I'm reminded of this famous piece by A.J.P. Taylor:
'Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police.'
It's simply a replacement of informal barriers with formal ones, plus compensation of the lowering of travel and communication costs due to technology: someone who traveled abroad in the XIXth century was either well-off so he would pass any currently existing barriers easily, or really really needed it so he would do it, too. With international air ticket worth less than a good meal, some other barrier had to be constructed or all modern nations would be quickly razed by influx of billions destitute immigrants.
> or really really needed it so he would [pass barriers easily], too
A lot of European Jews in the 1930s were trying and failing to emigrate, in a system pretty much like today's (plus the unusual bonus that their home state wanted them to leave). https://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007455
Perhaps, but there are other options -- international bus tickets are pretty cheap. So is the ferry between, for example, Morocco and Spain. Plenty of people could afford this, or have friends/relatives in wealthy countries who could pay for them.
It is actually easier to visit some countries by air today. Visa on arrival, visa-free transit or stay—these options can be available only at airports.
Passport control as immigration regulation/deterrent definitely rings true to me, and some countries see less need for it with richer travelers.
Timisoara - Luton is a ticket I've bought many times and never for less than £20 (usual price is more like £50). Most of the times, those are clickbaity prices.
These fares do require decent flexibility -- for tourist destinations, you won't be leaving on a Friday and returning on Sunday. The £4.49 flight between London and Romania is on a Wednesday, on a Friday it's £60-70.
Ryanair use the low fares for marketing, pretty successfully. They probably expect many people to add luggage (£10-40, depending on route), or buy food on the plane (£10+) or be disorganized and end up paying more.
In Western/Northern Europe they use out-of-the-way airports -- London Stansted is 47 minutes by the fastest train from London, or over an hour by car. They have a reputation for reducing the fees they pay the airport by threatening to move to alternative airports, unless they're given a very good deal. People walk to the plane, they don't use jet bridges. The whole plane is economy class, and the seats plasticy-fake-leather, which must speed up cleaning. At airports, they'll usually use the worst (farthest) gates. All the planes are the same, so maintenance is simplified and pilots easily moved around.
As to why the US doesn't have them -- I don't know. Norwegian is a budget airline, and has fares like New York to Paris for $175 one way (Tuesday, no luggage, no food!).
The European competition authorities are quite strong. This is one part of popular opposition to Europe -- many regulations for standardization or unlocking restricted markets gore national heros in protected markets (there are plenty of other reasons for the opposition -- let's not start a flame war in this thread).
In the US this standardization process happened over a century ago thanks to the railroads. Starting in the 1980s competition law was successively weakened. In addition the cartels were able to buy legislation they needed. Hence there is little competition in airfare or internet service compared to Europe. Large chains control the downtowns of most cities and suburbs.
Explanation is extreme variability of rates. A 1000 mile return ticket in Europe can be $20 and can be $500, with average about the same as in the U.S. at around $200, i.e. 10 cents a mile. It mostly happens because most flights are between countries with extremely different living standards, and some passengers are business travellers from rich countries to poor ones, others are seasonal laborers going the other way around. There are no U.S. states with per capita GDP difference as big as U.K. vs Romania, for example.
Low-cost carrier airfares within Europe can be quite cheap. Obviously most international flights from, say, the US are going to be in at least the hundreds of dollars.
That said, I think it's worth pointing out that in 1914, the means to travel didn't exist as it does today. We've given up some freedom but made gains on capability.
But the artificial barriers we've put up are much more restrictive than the old barriers. Perhaps we should make an immigration tax, and anyone can enter if they are willing to pay $10,000. Or some arbitrarily high, but feasible, amount.
These are called investors' visas, and already exist, though the prices are much steeper: $1 million investment in a new business for an American EB-5; 2 million pounds for the British equivalent. Payment doesn't go directly to the government; instead, it's supposed to be invested in a new business that creates at least ten jobs. But there are middlemen who offer the service of actually setting up and managing the business: http://fortune.com/2014/07/24/immigration-eb-5-visa-for-sale...
