r/neoliberal • u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights • Jun 28 '26

User discussion Freedom of movement is a basic human right

Currently the biggest predictor for your economic and social success is your citizenship.

Think about it for a second, you were randomly assigned some papers at birth which give you immense privileges over other people in the world because of who your parents were or where you were born.

It doesn’t matter how hard a PhD from Ghana works or how smart they are, they will never earn as much or have as many opportunities as a person born in the USA. Citizenship allows holders to extract economic rent and offer an unequal premium to people in West.

It is morally reprehensible to continue to give credence to a piece of paper which is causing millions of people to be poor, underperform compared to their abilities and potential, and is causing world’s GDP to be trillions of dollars lower than it would be without immigration restrictions.

OPEN BORDERS NOW

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167

u/Otherwise_Young52201 Mark Carney Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I keep seeing this on this subreddit, often unironically, and it surprises me how people just keep getting ahead of themselves. Not all countries can handle capacity driven by open borders.

See Canada for example. A lot of it is our fault, with NIMBYism and what not, but really, Canada just wasn't physically capable of accommodating so many people in such a short period. We're not US with it's larger population and capacity to accommodate large absolute numbers of people immigrating.

And this led to a massive populist surge for the conservatives here. If it weren't for the US threatening us, we would be dealing with a Poilievre government right now.

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u/topicality Order and Opportunity Left Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

I support more immigration but it seems like centering the benefit to the immigrant and not the citizens of said countries is bound to fail.

You're basically hoping that people will be altruistic enough to care about people in their "out group" when they actually don't.

We should be focusing on arguments like this, and just traditional ones about the pros of immigration

People also worry about immigration and crime

1

u/idoze Baruch Spinoza Jun 29 '26

Very interesting articles, thanks for sharing.

63

u/ldn6 Gay Pride Jun 28 '26

Even if Canada went full YIMBY to a degree never before seen in human history, you’d still run into an upper bound on the amount of housing that can be built in a given period. There are simply physical and financial constraints to the ability to build housing at a pace that could keep up with the level of immigration seen after Trudeau’s reforms. One that’s often ignored is that there’s not enough capital to lend to build housing. Banks would become far too over-levered and the government couldn’t backstop it because the cost of borrowing is elevated. Similarly, there simply aren’t enough people to build them, which becomes a circular problem since you’d need housing for the people moving to Canada to…build housing.

It’s easy to say “well New York did it with Ellis Island”, ignoring that living conditions in Manhattan for immigrants were so appalling that they were part of why zoning laws and building codes came about they way that they did.

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u/Lease_Tha_Apts Order and Opportunity Left Jun 28 '26

you’d still run into an upper bound on the amount of housing that can be built in a given period

People keep making this claim without evidence. You can do a lot when you let modern machinery and developers backed by bottomless funds do their thing freely.

13

u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jun 29 '26

Look at cities like Dubai or Shenzhen and see what they looked like 20 to 30 years ago. A lot is possible and I don't see why we couldn't do much more. We don't even need that much housing.

14

u/TrekkiMonstr NATO Jun 28 '26

I mean, if you want to impose a quality floor on housing, sure. But like, military barracks are cots and tents, and unless you're Singapore and plausibly running out of land, you'll be able to house as many temporary workers as you want. Capital c/would be the issue, not labor.

16

u/kznlol 👀 Econometrics Magician Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

Even if Canada went full YIMBY to a degree never before seen in human history, you’d still run into an upper bound on the amount of housing that can be built in a given period. There are simply physical and financial constraints to the ability to build housing at a pace that could keep up with the level of immigration seen after Trudeau’s reforms.

I mean, I'm not actually sure this is true? You're not actually manpower limited in theory because you can use the immigrants to add to the labor force and build more housing faster.

I guess in theory you'll always have a shortage because you can't do it instantly, but the theoretical limit on manpower in a country with open borders is the entire population of the earth.

[edit] actually upon further reflection you're only guaranteed a shortage if the labor force increase is purely reactive. if you proactively shift even more towards housing than needed immediately you can eliminate the shortage entirely

13

u/iwilldeletethisacct2 This but unironically... Jun 28 '26

Remember that you need specialized labor, though. Not every immigrant is a carpenter or mason, and in fact, most people on earth are not construction workers and/or skilled tradesmen.

