Economist Bryan Caplan is a cheerful but humorless soul, so he's upset that my readers have been having fun with his Open Borders logo contest, and he projects his anger upon those having a laugh at his expense.
But Caplan does make a good point: Out of all the intellectuals in the country, when it comes to thinking about immigration (and perhaps race and a few other crucial topics), I'm the most sane, sensible, moderate responsible grown-up, which makes me widely hated. In contrast, Caplan's Open Borders views on immigration are self-evident lunacy, which makes him far more respectable. As Caplan says, "I have to admit, it's bizarre."
Caplan writes:
Citizenists strike me as extraordinarily angry people. But I have to admit: If I were them, I'd be angry too.
Consider their intellectual situation: Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close. Yet almost everyone in the First World strongly opposes this policy. The moral theory of citizenism, in contrast, does not straightforwardly endorse open borders. Indeed, combined with suitably misanthropic descriptive views, citizenism handily justifies the strict immigration restrictions that most First Worlders know and love.
So why the anger? Because even though people love the implications of citizenism, they wince at the doctrine itself, and stigmatize its adherents. Adherents of orthodox moral theories, in contrast, enjoy respect and approbation. Americans in particular want to have their cake and eat it, too.
They certainly don't want their country "invaded" by Latin American immigration. But when a citizenist articulately justifies their anxiety, the typical American feels like the citizenist is too racist to acknowledge, much less endorse.
Think about it like this: Steve Sailer's policy views are much closer to the typical American's than mine. Compared to me, he's virtually normal. But the mainstream media is very sweet to me, and treats Steve like a pariah. I have to admit, it's bizarre.
Still, if I were a citizenist, I wouldn't be that angry. Relative to the open borders alternative, the U.S. border is already virtually closed. (Disagree? Tell me what annual immigration would be under open borders, and compare this to what we currently get).
Indeed.
If I were a citizenist, I'd be grateful that the status quo approximately equals my favorite policy. Sure, it's frustrating when people flip out at you for forthrightly justifying the policies they already support. But what's more important: Getting the respect you feel you deserve, or getting the policies you think are morally right?
I'm very happy that the electorate agrees far more on immigration policy with me than with Bryan Caplan.
As for my influence, I've been writing a long time, and I'm stoic about the fact that my influence works through labyrinthine laundering processes, where my ideas eventually show up in more sonorous forms on the op-ed page of the New York Times weeks or months or years after I publish them. Eventually, I expect to be recognized as The Guy Who Figured Out the Answers to Some of the Hard Questions, but I don't expect that to happen before I'm very old. Such is the way of the world ...
As for my influence, I've been writing a long time, and I'm stoic about the fact that my influence works through labyrinthine laundering processes, where my ideas eventually show up in more sonorous forms on the op-ed page of the New York Times weeks or months or years after I publish them. Eventually, I expect to be recognized as The Guy Who Figured Out the Answers to Some of the Hard Questions, but I don't expect that to happen before I'm very old. Such is the way of the world ...
On the other hand, the media conventional wisdom considers Bryan's extremism to be admirable, if perhaps a little too forthright for the peasants at the moment. Unfortunately, it's not a good idea to blithely assume that elites won't get what they keep shouting for, no matter how stupid it is. To update for the 21st Century H.L. Mencken's apothegm on democracy, “Mediacracy is the theory that the elites know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”
The problem is that there can be a lot of collateral damage when sanity is considered unmentionable in elite discourse.
Posts
116 comments:
Love the Open Borders art that people created!
I still don't get how "citizenism" could work. Why would the average Korean-American be more loyal to an African-American than to a Korean in his home country? He wouldn't be.
Politics is becoming more racialized, not less. Despite the propaganda, young Whites are FAR MORE racial in their voting then their parents or grandparents. The young White vote went for Romney! A boring old country club guy that any previous generation of Whites would have rejected won the young White vote.
This trend will continue. We all know the history of multiracial empires. It ain't gonna work.
Caplan is typical of those Cato Institute pinheads that provide the intellectual armor for the corporate elites and the Chamber of Commerce types in the Republican Party. Since 1650 the American colonies have all been about lowering the cost of labor relative to capital, first through indentured servitude, then slavery, and finally open-door immigration. Caplan should just get real with himself and the rest of us and just admit his mass immigration plan is all about lowering the cost of labor relative to capital for big business.
Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close.
Odd that a fellow named "Caplan" would omit Phariseeical/Rabbinical Judaism from his list of "orthodox moral theories" - unless maybe his position would be that Judaism doesn't constitute a particularly "moral" point of view?
Or maybe he would say that "Marxism" is Judaism?
By the way, if Mr Caplan can find so much as a single sentence within Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John, which argues in favor of "Open Borders", then I'll donate a logo.
In the meantime, he might do well to ask himself just who die Wächter were in Cantata 140, #4.
I love Steve Sailer and many of the similarly controversial (should be in quotes, really) writers that the internet has enabled.
I have accepted that if I want to read interesting writing on the internet, I will need to wade through a lot of barely sublimated hate in the comments section. That's the price of admission. It's a big internet and I believe that the overwhelming majority of iSteve fans are reasonable people who aren't all that angry on average. The angry ones just feel compelled to share more often.
Submitted as a comment to the linked Econolog post:
In the body of the post, Bryan wrote,
> Because even though people love the implications of citizenism, they wince at the doctrine itself...
This is an instance where greater specificity would improve clarity. "People" certainly doesn't include illegal aliens, Democratic politicians, or Republican employers -- all of whom stand to benefit from Open Borders. Nor does it include the Hidalgo/Conquistador strata of Mexican society who wish to continue outsourcing their country's economic and racial underclass to El Norte, rather than enacting painful reforms to deal with their problems directly.
Yet these groups are all comprised of "people."
Suggested rewrite:
Most American citizens love the implications of citizenism, particularly its effects on supply-and-demand of labor. Citizenism favors wage-earners, especially those among the working poor.
You are ANGRY, Steve.
Clearly, just raging with ANGER.
Probably, HATE, too!
You are just an ANGRY HATER!
And, I really, really hate you Angry Haters!
''Citizenists strike me as extraordinarily angry people. But I have to admit: If I were them, I'd be angry too.''
For a good listener, half a word is enough.
"Every orthodox moral theory ... straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close. "
And he is almost right, of course, with one exception.
They all teach human moral equivalency except Judaism.
Judaism teaches that the upper caste (Jews) shall remain "a people apart" from the lesser caste (gentiles).
I wonder why Mr. Caplan, a Jew, mentioned Christianity yet failed to mention his own tribe/religion as a signal exception to his sweeping generality.
Alternatively, he could have said "Every orthodox moral theory of the goyim straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close."
Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders
Really, so that's why Queen Isabel of Spain, excuse me Saint Isabel, expelled the muslims ?
Oh, guess her pious catholicism was unorthodox- i guess nationalism, or burkonian conservatism are also 'unorthodox'
I am sure Calan pays lip service to open borders for israel - but that's it.
I note the way Caplan employs the presumably pejorative "citizenist" label throughout that particular piece.
Our side needs pithy labels with which the other side can be repeatedly bludgeoned.
I've thought of calling them dissolutionists, since their end-game is dissolving all of humanity into identity-stripped brown-grey slave goop.
Caplan confuses the anger of anti-immigration people in general with the anger he specifically provokes in anti-immigration folk, particularly when he does things like blithely compare us to Nazis and slaveholders. Sheesh!
How did he get the idea that "Christianity" endorses "open borders"? It is certainly a policy preference of the staff of the U.S. Catholic Conference, but that has only the most tenuous relationship to questions of ethics and morals. Catholic social teaching is not stated in terms that a Catholic communicant might digest and act on in his daily life. There is nothing out of the ordinary magisterium that might adjudicate the sort of policy questions that are in dispute.
