From the Chateau: A core principle of libertarianism is the free movement of labor. On paper, this principle sounds admirable, even workable. That damned paper! Libertarians would have to betray a lot of what they believe in to accept that restrictions on the free movement of labor are advantageous, economically and culturally, for a nation’s well-being. Thus, they don’t. Instead, they pull an ostrich and ignore the negative externalities that mass immigration has brought to the USA. Free movement of labor is such an entrenched free market concept that many libertarians have taken to arguing that open borders is a natural, and moral, extension of the principle.
But when does free movement of labor across national borders as a concept break down? Three heretofore largely unexamined premises should enlighten those who believe the concept is trustworthy.
1. As Milton Friedman said, open borders and the welfare state cannot coexist. If one country offers a generous welfare package to all and sundry that immigrants cannot get in their own countries, they will happily cross unguarded borders to take advantage of the manna from government heaven. Who pays for this manna? Why, you, the productive libertardian citizen. There’s a word for your kind. Sucker.
2. Population group differences in human capital are real. If country A is filled with highly productive and intelligent citizens on average, and countries B, C and D are filled with less productive and less intelligent citizens on average, what do you think will happen when the bulk of countries’ B, C and D least productive citizens emigrate to country A? A libertarian in good standing will argue that those B, C and D immigrants will do the crappy jobs that need doing, and the natives who are displaced from those jobs will be incentivized to educate themselves and get better paying and higher status jobs. Hey great! Except what happens if those displaced native citizens, due to innate limitations, CAN’T DO MORE CHALLENGING JOBS? What you’ll get is what we are seeing today: a structural increase in the chronic unemployment rate. Bootstrap philosophy has been thoroughly discredited by the advancing scientific knowledge in genetics.
3. Evidence suggests political ideology is genetically imbued and thus mostly immutable. Latin Americans — specifically those of Amerindian ethnicity — consistently vote 2/3rds for Democrats and more state intervention. What do libertardians think will happen to their precious policy proposals when a 2/3rds majority of 50 million illegal migrants, continuing in perpetuity with their children and children’s children, vote for politicians who believe in the exact opposite of what libertarians believe? Does this really need spelling out?
