Alleviating some concerns about open borders.
It took me a long time to write this because I went through a lot of the facts and research I know and had to collect them all to put it here. Please read.
It took me a while to write this, so please read fully.
Since we are constantly seeing more people coming here from different places like from arr destiny or arr moderatepolitics or arr centrism, and these people have objections to immigration, then it is good to make effort posts occasionally looking into the data and the arguments with respect to immigration. This thread - https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1eukx5t/why_immigration_isnt_saving_europes_economy/ -here is an example of immigration restrictionists getting upvoted (while they think they will be downvoted) which suggests that there are less amount of open borders supporters in this subreddit now than the immigration restrictionists. Here are some highly upvoted comments there (some are not really anti-immigration or supporting immigration restrictions) -
"My thoughts which would usually get people down-voted here is that holding that immigration is always in all circumstances a net-positive is one of the most ridiculous dogmas that this sub adheres to.
First, I don't need to make a Utilitarian argument for open-borders when a Liberal argument is more than sufficient, states have no business interfering with private property or free association, done. If someone buys property in another country, he should be presumed to have a right to go and stay there, only the most extreme and specific of security threats should enable the State to prevent such border crossings. Same thing with international hiring.
But most of this sub is wary of arguing on Liberal principles, because they're self-conscious enough to realize they don't actually believe that and wouldn't like those same argument being applied in most other circumstances, so they need to rationalize their position by finding papers that confirm their priors, no matter how weak, and no matter how much they need to stretch their conclusions.
Second, the actual outcomes of immigration will always depend on the immigrants skills, their culture, their motivation, the local culture, the local economy, the level and structure of taxes, the unemployment rates, the size of the welfare estate, the housing market, ... and another myriad of factors. The notion that this balance would always come positive, or that one study from one place at one time could be used as the be all, end all of immigration policy is ridiculous.
The arguments mentioned above are at least slightly more nuanced, but even then, nuanced doesn't necessarily mean true, it's still going to be a fairly gross simplification and generalization of what's actually happening. I'd notably take offense to the notion that we can talk about """Europe's Immigration""" effects on """Europe's Economy""", when both migration patterns and economy types vary so widely within the continent." - u/G3OL3X
"Many immigrants, particularly refugees from poorer countries, have struggled to find employment and integrate into the workforce in Europe. Studies show that employment rates for recent immigrants can be significantly lower than the broader population, at least in the initial years after arrival. This limits the economic contributions of immigrants.
High levels of immigration have put significant pressure on housing, public services like healthcare and education, and infrastructure in some European countries. This can offset any potential economic gains from immigration. For example, a report found that 89% of the rise in England's housing deficit over the last decade was due to net migration.
Despite high immigration, GDP per capita growth has slowed in some European countries during the era of mass migration. This suggests immigration has not provided the expected economic boost.
While Europe needs skilled foreign workers, many highly skilled professionals are not interested in moving to European countries, preferring destinations like Canada, Australia, or the United States instead. Factors like language barriers, bureaucracy, and lack of a welcoming culture make Europe less attractive.
Europe's aging population and declining birth rates mean the continent will need even more foreign workers in the future. But as other European countries also face labor shortages, the pool of potential EU migrants is shrinking, making it harder to fill vacancies." - u/dizzyhitman_007
"Found a very strong argument against low-skilled immigration which I couldn't really think of a good response.
The arguments boiled down:
high skilled migration is a net positive
low skilled migration is a short term positive long term negative
refugee migration is a net negative
He fleshed these out with verious explanation the most compelling of which surrounded the multi-generational costs. He described how children of low skilled and refugee migrants usually don't out do their parents in economic or educational attainment and that these children and even the second generation of children are still behind in educational attainment which correlates with minimal economic advancement and being a net payee of taxes.
What are your thoughts?
