizenship is, and those with citizenship from any state is legally entitled to be treated the same while travelling inside any other state. Then we will see what really works, both for immigration policy and for social welfare policies.
I can choose my neigbours now by moving to another neigbourhood or down the road. My American neigbours are actually pretty decent, they just cook sinky foods. We have restrictive conventants in all new subdivisions here, but of course, not based on ethnicity but behavior. So, why not promote restrictive convants that control what you’re neigbour can or can’t do, rather than keeping someone out based on some collectivist notion?
Restrictive covenants and private discrimination are the libertarian solution, so naturally unassimilable ethnic minorities and the government oppose them.
I suppose I could be convinced to support open borders on the grounds that it will lead to the eventual dissolution of the inorganic secular state into organic nations of people whose loyalties are with institutions that pre-date the secular state. Unfortunately, I think the end result is going to be Brazil with nukes, not medieval Europe.
The difference between a gated community and the government is in “universality.” If you don’t like a gated community, you can move to a different gated community down the street. With a nation state, moving thousands of miles to a different country with a different language is not a realistic choice for most individuals. The government of a nation-state is a monopoly enforced through the use of violence, or the threat there of. Furthermore, as a condo association member of a gated community, even if one by inheritance (i.e. “born into”), I can sell my condo if I don’t like it. I can’t sell citizenship or traded it for a different one in a different condo/country when it comes to citizen rights. That makes the deprivation of my right to hire and rent my property a form of confiscation without due process.
It’s highly unusual to have condo rules that would preclude the hiring of yard labor or baby sitter from outside the condo community. Even gated communities understand that if the rules are too ridiculous, the condo value will drop. That’s free market place at work. Public property and citizenship restrictions are not easily subject to such market incentive/disincentives at all. You’d have to run the country down to third-world status like Mexico, before people starting to move out in droves for better alternatives.
to kent c: you’re right but miss the point. the us that was able to integrate successive waves of largely unskilled immigrants no longer exists. yes, there was distrust/envy/hatred in the good old days, but the fact that capital was rapidly accumulating rapidly meant that immigration could occur and the standard of living could rise. look at the growth rates of early america, and this before the money turned phoney. they were phenomenal, and could again be so, were the burden of over-taxation and over-governance lightened. can’t see it happening.
so if capital accumulation isn’t allowed to grow rapidly, massive immigration would see the average standard of living fall. government change is dictated by the average, so how could it occur that a population votes itself a lower standard of living?
Newson,
I agree with you that the current burden of over-taxation and over-governance is making capital formation and capital accummulation proceed more slowly than previously. However, more immigration control would exactly be yet more over-taxation and over-governance. . . specificly, on employment of labor. Reducing the labor pool for capital to choose from is a form of taxation on capital . . . the enforcement mechanism that would be required would be yet more taxation . . . an underground economy to generate fake documents to get around that enforcement would be yet more waste . . . then the additional layers of bureacrats that would be required to combat corruption. . . if we thought war on drugs were bad, a war on illegal labor would be even worse because the subject of the ban actually have legs and are mobile unlike bags of white powder.
Also I do not agree with the zero-sum gain depiction of capital meeting labor. Free trade has its own reward, that includes the free trade of labor and capital. Think of this way, NYC has much higher standard of living than upstate New York . . . yet it would be quite preposterous to think that NYC economy would be better off if a moat were built separating it from upstate. The youths born in upstate migrate to the city in the tens of thousands every year, contributing to the city’s economy. Sure, some of them may end up being homeless, join the gang or become prostitutes. . . however, the free flow of labor and capital is where NYC’s wealth comes from. Spending hundreds of millions of dollars to police an outer-perimeter just north of the beltway to stem the flood of upstate “unwashed masses” would not only cripple the NYC economy for labor but also be a complete waste of tax dollars.
