Thread by @paulcrider

My own support for #openborders is pretty primal. It just *is* intuitive to me that a person should not be forced to live within arbitrary boundaries. I'm more likely to start from freedom of movement and shop around for ideologies than have an ideology modulate that view.

That core intuition is enhanced by considering the sharp differences in opportunities for flourishing that borders enforce and further by the fact that these differences owe to complex and interacting historical injustices.

But the libertarian case for open borders is unsatisfying because the libertarian conception of freedom is unsatisfying. The welfare and regulatory state abridges libertarian freedom in various ways but expands positive freedom (capabilities) in many other ways.

A libertarian case for open borders will be haunted by a hostility to redistribution. That is, libertarians, following Friedman, may believe open borders and welfare states are incompatible. They won't be especially concerned about how to make welfare and migration jive well.

Open borders libertarians may also ignore concerns about inequality. Many libertarian advocates are all too ready to limit democratic and economic rights of immigrants in exchange for their gaining entry (surtaxes and voting restrictions and the like). This promotes hierarchy.

A neoliberal case for open borders would keep the core cosmopolitan intuition, but also consider how immigrants can be integrated (*not* assimilated) so as to avoid both exploitation of migrants and nativist backlash.

I think leftist arguments for open borders are important too. There is a degree of rectificatory justice involved in open borders that should explicitly acknowledge colonialism and imperialism, which both libertarians and neoliberals don't readily appreciate.

As well as the possibility of immigrants as a potential political, coalitional resource against what they would call the White capitalist class and who are, in any case, a privileged class intent on preserving their advantages.