Why Immigration isn't Saving Europe's Economy" - u/ModernMaroon
Now, I am going to respond to these concerns. Firstly, I am Rajat Sirkanungo (this is my real name), and to the user, G30L3X, I am a Classical Utilitarian (see my profile and also see my post history and comment history). So, that means that my only moral principle is to maximize total happiness (pleasure, pleasantness interpretation) minus suffering (pain, unpleasantness interpretation), that is, I want to maximize pleasure and minimize pain. I DON'T discount wellbeing or happiness of anyone. Everyone's (including all sentient beings) happiness counts and everyone's pain is considered fully in the calculation.
Secondly, remember that we should try not to do any kind of bait and switch such that we are literally saying that "high skill immigrants are good, universally" and NOT supporting at least nearly open borders for high skill immigrants [To be fair, high skill immigrants are indeed absolutely universally beneficial and even that video by 'Into Europe' youtube channel acknowledges that, and absolutely every economist also accepts that high skill immigration is overall beneficial.]. The restrictors of particular individual freedoms (in the negative rights sense) have the burden of proof to justify why they want to restrict particular freedoms precisely because many freedoms (except the freedom to die for no good reason), generally, lead to happiness. Restricting freedoms does almost always cause some pain. Also, remember - the status quo does heavily restricts immigration for both low skill and high skill (all countries, maybe except Argentina) immigrants no matter what the far right and demagogues say. You can argue that at least high skill immigration is easier than low skill immigration almost everywhere. And I will agree but even that easiness for high skill immigration is actually hard in the absolute terms. I know this because both of my siblings are software developers, and they are working in decent sized tech companies in the USA for years [one is in Amazon, and another in, I think, Salesforce or Slalom], and only one of my sister got the green card. Shouldn't my sisters, given their NO criminal record, have gotten immediate permanent residency if they landed a job with Amazon and Slalom (or Salesforce)? If you especially believe that at least most of high skill immigrants are good, then you must support at least nearly open borders for high skill immigrants, and you must recognize that current status quo is far away from open borders for high skill immigrants. There is no country (except maybe again, Argentina) where there is either de-facto open borders or de-jure open borders for even the high skill immigrants.
Thirdly, some immigration restrictionist people here have said that there is a "dogma" or "dogmatic" support for open borders here at arr neoliberal. Please note that strong belief is not literal irrefutable dogma. Open borders people here have strong belief or established belief based on large amount of evidence and basic contemporary economic theory and ethical theory [Source - https://rajatsirkanungo.substack.com/p/a-collection-of-recent-excellent ]. Established theories are not considered refuted by a single study or research in science and in economics generally (or overwhelming majority of the time). If a new study counters the established scientific body, then it is likely that the new research has some flaws rather than the opposite. For example, if a new study by someone like Jason Hickel literally says that "DEGROWTH IS GOOD!", then that is going to be considered very very likely false by economists because that goes totally against the basic established economic theory. To refute the established economic theory or theories, Jason Hickel would need to come up with a new theory that explains the evidence and makes novel predictions that are proven correct with minimal commitments and minimal auxiliary hypothesis. The large amount of evidence and the economic theory that complements the empirical evidence is not immediately refuted by a new study or research or new ethical argument UNLESS that research or argument is literally Einstein level paradigmatic. Einstein's theory of relativity was the one that shifted the paradigm. Similarly, for counter-evolutionary theories in biology. THIS IS NOT DOGMA. THIS IS NORMAL SCIENCE AND EVEN NORMAL PHILOSOPHY AND GOOD EPISTEMOLOGY. Open borders advocates are not at all supporting open borders without the overwhelming amount of data and empirical evidence, analysis by mainstream economists like Leah Boustan and Ran Abramitzky -
, and the ethical arguments for immigration [See my book collection link again]. The above theunpopulist[dot]net link has the author reviewing the book called "Streets of Gold" by Leah Boustan and Ran Abramitzky, both highly respected economists in top American Universities. And the review is by Michael Clemens.