That aside, there are the expositions of religious bodies and then there is popular Catholic practice and popular protestant practice. The latter would absolutely incorporate charitable contributions for all sorts of international endeavours and refugee resettlement efforts. It has nothing to do with legal promotion of an open borders regime.
You want to bet the man's smarts has deluded him into thinking he can discourse on just about anything? Economists of my acquaintance are very leery of discussing normative questions. That is a saving circumspection Bryan Caplan cannot manage. Stick a fork in the guy.
Sometimes, though very rarely, Bryan Caplan seems almost lifelike.
Caplan is part of fanatical moral micro-community, in which status is allocated by everyone continuously outbidding each other in the direction of extravagant insanity. He's too smart not to know, deep down, that he's waded down over his nostrils into his own BS. It's not comfortable to have one's quiet inner voice of intellectual integrity howling and spluttering with derision. That's why he gets so snippy.
iRelative to the open borders alternative, the U.S. border is already virtually closed. (Disagree? Tell me what annual immigration would be under open borders, and compare this to what we currently get).
Is Bryan Caplan insane?
Kaplan forgot Darwinism.
Why is it that folks who love Darwin hate social Darwinism in the human social and political context?
This is not a rhetorical question.
The actual reasons may have been articulated at some point.
I wonder if virtually any human social arrangement has limits to its scale and its scope.
So, what can work for Norway, can't work for Zimbabwe.
But that doesn't mean nothing can work for Zimbabwe. The British did a better job than Mugabe, so... it is possible to improve things there. Another question is whether the 1950's style British system used in Zimbabwe would also improve Norway and if not, why not?
"Despite the propaganda, young Whites are FAR MORE racial in their voting then their parents or grandparents. The young White vote went for Romney! A boring old country club guy that any previous generation of Whites would have rejected won the young White vote."
Young whites are poorer than their parents or grandparents, and come from more religious homes because liberal whites have fewer kids than conservative whites.
What is the "Open Borders" plan if, in fact, "Open Borders" doesn't work out like they'd think it will?
Funny how they never seem to think of that, isn't it?
I would think that thought has occurred to a few thinkers high up in the Democratic Party and the Republican Party.
Are they all figuring they'll be retired or dead before enough time has passed to make the mistake obvious? Do they think everybody's just going to accept their apologies and let things go at that?
Hat tip.
If 'every orthodox moral theory' ever devised advocates 'open borders' then that's the greatest possible recommendation any human being on Earth can ever find that 'open borders' are just plain wrong and will end in disaster.
To think that the minds that advocated such cataclysmic frauds as Marxism and at the other extreme various forms of organised religion can agree on *something* is the best possible test that the notion of 'open borders' possibly benefitting the USA is not just a falsehood but a disastrous malicious falsehood waiting to happen.
Me? - I'm an out and out Darwinian. Just about the only dogma I believe in. A dogma whose central thust - the struggle for existence and the battle for surival - can be seen with anyone with eyes open to see in any give patch of woodland or marine littoral. Science based on observation and deductions from observation not the 'moralizing' of those who wish to control and regiment.
Caplan sounds like a guy who, if you where to explain to him a philisophical theory wherein standing him up against a wall and shooting him was the "moral" and "right" thing to do, he would welcome the bullet. Caplan is largely shielded from the baneful effects of the policies that he would force on the rest of us. He is a weasely, pissant little f**k.
Marxism? Open Borders? Is this guy nuts? Well, yes, he is. And if Christianity favors open borders, it's odd that this has only been noticed for the last fifty years or so. No one in 1924 thought that immigration restriction was anti-Christian.Did someone find some lost book of the Bible or something that I missed?
"Anonymous said...
Caplan should just get real with himself and the rest of us and just admit his mass immigration plan is all about lowering the cost of labor relative to capital for big business."
Quite so. Despite the academic finery he drapes himself in (and really, he isn't that smart - any garden variety engineer or chemist is undoubtedly much smarter than him) - he is nothing but a whore, a bought-and-paid-for street-walker. He is a sphincter for rent.
Think about it like this: Steve Sailer's policy views are much closer to the typical American's than mine. Compared to me, he's virtually normal. But the mainstream media is very sweet to me, and treats Steve like a pariah. I have to admit, it's bizarre.
Major props to Caplan for acknowledging this. Minor props to not acknowledging what might be different about, say, the composition of the mainstream media vs. the general population. And why they might be more friendly to a Scots-Irish Caplan than a Citizenist Sailer.
Caplan is being a sport about this. And he is far more candid than we have any right to expect from an media-anointed pundit.
And Steve, I am impressed by your distinct lack of bitterness at being a widely-plagiarized scapegoat of truth and honesty, too. I hate what they do to you.
" (Disagree? Tell me what annual immigration would be under open borders, and compare this to what we currently get)." - When(not if) another group takes over and shuts down the border immigration would be around 0 for all other groups.
No disrespect. You come across as a good man of moderate intelligence and a blogger with a sense of humor not restrained by soul killing political correctness, but where or when did Caplan refer to you as an "intellectual"?
" The young White vote went for Romney!"
Citation needed.
I don't read Caplan, but I remember from Marginal Revolution that he's they guy who thought raising a clone of himself would be a great thing because it would even more genetically similar to him than a normal child. Yet, how national bonds could have any value escapes him. Rather strange.
(By the wasy, Mrs. Caplan better keep a close watch on her husband's interactions with any daughters they may have.)
An interesting nuance I just noticed:
Before, I had thought that Caplan complains constantly about too many people agreeing with Sailer, while Sailer complains consistently about too many people agreeing with Caplan.
However, I now realize that Caplan complains about too many everyday people agreeing with Sailer, while Sailer's complaint is about too many politicians and media sources agreeing with Caplan.
In other words, normal Americans agree with Sailer while out-of-touch elites agree with Caplan.
Caplan: Immigration Restriction is immoral.
Judge Holden: Moral law is an invention of mankind for the disenfranchisement of the powerful in favor of the weak. Historical law subverts it at every turn. A moral view can never be proven right or wrong by any ultimate test. A man falling dead in a duel is not thought thereby to be proven in error as to his views. His very involvement in such a trial gives evidence of a new and broader view. The willingness of the principals to forgo further argument as the triviality which it in fact is and to petition directly the chambers of the historical absolute clearly indicates of how little moment are the opinions and of what great moment the divergences thereof. For the argument is indeed trivial, but not so the separate wills thereby made manifest. Man’s vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity but his knowledge remains imperfect and howevermuch he comes to value his judgements ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading. Here are considerations of equity and rectitude and moral right rendered void and without warrant and here are the views of the litigants despised. Decisions of life and death, of what shall be and what shall not, beggar all question of right. In elections of these magnitudes are all lesser ones subsumed, moral, spiritual, natural.
"Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close."
Thank you, US Conference of Catholic Bishops, for making that clear. Modern Christians keep forgetting how enthusiastically the Medieval Church promoted Muslim immigration into Europe during the height of its power. Remember how severely contemporary Popes lamented the outcomes of the battles of Tours, Lepanto, and Vienna?
Seriously, if the immigration restrictionists get their way, Catholic bishops might actually have to teach the faith to young Catholics (horrors!), instead of filling the pews with semiliterate Mexicans who stop going to Mass after one generation. They might even have to secure the future of American Catholicism by actually reminding parishioners about the longstanding prohibition on contraceptives, and nobody wants that.
You think your the most sane, sensible, grow up just like everyone else does; including Caplan.
Caplan's one of the least offensive of the academic hillbilly set, but he *is* one.
