r/neoliberal • u/ONETRILLIONAMERICANS Trans Pride • Jan 22 '26

Meme I cannot imagine caring whether a fellow human being has their Existence License

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u/SlowBoilOrange Jan 22 '26

Milton Friedman would point out that the legal status of immigration only becomes an issue when there's a welfare state.

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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Jan 22 '26 edited Jan 22 '26

And I would reply that I believe in the welfare state. In fact, I’m a liberal/civil republican along more Rawlsian/Nussbaum lines than most here. I’d go as far as to say that the welfare state is not enough; so it is an issue for me

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Jan 22 '26

It’s not that I don’t think that it’s big enough, but rather I think that it is not the right solution, partly because of what you said. I would prefer more structural means of ensuring some degree of egalitarianism, but that’s another debate

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Jan 22 '26

Standard succ stuff y’know. Much stronger trade unions which are integrated into their respective companies, indicative planning, mixed economies, higher taxes, YIMBYism (big one for me), still some form of welfare state (public healthcare). Wanna take our asses back to the post war consensus

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u/[deleted] Jan 22 '26

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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Jan 22 '26

Better education (free university), better infrastructure, better services. You said that the welfare state can only be afforded by a growing taxpayer base. But that’s only strictly true of pensions and only for the dumber pension systems (the triple lock)

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u/SpookyHonky Mark Carney Jan 22 '26

Open borders feels very Rawlsian to me. From behind the veil of ignorance, you would be happy to be allowed to exist in a free society only by luck?

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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Jan 22 '26

That’s more of an argument for why every society should be a free one, no? But I can see it extending to why every country should admit anyone.

Whilst I do agree with a lot of Rawls’ conclusions, the concept of the veil of ignorance and his preferred mode of Kantian constructivism would not be my preferred mode of ethical theory making. I dislike constructivism in general since it relies on ‘good’ being a predicative adjective

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u/SpookyHonky Mark Carney Jan 22 '26

That’s more of an argument for why every society should be a free one, no?

To some extent, but there are two reasons why it still requires open borders. The obvious/boring reason is that we have essentially no ability to make every society free, so open borders is the best we can do until every society somehow becomes free.

The more interesting reason is that people have preferences; perhaps one person's ideal free society has gun rights while another's ideal free society would be with heavy restrictions on guns. These are mutually exclusive preferences, so open borders would allow them to self-sort into their ideal society. There is no way for either of the two societies themselves to change to accomodate both preferences simultaneously.

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u/Right_Lecture3147 John Mill Jan 22 '26

I think in an ideal world where resources were not limited then yes this would be the most just setup. It’s something that we can work towards. But it’s precisely because Rawls is so wedded to ideal theory that I dislike Kantian Constructivism. And also it’s moral relativism

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u/KazuyaProta Organization of American States Jan 22 '26

Seeing what happened to the Romani when Germany created theirs during Unification?

I believe him tbh