
A world of free movement would be $78T richer - deegles
https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of-free-movement-would-be-78-trillion-richer
======
temp-dude-87844
Open borders will, at first, cause downward pressure on wages, as the labor
pool of workers able and willing to perform work for a lower price grows. The
magnitude would be more pronounced than with what we've been currently able to
observe with controlled borders, because the article proposes a scenario where
welfare and public assistance would readily apply to newcomers too. In fact,
there would be a growth in the lucrative industry of coyotes who offer
transportation and relocation assistance, because their line of work would now
be legitimate.

Increased demand for housing will cause costs to spike, which means that those
most willing and able to pay larger amounts will live where they wish, and
everyone else will be relegated to far outskirts, including nonimmigrants
whose incomes fall further behind cost of living. In this scheme, generous
profits will be made by landowners of high-demand locations, and shareholders
of corporations who can take advantage of the influx of labor and the expanded
customer base. It's not too different from our world's current direction,
except within a particular state, the absolute numbers of the wage class and
the underclass would be much larger.

~~~
joefranklinsr
If this was true, then US being the biggest immigrant-friendly country in the
world, would do so in a heartbeat. But neither the government nor corporations
are advocating this. America currently has the biggest economy in the world,
an average of $58,000 income, a low 3.9% unemployment rate while enjoying GDP
growth rate of close to 5% in Q2, as well as close to 220,000 new jobs every
month, and growth in wage increases. In some areas (like silicon valley),
employees are offered 200k-300k salaries. It got to here by having a strong
republic/democracy and rules and laws, support technologies in public and
private sectors, limit immigration to skill-based, and recently choosing to
lower corporate tax rate and reduce corporation regulations.

~~~
gloriousduke
How does the rosiness of this assessment jive with the UN’s report that 40
million Americans live in poverty? Perhaps they are an ancillary component of
such a Republic?

~~~
joefranklinsr
if we look at this

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentag...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_percentage_of_population_living_in_poverty)

it would appear US is in similar leagues with Canada, Norway, Sweden, New
Zealand, etc, of having close to 0-1% in poverty. Check out the other
countries in Asia or Africa if you really think America has it bad.

~~~
setr
Theres only ~300 million people in the us, so the gp's source is claiming
something like 10% poverty

Something's clearly misaligned with the definition of poverty between your
sources; you're differing by an order of magnitude

~~~
schoen
That's a huge difference. I assume different sources did use quite different
measures:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty#Measuring_poverty)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_threshold)

------
P5Wl
A world of free movement will not have a single welfare state.

Even after decades, and generations, immigrants from certain regions have
absolutely abysmal rates of employment in more developed countries they have
settled in. How would an even larger scale of immigration flip the trend we
can already witness, a complete 180 degrees? Many seem completely content on
living on benefits alone, or fully unable to find employment with the skill
set they have gathered, even when they have born in the country where the
natives fare much better. The way I see it, the money that is being spent on
these people could be spent with a far better interest elsewhere.

78 trillion, truly, is a fantasy pulled from a behind.

~~~
hello_1234
I don't know where you got your information from. It's half true. No,
immigrants do not have abysmal rates of employment. The unemployment rate for
foreign-born persons in the United States was 4.1 percent in 2017 compared to
4.4 percent for native-born persons (Dept of Labor, Labor Force
Characteristics of Foreign-born Workers Summary). Immigrants do use more
entitlement than native-borns, but that's because immigrants tend to have more
children. Given how low the fertility rate for native-borns is, the
entitlement that immigrants use to bring up their children probably pays
itself off once the children grow up and contribute to the economy.

~~~
badestrand
> No, immigrants do not have abysmal rates of employment

I think it depends on the specific form of migration to that country. For
example the USA or Switzerland have very high skilled people coming to their
country. In Germany too, but there was and is also a large influx of very
uneducated migrants. Currently 55% of all welfare recipients in Germany are
people with a migration background which shows that the
opportunities/capabilities are not equal.

I do think though that welfare can still work with free movement, it is just
that there would need to be a similar level in all/many countries.

~~~
int_19h
Most immigration into USA is through the family track rather than the skilled
worker track.

------
ephor
>"A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer"

...A world where everyone's mother is a prostitute would be considerably more
economically active.

Its a shame the economy is seen as a end rather than a means.

~~~
ipsocannibal
^^^^^^

I would also like to ask to whom would the majority of that increase in wealth
go? I would argue it wouldn't be to the people doing the moving. It would be
to the people driving them to move.

~~~
davnicwil
Supposing this is true, does it matter, if the overall size of the pie
increases? Isn't everyone better off? Would you rather the poor stay poor so
that the rich don't get richer?

~~~
ipsocannibal
I think all you have to do is look at modern American income disparity in the
United States over the last 50 or so years and you have your answer. Sure, the
poorest did become moderately better off financially in terms of wages. Yet
did there quality of life increase? I would argue that the size of the pie is
irrelevant past the point of what is required for basic survival. What truely
matters is the relative size of the pieces. Especially in a country where we
have equated money with speech.

~~~
UncleEntity
> Yet did there quality of life increase?

You seriously think poor people's quality of life hasn't increased in the last
50 years?

Go drive around "working poor" neighborhoods right after Christmas and see how
many huge flat-screen TV boxes are curbside waiting for "big trash day" (small
hint: a lot) or see how many people _don 't_ have smartphones.

I would argue that Wallyworld did more to bring up the standard of living for
poor people than the last 50 years of social engineering but I know how much
people like the downmod button...

~~~
ipsocannibal
I think you confuse the proliferation of techno-toys with quality of life. The
same could be said of the proliferation of radio, automobiles, etc.

~~~
UncleEntity
If they have the disposable income to purchase "techno-toys" then obviously
they have the means to support their basic needs.

I'm actually curious what quality of life metric you're judging by that's
declined in the last 50 years?

~~~
makomk
The cost of huge flat-screen TVs has plummeted. Meanwhile, the cost of housing
and healthcare is going through the roof in most of the western world. It very
much does not follow that people who have the disposable income to purchase
techno-toys can support their basic needs.

~~~
UncleEntity
The cost of _most things_ has plummeted since 50 years ago which, arguably,
improves people's lives.