BTW, are we to assume Brian doesn't lock the doors to his abode, that he's put out the word that anyone can enter at any time and open his fridge, helping himself to the vittles?
Most social science academics of this age are like the Royals--too much effete intellectual interbreeding has resulted in the cognitive equivalents of Funny Looking Kids.
"the strict immigration restrictions that most First Worlders know and love."
First Worlders may love immigration restrictions, but they hardly know them. Does a policy of immigration restrictionism allow in some twelve million illegal immigrants? The Schengen Agreement, which is law in the EU, has effectively abolished national borders among member states. No, I don't think First Worlders know anything about strict immigration laws. After all, people can only possess knowlege of that which actually exists.
Christianity makes no specific recommendation for immigration and what snippets Marx wrote about immigration was hostile. So, once again, Caplan is talking out of his ass.
Trolly;
I pointed that out to my brother-in-law who said that Romney should have been socially liberal on gay marriage, abortion etc. The under 30 White vote went from +9 points for Obama in '08 to +7 points for Romney. The overall under 30 vote only went to Obama because all the nonwhites in aggregate, including Asians, voted for Obama by 50 points. Unfortunately my brother-in-law is descended from Canadian/Midwest Great Plains Progressive Swedish stock and can't let himself think outside that box.
I know a lot of young white people and there is a developing undercurrent of unease among them over their position in the future America and realization that many of their diverse colleagues aren't reciprocating the love.
My prediction: they are going to gradually start unshackling themselves from their programming and articulating the unease.
If Cato-tyle libertarianism were a college fraternity, it would throw the lamest parties on campus:
Libertarian Guy: Hey girls! I'd like to extend an invitation to a party at our house this Friday.
Co-Ed #1: OK. What kind of music will you have?
Libertarian Guy (gleefully confident head-shake): Any music you like.
Co-Ed #2: Well, what kind of food will you have?
Libertarian Guy: Bring any food you like.
Co-Eds: OK, well what will your party actually have?
Libertarian Guy: Drugs will be legal there. And so will prostitution. I know some of these parties make you pay cover charges now. At ours, you girls might leave with a little extra cash in your pockets [wink-wink].
Around the world, citizenism is the opinion of most everyone... except for western whites, who are inclined to a high degree of self-loathing. This is reinforced by the world consensus that open-borders for white countries is altogether proper, while all others should get to control their gates without criticism.
It sounds very crude, but a lot of people simply want white areas flooded with non-whites, and that is the unstated primary goal of increasing immigration.
Steve,
You should be angrier or at least angry. They steal your ideas and shut you out of the mainstream. Not cool.
You need the same advice Homer gives the writers of Itchy and Scratchy in relation to Poochie the dog (best Simpsons episode btw)
You need to be "louder, angrier and have access to a time machine". Steve, you really could be bigger than curly fries.
OT-
Has Lisa Lampanelli lost enough weight that she can start dating white guys?
Dan in DC
The idea that Rawls supported open borders is just absurdly wrong, and just one more instance of historical revisionism.
Rawls had this to say in his book The Law of Peoples:
"An important role of a people's government, however arbitrary a society's boundaries may appear from a historical point of view, is to the representative and effective agent of a people as they take responsibility for their territory and its environmental integrity, as well as for the size of their population."
Rawls is actually notorious these days for his utter lack of interest in discussing, much less promoting, immigration. How could such a liberal figure be so indifferent to the greatest moral issue facing us? (Answer: he was no fool, and didn't have to pretend to be a fool in his era to escape vilification.)
See this link:
http://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3973&context=flr
Not for the first time, I can't help nut notice that "libertarianism" looks suspiciously like communism under a new name.
Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close.
That's an....interesting interpretation of the words "orthodox," "moral," and "theory." It's also a lie, as far as any orthodox form of Christianity is concerned. Certainly "orthodox Catholic theory" doesn't endorse open borders, no matter what the likes of Cardinal Mahoney say. Here's everything the Catholic Catechism says on the subject (#2241) (my emphasis in bold):
"The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him.
"Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible, may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens."
So strip away the somewhat flowery obfuscating language, and what's left? First, the obligation to accept an immigrant only exists IF the country is able to absorb him (how high does unemployment among STEM graduates have to get before we're not "able"?), and IF the immigrant "cannot" find the means of a livelihood in his own country. It's not enough that he just wants a better life for his kids; he has to be unable to find work in his own country (not just his own town, but in the entire country) sufficient to put food on the table. How many immigrants currently qualify under those conditions?
But it gets tighter: the government can put any limits on it that are necessary to maintain the common good "for which they are responsible." In other words, their first responsibility is to the citizens they took an oath to serve. If the common good of those citizens requires limits on immigration, they have a a right to enact those limits.
Also, the immigrant is obliged to repay his host country by obeying its laws and assisting "in carrying civic burdens." An illegal immigrant is not obeying the law, by definition, so the government has no obligation to allow him to stay. An immigrant who does not work and pay taxes (civic burden) likewise has not held up his end of the bargain.
All in all, that's a (perhaps surprisingly) common-sense position on immigration, which encourages it within limits when it's beneficial for both immigrant and host nation, but goes nowhere near the kind of open borders fanaticism that Mr. Kaplan wants people to think it does.
Citizenism doesn't really work because societies need both relatedness (the opposite of diversity) and shared culture and morality to function. It seems to be Sailer's attempt to create solidarity from the ruins of nationalism. I think for a variety of reasons it will come to nothing. It's main advantage is that it doesn't have any of the losing qualities of white nationalism and it allows you to talk about cohesion without sounding like a racist (although in fact I think we're all pretty much racists).
Caplan on the other hand is obviously autistic. I can't tell if he is championing open borders to raise his profile and status (i.e. to give himself a gimmick that he can turn into a book deal or something), or if he is simply incapable of understanding where societal robustness comes from. Not that it matters, he is just a twig in the stream.
But the mainstream media is very sweet to me, and treats Steve like a pariah. I have to admit, it's bizarre.
Yes, it's just utterly strange and incomprehensible that, regardless of whether they call themselves "liberals" or "socialists" or "libertarians", Jews in the media and academia all agree that open borders are a Very Good Thing! What are the odds, eh?
I still don't get how "citizenism" could work. Why would the average Korean-American be more loyal to an African-American than to a Korean in his home country? He wouldn't be.
People think it could work because it seems to have worked in the past with European immigrants. It's kind of the official American myth: people came here with different cultures and languages, and after perhaps a generation or two of living in ghettos, they assimilated just fine, and soon they thought of themselves as Americans with Irish ancestors (for instance), rather than Irish people living in America.
There are two problems with the myth: first, it wasn't as easy as the history books say and there was a lot of poverty and ugliness before those groups became "American," so it's not a given that we'd choose to retrace those steps. Second, the situation today is radically different in almost every way: the groups are much more divergent, technology allows them to stay in contact with their home cultures, welfare reduces the incentive to work like a dog so your kids will eat better than you, etc.
I don't think Steve talks about "citizenism" because he thinks it's a solution to our problems. He's not that naive. I think he talks about it because officially we're all supposed to believe in it, yet it contradicts the multi-culti Narrative. On the one hand, we're supposed to believe that everyone wants to come here to be American and pursue the American Dream, but on the other hand we're told that we don't have any right to tell anyone to be American, or even to learn the majority language, and everyone's Dream is his own business.
So "citizenism" is useful in making people pushing the Narrative look stupid. For instance, why should Latin American immigrants get Affirmative Action, if crossing the border will make them more productive than the natives? They can't both be right, so if you get someone paying lip-service to the idea of citizenism (which is inherently color-blind, among other things), you can get him to contradict his own words on race-mongering and other aspects of the Narrative.
