This is the first of a series of three posts, inspired by several things, but primarily by a dialogue between Nick Gillespie and Charles C.W. Cooke. I will be referring to the three-axis model, as described in my e-book The Three Languages of Politics.
The libertarian argument against immigration restrictions is that they restrict personal choice in a very fundamental way. Along the freedom-vs-coercion axis, immigration restrictions are prima facie coercive.
The conservative counter is that immigrants bring a culture of dependency and support for populist demagogues. Thus, unrestricted immigration, or even loose immigration, will end up undermining America’s commitment to liberty.
One libertarian rejoinder is to argue that, empirically, immigrants value liberty. [UPDATE: For an example, see this Cato paper.] A conservative rejoinder might be to point out that progressives are salivating at the prospect of seeing more immigrant voters, and this is not because progressives expect these voters to value liberty.
Another libertarian counter would be that restricting immigration in order to preserve liberty creates too much dissonance between ends and means. If you are for liberty, then you should be for liberty, period. Fight the battle against dependency and demagoguery by arguing against those phenomena, not by restricting the liberty of people to choose where they live.
I am inclined to go with this latter view. Also, I am not worried so much about how immigrants vote. If a libertarian society is to emerge, it is likely to result from exit rather than voice.
I could agree much more with the conservative line, but for the fact that the “native” population is not exactly a bastion of thoughtful liberty scholars.
But we can’t deport them 😉
Except by moving to New Hampshire. So, the question is where is there left to exit to?
“where is there left to exit to?”
Nowhere. Exit is a pipe dream. The world is full, there is no more exit.
I don’t think you’ve given full expression to the conservative view on immigration, though that depends on what you mean by ‘conservative’.
The ‘conservative’ argument you articulate here is more appropriately characterized as ‘Consequentialist Democratic Libertarian’, which is arguing with the ‘Dogmatically Principled Libertarian’ view. Both are focused on human liberty and the scope and scale of the state.
But I think a more authentically ‘conservative’ argument would focus on preserving a particular kind of culture and, to the extent there is foreign immigration, minimizing ‘accommodation’ and ‘multiculturalism’ and instead encouraging or even insisting upon a robust degree of assimilation and eager efforts towards maximizing pro-social compatibility. I can’t do better than Kipling in expressing the sentiment.
That’s not quite civilization vs. barbarism as the expression of a special kind of loyalty, fondness, and preference for one’s own civilization over others, and the people formed by it around whom one can experience a special feeling of home and comfortable ease of social interaction.
Conservatives aren’t just convinced that immigrants are going to vote for Democrats (progressives are also convinced of the same thing), but they are convinced that given the dominant elite ideology of multiculturalism, that large numbers of immigrants wont assimilate and that the remnants of the founding culture of the United States – to include a special fondness for personal liberty and independence from The State – will erode and disappear.
Whatever support it might be possible to marshal in favor of tolerating ‘exit’, a lot of comes from that, and so that support is going to wither too.
Yes, what Kling is describing sounds like “identity liberalism” of the sort you see in Europe, e.g. gays critical of Muslim immigration because it undermines attitudes both progressives and (urbane) libertarians value.
But the above “Consequentialist Democratic Libertarian” just IS the conservative position in most mainstream debates as the whole argument is framed by the sensibilities of the Gawker-style hard left.
Without trying to open up the whole messy can of worms, I think that this incorrect framing of ‘conservatism’ goes to show the ultimate success of the Straussian / Neoconservative project and their attempt to re-found and re-characterize ‘conservatism’ in terms of of the US being a ‘propositional nation’ committed to certain abstract and universal principles. Indeed, there can be no greater testament to that ‘victory’ than the fact that people don’t even call it ‘Neoconservatism’ anymore, and just accept it as ‘conservatism’, despite the fundamental differences. Genuine conservatism having now, apparently, fallen off the collapsing rightward cliff of the Overton window.
Now, Neoconservatism has a certain Burkean / Hayekian presumptive respect and deference towards the trans-cognizable wisdom and efficient functionality embedded in the evolutionarily-derived practices and institutions of established tradition, that are necessary well-tailored to the nature of actual living human beings and not some unrealistic constructed utopian ideal or abstract model of them.
And that’s fine and good at the abstract level. But ‘presumptive skepticism about change’ is not ‘conversation’ in the sense of loyalty to an established experience of social life that one is trying to preserve. Neoconservatism, in theory, defends particularism, at least abroad, but not in the US, which because of American Exceptionalism is a place of universal ideals that can apply to any and all human beings interchangably, instead of the specific historical and contingent product of a certain people, culture, and set of beliefs distinct and supplemental to Neoconservative principles.