The skilled vs. unskilled argument is not entirely accurate. Countries like Germany and France spent far more on education than Britain did in the latter’s heydays. Soviet Union, communist China and Castro’s Cuba all spent far more resources, proportionally, on education than the US did, yet their economy stilled stagnated. When it comes to economic vitality, the effect of education can not begin to compare to that of the removal of red tapes and reduction of tax. 1/3 of all new private sector jobs were housing related in the last few years; how much education is required to photocopy ridiculous loan documents or lay shingles on the roof? Good economy comes from letting people freely engage in mutually beneficial exchanges . . . specialties will emerge in such exchanges and the market place will decide what’s skilled labor what’s not. While reading The Wealth of Nations, I don’t remember Adam Smith talking about diplomas, certificats, government statistic of skilled labor or work permits 
Medieval Europe wasn’t exactly a great place: Spaniards killed and exiled entire populations, so did the French (massacre of Hugenots), and so did the Germans (30 Years War). When Voltair was exiled to England, he made a most insightful observation: unlike back home in Paris, where Catholicis and Hugenots were at each other’s throat fighting over state power to enforce conformity, here in London, merchants and traders of Protestant, Catholic, Jewish and Mahamedean backgrounds and garbs could all derive profit from their exchanges with each other before going to their respective places of worship after the work days is over.
If we have to use the terms of “organic” vs. “inorganic” that you talk about, I’m afraid we have to treat individuals as individuals and as equals in order to build the “organic-ness” of a nation . . . instead of say, the hyphenated “Catholic French” vs. “Hugenot French” fiasco.
then if you don’t believe that the capital formation is the root of wealth, try and explain why indonesia, a nation of similar population to the us is poor, and why the us is comparatively rich. your argument (re:nyc) is the same as why everybody wants to live in java, rather than in the rest of indonesia, not how wealth comes about.
absolutely right. but the point about the illegal immigrant population being largely unskilled is that they can compete in only one segment of the market: blue-collar work. as i said, if they were an unencumbered economy, it is conceivable that a shortage of blue collar workers would develop, in which case the general standards of living would rise.
as it is, having abundant illegal immigrant workers in the states creates an economy that’s different from what it would be with effective immigration control. as an example, a strawberry farm will perhaps find it cheaper to use men to pick strawberries than to invest in a mechanical harvester. this makes sense at a company level, but doesn’t raise per-capita income.
one last thing. labour cost is not a tax, it’s a business input, in the same way fuel is not a tax. yes, if the labour pool were smaller, ceteris paribus, employers would bid up average wages, hence higher living standards.
boinks the neo-bolshevik immigrants in heinee [8-|]
Of course capital formation is at the root of wealth. Regulations and taxes get in the way of capital formation. Indonesia is a prime example of how government intervention, including industrial policies that supposedly bring workers higher wages, get in the way of capital formation . . . because all government can do in order to give handouts is by taking even more with the other hand.
The line between skilled vs. unskilled and blue collar vs. white collar is not as clearly cut as some think. Have you tried hiring a firm to clean your house or do your yard? The pay scale there is not exactly low, like around $30/hr-person (much more for yard work where capital investment is required), yet it’s nearly impossible to find non-immigrants to do the job. One year, I actually went out my way to hire an American couple; I hired them because they were the only ones that I could find that did not have an accent on the phone. After getting a price quote, I even bought my own yard equipment so they could use because they did not have their own. Half way through the yard, they quit because it’s harder work than they thought! I had to call around to get someone to finish the job. At that point, I wasn’t exactly in a position to pick and choose. I wasn’t exactly being cheap: $400 for a 0.4acre yard end of season leaf and debris removal. It worked out to be over $75/hr for the second guy. Now you tell me, is $75/hr skilled labor or unskilled labor? Obviously the first couple did not have the skill or the fortitude to finish the job. Yes, I paid them $200 for the half-done job, that’s on top of the $400 full fee that I had to pay for the second guy (as he was busy, and it took two weeks for appointment; by the time he got here, the piles of leaves left by the first couple were strewn around by wind), plus paying for a mulching leaf blower that I will hardly ever use myself, and the second guy had his own leaf blower and truck to haul the dozens of yard bags away, unlike the first one. I learned my lesson: red tapes get in the way of economic efficiency; unregulated economy works.
