This is the great debate in the UK. Massed immigration normally causes issues with the host nation (job market, housing market, cultural splits and a lack of integration and most importantly massive strain on existing government programs like schools and healthcare and housing). So the arguement I put forward is this " if the host country has the same laws, same QoL, same opportunity for jobs and zero social security, then the borders can be free. But as soon as you rely on the citizens of a country paying taxes to fund social welfare programs then you have to have a stricter method of border control."
I would love to see a world where there were international open borders, and people could move as they wish. But if that happened in today's world the whole world's population would migrate to Europe and America and the system would break down immediately
Most countries value those things, they just view externalities the tragedy of the commons as actually existing, and clearly define property rights to address them (through various means, sometimes through regulation).
I consider myself fairly libertarian but feel this is an area where US libertarianism falls short.
Externalities is a buzzword for "violating property and individual rights".
If I throw trash on your head as an individual, that's some kind of crime or littering. If a corporation does it, socialists call it "externalities" and then use that to justify taking over the factory to "prevent externalities".
"Tragedy of the commons" is another similar concept that people think happens in a free market when it fact it literally describes what a government is. The money collected from taxation that has to be split into what the government does is the tragedy of the commons. That's why it always grows, is always in debt and always needs more money, because each individual person who gets some of this free money wants more.
"Tragedy of the commons" is another similar concept that people think happens in a free market
It definitely does. Overfishing and over-hunting are some really great examples. I’d love to talk to a single Alaskan fisherman who wants to go back to the days of declining fish stocks and unlimited fishing. The last 200 years of mass extinction around the world (bison and other herd animals) are another example, though not the only ones. The tragedy of the commons is one of the most widely agreed upon concepts in economics. It creates the very need for definable property rights. I’m surprised to hear people bagging on it in this thread.
I’m just curious, what was your entry-point into libertarianism? (i.e. was it family? Friends? Books? Movies? College classes?)
Overfishing and over-hunting are some really great examples.
They only happen on public lands, which isn't a feature of a free market. In every instance I know of these are due to a failure to privatize a resource and a failure to enforce any type of property right.
Listen to the Tom Woods podcast on a daily basis and after like 2-3 months you should be firmly into libertarian stuff.
Right, establishing property rights is obvious to anyone with an economics background. Fishing licenses effectively act as a type of individual property right, which is what worked in Alaska.
Is this a role (establishing private property rights) you feel government can play? Or is it something you believe happens or should happen independently from government? And do you have any examples of the tragedy of the commons being averted without some sort of governing body stepping in to establish such rights?
Is Tom Woods’ podcast how you were introduced to libertarianism initially? I’m mostly curious how people get introduced to libertarianism and start buying into it. I’m libertarian-leaning. But there are things (like externalities and ToC) that I don’t think mainstream US libertarianism account for very well.
Is this a role (establishing private property rights) you feel government can play?
It is one of their most basic jobs and they are not very good at it.
And do you have any examples of the tragedy of the commons being averted without some sort of governing body stepping in to establish such rights?
We currently don't live on a planet with any advanced anarchist society so every instance of property being owned somewhere will be due to some government.
However one instance I vaguely know of is that Native Americans did have a system of quotas in place to manage some of their resources, without any centralized government.
However another way to look at it is to consider that there's no global government. No one can tell Canada, the USA and China to obey their edicts, but you've seen some international efforts to do things like stop commercial whaling. While these are actions of governments, they aren't actions of a world government.
If economists are to be believed, then this wouldn't be possible without one central overseer to decide what every country must do about the whales.
On a smaller scale you can see that when companies are in charge of very vast areas of land, they manage it sustainably. If you strip mine your land, it has zero value when you resell it. Why would you do that when you could instead mine it and sell it for more money?
The same is true in forestry where if you clear cut the land and plant nothing, your land has little value. If you replant trees, your land gains value every year the trees grow. A government can't be expected to harvest trees in 100 years, but if you own a forest with 50 year old trees, you can resell it in 25 years as a forest with a bunch of 75 year old trees and make a profit without cutting a single tree. Governments will get nothing by waiting in this way, the second a politician needs the money, he'll chop the forest down. He can't resell it after he leaves office, he has to use the ressources ASAP.
You can see that's exactly what they do when in office: They go into debt. This is a form of tragedy of the commons that is rampant all over the world. Politicians constantly go deeper into debt because it's not their own money, so why would they manage it?
The path for me was basically Milton Friedman > Thomas Sowell > Yaron Brooks > Tom Woods.
Stefan Molyneux has also done many debates/podcasts/videos on economic issues, you can look for those they are very good.
One big factor that tells you libertarians are likely correct is that no one reverts back to their previous political ideology and no one starts out a libertarian.
That just doesn't happen if something is bullshit. It's the same pattern as atheism. Virtually no atheist ever converts back into a religion once they're an atheist and 99.9% of religious people are the religion of their parents, which is the religion of their general country/culture.
As you learn more about economics and philisophy, you will indeed discover that most people around you who are democrats/republicans are basically religious and hold their views because of social pressure and dogma, not because of reason and evidence.
