There is also the fact that people in developed countries have less incentive to leave. While it might make sense for the average South Korean to leave South Korea for Sweden, it almost always makes sense for a the average North Korean to do so. The main problems that would arise from such a policy would be in close geographical areas with a large difference in standards of living (eg. NK vs. China or Kuwait vs. Iraq), and from people abusing the system for a variety of purposes (eg. coming to the US to deliver your baby). A generous reading the of the post you responded to could be defended along those grounds.
Eventually, you might reach some equilibrium, but I think the system would ultimately undermine the role of government in most developed countries, making the vast majority of people worse off in the long run. One threat would be using people as an informal army to take over resource rich countries. How hard would it be for a country like Iran (76 million people) to “encourage” 4 million people to migrate to a country like Qatar (2 million people) or Kuwait (3.25 million people)? With the local population outnumbered, they majority immigrant community could essentially force the rulers to become agents of Iran. How long would a country like Israel, Taiwan, or Singapore last in that sort of situation? Even without prompting, a country like India or China has so many people living in poverty that a fairly small percentage of them emigrating to a smallish country would completely change the demographics there.
Another problem would be that governments would run out of money and resources as people take advantage of the relatively generous services they offer (while they offer them). Would anyone prefer to give birth in Juarez, Mexico instead of El Paso, Texas? Would anyone pay for a mediocre college here in the US if they could get free/cheap higher education in Germany or France?
Yes, we might reach an equilibrium like with global trade where there is a net positive on a global scale, but I don’t think we would get there before a lot of chaos.
These are good points, which I usually don’t see in immigration debates.
The first one is not really a problem at all, but incentive for shithole countries to improve themselves if they want anybody to live there at all.
The second point is something I believe we could take on a case-by-case basis. It’s certainly not an everyday occurrence that will happen automatically as soon as we open all borders. But it is something for which special provisions might need to be made.
The third problem isn’t really a problem either. More workers = more tax revenue. But if benefits end up decreasing, that will lower the incentive to move there. Eventually everything will balance out.
But if your citizens are moving to some other country for welfare benefits, maybe your country should spend less on bombs and corporate kickbacks and more on ensuring your citizens have food, shelter and healthcare. So yet another good incentive we’ll see when we open all our borders.
Remember though, that all the milk and honey in the world won’t uproot someone who doesn’t have the money or resources to move. I think the chaos you predict will end up being a slow, global paradigm shift. Disruptive, but not unlike many other such shifts we’ve had in history.
Most countries already compete for the citizens they would theoretically want to keep. I am sure there are at least a handful of North Korean elites that wouldn’t leave if you paid them. Unlimited immigration is of most benefit to people that are often burdens to government, and most use to those who might already have the ability to improve their circumstances. For a shithole country, even having capable genius citizens is no good if you have no ability to exploit that fact. The point being that a bunch of guys leaving Syria likely matters very little to the Syrian government as many of them were not worth the effort of keeping, or able to be kept.
Competition on an individual level is important, but not that great of an incentive. It’s not like leaders of dysfunctional countries don’t have models of success and thousands of years of history to draw from. Either they can’t do it, or they won’t. Either way, it’s not like most countries are genuinely keeping their citizens hostage. For the most part, an offer of a better life in some other country for the average really poor guy in a shithole country is just about as useful as me knowing that Venezuela sells gas for 25 cents/gallon.
Additionally, a lot of shithole countries are are only shitholes subjectively speaking. I think we can all probably agree on a country like North Korea, or even a desperately poor country like Guinea-Bissau, but there are a bunch of other countries that while dysfunctional, are not loathed by most of their citizens (eg. Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia). There are plenty of people in those countries that would love to the world look more like their country than the US, Denmark, or Japan. That is a problem if 10% of the population of one of those countries can emigrate and make a place like the UAE Iran-lite (or China-lite). What happens in one of these oil-rich countries like Saudi Arabia when they can’t keep bribing their citizens to keep power because they don’t have enough money due to their being 20 million more people to bribe? What happens when Israel, a country of 8 million is inundated with Syrians, Egyptians, and others? Do you really want people like those in the Syrian resistance to have access to Israeli nukes? Don’t you think it would be much easier and cheaper for Iran to send a bunch of people to live in Israel and eventually take over their nukes rather than making their own? The fact is governments get their ability to rule largely from the consent of the governed. If the demographics change so much that the former government no longer has a mandate to rule, a lot of problems will arise.
Yes, but more people doesn’t necessarily mean more, or a sufficient number of, jobs in the short/medium term. It certainly doesn’t mean more GOOD jobs or jobs that those people know how to do. If a million more people means x number of jobs that need to be supplemented by government in terms of food stamps and medicaid, are we really better off? You are incorrectly assuming the demand created by those extra bodies will be met, and will be met at a price they can afford. It’s not as if we don’t let people go without homes or food now. Their needs haven’t been met by the market now, and there is no reason to assume adding people will help appreciably just because they need to eat and want ipads and tvs.