Living standard is a consequence of productivity. Government is not able to elevate standard of living by passing laws that mandate minimum wage or any other forms of artificial social engineering. While fuel itself is not a tax, mandates that require 10% ethanol certainly work out like a tax; likewise, while labor itself is a business input, mandates that only a subgroup can be hired certainly work out like a tax . . . just like minimum wage laws. I certainly hope you agree that higher wage level enforced by law does not lead to higher standard of living; otherwise, you’d have to argue in favor of minimum wage laws . . . big anathema to any libertarian thinker. The theory that limiting labor supply leading to higher wages would result in higher standard of living is just as flawed as the Indonesian industrial policy regarding their domestic car production: sure, the domestic car/labor supply may benefit, but only at the expense of domestic consumers of cars/labor . . . resulting in lower standard of living overall because not only the new equilibrium point is sub-optimal but also the non-negligibel cost of enforcement and its twin: corruption.
agreed. but one things bears emphasizing, productivity is the ratio of capital to population. it’s possible to have a completely liberalized labour market and still have declining prosperity (per-capita income) - if the capital structure is being consumed with fixed population, or if the capital is stable, but population rises. this latter case is what lead malthus to his doom-and-gloomism. he ignored how capital investment could offset population growth. minimum wage, and other restrictive labour laws create unemployment.
i’ll run with your example of trade protectionism, to try and better illustrate my point about free borders and democracy. with abolition of trade barriers, domestic consumers benefit by more competition from cheaper foreign cars, but the losers (domestic producers) will squeal like cut pigs. the benefits of free trade are diffuse and not always obvious, while the losses are concentrated, and immediately apparent. but it is politically possible to convince a population that trade liberalization brings national benefits, outweighing local,sectoral negatives.
opening borders is different. unless the national pie increases in size (through capital investment), increases in population will result on the average size of everybody’s slice getting smaller. (lack of labour regulation only means everybody would get just the slice size they deserve, no effect on pie size). i think we’re in agreement that the american pie is growing at a sub-optimal rate, so let’s take a different tack and imagine what would happen if everyone started to have giant families, maybe 10 children each. you would agree that the per-capita income would drop, right? but people’s voting would remain unchanged because they would recognize when the pie stays the same and the number of mouths to feed increases, on average everyone gets less. can’t blame anyone.
when those extra mouths are foreigners, who don’t have the vote, just imagine how difficult it is to convince voters. governments in developed nations tacitly acknowledge what i’ve said by offering preferential immigration to wealthy entrepreneurs, who can grow the cake through capital augmentation, whilst blocking mass migration of the unskilled.
i’m not taking a moral position here, just pointing out as per adam smith, that people act primarily in self-interest, and to a lesser extent for some abstract “national interest”, but won’t vote “international interest” when it conflicts with the other two.
back to your personal example. illegal immigrants are spread unevenly, each geographic market is different. some people will pay top dollar to “buy american”, when cheaper is available, or maybe because they are scared of sanctions (i know politicians have run into strife by using illegals). so maybe that’s a distinct market segment. but as you say, most of your local unskilled labour is foreign, and cheaper. the us nationals you’ve cited are more productive because they have the capital investment of trucks, leaf blowers etc.
Please re-read my previous post. The US nationals were the ones who quit on the job despite being offered $400 to what was essentially a 4-5hr job (their task did not include hauling the yard bags as they did not have a truck) and being provded with yard equipment specificly bought for them. They just did not feel like working anymore . . . and they demanded half the payment with a promise to come back the next day for the remaining half, then never came back and never returned a phone call. The man with thick spanish accent was the one who finished the job with his own blower, and with his own truck. I know, it’s hard to see the world through prejudiced eyes; perhaps the immigrant worked hard and saved pennies to have his own yard equipment. I too shared your prejudice when I wasted money trying to hire people based on english accent instead of yard working skills. Trust me, I tried to pay top dollar to “buy American”; the flakes were the only ones that did not have an accent; that’s why I hired them without price shopping against any other outfit at all.
Productivity is certainly not a simple ratio of capital to labor. Productity relates to efficient allocation of capital and labor. After the US national woman gave us a price quote, his boyfriend showed up the next day in my driveway on a brand spanking new Harley; whereas two weeks later, the man with thick spanish accent showed up in an old pickup truck that probably cost less than the Harley. When the US national felt thirsty, he asked for beer; whereas the man with thick spanish accent asked for water even after I offered beer (I thought yard workers all preferred beer, and I was feeling generous after reviewing the progress). Efficient allocation of capital and labor requires competition; that’s what the free market place is good at, not the government say-so’s.