You're right that politics is becoming more race-based, but at this point, there are still many, many nice, middle-class white people who don't want to hear that kind of talk. Come at them with stats about immigrant crime waves, and they just won't listen (yet). But talk to them about citizenism, about how everyone should be American first and race/creed/ethnicity second, and they'll pump their fists and cheer. Then you can ease them into seeing how that conflicts with other things they've been taught to support out of misplaced niceness, like lax border security.
I have a vision for an Open Borders flag that I want brought to life by a more computer savvy ISteve reader.
It will be a side by side photo of a sad Aboriginal Australian and a crying Native American. At the bottom of the photos it will say "We Love Open Borders!".
Anyone who can make my vision happen will be much appreciated.
If Captan believes in the free market, why doesn't the latin American Countries get better where less people have to come over. Maybe, robots will replaced in many jobs in 10 years Juan and Juanita.
Remember The Jetsons, a 1960s Hanna-Barbera cartoon featuring a family who lives in the year 2062? One of the regular characters on this popular animated show was Rosey, The Jetsons' humanoid maid. Rosey rolled around the house on a single leg and a set of caster wheels as she performed household chores, made wise-cracks and gave valuable advise to the family.
Currently, home health nurses or a family member will bathe a patient. The engineers say that a patient may find it awkward or embarrassing for a family member or nurse to bathe them, but a robot could relieve the patient of this embarrassment.
Chich Hung King, the lead engineer of the project, served as a test subject for the robotic nurse, according to a Georgia Tech news release. King said that he placed blue pieces of candy on his arms and legs to see whether Cody could wipe away debris from patients' body parts without using too much force. King said Cody passed the test by wiping away the candy with his washcloth hand. The test results were reported at an international conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS) in 2010.
"
Steve - You are not a racist. You are basically a decent person who would ideally like a genteel America without "those" folks (we know who we are talking about). Not because you are a racist, but just because those folks are different and lots of them are, to point out respectfully, dumb. Or some of them are quite smart, but they are also different and they swamp us.
Here is the problem. The world is the way it is, not the way you want to be or I want to be. This world is not going away. Every place, even an ultra-insular island like Japan, with a far, far stronger sense of "inside" vs "outside" than you could ever muster, is changing. Japanese girls prefer foreign men and want to bear those foreign men's children - sadly for all those ultra-nationalistic Japanese.
In 200 years, the world is going to look different - probably a more uniform brownish hue. A racist may think of that as the end of the world. The world still go on. There will be happiness, laughter, good cheer, love and technology advancement. And there will be poverty, conflict and misery too. On the whole, you know, the average level of human happiness will remain about where it is.
Get used to that thought. Even the dumber of the races are going to make it. On the ground reality in the poorest places in the planet is actually improving quite rapidly and in 200 years the descendant of the foaming in the mouth racist of today will likely fall in love with a descendant of those lowly dumb sub-humans in those hellholes today.
"Consider their intellectual situation: Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close."
So Kaplan wants open orders for Israel?
The majority of White women voted for Romney but all we hear in the media is the GOPs war on women. Romney did pretty well considering he was up against all of the major news channel except Fox and his leaked 47% comment.
Romney simply lost because in a key states Black turnout was at record levels but even here Romney outperformed. Black men under 30 voted for him to the tune of 20%.
The GOP would be wise to follow Sean Trende's advice and make a real play for the working class White vote.
"The world is the way it is, not the way you want to be or I want to be. This world is not going away. Every place, even an ultra-insular island like Japan, with a far, far stronger sense of "inside" vs "outside" than you could ever muster, is changing."
Except Israel.
Here is the problem. The world is the way it is, not the way you want to be or I want to be. This world is not going away. Every place,.....
In 200 years, the world is going to look different - probably a more uniform brownish hue.
I am sure your house would look different if you left the door open and unlocked and made it clear you won't get in trouble if you walk in.
This is a classic globalist tactic - 'its just how things are' as if all these policies, and MSM intentional race mixing shows, ads etc all just fell out of the sky.
But the mainstream media is very sweet to me, and treats Steve like a pariah
yeah can't figure out why Zuckerbergs Daily News, Shulzberger's NYT etc, find Caplan's views more palatable than Sailers. You would think at least one Summer Redstone's publications would disagree, or maybe Larry Summers would say something... Another unsolved mystery!
"wealth maximization"
Wealth maximization = innovation maximization.
1) Unconstrained capitalism will always choose the path of least resistance in search of increasing profits.
2) The path of least resistance, if available, is ever cheaper labor.
3) Cheap labor reduces the need for innovation.
ergo
Open borders doesn't maximize wealth.
In the long run open borders will minimize wealth as innovation is reduced to a bare minimum.
Constraining capitalism to use a restricted supply of labor (with exceptions for particularly talented individuals of good character) creates an incentive for innovation and therefore maximizes wealth.
(Character is equally important to talent as talented individuals of bad character cause nothing but trouble.)
Many of Caplan's commenters have told him off. Here is one:
gail writes:
It's all about experience, the best teacher.
Let me guess: you don't(nor have you ever)lived in a community, a neighborhood, in which open borders has resulted in welfare lines at the HHS building two miles away, with anchor baby mothers and their little ones being served your tax dollars. You haven't waited in a doctor's office while MediCal patients, armed with their anchor babies, sit five to a row, a mother with four kids (each child about 14 months apart--oh, and btw, not all the kids are actually "anchor" children...maybe only one or two were born here but in your open borders world it's a moot point anyway). You haven't stood in the line at Food-4-Less, trying to save a few bucks on your families' grocery bill while the open borders crowds in front of you pay the bill with food stamps and merrily walk out, only to find a dent they left in your car door. (Funny how they have no appreciation of MY car). Let me guess: you're thinking, "What a small-minded person, worrying about such little things while I, Caplan the Economist, think of the large ideas of life, the trivial daily problems of regular ole working Americans and their families be damned.")
You haven't had the principal tell you that because he needs an extra teacher for the new ESL section he's opened, he's pulling out one of your colleagues from the English Department, leaving 37 kids from her former class to be absorbed by the four other sections of the course; thus, you've not been told to be ready the next day to receive your "share" of the change.
You haven't had meeting after meeting to determine some way, ANY way, to encourage the Open Border kids and their parents to learn English, to see to it homework is done--or at least attempted-- and most importantly, to see to it they don't remove their kids from school for five weeks around Christmas and ten days around Easter. ("How is it 'poor people' find the money for all that gas or airfare," you never have to wonder.)
You don't ever get to see first hand, do you, Bryan, that there are indeed peoples and cultures that don't want to live the "American Dream" as YOU understand that dream, which includes an education and a grasp of at least the basics of such an education?
Nor do you understand that there are people who don't wish to assimilate, do you? Nor do you need to ponder why they should when the border is open, when they can cross it any time they wish, and when their real home, the home of the heart, is tanks of gas and a cheap plane ride away.
You do not send your children to these schools, do you, Bryan? You live in no such neighborhood, do you, Bryan? Nor would you because you know the performance of a school is really the performance of the children of that school and your children would learn next to nothing in such a school, but you don't think anything's wrong with the children of other Americans who are middle and working class sending their kids to this school, this school of kids who aren't really (oh, oh, this is probably a really sore spot with you) not_ very_ bright. No, Bryan, not bright. In fact, the occupy the lower end of the Bell. Is it any wonder they don't show an interest in school? How does one learn algebra, how does one care about algebra with an IQ of 87 or so when multiplication tables are difficult enough?
Indulge in all the intellectualism you wish. It changes nothing. You are intellectually dishonest, and face it, a hypocrite. Or, surprise me by having a new baby, moving to a community like the one I've described, living in the neighborhood, and sending your son or daughter to the neighborhood school there.