And, btw, I wasn't proposing some new measure of Quality of Life through the
size of the living room TV but using it as an illustrative example of
technology becoming more accessible to more people at lower costs. Same with
the smartphone reference, having the sum total of human knowledge at your
fingertips seems like a quick and easy way to improve one's lot in life.

I do wonder if people would complain if Walmart managed to decrease housing
and healthcare costs using their aggressive bargaining tactics like they've
done with generic prescription drugs?

\--edit--

Forgot a requisite huffpo link praising Walmart for prescription drugs prices
(whoops, wrong link the first time around) -->
[https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-a-london/a-way-to-
save-b...](https://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-a-london/a-way-to-save-
billions-an_b_189729.html)

------
Dwolb
This an interesting article because it reframes current immigration
discussions from humanitarian issues to economic ones.

I'd like to see more modelling on wage depression to see why this wouldn't
have a widespread negative impact.

Additionally this seems like a weird point:

>Unskilled migrants care for babies or the elderly, thus freeing the native-
born to do more lucrative work.

If lucrative work were available, wouldn't native-borns already be doing it?

~~~
oldcynic
Have you tried getting adequate and affordable child care? Fortunately our
kids don't need it any more.

It hugely restricts available options. Either from hours available, lengthy
waiting lists or simply finding that after paying childcare work is no longer
making economic sense.

~~~
burfog
Proper child care means a high level of interaction with well-educated people
who speak crisply perfect English.

For the child, this is a time when they are developing language and cultural
habits that will have a lifelong impact, ultimately impacting the quality of
their employment and spouse. Immigrants will not provide that. It's hard
enough finding non-immigrants who can provide it.

~~~
ryen
>with well-educated people who speak crisply perfect English

Source? Personally, i'd rather my kid have an immigrant baby sitter speaking
and teaching my child in their native language. Plenty of studies around long
term intelligence of children learning second languages early on....

~~~
dvtv75
> Plenty of studies around long term intelligence of children learning second
> languages early on....

This in itself may be a myth:

[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/debate-rages-
over...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/debate-rages-over-whether-
speaking-a-second-language-improves-cognition/)

------
remarkEon
>If the worry is that immigrants will outvote the locals and impose an
uncongenial government on them, one solution would be not to let immigrants
vote—for five years, ten years or even a lifetime.

This is actually an interesting idea worth thinking about more. If the concern
for those on the right is that more immigrants to the US would cause a
permanent electoral Blue Wall by flipping Texas in a couple election cycles,
and those on the left see economic migration through a humanitarian lens, then
re-thinking what Citizenship means and the rules for participating in a
democracy could be on the table as part of a compromise. I imagine a sizable
percentage predicate their reason on wanting to come to the United States on
earning money, not voting in elections (though I could be wrong, but I don't
think I am and I doubt this question gets asked to newcomers). The natural
reaction to such a proposal would be that we'd be creating tiers of citizens
(Native Born vs Full Citizens vs residents or something along those lines). I
don't have a problem with that, per se, but I can see how a lot of people
would.

~~~
jameslk
No taxation without representation is a huge part of the culture of the US.
I'm guessing suggesting open immigration without voting rights will have a
large amount of detractors for this reason. Unless the immigrants aren't
taxed, which is kind of the current situation anyway for illegal immigrants.

~~~
int_19h
First of all, the system as described in the article is already effectively in
place: once you get your green card, you have to wait 5 years (3 if it's
through marriage) before you can naturalize. In that time - or more, if you
don't apply immediately - you pay taxes etc, but you cannot vote.

It's even more amusing with non-citizens who aren't green card holders,
because not only they still pay all the taxes, but they're denied most of the
benefits those taxes fund (so e.g. you still pay social security on your
wages, but you don't get to actually claim any payments when a citizen could).

So I don't think there's any insurmountable political obstacle here.

But even beyond that, "taxation without representation", as originally used,
didn't actually mean voting rights per se. The complaint, rather, was the lack
of anyone specifically representing the interests of the colonies, because
they were basically arbitrarily assigned to districts in Britain proper for
the purposes of parliamentary election. So not only colonials didn't vote, but
their MP would typically never even set foot on the territory he supposedly
represented... which is why it was pointed out that it's not really
representation.

However, representation was not equated to vote - keep in mind that the
original franchise wasn't even universal among white males. However, those
that couldn't vote were still deemed to be represented, on the basis that they
lived in the same district as the voters.

Even today this principle still applies: while only citizens vote, the number
of congressional seats, electors etc is calculated on the basis of the entire
state population as of the last census, which doesn't distinguish citizens and
non-citizens. So areas with large non-naturalized immigrant populations
effectively award more voting powers to their resident citizens to "represent"
the rest of the district. And this practice was explicitly blessed as valid by
the Supreme Court in Evenwel v. Abbott.

------
sbg987
This would be a very shitty world to live in unless you were very rich.

It's efficient because it reduces the bargining power of labour to nothing,
and those that gain are the owners of capital. With no bargining power,
benefits will disappear and everyone will be non permanent except those in
very secure positions or in very specialist jobs.

People will no longer have a home - a place to belong, they'll either break up
families with parents working on other countries, or children will endure an
existence of jumping from place to place eroding the chance for normal
development.

Society will be broken and the ability to self organise to build political
movements will evaporate.

This will not be a nice world to live in for 99.9pc of the population.

------
incompatible
I'm not entirely sold on the idea of cramming the vast majority of the world's
population into the subset of countries that are relatively wealthy and well-
run. In practice, the cramming continues within those countries into the most
favoured cities.

If we are thinking of pie-in-the-sky ideas like open borders, then why also
try to think of a way to spread good government and wealth across all parts of
the world? I.e., spread the best practices so they become universal.