Michael Clemens is no joke. He has published papers in highly respected economic journals such as American Economic Review and Journal of economic perspectives - https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DdtBDnkAAAAJ&hl=en
And his papers have been very well received. Both Lant Pritchett and Michael Clemens have been researching immigration for quite a long time and both have a fantastic track record.
If you want to see what open borders looks like or what open borders mean to open borders supporters here, then see this - https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/wiki/openborders/
, and this -
"The US had open borders fully from 1789 to 1882, but a system of finite immigration was not added until 1921.
In 1882, the US government kept an open borders policy (that is, there was no limit on the number of immigrants like there is today) but began adding certain "exceptions" to this open immigration policy.
The first and most infamous of these exclusions was the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882, which entirely banned Chinese laborers migrating to the US. In the same year, an exclusion for infectious disease carriers and the severely mentally ill was added.
Another exclusion was added in 1901 - anarchists could not enter the US.
And finally, in 1921, the open borders system truly died when a finite immigration system - quotas - was added." - from the neoliberal wiki on open borders.
Now, after saying all that, I am going to begin with ModernMaroon's concerns and his citation. I watched that video and I noticed that the video maker does not take into account the wellbeing of immigrants. This causes a very slanted wellbeing analysis. This is not good if you either believe in individual human rights or if you are a Utilitarian and care about sentient beings anywhere. Or if you believe in literally any religion which posits that all human beings matter.
The video maker does present the info that specific non-EU migrants are worse than EU migrants due to reasons like less talent (labor shortage section, timestamp - 4:49), housing crisis (timestamp - 8:26), and negatively impacting the wages of the native (timestamp - 14:18), and the second generation non-EU immigrants don't integrate well (timestamp - 13:25).
Now, to address the immigration's impact on wages of the native workers, George Borjas mentions that - in the USA, immigrants depress native worker's wages by around 3.2% [page 44, Alex Sager's book - "Against Borders"]. 3.2% is nothing compared to the massive wellbeing or wealth gains to the immigrants. But Alex does acknowledge that George Borjas's latest 2015 research show that immigrants substantially reduce wages of the natives, however, even here, Clemens and Hunt (2017) respond to Borjas's data and they argue that there are fundamental flaws in George Borjas research [page 50, Alex Sager, Against Borders]. So, even one of the strongest economic case against immigration by an actual economist is not really air tight.
What is interesting that the video maker does acknowledge in his own time stamped sections that governments are cutting refugee benefits to make refugees get into work force faster which is good and suggests that European countries are doing stuff to make immigration less burdensome. For example, just before my housing timestamp, the video maker says that low skilled immigration is good for the economy due to specialization allowance for high skilled workers. Note that this point is also argued by Alex Nowrasteh and Bryan Caplan and this specific point actually follows from basic economic theory of comparative advantage by David Ricardo. Low skilled immigrants are not net negative according to basic economic theories, but they do become net negative once you factor in government housing regulations, government welfare benefits, labor market regulations, and union support (by the government). Alex Nowrasteh, in his chat with Econoboi, mentions that just allowing refugees and non-EU migrants to work, that is significantly helpful or good for the economy -
Alex Nowrasteh also mentions that worker unions have incentive to cause immigration restrictions [Same video, here's the time stamp -
].
Here's Alex Nowrasteh writing that immigrants undermine labor unions -
Now, I absolutely know that labor unions are good for workers WITHIN IN THE UNION - https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/10/are-unions-the-saviors-of-workers.html
But they are not good for workers outside -
Labor Unions also require government force, that is, they will not be powerful if the market is made freer.
Furthermore, at 10:34 in the ModernMaroon's cited video (by videomaker Into Europe), while arguing that in Germany, France, and Sweden, the non-EU migrants payed less taxes and consumed more government welfare benefits, but also argues that in Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal, Ireland, non-EU immigrants payed more taxes and consumed less government welfare benefits. The video actually is not really as anti-immigration as the user who posted is saying in his short summary. The video maker himself certainly does say that EU should be more selective of immigrants but he does not suggest at all that reducing the size of the government or reducing the generous welfare state is actually another solution to Europe's fiscal problems. The videomaker does say that Europe should be more selective along with putting immigrants to work but he just does not suggest that Europe should reduce the generous welfare state to utilize the benefits of immigration. The video maker also does not suggest that labor unions should not have any government support because they seem to cause immigrants not getting the job.