I'm appalled at how many self-described liberals I know who consider themselves to be guardians of civil liberties not bat an eye to these restrictions. The matter of fact is that all the restrictions we put in place with respect to the free movement of peoples -- and the accompanying restrictions around employment, leisure, etc. -- are single-handedly the single biggest breach of human rights in the world. It is absolutely inexcusable that any person should "defend" any policy short of complete and total freedom of movement. I think this is the one thing that I believe in most strongly in all of my life -- I am confident that in the future -- perhaps many, many centuries from now -- we will look at these things with the same eyes with which we look at slavery in the past.
I support freedom of movement, but I also understand people's worries about unmanageable burdens placed on support systems for a nation's people. Of course, if there were no support systems this would be a moot point, and is one of the few counterarguments to, say, increased public healthcare or pensions, that made sense.
HN has a lot of proponents of universal basic income. Say a small country, maybe Iceland with only a few hundred thousand people, introduces a basic income of $1000 per month. For many people around the world that is an incredibly huge sum. How do you handle the millions that are likely to arrive to enjoy those benefits? Do you:
* Tell them they can come and live there but not claim it, effectively making them second class citizens?
* Bankrupt your government providing this benefit to people who are not initially contributing lots of taxes?
* Restrict entry to people who are probably going to be a net gain for your government's coffers?
Not to mention that when you see a large, _sudden_ influx of people with substantially different language and culture it can be a severe shock to the original inhabitants. I am ardently in favour of helping refugees but I can understand the challenges that occur when newcomers with different cultural norms become a significant part of a place's population. (Aside - it's kind of ridiculous that the US is squabbling about taking maybe ten thousand refugees from a place that they destabilized while Germany takes over a million)
I think you make excellent points. I think where we'd probably disagree is in how quickly (or easily) we'd reach some sort of equillibrium state.
You are absolutely right that countries which enjoy greater public benefits would likely enjoy a greater influx of people. But I disagree that that's necessarily a bad thing. I'm a firm believer that there is no such thing as a free lunch. And if residents of Iceland make it so appealing to just live there without contributing to society, then I don't see how it is a (globally-speaking) bad thing to have migration make it so that enough people decide to move there to make it less feasible.
Let's not forget: The people supposedly moving into those economies would likely be fleeing oppressive regimes with very little economic opportunities. And, with free movement, it would become much harder to give away freebies, AS it would become much harder to become an oppressive government. Stories like Venezuela would be more hard to come by if people could simply leave the country more easily.
Just take familiar HN-turf: Software development. What do you think would happen if all Indian developers (many of whom are actually really, really talented), could just as easily apply for jobs in the US? Undoubtedly worse for US-based developers, right? And maybe there is some sense that such a massive disrpution should be avoided, at least "suddenly" as you say.
But now you multiply this across every industry, with all of their individual justifications, and what you end up with is with an ossified global society. We end up trying each to protect our pie (from crop subsidies on out), all perfectly justifiable. But, as a global community, we make it worse for all of us.
Just this week Elon tried to inspire us about the idea of an interplanetary species. It just seems inconsistent to me for us to dream about being a people who can travel freely to the stars, but that we need to ask permissions of random strangers to visit family members, to employ our talent productively far from where we were born, etc.
I think you raise really valid points. But in my eyes, those are issues to be dealt with in the pursuit of this ideal, not justifications on why it should not be pursued/is not feasible.
Thanks for raising some really valid counterpoints to my argument, while framing this as a contest of ideas and not people. I really appreciate it. I imagine others on HN do too.
