I was just listening to a panel discussion about the book In Defense of Openness featuring the authors, Bas van der Vossen and Jason Brennan. I notice that the book relies heavily on Michael Huemer’s thought-experiment about “Starving Marvin,” which came out in a 2010 journal article.
In the panel discussion, Anna Stilz has some very smart criticisms. Her basic idea is that we should take seriously the ways that initial distribution and bargaining power affects outcomes, and we should condition open trade and migration with strong protections for workers. My quick reply is a) wealth creation is mostly not contingent on initial ownership (consider all the rags-to-riches stories) and b) a free labor market (as opposed to the labor market we have today) is very good especially for the least-well-off workers, especially as productivity increases.
Kit Wellman argues that unrestricted immigration might disrupt the institutions that allowed for prosperity in the first place.
Brennan replies that the current nation-state system that closes migration thereby commits mass oppression and that people don’t actually own their institutions. Van der Vossen argues that it’s just not the case that immigrants destroy local institutions.
Tags: immigration