Glad you brought up the issue of new borns. Your analysis is showing the follies that can emerge when playing with macroeconomic terms like “per capita GDP” and “unemployment”: if the birth of a baby creates a job for a baby sitter, is that a plus or a minus? Okay, so you say the baby sitter gets paid only $10-15/hr (BTW, $15/hr is not just some teenage baby sitter; I’m paying $15/hr to have a US national who is in a graudate degree program in education sit my baby and come up with teaching plans 25hr a week, so you can see that $75-100/hr yard work was really a top dollar offer) probably still lowering per capita GDP although the birth still reduces unemployment . . . what if the baby is born with a defective organ and require intensive care from surgeons that make $2000 per hour? Is that suddenly a big increase in GDP? So is a baby with a congenital defect a bigger boost to GDP than a normal healthy baby? Of course it is in macroeconomic statistics. You see the folly therein. The problem with unemployment and lower income is not the numbers themselves, but the lack of output (call me a supply-sider if you will): people are not put to good productive work, and as a consequence the product and service is not there for consumption. $50k a year in an economy that charges $15/hr for baby sitting and $75/hr for yard work leads to the same standard of living as $500k a year in an economy that charges $150/hr for baby sitting and $750/hr for yard work (ignoring the capital gain tax resulting from inflation for the moment). Babies are economic pluses to a society not because they require more care but because when they grow up they can do baby sitting, yard working, and a host of other productive jobs (yes, more competition to ourselves when we get old, in the eyes of a wannabe unionshop). They are future producers; that’s the value of babies. Immigrants getting into this country on their own are producers that we do not have to pay for the prior cost of raising them.
In reading many of the posts it has become quite evident that many perceive those who take an “anti-immigrant” approach with regard to undocumented citizens from Mexico to no longer harbor the beliefs of a “true” libertarian. While this perception may attain its validity in one regard, it is fatally errored in other, more importatant regards. To be clear, the ultimate objective of any libertarian is to achieve a state where by the prevalence of freedom is more extensive than it was in the past. We believe that men will achieve “earthly” ends most effectively in an evironment where by freedom is greatest. It is true, by restricting the mobility of labor from the outside to the inside we are indeed restricting freedom. But, the most important question to be asked is whether or not freedom would also be lost in abolishing those restrictions which have withheld freedom previously. Such would not be the case, for instance, if the United States did not employ the multitude of social welfare programs that are prevalent in current society. Let me make this clear by example. The United States is clearly more attractive becuase of its various “free” handouts; healthcare, schooling, and foodstamps are just a few of the many benefits which government provides to the public via redistribution from the “rich” to the “poor”. These types of welfare programs are inproportionately more attractive to immigrants of a rather poor nature. As a result, the US attracts those citizens of Mexico who are most poor and in turn most desperate. These precise citizens, once in the US, immediately become a part of the ever growing class of welfare recipients. If the US were to allow such immigrants “amnesty”, i.e., legal status, those immigrants would, without a doubt, vote in favor of those candidates who would maintain and further the welfare programs which made the US so attractive in the first place. This process would only serve to hasten the unheeding trend of centralized power in the US. The magnitude of freedom would fall, not rise, and further, it would do so at a more rapid rate. It is true, there would be more freedom in the sense that the citizens of Mexico would have an alternative option with regard to their own welfare but this precise increase in freedom would result in a decrease of freedom for the citizens of the US. Thus, If we are speaking with regard to what would make the US more free or, in this case, prohibit it from becoming less free, we must not make the mistake of construing that end with actual end, a more free Mexico. When a plethora of immigrants came over in the past they did not immediately benefit from the extensive social welfare program that is so prevalent today. As a result, they did not immediately increase the portion of the population which votes for policies that relinquish freedom from men. Those who consistently taut Ron Paul as perhaps unlibertarian in this regard are mistaken. The precise reason for which Ron Paul does not want such an influx of immigrants is becuase it would result in less freedom for americans not more.
rolls eyes
We’ve already been through this. The existance of intervention X does not legitimize intervention Y. This same illogic could be applied to just about any other issue, with highly questionable results. The claims about what would happen if people were not forcibly restricted from entering the territory by the state are mostly unprovable, half-true, highly exaggerated or completely false and even if true ultimately do not count as justification on any libertarian grounds (pragmatic, utilitarian grounds, maybe).