Some ideas in the past, like Europe colonising and controlling much of the
world, are obviously out of fashion today. Yet ironically many people have
voted with their feet (or would like to, if given the opportunity) and moved
to Europe.

~~~
gremlinsinc
I like the idea of open borders, guaranteed basic income (only for citizens),
getting rid of income taxes, making all citizens pay a national sales tax
instead (gbi would offset some of this), having a national id (with id you
save 10-15% on sales tax without you pay a lot more, say 4-5% for citizens,
15-20% for migrants/travelers from abroad). -- This would make immigrants
legal or not pay 3x the taxes, and I think a lot more people would be fine
with that.

Sales tax would be more of a consumption/outbound tax -- all outbound expenses
would be taxed if you buy or pay anyone it's taxed on payers side. So example
a company pays wages they pay a sales tax on the wage, they buy office
supplies, pay dividend to shareholders, pay ceo a bonus or golden parachute,
buy land, etc... People would be taxed for paying rent, buying food, buying
houses, buying land, etc.. on the purchase/exchange of money.

GBI would paid out to all citizens and sales tax could be adjusted yearly to
balance the budget if there's a surplus/deficit from previous year.

Welfare/IRS can be dismantled completely and everything automated via
technology. Saving billions. We'd need a lot less accountants, and tax
workers. Tax software for consumers wouldn't be needed, etc.. It'd shore up a
glut of industry we don't need.

~~~
incompatible
As an immigrant I feel sufficiently discriminated against already: pay the
same tax rates as anybody else, but ineligible for various government benefits
and unable to vote. All because of a technicality: I don't have a parent born
in the country I live in.

~~~
gremlinsinc
But you'd never have to fear being kicked out or deported, I think that would
be better at this juncture in history than having a higher tax rate.

GOP'ers claim they hate immigrants because they don't pay their fair share, or
will take their jobs. If they paid more than their share of taxes then it
would get rid of that entire argument, and is the basis for my idea.

There could be tiers perhaps.. Citizen, ALmost a Citizen, Visiting w/ Work
Visa temporarily, No documentation. W/ the last segment having the highest tax
bracket. I mean no offense, but you'd then just need to choose does living in
America = worth it by paying the extra taxes. At least you wouldn't be pushed
out..

Maybe they could have another level Not-citizen but has voting privileges (of
course that might come with a higher tax bracket in exchange for the privilege
to vote..this would be up for debate obviously... ).

------
adamrezich
As this sort of thinking becomes more and more popular, I wonder how close to
some kind of singularity we truly are. If the people of the world are really
so eager to transform the planet into a single global monoculture, then some
sort of technology-driven unification of all human consciousness can't be too
far off. Me, I personally like a world of true diversity, where people of
different physical regions are allowed to have unique local cultures.

Complete and total globalization of everything on the planet (and perhaps
beyond) might be inevitable, but I don't trust the people who are trying to
make it happen right now to have any common peoples' best interests in mind,
because I'm not naive to human nature (plus I've read up on them).

~~~
hawkice
> Me, I personally like a world of true diversity, where people of different
> physical regions are allowed to have unique local cultures.

I think free movement is likely to amplify culture, not mute it. Right now I
have to go through tons of hoops to live in Taiwan. The culture is precisely
my aesthetic. I've spent untold hours studying the language. There are lots of
Taiwanese-culturally-minded Americans and Dutch and South Africans who don't
feel at home in their birth culture. Making it a big hassle for them to live
in a culture that reflects their values just smears out culturally-Taiwanese
across those countries.

~~~
adamrezich
Surely the hoops you have to go through to live in Taiwan despite not being a
native prevent the country from being overrun by people who are culturally
incompatible with the local populace? It sucks you have to go through hoops
and can't just fly there and move in tomorrow I guess, but in a world where
you could do that, so could I, and I can't speak any Chinese or Taiwanese, I
don't know anything about their culture, and my only connection to the country
is an aunt who married into the family. What if a bunch of people like myself
moved there suddenly for some random reason, and the local culture was
essentially eradicated as we altered it to suit our desires? with global open
borders, this sort of thing would happen constantly, all over the place, and
with the advent of the Internet, most of culture would merge into even more of
a ubiquitous monoculture than the world already is.

~~~
hawkice
I suspect you underestimate how massively disruptive it is to move to another
country, particularly one that doesn't speak any language that you speak.
Maybe America would pick up a lot of random people, being huge and wealthy,
but everywhere else, I would seriously doubt it would get this kind of drive-
by immigration you imagine.

~~~
adamrezich
Do you have any evidence to back any of that up? Personally I'm seeing a lot
of mass migration across the world--not all of it wanted by the citizens of
the countries being migrated to--right now, even without globally open
borders. Why would having globally open borders do anything but increase this
rate?

It's also interesting that you think globally open borders would only affect
the culture of America, but you're okay with that, presumably because whatever
Americans consider to be their culture currently is meaningless in your eyes
compared to the glorious no-nations-no-borders future world you envision,
which conveniently has no negative consequences and is only a positive thing
for everyone (except Americans who like their country and culture more or less
the way it is now but eh tough luck for them I guess)

~~~
int_19h
There are some numbers right there in the article about that, including some
examples with open borders (e.g. within EU).

------
lord_ring_11
I am ok with selective immigration. But open borders is truly crazy idea at
this point. If we open borders like suggested next thing we know will be -
developed countries becoming like garbage dumps we see in other countries.
There is a reason why some countires fall into downward spirals. If u get its
people en mass without filters, you get that mentality too.

Why dont we experiment in smaller scale with liberal companies like
facebook/google/microsoft opening its employment where anyone from anywhere
can come and say i want to be employed here and goog/fb/msft have to take them
in? Lets even throw in a restriction that person should be cs degree holder
from anywhere in the world. Lets see how it goes.

~~~
hueving
You can have open borders or a good social safety net. Pick one.

~~~
tom_mellior
Explain please? Immigrants pay into safety nets just like anyone else who pays
into them.

~~~
krferriter
If 10 million poor people with no employable skillsets move into Europe, they
would be withdrawing vastly more from the tax pool than they would be putting
into it. People who do not contribute to production would just move wherever
the local government will give residents the most resources.

~~~
tom_mellior
> If

 _If_ , yes. All this is conditioned on your racism that tells you that all
foreigners are uneducated (and uneducatable)/lazy/freeloaders.