Not sure you needed the not so subtle jab at the US given that the Finland, Denmarks, and Dubais of the world can’t afford unlimited welfare either. It’s not only a matter of priorities, it’s a matter of finite resources and a limited number of people who can grow the pie.
Honestly, it’s such a nonstarter I don’t think you even need to worry about it. That said, I don’t think it would be slow given the political and financial rewards at stake. Why wouldn’t Assad, for example, pay the rebels to leave Syria for the US? Much cheaper and more effective than killing them. It’s like how Cuba sent it’s criminals to the US. The fact is that there is not a market desire for poor, sick, criminal, stupid, or uneducated people anywhere in the world. If getting them off your balance sheet is as simple as giving them a plane ticket to some country far enough away that they can’t hitchhike home, that is going to happen because it is cheaper than building an inclusive education system or taking care of them for the rest of their lives. Unlimited immigration will not help the really unfortunate among us, it will just be used by elites to gain more power and influence. Its’ not like a truly brilliant person in the vast majority of countries (democracies and shitholes alike) today can’t make their way to a functional country to ply their trade.
To a certain extent what you said in the first part is true-I don’t think every American citizen has to accept the entirety of the US Constitution and government policy (considering I myself want Constitutional revision) but I think it is preferable for potential immigrants to be committed to basic principles of liberal and constitutional government. Furthermore, a massive glut of low-skilled workers will cause the existence of a far larger labour force than there are jobs for in the United States (I’m all for less restrictions on immigration, but ten or twenty million people coming in the space of a few years is a whole different story) which will impact low-skilled workers and youths the most while immigrants will tend to concentrate in certain areas which already suffer from severe disparities in income (due to already large immigrant populations) such as New York and California.
That said, I am again fine with liberalizing immigration even from poorer nations and particularly believe in allowing for more refugees to settle here (I find it absurd that Sweden which was never involved in the invasion of Iraq and has a population a tiny fraction of the US accepted far more refugees from Iraq than we ever did).
The biggest change would perhaps be the collapse of nationalism that would have to precede the change you suggest.
As to the answer to your question, it all depends on what caused this sudden legal change, and how long it lasted.
If the sudden legal change was caused by an all-powerful world government, the economic and social disruptions would be used to by rebels to rally support against the government.
If, instead, the sudden change was caused by a shift in human nature – say, an extremely contagious disease that kills parts of the brain responsible for ethno-political solidarity – it is hard to say because we would be slightly post-human.
I don’t see why nationalism would have to collapse. Can you elaborate?
Seems like if people could move freely to the state they most identify with, free migration might actually spur more deeply held nationalism. “Love it or leave it” certainly would become a lot easier to justify.
As a weak analogy, there’s nothing stopping me from becoming a Cubs fan, and there’s nothing stopping Chicagoans from becoming Cardinals fans, but that doesn’t affect my support for or identity with “Cardinal Nation” in the slightest.
Ok, whatever. Leaving aside the fact that “First World liberal democracies” is a really subjective term, and you still haven’t explained what it means, that still leaves my second question:
I have to admit I find the logic a little dubious. Suppose a person living in the People’s Republic of China has a genuine love for democracy and civil rights and wants to come live in the United States for that very reason. What’s the point of forbidding that person the right to emigrate to America because he currently lives in a country that doesn’t have democracy and civil rights?
I guess we are talking about different kinds of nationalism.
My starting point is that the OP proposal would be overwhelmingly unpopular. Look how hard it is to even get the Dream Act passed in the US, and how in knots Australia has been for decades over a relatively small number of asylum seekers. The OP proposal multiplies such controversies a hundred-fold. So some big change would have to have preceded it, and that prior change would shape everything that comes after.
The proposal could unite Israelis and Palestinians – in opposition. What about Taiwan and the PRC? Eritrea and Ethiopia? One could go on and on. This proposal requires every country on earth to voluntarily trust neighbors, and that won’t happen without mass personality changes, or application of brute force.
I’m not in favour of limiting much less banning immigration from anywhere, I was merely stating where I favour totally unrestricted immigration from as stated in the OP. I’m in favour of liberalized immigration laws in general and when I said I favoured totally unrestricted immigration from First World democracies, my emphasis was on the fact that I’d like unrestricted immigration from developed countries rather than democratic governmnts (I added in democratic governments since there are no really authoritarian First World countries besides the petromonarchies of the Middle East most of which besides Saudi Arabiaare heavily dependent on foreign workers and thus aren’t going to be a big source of emigrants as a result).
Milton Friedman pointed out, you can’t have open borders and a welfare state. The countries with welfare states would quickly get swamped.
The high trust that is essential to modern western democracies would take a major hit. It would be much harder to have a stable functioning democratic state.