And, in that way of political intellectuals, Neoconservatism is sterilized of the normal ‘conservative impulses’ of human feelings of loyalty, patriotism, nationalism, etc. that the progressives would pejoratively term ‘chauvinistic’ or ‘xenophobic’ or even, erroneously, ‘racist’. Wanting to preserve the particulars of the traditional American nation (i.e. actual ‘conservatism’) is now so low-status that it is practically off the radar amongst the political intellectual class.
And because Neoconservatives use a ‘political language’ and in terms of allegiance to these propositional abstract principles, it makes them able to carry on friendly conversations within the same framework with Libertarians, with general ends being the same, but a debate about means and how much provisional compromise should be made with pragmatic considerations.
But a genuine conservative has different ends that those abstract principles. The conservation of social arrangements and preservation of cultural details the way they currently are is an end in itself, with liberty thrown in the mix for Americans because liberty is part of our historical experience and heritage.
So the contrast is “Liberty first, tradition as a remnant one should tinker with carefully and slowly” for Neoconservatism, or “Tradition first, liberty as a remnant of our particular historical legacy” of actual Conservatism.
Wow. I think you fail the neoconservative Turing test on the up side! 😉
Actually, the case is even stronger that what “conservatives” argue, since assimilation is a myth.
In the 3 axis model, I think 2, liberals and conservatives would oppose open borders.
If we are to have a safety net, as we do, then allowing open borders would quickly swamp the country with those seeking to take advantage of the safety net. The result is the country either goes broke or substantially cuts back on the safety net, or both, results that conservatives and liberals find unpleasant. Libertarians support open border pretending things that exist (the safety net) do not exist and refuse to view the issue in light of the world that exists.
Most individuals in the US are opposed to open borders as the realize it would make the US a less pleasant place to live. Imagine 400 million poor, unskilled (many of them beggars) form India, Bangladesh, Africa, and South America moving to US in a 10 year period. Would that make the US a more pleasant place to live? And if one thinks that might not happen, ask yourself, would not both India and 200 million poor from India think it is there best interest to come to the US.
That libertarians support open borders reminds me of a quote from Lenin (I believe), namely that support of open borders proves you are an intellectual, as no ordinary person would spout such nonsense.
Except liberals don’t oppose open borders.
We take a cue as to why by taking healthcare as an example. The reason healthcare reform is a crisis is because it is bankrupting the government. But what did they do? They made the problem worse.
Libertarians are more likely to believe the caricature you ascribe to liberals, e.g. starve the beast.
“Would that make the US a more pleasant place to live?”
It might. Let’s set aside all caveats, such as that there are economic and social barriers to entry (leaving jobs, families, etc.). Let’s not assume that the cream of the crop is who tends to come. Let’s just assume a magic carpet ride for anyone who wanted to come.
After the assimilation period, you still have the superior productivity of this country. So, what is left is why they don’t do it there, and will they bring the bad habits here. This we don’t know.
Andrew, assume 400 million unskilled in the US over a 10 year period. They get here because their respective governments find it cheaper to pay their way to US than provide for them, and believe their country will be more prosperous with fewer people (better than the Chinese 1 child policy).
Many will live on the streets of major cities (as many live on streets of major 3 world cities). Will be hard to walk in NYC.
Any safety net is overwhelmed.
Yes, domestic help or any other type of unskilled labor would be much cheaper.
Productivity higher? Yes begging is much better in NYC the Calcutta.
I guess I think it would make the US less pleasant.
But if you assume you could avoid the crowds, and you could maintain an acceptable and affordable safety net (something I think would be impossible) so that taxes would not increase dramatically, then maybe there would be some economic benefit.
You are talking about the transition period. I am talking about the equilibrium.
To me the question is (more like) do we want India to have all our jobs or do we want to have some of their people.
Remember, we are also assuming that the government list actually stopping all this hypothetical mass immigration right now. Do you believe that? Maybe people like where they live despite some of the tragedy of the commons type benefits they could gain by moving.
In your hypothetical, libertarians are still on your side.
I don’t see much evidence that liberals (worker unions notwithstanding) would suddenly switch to protecting budgets and native welfare recipients.
Note the equivocation from liberals on the South American child immigrants. Those people are still oppressed and Americans are still rich (sic).