In addition, all of the tax money paid out would immediately be spent by these
alleged freeloaders on meeting their needs for food etc., so it would flow
back to producers of useful stuff and a lot of it come back as taxes.

~~~
hueving
That's not a racist 'If'. There's a massive backlog of unskilled rejected
immigrants from poor countries that would be way better off living on the US
social system than the one in the country they originate from.

Immigrants aren't magic, the ones that want to leave the most to come to the
US are the ones from countries with bad education systems and bad social
safety nets. Why would someone leave a good social safety net for a worse one?

>In addition, all of the tax money paid out would immediately be spent by
these alleged freeloaders on meeting their needs for food etc., so it would
flow back to producers of useful stuff and a lot of it come back as taxes

Except for all of the loss incurred by the things they consume. The only thing
that comes back in taxes is a fraction of the profit on whatever they
consumed.

Unless someone is producing more economic value than they consume, they are a
net loss on the whole economy. There is a limit to how many people like this
an economy can support before it will collapse.

It's just another insurance market like any other. The premiums coming in (tax
rev) have to be more than the payouts (safety nets).

------
vivekd
One could argue that this was tried on a micro scale with the EU. While there
is an argument to be made that it did bring some economic growth but nothing
near as close to the growth advertised by the economist.

~~~
jpatokal
How would you feel about all states in the US instituting their own
immigration controls? Would there be a negative effect on the US economy if
moving from New Jersey to New York required lengthy visa applications and
waits for green cards?

~~~
zeth___
Fewer than you'd think. New York and California would be places you could
actually live in.

------
neilwilson
One area's net immigration is another area's brain drain.

Look around your own country and ask if the movement to the richer areas has
helped the areas the people come from, or the _all_ the people that were there
in the first place or even really those that did the moving.

We keep recreating the slums of 1840s Manchester with every cycle and still we
never learn.

Never take open borders arguments from anybody with a lock on their front
door. Free movement is essentially the privatisation of borders for the
benefit of the rich. You can have a border if you can afford to purchase
enough land, put a fence up and hire the heavies to keep the riffraff out.
Everybody else gets to fight it out in the mud pool.

~~~
simplecomplex
Equating someone moving to the town you live in (wherever they come from) and
breaking into your home is disingenuous and childish.

------
repolfx
This article seems symptomatic of a general decline in the quality of The
Economist. I used to be a subscriber but there was a noticeable sharp drop
some time ago, I think when Micklethwaite stepped down as editor, and things
seem to have got worse since. Shoddy thinking, bizarre arguments and extremist
conclusions seem more common than they used to be.

Firstly, the core thesis of the argument is that _merely by moving to a richer
country_ , people become automatically more productive:

 _> Workers become far more productive when they move from a poor country to a
rich one. Suddenly, they can join a labour market with ample capital,
efficient firms and a predictable legal system. Those who used to scrape a
living from the soil with a wooden hoe start driving tractors. Those who once
made mud bricks by hand start working with cranes and mechanical diggers_

This can only be described as some sort of fantasy. People who have spent
their lives making mud bricks by hand don't suddenly become qualified crane
operators by mere virtue of migrating to a developed country. They need the
same training any native born person would, but they also need to learn the
local language and customs too.

Indeed, a common effect of mass immigration is that mechanical diggers and
cranes are _less_ used, because why buy expensive automated machinery when
labour is nearly free?

A clear counterpoint is the state of Germany. Over 1 million migrants from
Africa and the ME let in with no border controls worth talking about. Did they
all immediately become high earning crane operators. No. Aydan Özoğuz,
commissioner for immigration, refugees and integration, told the Financial
Times that only a quarter to a third of the newcomers would enter the labour
market over the next five years, and “for many others we will need up to 10”.

The Institute for Employment Research (IAB) found only 45 per cent of Syrian
refugees in Germany have a school-leaving certificate and 23 per cent a
college degree.

Statistics from the Federal Labour Agency show the employment rate among
refugees stands at just 17 per cent.

The Economist also seems to struggle with the basics of _why_ some countries
do better than others. They do sort of comprehend the shape of the problem:

 _> On the contrary, the reason why migration is so attractive is that some
countries are well-run and others, abysmally so._

 _> It is very hard to transfer Canadian institutions to Cambodia, but quite
straightforward for a Cambodian family to fly to Canada._

Hmmm. So. Some countries are run abysmally, and others are well run. Why is
that? The Economist acts like good governance is a feature of geography,
something the Canadians dig out of the ground. But it's not, government is
people, so presumably the people in those countries aren't very good at
building wealthy societies. For example their cultures frequently turn a blind
eye to graft, dictatorship is common, installing relatives in government posts
is expected, work gets done slowly or not at all, votes are seen as things
useful to sell for a bit more income and so on.

So what happens if all those people simply move to another country? Does their
culture change overnight? And if not, what makes The Economist so sure that
the bad administration and poverty those people were trying to escape won't
just follow them to the west?

This problem is not theoretical or simply scaremongering. The sad tale of
Lutfur Rahman is a warning sign of what can go wrong when large numbers of
people settle in the west from parts of the world where western values are not
well established - they don't simply change overnight and instead western
political systems start to look like third world countries too:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutfur_Rahman_(politician)#Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lutfur_Rahman_\(politician\)#Corruption)

~~~
trextrex
Have you ever considered that what you consider "western values" are in fact
values that emerge in a society that lives in conditions where there is
political stability and economic opportunity? That people's "culture" is
affected by the environment around them as a general pattern?

~~~
repolfx
Yes, I have considered that. It doesn't appear to be true.

If it was, cases like Rahman's would not have happened. After moving from
Bangladesh as a young person, and becoming surrounded by political stability
and economic opportunity, he would have adopted western values and become an
ordinary politician. So would the people in Tower Hamlets, which has a very
large Bangladeshi immigrant population.

In fact what happened was this:

• He engaged in massive election fraud, including buying votes, organising
large numbers of faked votes, bribery, buying support of local Bangladeshi TV
channels, intimidating witnesses and doubling council funding to local Bengali
charities in return for their political support.

• He did this so successfully that he won a local election that was found
(years later) so riven with corruption that it was declared by a judge to be
entirely void and would have to be re-run from scratch.

• He also gained votes by telling Muslim voters that his political opponent
was racist and that voting for him was an "Islamic duty".

• He was kicked out of the Labour party for having links with an extremist
group.

