Open Borders

A lively, provocative university lecture on international migration - freedom of movement/labor - told in comic book form.

So Bryan Caplan is an economist at George Mason, which already got my hackles up: I worried about the libertarian, faux-apoliticism of (white guy...) economists wrapping up their traditionalist arguments in contrarian, faux-objective speculation. I was surprised, then, that Caplan makes a forceful argument - using the empirical research of Michael Clemens and Lant Pritchett (two economists I LOVE) - that borders are bullshit.

He then spends the rest of the book dismantling, one by one, each counter-argument - from the more reasonable (low-skill workers overwhelming social safety nets) to the more xenophobic (but my culture!!!?!!!). He THEN proposes - bless his technocratic heart - some policy solutions to address each of the potential downfalls.

So I went into this as a politically progressive economist-by-training/technocrat-by-heart who has never spent more than a few minutes thinking about immigration. Now that Trump won again - and largely on an anti-immigration platform - and the AfD is similarly making gains in Germany via anti-immigration platforms - I decided to learn a bit more. And I'm so glad I did! I went into this relatively immigration-cautious, not even immigration-curious, and I came out of this saying... borders are bullshit!!! And a relatively modern invention, part of the nationalism wave of the 19th century, but not even really enforced until WW1 and WW2! And they are 100% suppressing global economic output and human welfare!! The Michael Clemens paper! But even beyond the economists cited in this book - the Mariel boatlift paper!!! Which I know for its methodology (shift-share instrumental variables, aka Bartik instruments), but never really absorbed the content that - oh, another paper showing BIG GAINS for immigration!

I was also provoked - specifically, apart from changing my mind on immigration, I also argued with Caplan in my head a lot re: his policy proposals to assuage anti-immigrant/xenophobic fears: e.g. make immigrants pay higher taxes and literally hand that money to low-skill native workers. EVEN if that was logistically possible (and I doubt it would be? like, “Here's your check from Mr. Immigrant, Mr. Trump Voter! See how nice he is!?”), I'm 100% not convinced that this would assuage the political pressures on using immigrants as scapegoats for general economic anxiety.

Anyway. Ha-Joon Chang (another economist I am loving at the moment) had a great “thing” in 23 Things about how borders are just wage protectionism and I was like, gasp.