Andrew, 3 responses. First, black, a big part of any progressive voting base is clearly against immigration. Hispanics would also be against open borders, they only want their kin to get protection.
As to transition period verses equilibrium, equilibrium happens when US living standard are no better than poor countries in world, a very long time but a future that is very bleak.
The government does stop the state supported immigration we had in 1920s when we had open borders and does prevent large scale immigration from other than Mexico where where we have a long border and common history. ( note, illegals are classified, with a catch all group of “OTM”, other than Mexicans, being a small minority of illegal immigrants.
By the way Andrew, I am enjoying this exchange and appreciate your polite responses.
Libertarians believe in the primacy of the individual whereas conservatives believe in the primacy of social contexts of family, community, nation, and civilization, and to denigrate them, ignore them, pretend they don’t exist, or remove them from that is to render the concept of liberty nonsensical, as what we are is as often set by what we are not.
I’m increasingly conservative with regards to immigration. A couple things come to mind, one is that immigration restrictions are like restrictions while you’re driving. Yes it limits your immediate freedom of movement, but ultimately it let’s everybody get to where they want to go safely this increasing freedom of movement.
Second is an idea that I came to reading Garrett Jones: good culture is delicate while bad culture is robust. If you mix the two, even a small portion of the bad with a large portion of the good, the bad will prevail and you’ll kill the golden goose.
Yes. Gresham’s Law may apply to more than coin.
But how do you spread good culture? Because while we sleep bad culture would spreading right?
I don’t see how Exit can protect the liberty of firms and individuals whose activities and personalities are considered undesirable. In California, there is lots of opportunity to exit: many cities to which someone can move, because cities are very small. However, every single city imposes lots of restrictions on building heights and development density. This is a fact about local politics. Thus, there is very little new in-fill construction in California, because no community wants to allow many outsiders to enter. This is true in most desirable places in America, and once liberal places become desirable, they generally embrace these policies, as Houston is now.
Exit only protects rich people and certain groups, like artists or urban farmers, whom conventional wisdom has come to value, based largely on sometimes dubious logic: “Where will we get our food if it’s not grown in the city of san Francisco?”
Fight the battle against dependency and demagoguery by arguing against those phenomena, not by restricting the liberty of people to choose where they live.
The trouble is that we are losing the dependency and demagoguery battles.
When the water is rising above your rooftop, the idea of a better boat is nice, but kind of moot.
It perturbs me when, after listening to a libertarian go on and on about the benefits of immigration, I ask why the immigrant doesn’t do all these great feats in their home country; and I get told that the native political system is holding them back; which is a frank admission that politics trumps economics; and yet we sit around waiting for a libertarian paradise to be ushered in real soon now.
What about an entry test?
We can also test the hypothesis by doing a study of the political attitudes of immigrants. We shouldn’t assume that they come despite “The American Way” when maybe they come because of it.
As others have intimated, the main problem with an American values entry test is getting it past half the natives who already don’t believe in them.
What about an entry test?
Anything would help.
And if half the natives couldn’t pass such a test, that is something we live with. But no need to import more of that cohort.
This all reminds me again that libertarians are ultimately of the Left; eager to give things away; in this case some notion of liberty, handed out at the border with a smile and a brochure.
“If a libertarian society is to emerge, it is likely to result from exit rather than voice.”
Where, may I ask, are people wanting to “exit” an overregulated society supposed to “exit” to? Who will be setting the rules in that place? How many people, practically speaking, will be able to get there?
The whole “exit versus voice” idea reminds me of the “assume a can opener” story about the economist on a desert island.
We don’t have to physically move to exit. It may be an unsatisfying ezapper but legalizing Marijuana doesn’t allow anything other tHan unproblematic Marijuana sales, possession and use.
You can still lose your job if you choose an employer who prohibits it. Remember, Arnold also favors political de-evolution to smaller jurisdictions so you could have communities that prohibit marijuana. It would simply be easier to exit whether you want or don’t want marijuana around. Politically, I can’t guarantee anybody else will agree with live and let live. It would certainly be harder to do with protected classes of people.
However, I could think of ways to do it in five minutes. For starters, immigrants don’t get instant voting rights.