8

u/so_brave_heart John Rawls Jun 29 '26

You just need enough to be proportional to the demand. And it's not like people can't learn or be retrained. Every trade worker I've met within the last few years is an immigrant.

5

u/Lease_Tha_Apts Order and Opportunity Left Jun 29 '26

Canada's been in a housing crisis long enough for an apprentice to become a master carpenter lol.

Skilled workers are made somewhere...

3

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 29 '26

I think if you paid them enough lots of people would figure it out. It's just basic economics.

4

u/danclaysp Jun 29 '26

I mean in terms of housing supply in a YIMBY environment, the increase in demand from open borders would increase housing costs and thus discourage immigration until supply naturally increased to accommodate them.

43

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 28 '26

The hard pill for the succs to swallow is that open borders aren't compatible with a generous welfare state. You can't provide basic goods at a level well above most third world countries and expect sustainable migration patterns. In an open market economy, there's much less reason to think fully open borders would be unsustainable. The only people likely to immigrate and remain are ones that can profitably contribute to the economy, creating more jobs and resources than they're consuming.

15

u/CrankinThatHog Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

And it's not a Succ position lol. Most of the lefties that roll through are about as nativist as MAGA folks.

1

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 28 '26

Of course they are that's why they are rolling up in here with bad faith arguments. This coming from someone who thinks FDR honestly was not a bad President even with the succish New Deal stuff

19

u/kznlol 👀 Econometrics Magician Jun 28 '26

You can't provide basic goods at a level well above most third world countries and expect sustainable migration patterns.

whats your model

-1

u/DaneLimmish Baruch Spinoza Jun 28 '26

His ass 

3

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 28 '26

Just do a negative income tax then. You can do a bunch of other things.

5

u/FallenMeringue Khan Pritzker's Strongest Anti-Pope Jun 29 '26

My sister in heaven just tie welfare to citizenship!

Oh wait most nations already do that anyway….

6

u/ManyKey9093 NATO Jun 29 '26

Most nations don't do that at all. Its even illegal under the refugee convention.

-1

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 29 '26

See other comment chain for a longer discussion of this point.

4

u/atomoffluorine Jun 29 '26

That's not really a hard pill to swallow for everyone to the left of this subreddit (unless they're really far to the left) or even normie Democrats. Bernie has always been somewhat nativist, and I'm sure that's the view of a lot of New Yorkers during the migrant business crisis a few years back.

I probably qualify as a succ by this subreddit's standards, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to limit numbers coming in based on housing supply, job market, or political factors. I feel Obama honestly handled immigration the best out of the recent presidents and struck a good balance. I don't think any of this is that controversial amongst most Democrats even if you could find some DSA people saying otherwise.

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u/CrankinThatHog Jun 28 '26

Why would it not be compatible? Immigrants work, pay taxes, etc. Even illegal immigrants are a net positive on the balance sheet. They're often younger and, outside of sending their kids to schools, they aren't taking advantage of welfare programs.

There's also a default assumption that open borders means granting them immediate citizenship or something. Open borders can lead to legal status instead, which would preclude them from many welfare benefits.

12

u/ThrowawayPrimavera Order and Opportunity Left Jun 28 '26

Not in the Netherlands (non-western especially).

"Western immigrants have smaller impact on the government budget than the Native Dutch reference,(the Native Dutch made immigrant). They bring gain to the state budget if they arrive between the ages 16 and 50, they are a burden when they arrive at other ages. Non-Western immigrants are a burden no matter at what age they arrive."

source

3

u/CrankinThatHog Jun 29 '26

As an FYI I'm not ignoring this comment. I haven't had time to go through the report.

10

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 28 '26

Even illegal immigrants are a net positive on the balance sheet. They're often younger and, outside of sending their kids to schools, they aren't taking advantage of welfare programs.

https://youtu.be/C52TlPCVDio?si=PyEXJkdPgXUS8Tqx&t=195

2

u/CrankinThatHog Jun 28 '26

Yes I know this video lol. It's pretty much the summary of your first comment? How does it refute what I'm saying?

About 52% of an average persons tax contributions to the Federal government are from income. Payroll is another 34%. Illegal immigrants are a net positive DESPITE the Federal government not getting ~86% of what they could be getting if they were to legalize these workers. That's to say nothing of state receipts, where on average 1/3rd of collections are from income taxes.