• He benefited from a group of "enforcers", people attached to youth
organisations funded by his council, who would visit and intimidate any
Bangladeshi who spoke out against the mayor. This included threatening to burn
down the houses of witnesses during the corruption trial.

• He has also been accused of extensive mortgage fraud and tax evasion.

Corruption, bribery, intimidation of voters, stuffing ballot boxes, buying
political support, exploiting religion and race to gain support - these are
all the sorts of behaviours strongly associated with third world countries
like Bangladesh, but they showed up in the UK in the modern era too, even with
people who moved as children.

If values were created by the environment, then this wouldn't happen (unless
you consider the cultural effects of immigrants who pool together in the same
areas to be able to overwhelm the cultural effects of the new host country).

~~~
trextrex
Having interacted with immigrants from many different places, I find for a
vast majority of them, the environment does in fact determine their culture.
Are there a few for whom it doesn't? Sure. In the same way there are criminals
even among people who grow up in such an environment.

~~~
repolfx
Yes, immigrants obviously can and do adapt to their host culture and it
happens often, perhaps most of the time (I don't know of stats on that).

But what causes this, and what's the "absorption rate"? With no migration
controls at all, could such absorption be overwhelmed and cease working?

------
alanz1223
ahh yes, open the borders and import every type of third worlder into western
countries for the sake of profiting over cheap labor... Let us forget about
the clash in cultures, and how unrestricted immigration leaves the native
population in a worse off state by rising housing prices, demographic
replacement and stagnant wages. I have experienced first hand the effects of
such policies here in California. This article is the equivalent of selling
your lung to afford a kidney.

Also as a side note, Why is it that more developed nations have to find
solutions for failed states by re-homing the population which voted for those
same policies instead of leaving them to fight and improve the conditions in
their own countries. Absolute globalist non sense.

~~~
albertgoeswoof
> Why is it that more developed nations have to find solutions for failed
> states by re-homing the population which voted for those same policies
> instead of leaving them to fight and improve the conditions in their own
> countries.

Because developed nations have a vested interest in keeping international
peace where possible as it is good for trade and national security.

You’re also assuming every country is a fair democracy, and that they can
resolve issues without international support.

Remember that every developed country (including your own) has only been able
to develop by leveraging cheaper labour and goods from 3rd world countries
over the past 300 years, we are all very closely linked, whether you like it
or not.

------
mythrwy
This article (and the comments) seem to focus on migration from poorer to more
developed areas.

But what if people could migrate from the developed world to resource rich
regions (like Africa and South America) and have the chance to unlock the
potential of those regions? All that potential wealth which is currently held
back by corrupt governments and non-progressive cultural habits could be
unlocked.

Wait, that happened before and was called colonialism and wasn't good for the
natives. But neither is uncontrolled inflow of third worlders into
industrialized nations. Is growing global wealth more important than effects
on local populations?

~~~
lord_ring_11
Well i hear sometimes that india was better off under imperial rule than now.
There was better rule of law. I guess india should have waited another 50-100
years for independence.

------
dsfyu404ed
This article was kind of a roller coaster for me, I was like "no screw that,
that'll screw all sorts of things up" then it had all these fairly reasonable
proposals for minimizing the impacts and I was ok with it.

>This, they fear, would make life worse, and perhaps threaten the political
system that made their country worth moving to in the first place.

The latter part of that sentence is of key importance. Ask the people of
Denver what they think of migrants from CA, ask Mainers what they think of the
Massholes and the way those groups have affected their society (comically,
most Mainers would rather have more poor Somalis than MA migrants). It's
really easy to say "well it wasn't that bad" as an outsider 50yr or 100yr
after the fact but for the people who have to live through it these changes
really suck.

>for five years, ten years or even a lifetime. This may seem harsh, but it is
far kinder than not letting them in.

I support this so, so, so, much. So many cultural problems caused by migration
would be solved if when moving somewhere your vote counted as 1/X and
increased to 1/1 over some period of time. This should apply to citizens too.
If I move to the next town over my vote should count at 1/X in town elections
but still count as what it previously did in state/federal elections

As an aside, I thought this was going to be a piece about the cost to the
economy of transportation and physical distance but I was disappointed.

------
patrickg_zill
Utterly ridiculous rubbish.

The reason why Mexican immigrants make more money as mentioned in the article
in the US would be erased under open borders. It would be a race to the
bottom, globally.

~~~
monort
Race to the bottom is what makes a progress.

Would you prefer to work a month to be able to afford a shirt, like it was
just a few centuries before? Or do you prefer when "race to the bottom" made
the cost of the same shirt into a few hours of work?

~~~
patrickg_zill
That's automation, not immigration.

------
yellowapple
"Workers become far more productive when they move from a poor country to a
rich one. Suddenly, they can join a labour market with ample capital,
efficient firms and a predictable legal system. Those who used to scrape a
living from the soil with a wooden hoe start driving tractors. Those who once
made mud bricks by hand start working with cranes and mechanical diggers.
Those who cut hair find richer clients who tip better."

Like hell they do.

In the first two scenarios, the hypothetical worker is almost certainly not
qualified to be operating any sort of heavy machinery. In the third,
stylists/barbers tend to require certification.

I'm sure this paragraph wasn't meant to be taken literally, but it does
nonetheless betray a gross underestimation of the costs of actually training
someone to be an effective and safe worker in a new, more technologically-
driven environment.

------
RcouF1uZ4gsC
One thing open borders would completely destroy would be the social safety net
of many countries. Let’s say there is completely open borders between Sweden
and the United States. Sweden has high taxes and an significant social safety
net. The United States has low taxes and a non-existent safety net. Over time,
people who pay a lot of taxes migrate from Sweden to the United States. People
from the United States who are unable to work for whatever reason, migrate to
Sweden.

This would also affect government. You either end up with a large underclass
that doesn’t have voting rights (see Qatar for example) or else they have
voting rights and the laws of the receiving country change to reflect the
culture of the immigrants.

~~~
krapp
>People from the United States who are unable to work for whatever reason,
migrate to Sweden.

I think you're overestimating the number of Americans who would have the means
to do so, despite not having an income.