As is always the case with "libertarian" web sites, Caplan has a very strict commenting policy where every comment has to be approved by a censor before they are willing to let it see the light of day.
Caplan calls himself a "libertarian" but he's repeating the same old socialist (aka "liberal") bullshit which I've been hearing for decades.
"In the interests of "fairness" and "morality" we, your American ruling elite, have decided that you the American middle class need to share your own wealth with the poor population of America and indeed of the world."
That is all Caplan is saying.
To cite the claim that Romney won young white voters, just Google "young white vote romney 2012". It will be the first story that comes up. I believe Steve talked about it too.
Here is the link if we are allowed to post them to a Hotair story:
http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives/2012/11/09/romney-won-young-white-voters/
Strange how the most fanatical proponents of open borders and the "free movement of labor" invariably themselves work in tenured jobs.
So is Caplan going to take responsibility for the civil strife that follows or will he continue to blog about open borders on the first helicopter out of balkanized America in order to avoid being on the receiving end of a firing squad?
except for western whites, who are inclined to a high degree of self-loathing.
I suspect the people you refer to think quite well of themselves. It is the wage earners and tradesmen who do not count as exotic that they despise.
==
A number of you seem to have confused Bryan Caplan with Leon Wieseltier. The latter actually is a passionate Zionist who (apparently quite unselfconsciously) thinks that if you are concerned about intergroup conflict and alienation in your own country, it is just the fault of the host society and shame on you; if you wish to preserve your own culture and social atmosphere, you a scuzzbucket. (See his comments on Stephen Spender and David Mellor, respectively).
I seriously doubt Bryan Caplan gives a rip about Israel, or much else going on outside his skin.
"There will be happiness, laughter, good cheer, love and technology advancement. And there will be poverty, conflict and misery too. On the whole, you know, the average level of human happiness will remain about where it is."
What are you, five years old? The history of human society is one of choices which can mean the difference between prospering another 100 years or collapsing and becoming fodder for archaeologists in a decade. Maybe you have told yourself this feel-good pap because you believe it, or maybe because it simply numbs you to reality, or maybe because you want a miserable, divided society but are too prudent to say so here.
It doesn't matter, because even if we had demographic stasis now we are looking at collapse, not hundreds more years of iPhones and Benetton ads. The way to avoid collapse is to radically reorient society around robustness rather than growth and homogenity rather than diversity.
You share the stupid and callow fantasies of the elite who can't believe their streak of luck will ever end. This may end very badly for them, because when we start shedding complexity (which sounds benign but isn't) it's hard to tell who is going to survive.
Young whites are poorer than their parents or grandparents, and come from more religious homes because liberal whites have fewer kids than conservative whites.
Soome young whites come from families a lot richer. Dad sold real estate and made 200,000 before the crash or mom was into sales. A lot of babyboomers particulary younger ones were more likely to be high school dropouts and the last generation to work blue collar jobs among whites. A lot of millennials parents are or were upper middle class This is why Ron Paul carried the under 30 crowd outside of the midwest or south many came from well to do families.
Also, babybomers coming form large familes versus the small families of gen-x or the Millennial didn't have mom and dad to help them as much since they had to compete against sibings for money. Also, the silent generation doen't like minorites as much as millentials. Silent generation was my parents and they dislike blacks and Latinos and are the real social conservative generations against gay marriage and abortion. Pew polls show those under 30 the most liberal on race not the most conservative, sorry.
• Surprisingly, a large majority of Americans (60%) support allowing legal immigrants to vote in local elections, with the strongest support coming from young Americans and opposed only by a majority of those over age 60.
• A majority of respondents, regardless of age, felt that English should be made the official language so that all government forms (driver’s test, election ballots, etc.) would only be available in English.
• A majority of Americans, even those under 30, are likely to support amending the Constitution to end birthright citizenship although young Americans are less likely.
• Likewise a majority, even those under 30, support the new Arizona anti-illegal immigration law, including a provision that requires people to prove to police officers that they are citizens or legal immigrants.
• When asked about the impact on the United States when, 20 years from now, the majority of the U.S. population will be non-whites or members of current minority groups, young Americans are much more positive about the impact. Even among whites, young Americans are more likely to see these changes as positive, while almost half (47%) of Americans over age 60 feel strongly or somewhat that the impact will be negative.
When asked about the impact on the United States when, 20 years from now, the majority of the U.S. population will be non-whites or members of current minority groups, young Americans are much more positive about the impact. Even among whites, young Americans are more likely to see these changes as positive, while almost half (47%) of Americans over age 60 feel strongly or somewhat that the impact will be negative.
• Among all age groups, support for building a mosque is significantly less than for building a church. Nonetheless, the difference among young Americans is significantly lower than for other groups. Nearly half of young people would support the building of a mosque, versus only 19% of those over age 60.
"Even the dumber of the races are going to make it...in 200 years the descendant of the foaming in the mouth racist of today will likely fall in love with a descendant of those lowly dumb sub-humans in those hellholes today."
Of course if one particular group deliberately facilitated this process of dumbing down the rest of humanity to the level of mindless drone-cattle slaves while keeping their own group separate from the process that would give them a distinct competitive advantage.
They could have the entire planet as one giant slave plantation.
Marx was not pro-open borders nor was he pro-immigration at all, and neither were the classical Marxists.
Marxism goes together with your "citizenism" more than any free market ideology does.
You may want to link to this blog, a Marxist immigration restrictionist blog.
http://classicalmarxismvsimmigration.blogspot.com/2011/02/karl-marx-forced-emigration.html
Does Caplan support a large estate tax? If not, why not? Surely the poor are in much greater need of money than the close relatives of deceased wealthy people. If he doesn't think that's the case, then he is being a total hypocrite on immigration. Many of us Americans would like to inherit the rich, equal, uncrowded society that we and our ancestors collectively created for ourselves.
"Get used to that thought. Even the dumber of the races are going to make it. On the ground reality in the poorest places in the planet is actually improving quite rapidly and in 200 years the descendant of the foaming in the mouth racist of today will likely fall in love with a descendant of those lowly dumb sub-humans in those hellholes today." - or the opposite could happen with ethnocentrism being selected for, as we've seen in Brazil, throughout latin America, and really every long running experiment with multiculturalism that has been run.
I think Caplan is full of it:
"Consider their intellectual situation: Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close."
How exactly is "wealth maximization" a moral theory? How is "Marxism" a moral theory?
Can Caplan provide a single quote from Jesus Christ calling for open borders?
How does exposing your citizens to increased violent crime, shrinking economic opportunities, environmental degradation and eroded social capital square with any moral theory?
You're giving him too much respect, Steve.
FYI--Open Borders has deleted its logo contest Facebook page.
You do not send your children to these schools, do you, Bryan? You live in no such neighborhood, do you, Bryan?
No, of course he does not. He lives in the bubble and he is convinced that he is safe in it:
http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2012/03/my_beautiful_bu.html
And I think his real motivation is very simple: he genuinely enjoys screwing up others and doing it without a fear of punishment. Personally, I find few people more repugnant that Bryan Caplan.
Steve's prickish personality can't possibly explain his lack of "success" + fame, despite Michael Barone, Ann Coulter, David Brooks, the pope, etc. always linking to or just ripping off "his" ideas--oh no, couldn't be that. It's instead that he's just too brilliant and too good for us (and yet, simultaneously, representative of the approved opinion set of the common man).
Keep on compounding that nebbish-neurotic poor-me chip on your shoulder; you wouldn't want your likeness accidentally carved into Mount Rushmore some day.
From the New Testament:
"From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands" (Acts 17:26).
Question for Caplan: Would God mark out the boundaries of the nations' lands if he didn't believe in boundaries?