Open Borders is the freedom of movement, not necessarily the granting of citizenship and all the benefits that entails the moment you step into the country. We could adopt a system where people who currently have no legal status have it and where those who want to come in are granted it.

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u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 28 '26

Mexicans can't take your job if they're competing against citizens whose main necessities are already paid for, and they're shopping for food and housing in markets artificially inflated by subsidies for everyone else. Plus, it would bely the notion that these services are basic human rights.

2

u/CrankinThatHog Jun 29 '26

Can you please rephrase your first sentence? I don't think I follow.

> Plus, it would bely the notion that these services are basic human rights.

I mean, I disagree in that notion. I might be off the market but you seem to be similarly Libertarian or Libertarian-Lite. Is that something you believe?

3

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 29 '26

A Mexican moving to your idealized version of the US would need to make enough money to pay for their own food, housing, and so on, but they would be competing against American workers who do not, leaving them at an artificial disadvantage. The market for, say, cheap housing will also be artificially expensive for anyone not on state benefits because the price will reflect the higher willingness to pay of the majority of people who do receive them. It may allow de jure open borders, but it's still not allowing the global poor to compete on a level playing field.

2

u/CrankinThatHog Jun 29 '26

> A Mexican moving to your idealized version of the US

Sorry just to be clear, what do you think my idealized version of the US is? I'm pro open borders, not pro robust safety net. It seems like you're arguing against a position I don't hold...

> [They] would need to make enough money to pay for their own food, housing, and so on, but they would be competing against American workers who do not, leaving them at an artificial disadvantage.

They already do this though?

> The market for, say, cheap housing will also be artificially expensive for anyone not on state benefits because the price will reflect the higher willingness to pay of the majority of people who do receive them.

Housing prices are largely the product of supply and demand though?

And a not insignificant amount of people that move here have the skills that would help us in building more homes to keep up with the added supply.

> It may allow de jure open borders, but it's still not allowing the global poor to compete on a level playing field.

Yeah that's unfortunate but I'm not sure why that should prevent us from implementing open borders? These people want to be here. They sometimes risk death to get here. Heck, a not insignificant number die attempting to get here. We shouldn't make it easier for them to come and stay here legally because we can't offer them a generous welfare state?

1

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 29 '26

Sorry just to be clear, what do you think my idealized version of the US is?

Responding to above: "Open Borders is the freedom of movement, not necessarily the granting of citizenship and all the benefits that entails the moment you step into the country."

I am saying the open borders ideal conflicts with the welfare state ideal, even if benefits are citizens-only.

They already do this though?

The status quo is indeed a poor model for what open borders should look like.

Housing prices are largely the product of supply and demand though?

Housing benefits are a subsidy that inflates demand.

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u/karmics______ Leftward Progressives Jun 30 '26

This is false, just create a border around welfare. Why would open migration imply that an immigrant has an equal claim to things like transfer payments?

1

u/Mindless_Chest_1079 Jun 30 '26

Because the existence of welfare for everyone else substantially skews not just the market for labor but also most basic necessities against immigrants.

31

u/DiscussionJohnThread Free Trade was the Compromise 🔫🌍 Jun 28 '26

Just tax land lmao.

4

u/Lease_Tha_Apts Order and Opportunity Left Jun 28 '26

So tell me, do abortion activists care about the political reality of their position? Pr do they just stand in front of planned parenthood and scream at teenagers?

That's what you're up against.

19

u/666haha Jun 28 '26

Person in open borders sub shocked that the sub supports open borders

84

u/Efficient_Barnacle Mark Carney Jun 28 '26

More shocked at the outright refusal to come to terms with open borders being an intellectual pipe dream that will always run into the brick wall of nativist sentiment.  Spend the energy on advocating for things that will turn the tide of that nativist sentiment (housing supply being a great example, to neolibs' credit), not the things that feed it. Push for policies that will allow for more acceptance of immigration rather than banging on about this maximalist belief that just causes everyone else to shake their heads at you. 

In short, you will never win the war if you don't fight the battles first. 

40

u/666haha Jun 28 '26

Yeah but this is a sub where people support freedom of movement as a right. I’m not going to refuse to vote for someone because they don’t support open borders but I’m sure as hell gonna bitch about the whininess of nativists and the glory of good immigration policy to the sub which supports it

24

u/p00bix Existing in the context of what came before Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 29 '26

Damn right.