The videomaker also does not examine the occupational licensing in Europe. Sometimes, it is really true that at least some occupational training or licensing requirements is just unnecessary or too much. I argued with another user a while ago on occupational licensing at arr destiny, and he said how Europe requires 4 years of Janitorial education!!!??? That's baffling! Why? I can now understand original neolioberal Milton Friedman's feeling about the absurdity of so much licensing and education requirements in medicine and in many other fields. People just seem to take these regulations and licensing and educational requirements for granted!
There are maids, butlers, and Janitors all over the world and many countries in the world don't require such absurd licensing and standards for low skill work. Since I am an Indian and I have, in my home, cooks, maids, and paid caregivers for my grandma, and they don't have some government provided occupational license for every core work they do. They do good work even without such absurd licensing requirements. The people in Europe and USA can literally live like kings and queens if they allow for low skill immigration and get rid of those particularly absurd labor regulations like occupational licensing in these particular jobs.
To the point about integration, the thing is that it depends upon how demanding your view of integration is. I hope that integration does not imply that most or all immigrants changing their religion mostly or totally, and also not making their own small markets or communities like "Chinatown", "Little Italy", etc. Because if you believe in such a demanding notion of integration, then you will never get any immigrants integrating anywhere. Not only that, it is also important that you are not demanding that immigrants become more liberal than the conservatives in your own home country because that is simply an unfair demand on people because you have your own homegrown conservatives who don't agree with lgbtq+ rights, abortion rights [ https://www.npr.org/2022/06/24/1102305878/supreme-court-abortion-roe-v-wade-decision-overturn ], euthanasia rights, IVF! You have Poland and many European countries like Poland in which the native citizens are not as liberal as some of the anti-immigration advocates demand - https://notesfrompoland.com/2023/11/02/polands-first-ever-resolution-declaring-area-free-from-lgbt-ideology-withdrawn/
What is also important is to recognize that liberalism is not weak considering precisely that you have protests in Iran in favor of liberalism and against theocracy in Iran. Did you know that Saudi Arabia literally had a BLACKPINK concert -
Additionally, Dubai seems to have a massive immigrant population - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expatriates_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates
, I know that a few of you, who are immigration restrictionists, will say that they are not permanent immigrants but I want to ask you this - if you have massive immigrant population and those immigrants are changed every few years, the actual result is still that you have massive immigrant population. Would you be okay with what Dubai and UAE do also started to be done by USA and Europe such that you always will have massive immigrant population but they will always just be changed or rotated such that you will always have newer immigrants working after like every 5 years or so. What difference does it make to the host country?
But you know for who it makes difference? It makes difference for the immigrant who wants to stay permanently and want to work in the host country because he just likes the country. Do you want immigrants to like your country or do you want to always have immigrants that will always be neutral because they are new. They will likely not be allies to your country because they are not allowed to stay permanently if they want to. I am actually cool with both solutions relative to the status quo, but I prefer allowing easier permanent immigration for anyone who wants to work and contribute and likes the host country.