Regarding "I don't see how it is a (globally-speaking) bad thing to have migration make it so that enough people decide to move there to make it less feasible." - to be honest I tend to agree in principle, but I worry that the practical effect would be far more negative. Making the decision to move less feasible seems to mean making the destination country less desirable, which sucks and is a bummer for those who live there. Then again, there's nothing fair about me being paid ten times as much as someone in India to work with databases. I just happen to like the stuff I can buy by making 10x as much cash.
I want to live in a liberal democracy with a high standard of living and low carbon emissions (so apartments close to amenities with lots of bike lanes and very few automobiles) with a steady or slowly decreasing population, because there are too many people in the world for it to support. If such a place existed (Denmark comes to mind, or perhaps Japan), it would probably be a desirable target for migrants from all over the world, which would strain the systems that could make such a place possible. How do you build schools to house families with 4+ children when your budget was built on the idea that you would need to build no more, or slowly downsize them with time? How do you allocate land?
>I want to live in a liberal democracy with a high standard of living and low carbon emissions (so apartments close to amenities with lots of bike lanes and very few automobiles) with a steady or slowly decreasing population, because there are too many people in the world for it to support. If such a place existed (Denmark comes to mind, or perhaps Japan), it would probably be a desirable target for migrants from all over the world, which would strain the systems that could make such a place possible.
Yes, but I think that's what happens at t=0. And I think that your preferences are probably widely shared by a large contingent of the world population. As it stands, those who enjoy it are either those who had the good fortune to be born in those societies, or those who manage to migrate there through some way or another. Yes, perhaps immigration initially makes it less feasible for those societies to continue operating like that, but it makes it MUCH more difficult to governments who don't support those policies from existing. That's the factor that I put a lot of faith in. The important factor in my eyes is not just the influx of immigrants, but the exodus which will force other countries and governments too look much more like the Danish one (in your example) if they are to survive.
Google and Facebook fight over employees, and the ultimate winners are engineers in place to be hired by those companies. Elsewhere in our economy and the world, we seem to understand that in competitive environments, "customers" win.
Within the US we understand that too! Just take all the states who try to entice businesses through tax policy, old people who move to warmer climates, etc. You don't hear nearly as much complaining about state and local politics (which accounts for a much larger swath of gov't spending than national politics) here in the U.S. And I think some of the issues you mention ARE present. There are municipalities and states that offer friendlier policies in one shape or another, and you do see athletes moving to Florida because of the lack of income tax, for instance. But I think those issues are far, far outweighed by what the country gains by having these "open borders" between the states.
I suspect we don't have more issues because if you don't like something about where you live, you move. This is one of the most distinct things about the U.S. with my experience overseas (I'm from Brazil originally).
For better or worse, accessing a modern economy there means living in one of two cities. Here? I can make a rich matrix of climate, culture, job environment, etc., and find a few candidate cities in which to live in. That's amazing. And I think that's how you get some pretty unique experiences -- Silicon Valley to NYC -- which are all world-class.
With respect to your housing point, I think you are right. But again, I see greater migration as a way to also solve those problems. The influx makes land and housing more valuable in Denmark, which in turns makes more development there more valuable and more feasible. And, conversely, makes places people are leaving less valuable and land there cheaper.
I see it as a way to equate opportunity over the world. And, like in the U.S., no doubt that the steady state will yield places that are very different from one another in terms of culture, or climate, or how it is run by their local government. But the threat of exit will be a great check on their ability to diverge from the will of and preferences of the people.
Fourth option would be to extend the benefit only to people who have a place to sleep at night, ie. house owners, renters, staying in a hotel etc. That places a natural limit on the number of people who can stay (the size of the housing stock), and doesn't present any problems for existing citizens or tourists.
You could combine this by aggressively deporting people found sleeping rough (which given the extreme cold in Iceland would also be helping them).
I think that's a clever solution short term, but long term the incentives would align to give rise to slums and ghettos.
If there are millions willing to enter the country and be granted a free income, then anyone with some capital has a guaranteed payday in hastily putting up the cheapest livable accommodations and renting it to these people.