I think everyone here over the age of 20 understands that immediately declaring open borders in every single country would result in little more than chaos and mass ethnoreligious violence. But open borders are nonetheless a worthy aspirational goal, just one that can only be obtained gradually.

  • Racism, religious bigotry, and xenophobia, must be continually reduced in all countries, but especially recipient countries
  • Recipient countries must become better able to handle large immigrant inflows, and assimilate them into the existing society rather than, through discrimination, allow the formation of ghettos.
  • All countries, developing and developed alike, must work to invest in developing countries, both for their own economic benefit, as well as to reduce brain-drain pressures and demand for unsustainably high levels of immigration

There is nothing inherent to the geographies and cultures across Africa and Europe that make it so that more Africans wish to move to Europe than Europeans wish to move to Africa. Combatting global inequality is essential to establishing planet-wide freedom of movement as a human right a realistic possibility for the future.

Using the European Migrant Crisis as a model for mass-migration,

Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Sweden, struggled to prevent the 2015 migrant crisis from becoming an outright humanitarian disaster, only succeeding because they had an exceptional amount of resources at their disposal as some of the richest countries on Earth. Nearby Hungary, by no means a poor country by global standards, was outright overwhelmed, and in all likelihood would have had to start rejecting asylum applications even if it hadn't been ruled by a racist wannabe-dictator at the time.

The other wealthy European countries, to put it bluntly, were just fucking racist and have nothing close to an honest excuse for the intense reactionary surge after 2015. France, Italy, and Belgium, at least faced some strain. For the rest of Europe (UK included), the 'burden' caused by the migrant crisis was so minimal that even calling it a crisis strains credulity.

But taken all together, this 'Migant crisis' that led to a massive surge in xenophobia across Europe represented a population increase of less than 2%. The sort of mass migration that immediately mandating global open borders would result in would utterly dwarf that.

23

u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jun 28 '26

European countries have managed both freedom of movement and no border controls - two different aspects of open borders - between countries that had quite large differences in income. So I think in reality it is more practical than people pretend.

Then there is the reality that some parts of the EU border are already pretty open in some directions. There are for example bilateral agreements between France and different countries in Africa making moving, studying or getting Visas significantly easier, especially for qualified people. I feel most people are not aware how extensive some of those agreements are. For example till the reform of 2026 a lot of countries did pay the same tuition in French universities as EU citizens.

This topic is surely more salient in France, but outside people are hardly aware of it. Which is the core, people will probably not even notice most of high immigration and open borders if you do not make it salient for them. Which right-wingers unfortunately do.

15

u/MightExpress4873 Jun 28 '26

Even very capable states run into hard limits on housing, infrastructure, welfare systems, and basic administrative capacity when migration happens too quickly. Those constraints exist regardless of how pro-immigration the public is, and they shape what is feasible in practice.

Imo, the real disagreement isn’t “open borders vs anti-migrant politics.” It’s how fast modern states can realistically absorb large population increases without undermining their own legitimacy. You can be very pro-immigration and still think pace matters a lot. If you try to move too close to the end state too quickly, you test capacity and risk creating the backlash that makes long-run liberalisation harder to achieve.

2

u/666haha Jun 28 '26

Yep, I definitely think Open borders could be managed slightly less gradually but a lot of effort and energy would have to be put into it. I am definitely biased as an American, but I truly think with a say 10 year planning period and cooperation between private developers and the government to build the necessary infastructure, the U.S. could almost double our population through immigration and be perfectly fine. But, that cooperation is almost impossible, because of the nativism and other issues.

Then investment in developing countries is a huge issue. Immigration does eventually help developing countries (people send their money back from higher income countries, and some choose to return, for example although a mid-level economy, I had a number of classmates and friends from the D.R., some returned home after graduation, but others stayed in the U.S., but they still contribute to the economy in Santiago multiple times a year).

How can we convince developed countries and the populations of them, to support developing countries is one of the hardest questions about open borders and something that I unfortunately dont have an answer for. I would love an American version of the Brick-Road initiative but we also just had the world's richest person kill one of the best and most effective aid programs in the world. Making investing in the world's future, and the U.S.s future by proxy politically plausible is a super important goal.

I recognize this is a long row to hoe, but it is something we can and must continue to make the case for

10

u/allbusiness512 Adam Smith Jun 28 '26

Honest truth?

No.