Question for open borders Christians: If God believes in boundaries, why don't you?
Caplan was polite to Sailer. Sailer responds with pompous self-congratulation. Go figure.
>What [...] if, in fact, "Open Borders" doesn't work out like they'd think it will? [...] Are they all figuring they'll be retired or dead before enough time has passed to make the mistake obvious?<
As Caplan indicates, a lot of the motive behind Open Borders is transcendental mysticism - "orthodox morality." As the northern soldier in the film "The Outlaw Jesse Wales" told us: "Doin' right ain't go no end." Kamikaze pilots and saints who avidly went to the stake, fanatics in short, didn't bother with empirical considerations, and don't. To these people, "mistake" means something entirely different from what you mean. It means to them "sin," something that is wrong for the very compelling reason that it's wrong (circular reasoning).
I'm going to get in trouble for saying this, but religion, specifically religious morality, is behind every declension of the human race. Progress has occurred in the name of religion (i.e., nominally), but most often in spite of it. The best religious people are those who don't take it seriously - the non-fanatics.
KMac critiques some non-Jewish fanatics here.
Does Caplan support a large estate tax? If not, why not? Surely the poor are in much greater need of money than the close relatives of deceased wealthy people.
You're pulling your punches. Why wait for death? Why not 100% income tax since spending money on your family -- or yourself! -- is illegitimate?
I wonder why Caplan thinks Steve's acolytes are so angry? Hmmm, let's see....
"waded down over his nostrils into his own BS"
"a weasely, pissant little f**k"
"nothing but a whore, a bought-and-paid-for street-walker. He is a sphincter for rent."
"talking out of his ass"
oh and throw in a few suggestions that Caplan is mentally ill (he must be if he disagrees with Lord Sailer, right?) and a warning to Caplan's wife to keep an eye on him in case he touches their daughter.
You mini-Steves are real gentlemen! I wonder why Sailer doesn't get the national acclaim he deserves!
Surprisingly, a large majority of Americans (60%) support allowing legal immigrants to vote in local elections
Bullshit. What you're trying to say is that a large majority of Americans (60%) SAY THEY FAVOR allowing legal immigrants to vote in local elections. However, Holding an opinion does not equal "support".
Only 1 or 2% actually "support" it.
"I still don't get how "citizenism" could work. Why would the average Korean-American be more loyal to an African-American than to a Korean in his home country? He wouldn't be."
Well, I'm not a Korean, but I am an older child immigrant from Eastern Europe, and I feel more loyalty to, say, the iSteve commentor Truth than I do to my former neighbors and classmates from the old country. That's because regardless of the weird accent and some food differences, I am culturally American. The Second World values are different from those of the First World. My ex co-nationals' conduct and beliefs are familiar, but foreign to me. When I say "we" during conversations about history or politics, I mean Americans. The commentor Truth is included in that "we", and the boy with whom I shared a desk in 1st grade is not. My family came here because my parents had more respect for the American laws and general conduct than they did for their native equivalents. One of their biggest fears was that my brother would have to serve the old country in the military. He proudly and eagerly served the new one. He shares that experience with other Americans. Some of the privates in his platoon were black. It would be strange if he felt more loyalty to some random Russian young man.
But as far as Koreans go... A large number of students attending my high school was Asian, and a bunch of them that I knew closely were just American kids who grew up within the same frame of references as the other local American kids.
In my early 20s, I taught English in South Korea, and I could tell a Korean American who was there visiting grand parents from a mile away, just by body language alone.
"I don't think Steve talks about "citizenism" because he thinks it's a solution to our problems. He's not that naive. I think he talks about it because officially we're all supposed to believe in it, yet it contradicts the multi-culti Narrative."
I thought "citizenism" meant promoting all current citizens' investment into this country as a top civic virtue and viewing a lack of investment into this country's common future and welfare as a shameful vice.
"In the world of 200 years hence even the dumber races will make it."
Only that they won't. In this context I use 'dumb' to describe white Europeans in Europe. As we all know their birth-rates are at rock-bottom so it's really a moot point if they will still be here in statistically significant numbers in 200 years time. Straightforward extrapolations, (which we know should be taken with a truckload of salt), tell us they will not.
Plus the fact that the avowedly immigrationist political classes of Europe are striving might and main to replace Europeans as quickly as possible with their absurd immigration policies ( vide New Labour). That's why I called Europeans the dumb race.
Of course, the population of black Africa will sky rocket this century to 4 billion - greater than India and China combined. This si pretty certain and baked into the cake. Although the question about who's going to support them after whitey's gone is another point.
Maya said
"I still don't get how "citizenism" could work. Why would the average Korean-American be more loyal to an African-American than to a Korean in his home country? He wouldn't be."
I may be understanding it wrong but...
It makes explicit what was implicitly expected as a requirement for being part of nation in the past i.e. a certain reciprocal duty i.e. that membership of a nation was similar in some ways to owning shares in a company and companies have a lot of rules about that sort of thing.
For example the directors can't just create lots of new shares out of the blue and sell them to other people as that dilutes the stock of the original holders. It would be stealing from the original stock holders - which is what the open borders lobby is promoting - stealing from the original stock holders.
Citizenism wouldn't neccessarily make individual citizens more loyal to the nation as a whole on an emotional level. It creates what is effectively an enforceable *contract* between the individual citizen and the nation.
Genuine libertarians - as opposed to shills for corporate oligarchs - ought to accept the idea of a nation as a kind of joint-stock company and immigration that isn't restricted to people who add more value to the stock than the amount by which they dilute is theft from the original stock holders.
In other words it's contract-nationalism as a substitute for ethno-nationalism no-nationalism.
I may be understanding it wrong though.
I wonder why Caplan thinks Steve's acolytes are so angry? Hmmm, let's see....
Old odd jobs, you are confusing anger with contempt. The two coexist but are distinct. The particular verbiage you quote is quite vulgar. The thing is, it has a very distinct target and, put plainly, some of the chaps at EconLog speak to the world and of the world in ways that invite disagreeable responses. Bryan Caplan has a history of making remarks for which the charitable interpretation is that he has a mind adept at abstract puzzle solving but without insight into (or any interest in) the world of flesh-and-blood human beings. If you wish to call that 'mentally ill', go ahead.
While we are at it, does it strike anyone as amusing that Mr. Open-Borders-Libertarian has been a Virginia state employee for 16 years; inhabits a metropolis where about 40% of the population lives in households where a government wage, salary, or pension distribution is the main source of income; and likely has never had a year-round-full-time job working for a commercial enterprise? For about ten years now, he has had tenure to boot. He is about as insulated as it gets.
Anon 3:30/3:31, so public policy should be dictated by the generational cohort that, in the words of the great Dan Jenkins, "...doesn't do shit, can't afford shit, doesn't own shit and doesn't know shit."?
When you're 8 years old you think your dad is a genius. By the time you're 20, you think he's a moron. When you're 30, he's suddenly pretty smart again.
Art Deco, be they contemptuous or angry these self-appointed defenders of civilization are very often utterly uncivil. Caplan on the other hand is a reliably well-mannered chap. (And no, I do NOT share his opinion on immigration!)
I'm fed up hearing iSteve readers brag about how "real world" they are. It means nothing, it's just noise. More street than you, prof! Try it out here on the mean streets, egghead!
We should be doing better than conspiracy mongering
P.S Having 'smarts' doesn't seem to stop Sailer opining on just about everything, does it? So why pick on Caplan for the same thing? Mind you, Steve never actually seems to make much of a positive case for anything. Still, he is a fine heckler.
"Old Odd Jobs said...
I wonder why Caplan thinks Steve's acolytes are so angry? Hmmm, let's see...."
Because we are angry. We have every right to be so.