~~~
imtringued
They would get the "means" in their destination country through welfare.
That's the entire point.

~~~
krapp
But they wouldn't already _have_ the means, unless welfare was somehow
globally distributed and universal.

Which would be a qualitatively better situation for everyone, so I don't see
the problem in that case.

------
southerndrift
$78T for 8G humans are roughly $10,000 per person.

If this is per month then its an interesting idea. But if this is per year
then there is no incentive for the Western citizens to open their borders.
Average income is about $30,000 per year right now. If the job market is
flooded with workers then there is no way that people will keep on earning
that much. Additionally, the housing market will explode and people who rent
their homes will have to move.

I wouldn't be surprised if opening all borders would lead to even bigger
gains. After all, China's source of income is their huge pool of workers. But
I don't think that $78T profits are a good argument to convince the West to
open its borders.

~~~
woah
The housing market would be fine if people were allowed to build housing on
their own land without an extremely expensive and onerous zoning process
driven by those with a vested interest in expensive housing.

------
gremlinsinc
What if instead of open borders, there were no borders.

What if the entire world (democratic regions at least) sign some sort of pact,
each city-state gets 1 vote. Each state is taxed x amount to preserve an
international military force that's goal is to thwart axis-type powers that
might arise, but needs a 60%+ vote from city states.

Maybe an ai of some sort could decide the size/scope of region that equates to
fair city-states. -- Travel between cities/states would be open as long as you
don't mean harm to the area. Cities/states could set their own solutions to
problems like healthcare, drugs, basic income, jobs, etc...

I think large governments like USA/Canada/EU/China create represive regimes,
smaller self-governed entities could run things better locally, and still have
open communications/trade/etc with nearby states/cities. It would also be
less-prone to corruption as you'd need to pay thousands more politicians (ones
in each locality) instead of just in D.C.

Personally, I'd love to start a blockchain/identity project to create a
universal basic income with fool-proof/sybil-attack proof identity system,
making fiat currencies un-needed and creating one-world blockchain-based
currency, that helps alleviate pain caused by automation. I think a monetary
system like this could take away some of the power and corruption from
government.

------
simonsarris
At least they use "Potentially" in the subtitle, sheesh.

"If we had open borders we'd be $X trillion richer" is silly. It makes the
huge assumption that institutions would stay the same, or inexplicably trend
better everywhere, instead of worse. There is no thesis for why this is so, it
is hand-waved here.

> Suddenly, they can join a labour market with ample capital, efficient firms
> and a predictable legal system.

This should prompt some navel gazing about:

* Why some countries succeed in building institutions and what is different about them.

* Why some countries used to have good institutions and now have dysfunctional ones. (Like say, Argentina, Lebanon, etc)

They might even learn something about why free movement isn't common.

> A Nigerian in the United States cannot be enslaved by the Islamists of Boko
> Haram.

The author has almost figured it out.

> If lots of people migrated from war-torn Syria, gangster-plagued Guatemala
> or chaotic Congo, would they bring mayhem with them? It is an understandable
> fear (and one that anti-immigrant politicians play on), but there is little
> besides conjecture and anecdotal evidence to support it.

Okay, he hasn't quite.

The planet is awash with dysfunctional institutions clawing away at function
and semi-functional ones. Just going off of his Boko Haram example, the South
Thailand Islamic insurgency is 13 years and counting of fighting from Muslim
separatists. The Myanmar Islamic insurgency has been going on for 70 years and
counting. The Somali civil war has been ongoing for my whole life, the
Nigerian insurgencies over the years are numerous and ongoing, boko is just a
continuation. I'm sure you know the story of other countries, weary reader.

So why isn't the thesis "A world of free movement would spawn a new era of
separatists"? Crazy, yes, but at least we have some precedent for it as a
nonsense headline.

No discussion of why nations differ in institutional quality is one thing, but
no explanation of why the good-institution countries wouldn't degrade is
another. As Taleb says, Economists don't seem to understand things that move.

~~~

A little tangential, but one of the things I think is under-discussed, is what
happens to the places where people mass migrate from.

Recently there has been _massive_ brain drain from Southern & Eastern Europe
to West: _Half_ of Romania's doctors left between 2009 and 2015:
[http://www.politico.eu/article/doctors-nurses-migration-
heal...](http://www.politico.eu/article/doctors-nurses-migration-health-care-
crisis-workers-follow-the-money-european-commission-data/)

In Venezuela, 40% of recent medical school graduates have left. Medicine
shortage + lack of physicians = countrywide health crisis:
[https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2017/12/12/venezuela-
he...](https://panampost.com/sabrina-martin/2017/12/12/venezuela-health-
crisis-medical-graduates/)

Other countries, like Lebanon after its civil war, are similar. Syria might
end up similarly, I don't know.

It is hard to fault people moving en masse for a better life, but it further
solidifies that the places they leave behind will continue to be governed by
the looney bin for the decades to come. I wish there was a more thinking about
solutions to this problem, and less glee at the capital class counting chips
over the obverse.

~~~
geofft
> _Why some countries used to have good institutions and now have
> dysfunctional ones. (Like say, Argentina, Lebanon, etc)_

I believe the answer for Argentina is "right-wing US support of right-wing
death squads because of a fear of communism" and for Lebanon is "The pro-
Western president of Lebanon requested American military intervention against
internal opposition, which the US was happy to do because of a fear of
communism", right?

~~~
simonsarris
Around the early 1900's Argentina was the 10th(?) richest country in the
world. Wiki:

> In 1913, the country's income per head was on a par with that of France and
> Germany, and far ahead of Italy's or Spain's.

Several bad government decisions changed that. No US support was needed to
knock it off the list into a dizzying number of defaults.

The first Infamous Decade needed no help from the US.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamous_Decade](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamous_Decade)

(edited with more accurate dates)

------
rdlecler1
This is a idealistic thought experiment, but Europe is still reeling from the
the Syrian refugee crisis and that is just one small country. Throwing open
boarders when there’s differential welfare systems would be chaos. The world
wouldn’t be $78T richer, it would be $78T poorer because it would lead to
widespread civil war. Even if the author was right about the economic impacts
she is discounting people’s tolerance for change, especially is a country’s
conservative faction. For developed nations it would effectively be asking for
forfiteture.

The author uses Greece as an example, but Greece has nowhere the poverty of
much of the developing world (and that’s a big number).

What incentive is there for the average middle class American to partake in
such a grand experiment? Look at what happened when you introduced scarcity to
an educated and industrious population after WW1. Mass genocide.

And let’s not forget housing inflation in developed countries. Immigrants are
not going to head to Reno, they’re going to go to cities like NY, SF, LA,
London—cities that they’ve heard about and where there are already large
immigrant communities. Good luck adding another million people to NY over a
three year period.