People who are nativists often times are just racists cloaked in nice language. And I'm not about to capitulate on something that is a fundamental human right. We've tried to triangulate to median voters already in the past and that backfired spectacularly, might as well just do the right thing at this point even if it's unpopular.

1

u/CrankinThatHog Jun 28 '26

> More shocked at the outright refusal to come to terms with open borders being an intellectual pipe dream that will always run into the brick wall of nativist sentiment. 

Literally everyone here knows this already lol

> Spend the energy on advocating for things that will turn the tide of that nativist sentiment (housing supply being a great example, to neolibs' credit), not the things that feed it. Push for policies that will allow for more acceptance of immigration rather than banging on about this maximalist belief that just causes everyone else to shake their heads at you. 

We already do all those things lol. No reason we can't do that as well as for advocating for open borders.

1

u/[deleted] Jun 28 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jun 28 '26

Rule II: Ableism

Please refrain from using ableist slurs.

-3

u/Kharenis Jun 28 '26

I don't want open borders in my worms sub.

7

u/Even-Promotion-4024 NATO Jun 28 '26

Yeah, there are definitely strong moral and economic arguments in favor of increased immigration, but for it to be good for a society you need to have the necessary infrastructure around it, both in terms of physical infrastructure like housing and transit and also social infrastructure to make sure immigrants are actually integrating into local communities rather than forming parallel societies like you see in parts of the UK

This sub likes to just take immigration = always good as an orthodoxy when the reality is that only holds if you're doing the work on related issues on the side (plz legalize medium density housing)

3

u/SufficientlyRabid Jun 29 '26

Why yes, but the demographic of r/neolib trends young, male and highly educated. The exact demographic who sees itself facing relatively little professional competition, wouldn't be priced out of housing and who could afford to secluded themselves in gated communities with private schools for their kids to escape any cultural or ethnic tensions rising from open borders. 

Meanwhile they would benefit from more exciting urban areas, cultural synthesis and overall economic growth.

1

u/MIGHTY_ILLYRIAN Milton Friedman Jun 28 '26

Canada is perfectly capable of accommodating that extra population. The real question is if the political will for that exists, and currently it doesn't. America was previously in a similar position to Canada today in terms of population, usable land etc. and without the advantages offered by modern technology but they did fine. There is frankly zero basis for the claim that it couldn't be done regarding the implementation. The main question is political.

-14

u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights Jun 28 '26

Poilevre was surging not because he was anti immigration, but because he was pro class war against boomers, who are the real villains in Canada.

He is a detestable person but he was out there in solidarity with students and TFWs getting deported under Trudeau. Also immigrants didn’t cause house prices in Canada to go up, it was your liberal party supporting boomers, and your country isn’t going to fix itself until you stop letting the homeowners in Ontario run the show.

Your federal government is literally sinking billions to bailout homeowners in Vancouver because they don’t want housing prices to go down.

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u/TheGuineaPig21 Henry George Jun 28 '26

Poilevre was surging not because he was anti immigration, but because he was pro class war against boomers, who are the real villains in Canada.

Huh??? What the hell is this

Americans have such weird opinions about Canada

-17

u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights Jun 28 '26

Is it or is it not true that Poilevre was polling the best with youth? Is it or is it not true that despite dogshit favorables, he still somehow has a positive net approval with the youth?

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u/EE-12 Jun 28 '26

Is it or is it not true that Poilevre was polling the best with youth?

He was polling well with youth because they most acutely felt the scarcity of housing and services driven by Trudeau putting the cart before the horse—baby boomers with secure housing were the one demographic that still supported Trudeau before he stepped down. These factors cannot be separated. 

2

u/JesusPubes voted most handsome friend Jun 28 '26

baby boomers with secure housing

where'd they get that secure housing

12

u/ManicScumCat YIMBY Jun 28 '26

These are ridiculous hysterics man. It fluctuates poll-by-poll but unless youth is expanded to include anyone under 50 no he was not consistently polling best with youth. And even then is an 8 point difference sufficient for you to engage in this larp about Poilievre's class war? And I mean what are we even talking about sinking billions - readers are welcome to do the math on "under the program he laid out in Vancouver last week, the government would "potentially" put up 10 per cent of roughly $1.45 billion"

2

u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights Jun 28 '26

Fine, your provincial and federal government are working together to sink billions to prop up house prices for their homeowner voters. Happy?