And Caplan IS a sphincter for rent. Perhaps in your case, being a sphincter is just your hobby.
Josie not Jesse. Apologies.
"Every orthodox moral theory - utilitarianism, Kantianism, egalitarianism, libertarianism, wealth maximization, Rawlsianism, Christianity, and Marxism for starters - straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close."
Other open borders ideologies or movements: imperialism, Mongol invasionism, Persian empire-ism, Roman imperialism, Japan's greater Asian co-prosperity sphere, space alien invasion-ism(open planetary systems), Nazi expansionism + Soviet expansionism working in tandem(against the notorious closed-minded and xenophobic Poles who refused to open their borders to either ideologies prior to the invasion(I mean liberation) in 1939, Bolivarianism and dream of single Latin American nation(that sure worked out great), Ottoman Empire-ism(how wonderful for Greeks to live under three centuries of the New Turkish Order), Pan-Arabism with Syria at one time fusing into one nation with Egypt before shelving the stupid idea when it didn't work, American Indian Tribe-ism and African Tribe-ism with primitive tribes running all around conquering and killing without regard to borders, Napoleonism but I guess the Russians didn't appreciate their nation being liberated.
Btw, does Caplan still consider Marxism a moral system? And was it really about open borders? While Marx did look forward to a society where workers of the world united and ruled, he really meant the First World, namely United States and Western Europe, and he didn't much care about Eastern Europe and surely didn't have much hope for Africa and non-white nations. And since Marx expected most societies to produce their own goods, there wasn't much discussion of trade in Marxism.
Also, for libertarianism to work, there has to be rule of law, shared values, and shared principles, and same sense of mutuality among individuals. Such laws and values can only exist and be enforced with particular borders. I mean if millions of Sharia-loving Muslims were to flood Europe, they might not agree with the laws and principles of Europe. Also, the cultural values of one people might not agree with the values of another people. Dutch and Japanese are both modern democratic peoples but have different cultural values about child-raising, role of women, work place, education, and etc. If a libertarian nation were created that was half Dutch and half Japanese, even if both groups agree on basic libertarian principles, they might disagree on cultural values. What may seen normal and decent to the Japanese might seem wrong and wicked to the Dutch, and vice versa.
Also, for any system to work, there has to be social, cultural, political, and economic sense of order and continuity. How can that be maintained in a state of open borders? Every corporation makes a distinction between who is and isn't an employee. It decides whom to hire, whom to fire. It guards its secrets, and a bond of trust and common purpose develops between the employers and employees. Security guards are hired to monitor who is entering the work place. When people outside the company enter the premises, there must be permits and reasons(to negotiate deals or sign contracts).
Suppose a company goes for OPEN WORKPLACE where anyone--employee or outsider--can come and go as he pleases.
There is a sense of trust, contractual agreement, common purpose, and shared goals within the people working in a company, which is why companies work and stay in business. And if the company needs to hire new people, it looks for the best and most useful people. No company ever succeeded by opening its doors and telling everyone, "just come and go as you please and build up our wealth with your freedom."
I think Caplan is confusing freedom of trade under agreed-upon rules with the idea of open borders, which is closer to anarchism--is that a moral theory too? If there are two nations and they wanna trade fairly and freely, they can arrive at agreements that may be libertarian, utilitarian, and comparative-advantagist in nature.
But paradoxically, such form of free trade is really possible ONLY IF the two states respect one another's borders and decide to work according to agreed upon laws. The recent economic improvement of Mexico owes not to open borders but to economics based on laws. The mass influx of illegal Mexicans to the US hasn't been good for the US, and it hasn't been good for Mexico, which came to be dependent on remissions from illegal workers in the US(as well as the drug trade). But the sectors of Mexico that have grown economically over the yrs with real capital investment, factory building, and real employment of Mexicans-in-Mexico were due to international agreements on trade and capital flow. Trade and capital investment can be regulated by law, contracts, and agreements, BUT massive movements of people through open borders cannot. If we were really to have open borders all around the world, 300 million Chinese might decide to move to richer Japan, 100 million Mexicans might enter the US, 300 million Indians might swamp Iran, 500 million Muslims and black Africans might move to Europe. I mean who wants that? And how can any rule of law survive under such conditions?
Indeed, most of the -isms that Caplan refers too arose in stable and homogeneous nations where thinkers could afford to ponder about abstract things since social order and continuity could be taken for granted in their societies. If UK had been filling up with tons of hostile foreigners in the time of John Stuart Mill, he would NOT have written about utilitarianism but about survivalism and the need for national defense.
And of course, communism in practice wasn't open borders at all. Russians feared being swamped by hostile Chinese Asiatics from the East and from hedonistic capitalists from the West.
When there were fuzzy borders and fragmented demographics in Europe, Europeans often fought with one another. But with clear borders and more homogeneous populations after WWII, Europeans got along beautifully and worked with one another more productively. If one doesn't have to worry about the survival or honor of one nation--which is fitfully intact and well-protected--, then one is likely to be more generous and good-willed ins spirit.
Paradoxically, the various ethnic groups of former Yugoslavia an tolerate one another and trade with one another more easily after the breakup of the polygot monstrosity called Yugoslavia.
Today, Europe is facing new troubles all over again thanks to the crazy cult of multi-culturalism that brought in too many Muslims and blacks and due to the cult of EU and Euro that even allowed nations like Greece to join the monetary system.
And if open borders work so great, why do so many urban liberal whites, homos, Asians, and Jews rig the system so that only the right kind of people can afford to settle in places like NY and San Fran? Not very open, are they? Or open only to those who can afford it.
So, open borders means all the top talents from around the world flow to places like NY and San Fran while the rest of us get the dregs from the Third World.
Even those who call for open borders build elevated pools above the running waters below. Since water naturally flows from top to bottom, not all the water can flow to the upper pools. You need a special pump, but not everyone has it.
"Caplan was polite to Sailer. Sailer responds with pompous self-congratulation. Go figure."
This is what you call open-personality-disorder. Caplan and Sailer's personalities are migrating back and forth regardless of their bodies that can no longer contain the personalities. Caplan is turning waspy and Sailer is turning Jewy.
". Pew polls show those under 30 the most liberal on race not the most conservative, sorry."
The polls would have shown the same 50 years ago. In fact, 100 years ago, very likely. That' what young people say. It's what I would have said. It's not what they do. Use your common sense. In an environment where they are no longer "majority", where various blacks and browns work against them (Obama speaking up for people who look like "his son" -- how un-POTUS like. No other president would have done something so un-presidential. But that's where we are now.
So no. White young people know how to play the game, but as the rules get rigged against them and they become a minority in their own country--they already are a minority in many areas--they are not going to be unthinking "liberals."
The glow of rectitude in whites up till now, bestowing affirmative action, piously voicing pc proverbs, comes from the confidence that affirmative action and "tolerance" was theirs to bestow. They looked at it as noblesse oblige, no matter what they said.
The thing they can't face is that nowadays, it is fear that makes them give. If they admit that, the gig is up. They want to feel still powerful.
Polls don't necessarily mean much. It's like asking, do you love god, your country, etc. Most people say some kind of yes, but how it manifests, if at all, can be vastly different from era to era.
http://www.theonion.com/articles/klan-rally-70-percent-undercover-reporters,96/
Must have been at Oberlin.
"Get used to that thought. Even the dumber of the races are going to make it. On the ground reality in the poorest places in the planet is actually improving quite rapidly and in 200 years the descendant of the foaming in the mouth racist of today will likely fall in love with a descendant of those lowly dumb sub-humans in those hellholes today."