~~~
teaspoons
"The world wouldn’t be $78T richer, it would be $78T poorer because it would
lead to widespread civil war"

Nope, 90% of people would stay where they are. Most people don't like
migrating: to uproot yourself and your family from the land, culture and
language you love is a big deal and people only do it when the have no other
choice.

~~~
rdlecler1
Okay and what about the migration of the other 700m people with most frequent
destinations being US and Europe from the bottom quartile of countries by GDP?

Mexico has 125m people and the US has around 12m illegal aliens. Let’s
generously assume that only half are from Mexico, that’s 5% of the population
that was willing to take the risk to live in the US illegally. Now create an
open boarder? You’d have 10% of Mexico moving to the US tomorrow. It’s human
nature to want a better life and it’s also human nature to want to protect the
life one already has.

~~~
teaspoons
the USA was founded by migrants

------
geodel
It might be. But I am pretty sure that 90% of that will accrue richest 1%
people or to those who work for them in important positions.

------
crispinb
Borders are, & have always been, fundamentally open, because it's a plain
physical (biological) reality that H. sapiens is a resourceful, migratory
species. Erection of walls and legions of petty border-guarding popinjays is
no more than a can-kicking exercise, a waste of time & resources analogous to
those squandered pretending that climate change requires little response. You
either face physical reality, or exert tremendous material effort on crass
denial. Story-based entities (cultures, businesses, nations) are necessary but
in the end, they are only temporary tactical fictions. They supervene on
physical reality and when they attempt to deny it, will be swept away.

------
rsj_hn
These are the same geniuses that were cheerleading financial deregulation
before the crash. Before that, they were cheering liberalization of
international capital flows before the asian crash. After, they were cheering
austerity.

The economist is like an anti-oracle.

------
badrabbit
Hate to say it but if you suddenly open borders you will have a huge
immigration crisis. Half the planet would literally move to western europe and
north america.

Maybe open border can work for trade and business related immigration with
sponsors on either side.

~~~
lord_ring_11
I doubt it even works for trade. Full free trade has caused money flow to 3rd
world countries at the cost of natives. China has policy of trading off ip for
privilege of cheap manufacturing. So its growing in tech at the cost of west.
What west gets in return in temporary cheap goods and must of 2$ crap toys
which break.

------
graycat
Okay, take the people the OP is talking about, with spouse and children. Then
look at their qualifications for work in the US. Look at their skills in
reading, writing, and arithmetic, knowledge of English, US civics, etc. Some
of the immigrants need training in bathing, using a toilet, and other basic
hygiene. And there tend to be serious medical, including communicable disease,
problems -- TB, measles, polio, GI parasites, etc. And look at job skills --
computer usage, basics of electricity in factories and on job sites, skills
with important work place tools, etc.

The US has long had immigration criteria that ruled out such people.

Okay, now take a US citizen that on qualifications is a good match for such an
immigrant and see what their job and career prospects are. As we know very,
very well, they are unemployable or nearly so. Well, so will be the immigrant.
The ability of the immigrant to get a job, have a career, and support
themselves and their family is from poor to zero.

So, why do such immigrants want to come to the US? And how can they hope to
make it?

First, the usual way has been the immigrants were young men who left their
families, friends, villages behind and did common labor, e.g., picking fruit.
They lived several to a room sleeping on a mat on the floor. They were here
only the warmer parts of the year, not through the winters. They got paid in
US cash with no deductions for taxes or US Social Security. Then at least for
the winter, they went home and took their US cash with them. Due to currency
value differences, their US cash would go really far back in their home
village. Of course, that whole situation is wildly illegal, on taxes and more.
A US citizen here for 12 months a year can't do that and support a family or
even themselves.

Second, if the immigrant brings their family, with children, then the family
and especially the children are one heck of a huge expense for the US
education and welfare systems, paid for by US workers paying taxes.

More broadly the OP does poor accounting: Sure, there are a lot of people in
the world who are, in US terms, not very productive. Some of these people are
current US citizens, and the US is struggling to get those people trained,
into jobs, and productive. The US has many dozens of job training programs.
Those candidate immigrants are on average less well qualified than the
millions of current US citizens struggling to be productive in the US economy.
Where do the OP authors get the funny stuff they've been smoking to conclude
that immigrants much less well qualified than millions of US citizens who are
already struggling to get good jobs in the US will do better than those
already struggling US citizens?

Or, if those immigrants are such a valuable, neglected resource, then, sure,
take some US tools, supplies, know-how, etc. to some foreign countries and
give the people there jobs. Chrysler tried that in Mexico and has decided that
it was a mistake and are returning to Detroit.

Uh, apparently to make people as productive as in the US takes more than just
some people and training for a job; also required are huge investments in
_infrastructure_ from water and sewer, roads and bridges, suppliers and
supplies, communications, regulations, laws, law enforcement, public health,
medical care, citizenship, ..., the whole thing. The OP is being simplistic,
straining over gnats and forgetting elephants.

IMHO, too many powerful people in US business see the immigrants as a new
version of slave labor. In 1861, the US had a lot of slave labor and people
who liked that situation; we fought a bloody war over that issue, killed IIRC
600,000+ US soldiers and maybe a comparable number of other US citizens. Net,
slavery was a big mistake. Bringing back slavery will be a bigger mistake. The
forces in favor of slavery have been strong for thousands of years and did not
end in 1865 or so.

If the authors of the OP want to take some funds, rush to some country with
lots of really poor people that are unproductive, set up some businesses, give
those people jobs, training, etc., so be it. People have been trying that off
and on around the world for a long time. We've long had international
organizations for such development. Successes have not been anything like the
claims of tens of trillions of dollars claimed in the OP.

So, the OP looks like really bad, simple economic and business arithmetic, so
bad the OP does not look like economics. So, what really is the OP? Hmm ....
For a candidate answer, consider the advice "Always look for the hidden
agenda.".

------
thedailymail
The world might be $78 trillion richer, but if current wealth distribution
patterns hold up most of that will end up further enriching the rich.

------
jopsen
Closed borders is a form of discrimination. But if we open them and want to
maintain our standard of living we'll have to make them second class citizens.

As the article argues, this is better than excluding them from our labour
market.

But discrimination like designating people as 2nd class citizens is probably
more repundant to people's sense of ethics than closed borders.

And perhaps these moral tabu's are not without importance. I'm not sure, but
"closed borders" do seem worse than a 2nd class of citizens.