It is also important to recognize that there is a massive difference between what Muslims themselves mean by "Sharia Law" and what some people especially the European far right thinks what Sharia law is, and that is precisely because some Imams are liberal (Ahmadi, Reformists, Non-Salafi, Orthodox Sunni) and some are more conservative (Salafi). I am not a Muslim by the way. I know that Pew Research polls show - https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2017/08/09/muslims-and-islam-key-findings-in-the-u-s-and-around-the-world/
So, the poorer countries seem to be very conservative based on the Pew Research polls. Now, if you want those countries and its people become liberal and increase their wellbeing or wealth, then not allowing them to immigrate and letting them stay in their conservative country will likely keep them in that conservative state because they never got the chance to experience rich, open or liberal society. Why do you not think that liberal societies will fail when you are literally seeing that Iran, an anti-liberal theocracy, having massive protests that favor liberalism? Both Kevin Vallier and Jeremiah Johnson on the neoliberal podcast discuss this here -
Jeremiah and Kevin talk about the case of Islamic Iran and Catholic (not a theocracy) Ireland, and they discuss how Catholic Church massively lost influence on Ireland, and we are seeing anti-liberals of Iran lose their influence on Iran. Many people in Iran are closer to liberalism than the opposite. And my hypothesis is that - both Iran and Saudi Arabia has liberalism, hidden in Saudi Arabia and unhidden in Iran, because both Iran and Saudi Arabia are at least relatively richer middle eastern countries in Middle east compared to Afghanistan and Iraq.
Additionally, a Muslim person saying that he/she wants Sharia that is actually scary to non-muslim people does not actually mean that that Muslim person will actually bring it about because there is a difference between stated preference and revealed preference. Sometimes people do indeed say a lot of ambitious or bold stuff but when rubber meets the road, they give up.
The fiscal positive impact of low skill immigrants is also hidden but still real - https://www.reddit.com/r/neoliberal/comments/1euoisn/the_indirect_fiscal_benefits_of_lowskilled/
Now, I am going to address what user G3OL3X said, they say that immigration's goodness or badness is sensitive to - "the actual outcomes of immigration will always depend on the immigrants skills, their culture, their motivation, the local culture, the local economy, the level and structure of taxes, the unemployment rates, the size of the welfare estate, the housing market, ... and another myriad of factors. The notion that this balance would always come positive, or that one study from one place at one time could be used as the be all, end all of immigration policy is ridiculous."
But the question is how sensitive and whether the problem is because of immigration or because of something else that needs to be taken care of? For example, immigration restrictionist people at arr Canada and arr Canadahousing2 and even here talk about Canada housing, but it is due to government regulations. The solution should be to aggressively deregulate rather than aggressively cut down immigration. Canada literally builds less housing per capita now than they did in 1970s - https://thetyee.ca/Analysis/2022/04/22/Why-Cant-We-Build-Like-1970s/
Empire state building in the USA was built in just 1 year and 1 month - https://www.esbnyc.com/about/facts-figures#:~:text=Get%20answers%20to%20more%20Empire%20State%20Building%20FAQs.&text=Of%20the%20top%20five%20tallest,)%2C%20was%20completed%20in%201931.
Immigration restrictionists underestimate the massive gains of the deregulated markets.
Did people much before current higher immigration wave in Canada and before actually dealing with housing crisis think about YIMBYism that much? Now, they have to. Immigration is simply showing the hidden problems with some of the government policies.
Remember that if we care about people in this world regardless of their geographic location, then it is important to think about other issues that impact natives negatively and immigration simply being a signal about other bad policies precisely because it is pretty much undeniable that people are suffering a lot in poor countries and immigrating to richer country or countries does increase their wellbeing (this is not even denied by George Borjas or Garett Jones). The global poor are suffering a lot. It is always easy to neglect the scope of their suffering when you don't see it everyday because scope neglect is a common bias - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scope_neglect .
So, responding to these two commenters already indirectly works as a decent response to user dizzyhitman_007. His point that -
"High levels of immigration have put significant pressure on housing, public services like healthcare and education, and infrastructure in some European countries. This can offset any potential economic gains from immigration. For example, a report found that 89% of the rise in England's housing deficit over the last decade was due to net migration."
is true, but that is again because of bad regulations in the host country. We saw that Into Europe's videomaker himself acknowledges that immigrants in some European countries pay more taxes and use less government welfare. So, that shows that it really does come down to bad government policy and immigration itself is not a bad thing. Immigration generally shows problems with some terrible government policies that are hidden to people. Bryan Caplan also has published a very recent book on housing crisis, and his proposal is simply - deregulation of housing and construction industry -
Alex Nowrasteh also reviewed the best anti-immigration (or immigration restrictionist) book, that uses institutional health as an argument against immigration here -
and part 2 of the above review is here -
u/MikkaEn This is my long effort post that took me a lot of hours. Please read.
