1/So, I read "Open Borders", by @bryan_caplan and @ZachWeiner. It has many good arguments for immigration, and highlights many important facts. But parts of the book are deeply troubling.
amazon.com/Open-Borders-S…
amazon.com/Open-Borders-S…
2/Caplan and Weinersmith conclude that low-skilled immigrants, specifically, are likely to have political opinions they find problematic. 
3/Their answer is, basically, "don't worry, low-skilled immigrants don't vote much."
4/Their answer to worries about the fiscal costs of immigration is to require immigrants to pay more taxes than the native-born, and to cut welfare benefits. "Build a wall around the welfare state" is the phrase they use.
5/Their answer to the fear that immigrants will "take away our freedoms" is to make it harder to get citizenship.
6/And on Bryan Caplan's blog, he envisions that an open-borders America would have vast racialized inequalities like South Africa does, and that this would be OK.
econlib.org/hive-mind-and-…
econlib.org/hive-mind-and-…
7/Reading this book, I have to wonder whether I'm reading:
A) an actual sincere argument for open borders,
B) a call for slashing democracy and the welfare state, or
C) a clever reductio ad absurdum designed to make liberals reevaluate their support for immigration.
A) an actual sincere argument for open borders,
B) a call for slashing democracy and the welfare state, or
C) a clever reductio ad absurdum designed to make liberals reevaluate their support for immigration.
8/The whole thing leaves me very uneasy, and I wonder whether these are the kind of arguments and the kind of allies the pro-immigration movement needs!
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