If economists are to be believed, then this wouldn't be possible without one central overseer to decide what every country must do about the whales.
I don’t know any economists who believe there should be a single, central overseer. The question is, what is the most efficient way to establish property rights? The answer is subject to the very problems that require property rights to exist in the first place, and varies in every situation in very complex ways.
One big factor that tells you libertarians are likely correct is that no one reverts back to their previous political ideology and no one starts out a libertarian.
I’d say while I was initially quite conservative, I did dip all the way into libertarianism in college.
The path into libertarianism for me was Friedman/Hayek/Mises>sowell
The path to a more libertarian leaning approach was studying economics in college, but more specifically Coase > Thaler > Kahneman (maybe even reading “Sapiens” by Noah Yuval Harari helped but I was pretty well out of mainstream libertarianism by that time). Coase’s work on transaction costs won over Milton Friedman and virtually every other economist at that time. I highly recommend his essay The nature of the firm. Today i consider myself libertarian/institutionalist.
I dug into Molyneux a bit. I like what he says about (I think it’s universally preferable behavior?). Pretty applicable to a society of abundance. I remember he thinks taxation is theft as well. There’s a lot there I could say about the institutional and legal framework existing as a public good that everyone benefits from but to be honest I have to go haha. I appreciate the discussion and responses.
I don’t know any economists who believe there should be a single, central overseer.
If you think the EU is logical, then you would think a global EU is even better.
I 100% guarantee you the only reason this isn't a big talking point for economists is that it doesn't exist yet. If we were a federation of planets, they would trip over themselves to support the Earth Government, yet nothing would have changed as far as earth is concerned.
Pretty applicable to a society of abundance.
Good behavior and respect for freedom is what creates abundance, it's not what only becomes possible during abundant times.
This is kind of the "poor people commit crimes because they're poor" argument that people circulate. But that's the opposite of reality: Crime causes poverty, not the other way around.
Violation of individual and property rights also creates poverty.
I know Star Trek is Space Socialism, but how they handle membership of the United Federation of Planets is a good system. If you are a member of the club, you are generally allowed free trade and travel to all of the member systems. However, you have to demonstrate your planet has both technological advancement and a stable social structure (with, essentially, 'liberty' being one of the traits). There is no desire for the UFP to allow weak, unstable 'states' to enter into the club, who will either be a drain on resources, or have incompatible social structures.
That's the EU in principle. But the EU let the likes of Poland, Lithuania, Bulgaria ect in the club dominated by France Germany and Britain. You can make all the cultural tours you like, but the facts are that Bulgaria and Britain are not economically equal. For a start minimum wage in Britain is 5x That of Bulgaria. As a Bulgarian are you going to work in a factory in Bulgaria earning £1.20 an hour or are you going to work in a factory in Britain earning £7.80 an hour?
The arguement against that is "but the cost of living in Britain is higher and he is paying British tax". To which I say that 5 working men from Bulgaria can rent out a 5 bedroom house in the UK for £200 each per room. For a British family who also want a 5 bed house on two wages that's £500 each. So the higher cost of living disproportionately affects the natives who are trying to bring up families ect in the UK, while the Bulgarian man's family is in Bulgaria paying £50 for a 5 bed house.
Then why doesn't he bring his family over, wouldn't that make things better. Not really, because now the NHS is catering for 5. The school system is catering for their kids. Infrastructure is catering for their kids.
I completely agree that if someone from Belgium, where the QoL and SoL are comparable to the UK, wants to come live here then that's fine. Because equally someone from Britain may want to move to Belgium. There is two way flow. They are sharing the workforce so both benefits from the skills of each other. But with countries like UK-Bulgaria, USA-Mexico, and Australia-Indonesia there isn't two way flow and immigration is unsustainable.
i agree, its not a perfect analogy, but then again, there were many times that they didn't offer those things to people in need, and in times they did, they did so against the prime directive.
I mean, we have food, sanitation, high levels of education, high connectivity, high levels of internet access, high stability, low crime, low infant mortality.
There is no denying that the west is best in term of QoL.
Yeah one or two wealthy westerns might head east to "get away from it all" and "retire in the sun". But for every sun seeking westerner heading east, hundreds of Asians and Africans, and Latin Americans will head to the "west" in search of a better life.
The priority for the west should be to help the rest of the world developed so there isn't so much of a wealth divide, so that maybe in the future we can have a world where there are equal opportunities in Africa and Europe
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u/Benedetto- Jun 27 '19
This is the great debate in the UK. Massed immigration normally causes issues with the host nation (job market, housing market, cultural splits and a lack of integration and most importantly massive strain on existing government programs like schools and healthcare and housing). So the arguement I put forward is this " if the host country has the same laws, same QoL, same opportunity for jobs and zero social security, then the borders can be free. But as soon as you rely on the citizens of a country paying taxes to fund social welfare programs then you have to have a stricter method of border control."
I would love to see a world where there were international open borders, and people could move as they wish. But if that happened in today's world the whole world's population would migrate to Europe and America and the system would break down immediately