Most of the "foaming at the mouth" racists I have observed in recent years have been black, and some "Hispanics" such as La Raza. Where do you see these types in 100 years? Because it's been well over 50, in fact about 70, years that integration has been pursued with an iron fist, and frankly, for the great majority of blacks, there really isn't much change in behavior or attitude. The smarter and more compentent have more opportunities--more than whites of similar capacity according to statistics--but they are a small percentage of the whole.
As for phenpotype, most of the world is already "brownish." Maybe there will be more "whitish people."
Considering the popularity among whites (I presume) for Danish sperm in sperm banks, and blonde/blue Ivy Leaguers in egg banks, there does seem to be a vibrant market for the European type.
While I don't like to get into these discussions, because none of us will be here to find out anyway, there is nothing that befuddles me more than somebody crowing over the demise of the white race. It's as if non-whites can only have peace of mind when the race to which they owe so much--just about everything invented in recent centuries--ceases to exist. Then they can pretend they -- brownish people of color -- did it all.
I wonder if this is not at the bottom of the enthusiasm that some have for the prospect.
Eliminate shame by eliminating the source of the shame.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/are-seniors-souring-on-the-republican-party/278550/
GOP, the party that sucks up to the young globalists... who donate to the Democratic party.
Old folks finding out too.
Not for the first time, I can't help but notice that "libertarianism" looks suspiciously like communism under a new name.
Yeah, it's not exactly like Alisa Zinovyevna "Ayn Rand" Rosenbaum had one great big huge massive 800-lb-guerilla-sitting-in-the-corner thingamabob in common with Karl Marx.
I can't help but notice that "libertarianism" looks suspiciously like communism under a new name
Yes. You'll notice that libertarians always push for left wing 'free market' ideas but rarely, if ever, 'right' wing' ones - what about the right for a restaurant to only serve whites? What about getting rid of AA?
So if you really follow the libertarian agenda- open borders, legal drugs, and gay marriage - its really making the US more left wing.
Yeah, it's not exactly like Alisa Zinovyevna "Ayn Rand" Rosenbaum had one great big huge massive 800-lb-guerilla-sitting-in-the-corner thingamabob in common with Karl Marx.
and her entire inner circle and 'successor' - people started to catch on i think.
I remember seeing the 'official' objectivist website - and no exaggeration they stories were:
1. take the Christ out of Christmas, and The Christmas out of the Holidays.
2. Nuke Afghanistan
3. Support Israel.
Hmm who would think like that?
Having 'smarts' doesn't seem to stop Sailer opining on just about everything, does it? So why pick on Caplan for the same thing?
Sailer chuffers a great deal about psychometrics, a subject I know nothing about. The next time he cites Richard Lynn as an authority on the processes of economic development, I may have something to say. When he talks nonsense about Catholic social teaching, I may say something as well. Caplan did this and Sailer did not.
Steve: I'm not sure if this has come up in your ongoing debates with Caplan, but you should REALLY take him to task for this patently ridiculous claim that Kantianism, utilitarianism and Rawlsianism all IMPLY open borders (or something close to that). This is very obviously false to anyone with a minimal knowledge of these moral theories. (I say this as a professional philosopher with some competence in the area.) To take one example: utilitarianism might be the theory that we should adopt policies that maximize overall utility (preference-satisfaction or something like that). If that's what it means, there's no argument at all from that broad principle to open borders. On the contrary, there are good reasons to think that "citizenism" is a more likely policy to maximize overall utility. (We just need to add some very well supported empirical hypotheses about effects of different kinds of immigration policies.) That seems plausible even if we are interested in maximizing utility relative to distinct nations or ethnic groups. Anyway, that is just one example. Caplan sounds like an absolute ignoramus on this stuff and deserves to be taken to task for these silly pronouncements. The "orthodox" moral theories he describes are all _at least_ as good a basis for your position as for his.
Want to know the motivation behind Caplan's immigration stance, look at the photos on his twitter account, one (you'll know it when you see it) is very revealing. Do it now because I'm sure he will pull it after this comment.
Twitter profile.
One term that you never hear from immigration enthusiasts is carrying-capacity. There is a quasi-religious belief that technology can always outpace human requirements for survival, but how much of that kind of innovation comes from overpopulated areas like modern India? Africa has plenty of people, but where is all that technological innovation that is supposed to come when people are living elbow to elbow? Doesn't a bell cure apply to population growth? How come Silicone Valley doesn't pack up and move to Manila?
Isn't a guy like Caplan obliged to give us a number where he thinks the bell curve will peak regarding US population? A billion? Six billion? Put your reputation where your mouth is.
My status as a middle class blue collar guy is low enough, I don't want a herd of foreigners to sink it even further. Status is a zero-sum game.
Caplan sounds like an absolute ignoramus on this stuff
Of course he is. All he knows is that all his liberal acquaintances, who call themselves Catholic, Marxist, utilitarian, or whatever, are for open borders. And that's the extent of journalistic standards today: poll your beltway friends and report it as fact.
Powerchild: In other words, normal Americans agree with Sailer while out-of-touch elites agree with Caplan.
Or rather Caplan agrees with those out-of-touch elites.
Why don't we do an experiment and have Israel, and a nice country that doesn't have any significant history of anti-semetism, like India, mutually drop their immigration restrictions and watch them prosper. I can't see a guy like Caplan objecting. According to Caplan, the residents of Mumbai would soon be living as comfortably as Israelis or even better.
@ anon 8/10/13, 3:31 PM
i see no photos
Caplan only treats flows, not stocks. Treating stocks is, of course, RACIST!!!!! But numbers are of the essence. Numbers, more than any other factor, determine how the stock of immigrants is experienced, but the total, total insanity of "anti-racist" diversity ideology doesn't - can't afford to - permit discussion of this, which is basically an admission that the immigrationist camp is incapable of dealing with the facts of reality.
" Anonymous said...
Strange how the most fanatical proponents of open borders and the "free movement of labor" invariably themselves work in tenured jobs.
8/9/13, 2:31 PM"
Amen. Give me a tenured job and I will immediately stop commenting anonymously.
A tenured free-marketer is almost comical, like a lottery winner telling you the benefits of hard work and thrift.
Caplan just doesn't get it.
England, for example has a genetic continuity of settlement of around 10,000 years - at least until recently.Besides that it has the richest, deepest tapestry of history, tradition,culture etc that is unique to that land, the cumulation and culmination of centuries of unique development on its own specific course. The richness of town and place names in England, such odd terms as 'Leicester' or 'Middlesex', names that to us at least mean nothing phonetically, but conceal a hidden meaning to those who wish to do the spadework are but one example. And of course you have the quintessence of Englishness itself, the works of Shakespeare, not only the beauty of his language and thought itself, but the glimpse into the late medieval world of folk England with its sprites, dark and dank woods and ancient tales told by the crackiling fire.
Purely and simply I don't want England transformed into the northern overspill colony of Pakistan or Nigeria. Caplan can call me a misanthrope abigot a xenophobe even a racist. i simply don't care. I will fight to the beitter end to stop England becoming Nigeria in the North Sea - which is after all what New Labour came within ace of accomplishing.
>Having 'smarts' doesn't seem to stop Sailer opining on just about everything, does it?<
You imply that you're smart, yet your standard of judgment is argumentum ad auctoritatem.
"Surprisingly, a large majority of Americans (60%) support allowing legal immigrants to vote in local elections" - 40% of Americans don't want naturalized citizens voting? wow, that is pleasantly surprising to see the "we support legal immigrants" meme dieing.
of course "legal immigrant" means much more than naturalized citizen, but I don't think the poll clarified that to everyone.
Christianity...straightforwardly endorses open borders, or something close.
---
Christianity endorses open borders?! Explain Lepanto, or Vienna, or Tours.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Lepanto
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Vienna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours
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