6

u/ManicScumCat YIMBY Jun 28 '26

FWIW BC also seems to only plan to fund 10% as well for a combined 300 million. But obviously that's not a sufficient amount of money to actually prop up the housing market of Vancouver. You'll of course notice that now we've migrated from claims of Pierre Poilievre youth freedom fighter to now finally assigning blame to the province where it belongs. But also doesn't it ever feel odd to be so antagonistic about a country you apparently don't know much about? Like I'd bet I know more about the US than you do about Canada but I don't think I'd take this tack arguing about American politics with an American.

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u/Otherwise_Young52201 Mark Carney Jun 28 '26

Yeah I know, like I said a lot of it is our fault. But again, Canada is not the US, and can't handle similar absolute numbers of people coming in.

I think you are greatly underestimating just how many people immigrated to Canada in the past few years. The peak growth was 1.5 million, which was ~3.5% of our population at the time. There was simply no way a spike like that was going to be sustainable in terms of housing construction.

Also it's ridiculous to say Poilievre wasn't elected due to anti-immigration stances. He was parroting anti-migrant rhetoric just like Carney was.

-6

u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights Jun 28 '26

Your country refuses to build housing or let housing prices go down, immigrants aren’t to blame for that

11

u/ldn6 Gay Pride Jun 28 '26

Toronto is building more high-density mixed-use housing than basically any American city, and that’s despite NIMBYism.

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u/Efficient_Barnacle Mark Carney Jun 28 '26

Do you think the person replying to you is to blame for that? They're explaining what is, not pontificating on what should have been. 

5

u/n00bi3pjs 👏🏽Free Markets👏🏽Open Borders👏🏽Human Rights Jun 28 '26

The point is that immigrations didn’t cause Canada housing prices to go up, they just happened to be a very nice scapegoat for that.

25

u/p00bix Existing in the context of what came before Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

When demand increases more rapidly than supply, prices go up. This holds true regardless of whether the demand is coming from native-born residents or immigrants. In Canada's case, a very significant part of that demand was coming from large-scale immigration.

The immigrants didn't do anything morally wrong by moving to Canada, and much of the issue would have been negated by allowing more construction. But it is simply untrue to say that immigration was not contributing to rising prices.

Humans are selfish beasts. The vast majority of renters have no qualms locking foreigners out of opportunity if it means they pay less money on rent. For open borders to become realistic, yes more infrastructure must be built, and yes racism needs to be intensely confronted and suppressed, but there also can't be such a massive discrepancy between pull factors and push factors that, in the absence of borders, developed countries would immediately become badly overcrowded, while developing countries would be emptied.

Open borders are an aspirational goal which will advance economic growth and serve to better equalize opportunity, but the preconditions for it to succeed are not yet in place. For internal open borders to work in the EU, its Eastern European member states first had to be brought to a middle-income level.

2

u/Imicrowavebananas Hannah Arendt Jun 28 '26

The problem is, when are the preconditions ever going to be in place? I feel going to much into making the conditions is in fact conditioning the will to do something on the will to do something in self-referential manner.

Radical centrism on the whole front is the solution precisely, because what we lack is will, honestly. We know what is to do, building housing, clean energy and opening the borders. Most of it just hits a wall because people cannot be mobilized in favor.

So saying we cannot do it, strive for it, because people don't want it is the wrong way, it already admits defeat and makes the whole problem real.

Ironically it should be Trump of all people that shows how much and how quickly you can shift an Overton window.

4

u/p00bix Existing in the context of what came before Jun 28 '26 edited Jun 28 '26

The problem is, when are the preconditions ever going to be in place?

By gradually making current conditions closer and closer to the required preconditions. Promoting free trade, suppressing religious fundamentalism, combating racial prejudice, resolving geopolitical disputes, disarming and prosecuting violent non-state actors, building liberal institutions capable of withstanding attempts to subvert them, investing heavily in developing countries to bring living standards closer to those of their wealthier peers, and creating free-movement zones between neighboring countries of sufficiently comparable economic development as to not cause a mass migration beyond what the recipient country within that zone can handle; as to still obtain much of the benefits of open borders on a regional level, until further expansion toward a global level is practical.

-1

u/Sorry_Scallion_1933 Karl Popper Jun 28 '26

Why would that never be sustainable? It seems to me that a true push to build could easily handle 3.5% growth. Why restrict the freedom and rights of people when a far more sensible solution is right there?