Social trust is also another thing that some anti-immigration or immigration restrictionists care about. So, here's a blogpost arguing against immigration using social trust -
Now here's my reply to them [I already have a small comment to Mike talking about their fertility rate point] - Social trust in ethnically diverse nations is low is true. Now, if you look at the meta-analysis here - https://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-polisci-052918-020708
, the authors say in the Summary points section -
"SUMMARY POINTS
1. On average, social trust is lower in more ethnically diverse contexts. However, the rather modest size of the difference implies that apocalyptic claims regarding the severe threat of ethnic diversity for social trust in contemporary societies are exaggerated.
2. The negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust applies for all types of trust, but there is substantial variation in strength between types. The negative relationship is strongest for trust in neighbors, intermediate for in-group trust and generalized social trust, and weakest (and statistically insignificant) for out-group trust. Ethnic diversity matters more for trust in people in one’s immediate residential setting, but the effect also extends beyond this setting to trust in other people in general.
3. Ethnic diversity experienced locally—in neighborhoods—matters more for social trust than does ethnic diversity in more aggregate settings. Proximity to interethnic others is an important facilitating condition that accentuates the negative relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust.
4. The relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust is only slightly attenuated, and remains negative and statistically significant, when controlling for potential confounders or mediators—specifically individual minority background, socioeconomic deprivation (individual and contextual), contextual crime, and interethnic contact.
5. The relationship between ethnic diversity and social trust is reduced (but still statistically significant) in studies that control for several predictors of ethnic diversity (conceptualized broadly). Including several (typically highly correlated) diversity measures to parse out different theoretical mechanisms often leads to an underestimation of the effect of ethnic diversity on social trust. " - [Bold text here in this post is by me and not by the original authors]
Furthermore, Andrew C Forrester and Alex Nowrasteh has looked into the trust literature here - https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/kykl.12335
"Economists have developed a vast empirical literature on how cultural traits like generalized trust affect economic output. Much of this literature finds a positive causal relationship between measures of generalized trust, as gathered by international surveys, and economic output. However, the trust literature commits five deadly empirical and theoretical sins that undermine many of its findings. From the quality of the survey questions and responses to the paucity of theoretical models used to explain how trust affects economic outcomes to the radically different results from experimental evidence and others, the trust literature is riven with poor methods and bad data. Even so, applying common methods used in the trust literature to regional level analysis in the United States during the 1972–2018 period reveals no statistically significant correlation between economic output and trust. Given our lack of findings at the subnational level, we find further evidence to be skeptical of the trust literature." - from the above paper by Alex Nowrasteh and Andrew C Forrester
So, the trust literature is not going to help the immigration restrictionists or anti-immigration people.
Benjamin Powell and Alex Nowrasteh also have done research on countries with weak institutions and immigration in them like Jordan - https://www.amazon.com/Wretched-Refuse-Political-Immigration-Institutions/dp/1108702457
"Economic arguments favoring increased immigration restrictions suggest that immigrants undermine the culture, institutions, and productivity of destination countries. But is this actually true? Nowrasteh and Powell systematically analyze cross-country evidence of potential negative effects caused by immigration relating to economic freedom, corruption, culture, and terrorism. They analyze case studies of mass immigration to the United States, Israel, and Jordan. Their evidence does not support the idea that immigration destroys the institutions responsible for prosperity in the modern world. This nonideological volume makes a qualified case for free immigration and the accompanying prosperity.
"
I believe that all of the above shows that the support for open borders is not "dogmatic" or "ideological" or "cherry picked" or "without any reliable evidence".