Ezapper=example
I don’t give a sh– about marijuana one way or the other – other problems we face are so daunting that to worry about whether pot is legal (an issue that seems to loom large for libertarians) seems to me incredibly frivolous – but, pretending to care about the issue for a moment, I think you could make a reasonable policy argument for having the federal government, or even state governments, pull back and let localities decide whether they want to legalize pot (kind of like some states allow counties to stay “dry”). But I don’t see how this argument is enhanced by couching it in an “exit over voice” template. No matter how many egghead libertarians/anarcho-capitalists/free marketeers would like to see the country divided up into tiny, powerless, jurisdictions for law-making purposes, this is not going to happen. So why not stick to policy arguments on specific issues?
By the way, would you have a different currency, and a different central bank, for every little jurisdiction?
Incidentally, if I understand this “exit” rationale, I don’t think businesses that do operate in more than one locality would be at all happy with it. In fact, I think it would be disaster for the US economy. Back in the nineteenth century, the federal courts developed a doctrine of the dormant commerce clause to limit diversity of regulation in the US.
More later but we fixate on MarijuAna because of how obvious and penny ante it is.
After watching the video I noticed they also use it as an example. It is a proxy.
As in, can’t be trusted with the little stuff…
Competing currencies? Do you know who you are talking to?
As for federal regulations, it is an open Question with regulator capture whether they are anticompetitive. These aren’t as cut and dried as I think you think. but that is why I’m me and you are you 🙂
My point about the dormant commerce clause is that, with the country divided up into hundreds or thousands of little jurisdictions, it would be incredibly to do business on a national or even regional or statewide scale, since a firm would have to comply with hundreds or thousands of different regulatory standards. This problem is mitigated under our present regime by federal limits (to some extent judge made) on state regulation of interstate commerce and by state limitations on local legislative power.
I suppose you could argue that dividing the country up into little jurisdictions free to do whatever they want would be good for small exclusively local businesses. To my untutored mind, this seems to be an argument that we never should have left the early 19th century.
Actually, I don’t know who I am talking to, other than that you go by “Andrew.” Again, it’s hard for me to imagine how a modern economy could operate with every US county designing its own banking and financial system. Germany and Italy united during the 19th century for a reason.
I suspect that one reason libertarians obsess over marijuana is because it is one of the few issues (gay marriage and open borders being two others) on which the political situation and the law are moving in their direction. I would speculate that libertarians find these issues a pleasant distraction from the fact that, on most issues, the country is moving away from their vision. (I don’t like the direction the country is moving in, either, but not because its failing to realize the ideals of Robert Nozick and Murray Rothbard.) For those of us who generally believe in a free market and classical liberalism, but eschew ideological libertarianism, it is a source of bitter amusement that libertarians’ “winning” on immigration will have the effect of curtailing the liberty that libertarians claim as their highest value.
There are ways to standardize other than national. Collusion is supposedly illegal unless it is mediated by the feds.
I don’t really see things going down the tubes. It certainly isn’t why I like the low hanging fruit.
“I am inclined to go with this latter view”
Why does that view, for libertarians, only ever apply to immigration? Why do libertarians, of a particular sort, compromise on other issues (i.e. health care, basic income, anti-discrimination laws, whatever – the mix varies) but when it comes to immigration the most rigid consistency with the purest principles must be enforced?
I cannot speak for anyone else, but I think that the exit option is particularly important, and for that reason I am particularly inclined to stick to principles on the immigration issue.
Thank you, Arnold.
exit option
But the notion of exit can be co-opted by criminals to expand their enterprise; or co-opted by those who will demographically replace the natives.
“Exit” in this context looks like an excuse not to defend yourself.
So its Galt’s Gulch or third world shithole. Hope your ubermensch invents his magic engine before we have too many NAMs.
You are missing the libertarian counter-argument: The freedom of groups of people such as the Jews, Japanese, or the ethnic French to affiliate and claim a relatively small geographic nation state as theirs and not be obligated to grant full membership to complete foreigners.
The freedom of Israel to exist as a Jewish state is in direct opposition to the freedom of non-Jews to immigrate. Caplan, Tabarrok, Cochrane and crowd favor the latter freedom and rhetorically evade the former. I would argue the former freedom is a more significant freedom.
This libertarian argument can equally be used against property ownership rights. Many vast stretches of natural beach are effectively prohibited to the public due to property rights. That is anti-freedom. Or even consider the idea of a community pool that blocks access to non community members. Would a libertarian say that the freedom for other children to swim in the pool override the coercion required to keep them out?
One more point: Ilana Mercer is widely considered a libertarian and a strong lover of freedom over coercion, but she is radically opposed to a Caplan form of open border immigration.