~~~
jopsen
Okay, maybe this was ill phrased :)

My point is that the article argues that a "2nd class of citizen" is better
than closed borders.

In many ways those arguments make sense. However, that doesn't make any of
this feel better.

------
retox
Globalists only think in terms of profit and not of culture, tradition and the
mental well-being of the average person. There are plenty of studies which
show that homogeneous societies are happier, more trusting and more engaged in
the political system as well as their fellow man.

Reducing people down to a line in a calculation of your bottom line is
dehumanising.

[http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/...](http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/ideas/articles/2007/08/05/the_downside_of_diversity/)

------
wavefunction
Of course that $78T will be mostly monopolized by the usual suspects but more
is better no matter the circumstances!

------
dandare
78T of how much? Is it 50% of worlds GDP or 0.005%? I hate titles like this.

------
trythisthought
after visiting 52 countries i came to the same conclusion, it is not like we
are not implicitly sharing the space and all our physical objects with
everyone else by proxy of the same space encapsulating them and their presence
on one planet, nobody is taking their own personal lawnmower off the planet
just yet... we are so indoctrinated that we fail to see that at the physical
level everything is shared and everything is recycled if you look at the
lifetime of any object. however in a system which has gateways at every
speedbump the potential for a few actors to make big profits is so high that
they resist anything else...

~~~
ipsocannibal
I don't know if I follow. Are you saying you've travelled to 52 different
countries and found that they all exist on the same planet populated by a
species devoid of interplanetary travel and that they have set up a system of
artificial geographical barriers to control the distribution resources and
movement of individuals of the species?

~~~
albertgoeswoof
I think they are trying to say we’re all basically the same across all
countries, and all of these lines, boundaries and definitions are arbitrarily
drawn by others in order to profit off our evolutionary tendency to work
together as groups.

~~~
ipsocannibal
This seems to indicate that the borders themselves are an intensional form of
profiteering. I see this more as the incremental and accidental process that
takes advantage of the peculiarities of geography.

------
zyngaro
Richer? But will it be happier?

------
dooglius
Without paywall: [http://archive.is/CXzWM](http://archive.is/CXzWM)

~~~
zerr
Or just press ESC several times after the article is displayed and before the
paywall popup.

~~~
neonate
Cool trick! Are there any other websites it works on?

~~~
scrollaway
Hitting ESC during pageload stops in-progress asset loading and (sometimes)
javascript execution. That's why it works.

------
troubador55
Free movement will drive down wages and labor costs. Labor will lose value
while capital will increase in value.

Combine this dynamic with our current world in which the gulf between a small
elite class and everyone else is widening with the middle class in between
deteriorating, and you have a recipe for disaster. The modern welfare state
that exists in Europe and to a (much) lesser extent in the US would crumble
from the stress of millions of new individuals flooding the economy at the low
end and being stuck there because of economic dynamics beyond anyone's
control.

Rather than importing the impoverished from poor nations to rich nations, we
should be working together as a community of nations to establish law and
order where there is lawlessness. Once law, order and in particular property
rights are followed and enforced, wealth can and will grow as it has in places
like China and Vietnam.

Encouraging freedom of movement will result in poor regions becoming even more
destitute. As one of my wealthy friends from Pakistan lamented to me once when
considering whether she should move to Canada or stay in Pakistan, "if people
like myself flee Pakistan, who will stay to build it into a strong and
prosperous nation?"

Overall, free movement would be a terrible idea for most people. This article
does a really poor job of considering the issue.

------
mozumder
The immediate goal of everyone in this country should be to open the borders
and open trade.

There is no excuse.

Borders serve no useful purpose in a globalized economy. Can you imagine how
terrible it would be if the states had hard borders between them?

People act like having open borders mean invading marauders of foreigners, but
did everyone from Ohio invade Maryland because of the open borders the states
have? In reality, most people would stay where their family and relatives are.

"My dream is a hemispheric common market, with open trade and open borders,
sometime in the future with energy that's as green and sustainable as we can
get it, powering growth and opportunity for every person in the hemisphere."
\- Hillary Clinton

Let's start by making annexing the states of Canada and Mexico into the US,
and work other countries from there.

Do it.

~~~
neilwilson
Open borders without a transfer union leads to Greece and Italy. But when did
evidential practice ever impact neoliberal economic theory

------
steamer25
Prior to reading the article, I'm struck by the thought of a possible analogy:

An internet with no firewalls and free, unauthenticated root access would be
$78T richer.

~~~
steamer25
FWIW, I read the article and found lots of hand-waving. Strong counter-
examples came quickly to mind for most of it's claims.

It's saying pretty much the same thing as, "Think of how productive the world
would be if there were no more crimes or wars! What if we stopped having
police or armies!" Yup--that sure would be nice but I'm not going to hold my
breath.

------
diego_moita
... but only about 1 million people would own these $78T. All the rest would
share the costs of it.

------
ealexhudson
$78T, or, half of one Jeff Bezos.

Let's not pretend the majority of that wealth wouldn't accumulate in a small
number of pockets.

~~~
charlesdm
A trillion is not a billion

$78 trillion = $78,000 billion (or many, many, many times Jeff Bezos)

~~~
saagarjha
> A trillion is not a billion

There is a way to get these mixed up: a mis-conflation of the short and long
number scales, where a "billion" on the long scale is 10^12 (which, of course,
on the short scale is called a "trillion"). If you're curious about this, I
suggest you read Wikipedia's article about it:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales)