On the topic of war, I recall Walter Block argueing that is not sensible to argue for war that on the grounds of what people might do in the future. His point was that it is not libertarian to advocate initiating aggression against another country on the grounds that the country might initiate force in the future. I see the anti-immigration position as being no different. Initiation of force is being “justified” on the grounds of what immigrants might do (that they might accept welfare or they might vote for social democrats). It’s pre-emptive force.
Furthermore, I cannot help but see the anti-immigrationists as being hypocrits in that, while they complain about the possibility of immigrants voting for welfare, they themselves are engaging in precisely the type of behavior that they fear from immigrants, only in the name of different special interests. While the arguement is made that the voting of immigrants presents the threat of force, the anti-immigrationists do not pause for one second to weild that same force to preserve their own percieved interests.
Using the forceful power of the state to stop other people from using the forceful power of the state is self-defeating in principle. Increasing the power of the state in the name of preventing future increases in the power of the state will only drum roll increase the power of the state. With a thoughtful understanding of how the state apparatus works, it should be clear that immigration restriction is only a question of which interests the power of the state will be used in the name of benefiting. Using such means, power generally does not wither, rather, it is shifted from one area to another. The end result cannot be a victory for liberty.
Of course, it doesn’t seem like the opponents of immigration are thinking in terms of the liberty of human beings. They are thinking in terms of the liberty of certain groups, namely, legal U.S. citezens (of course, it is nonsense to claim that immigration will be harmful to all legal U.S. citezens). But we aren’t necessarily even talking about liberty here, since the debate devolves into a matter of the circumstantial utility of different interest groups. So there entire thing turns into a question of protecting certain interests.
I apologize for not being up to date as I am new and did not fully acquaint myself with all of the posts. I indeed agree with the logic, “the existance of intervention X does not legitmaze intervention Y”. However, the enforcement of the current laws which already exist would not be intervention in the sense that you speak of. It would be synonymous to merely enforcing the tax laws which exist in our society. The enforcement itself is not intervention per say but rather the maintainence of an intervention. I am not advocating that additional intervention be implemented.
Fair enough. But some people (including Ron Paul) are advocating additional intervention (federally funded walls being the most eggregious of them), and of course I do not see the maintance of an already existing intervention as a libertarian means either. I think that such laws should not be forced, be rendered unenforcable, and ideally they should eventually be abolished. As I have pointed out, in terms of the means being advocated, the “open borders” position is the most (and argueably only) libertarian one because it is not a new intervention, it is not an expansion of an intervention and it is not the enforcement of an intervention. It is the lack of intervention. All of the arguements against “open borders” are based on the notion that it might lead to people taking advantage of other, entirely separate interventions in the future. The “border enforcement” and immigration restriction position, on the other hand, inherently hinges on enforcing current interventions at a minimum and expanding them at worst.
Wow, I never get tired of how people who claim to believe in liberty advocating ways to deprive others of it. It just never gets old. We all know liberty only comes from being born inside certain imaginary lines and has nothing to do with simple human rights. We aren’t endowed by our creator with shit, it all comes from some document some “terrorists” came up with that has been perverted beyond all recognition. GO USA!!! GO TO HELL EVERYONE ELSE!!! Why don’t we just go spread some democracy to them damn stupid mexicans? That’ll teach em.
Eek. You have some highground to speak with, since you’re Irish. [8-|]
It seems to me that we differ with regard to our faith in the self preservation of freedom. I would perhaps conjecture that your leanings are more towards complete anarchism. As Von Mises made clear, complete anarchism is not sufficient for the preservation of freedom. Men develop laws, and consequently the state in order to preserve such freedom because without it, men of a coercive and forceful nature would prohibit the formation of society which is so incredibly necessary for the attainment of earthly ends. Thus, the construction of a wall is to preserve freedom not hinder it. Indeed, in almost every regard the operation of the state is contrary to the ideal of freedom. But in the case of those men such as Ron Paul, it may be used for its true and natural purpose, to preserve freedom. You must understand that freedom, in and of itself, is an ideal and thus, it must be fought for. To merely propose that there be no rule of law does not necessarily mean that freedom will result.