[extropy-chat] Economic consensus on immigration

[spike]

> bounces at lists.extropy.org] On Behalf Of Anders Sandberg

> Subject: Re: [extropy-chat] Economic consensus on immigration
> 
> 
> spike wrote:
> > One aspect of libertarianism that I always choked on was the notion of
> > open
> > borders.  To this day I still can't quite see how such a policy could
> ever
> > work.
> 
> I must admit I have the opposite problem. Why wouldn't it?

I could imagine Sweden would be a very different place today with no
restrictions of any kind on immigration.  If any country existed that had no
border restrictions, I could imagine the entire world using it as a prison,
a dumping ground for welfare cases, a place of exile for the very poor or
very sick, anyone the world's governments wanted gone would get a one-way
ticket there.  Come to think of it, the US and Australia were both used for
that purpose before border restrictions were put in place.

> Of course, I tend to annoy my fellow Swedes by suggesting that it would be
> a good thing to have a few hundred thousand Russians colonize our northern
> inland and make it productive...

I imagine Russians are looking pretty desirable, in light of some
alternatives.

> Borders are so arbitrary. If they are a good thing, wouldn't it make sense
> to add a few within current nations? If that is bad, why not remove a few
> between nations? And if that is bad too, how come all nations have the
> perfect size?...

I advocate removing the border between the US, Canada, Australia and
Britain.  Those four guys are similar enough their citizens should be
considered interchangeable.  I could see that club expanding to include
several other European nations as well.  

spike