You control that with housing / development controls, just the same as now. I can't fill my house with bunk beds and rent it to 10 people today. Nor can I build anything I want on land (even if I own it) without the permission of the council or government.
You're missing the fourth option, which is to continue providing benefits to everyone (including new immigrants), and raise revenue enough to cover the added expense. Spending more money didn't automatically equal bankruptcy, governments have essentially unlimited capacity to raise taxes and issue bonds.
Taken to the absurd extreme, you end up with a country where the amount going to social assistance equals the amount of spending within the country, and a tax rate of 100%. So, uh, communism.
If helping people is what we care about, perhaps we should consider whether unrestricted immigration or basic income/other welfare state policies will help more. From what I can tell, neither BI nor traditional welfare states can come even remotely close to the benefits of open borders. It kind of makes one wonder whether helping people is the real goal of BI proponents.
As for the "sudden influx," I think it's important to recognize what the real problem is. In Europe, Muslim immigrants seem to rape and commit other crimes a lot more than natives.
I say "seem to" because stats on this are notoriously hard to come by. For example, Sweden censors that data in their crime statistics. Similarly, various police agencies seem to ignore crimes in order to avoid seeming racist.
I suspect if Europe imported more peaceful immigrants, or even had a credible plan to handle this issue, the sudden influx would be less of a problem.
NYC and London have faced a sudden influx of foreigners over the past 15 years but no one really cares. Why worry about some Indian or Russian working at a bank, doing yoga after work and then going home?
'As for the "sudden influx," I think it's important to recognize what the real problem is. In Europe, Muslim immigrants seem to rape and commit other crimes a lot more than natives.'
A claim like that needs a lot more hard data than is available, both to support or refute. I'm not saying you're wrong or right, but regardless, noting the differences between the values of immigrant and native populations is worthwhile. I moved to Europe because I like the lifestyle here, so I'd be pretty upset if a bunch of Americans moved here and demanded all environmental protections be removed, mandatory paid holidays abolished, and turned every city into a wasteland of parking lots.
Regarding NYC and London, at least London certainly seems to have noticed the influx, in this case due to the large wealth (rather than poverty) of the newcomers:
> I suspect if Europe imported more peaceful immigrants, or even had a credible plan to handle this issue, the sudden influx would be less of a problem.
Well, that's the problem, isn't it? If the immigrants are all "some Indian or Russian working at a bank, doing yoga after work and then going home" then we're fine, but unrestricted immigration would mean accepting the violent criminals, or racists, or foreign agents under orders to move to strategic voting districts etc.
> From what I can tell, neither BI nor traditional welfare states can come even remotely close to the benefits of open borders.
Open borders make competition much more aggressive. A complete lack of competition is inefficient, but competition within borders is generally adequate for that, especially when the border is the size of the US or the EU.
Sufficiently aggressive competition produces local maxima. It means no one has any margins to invest in the future. It erodes the tax base because taxes have to come only out of discretionary income or people will starve, but with enough competition employers can pay subsistence wages. And consumers making subsistence wages are price sensitive which drives down the margins of businesses. This is all very "efficient" -- it's the thing competition is "good at" -- except that it means there is no money for people to go to college or do any R&D that won't pay out in the current fiscal year or anything like that.
Borders artificially reduce competition somewhat. That isn't always bad.
A basic income helps with this. It gives people unconditional money that they can use to escape the local maxima created by aggressively competitive markets. Then those people can go to college and invent medicines and technologies that benefit people on the other side of the border.
That works better than everyone being "equal" because everyone is making subsistence wages.
You seem to be suggesting that it's perfectly fine to have tremendous inequality (compare Dharavi to Baltimore) as long as it enables long term business investments.
Is there any reason why that argument doesn't apply to inequality within a country as well?
In particular, what about inequality caused by within country trade barriers?
> You seem to be suggesting that it's perfectly fine to have tremendous inequality (compare Dharavi to Baltimore) as long as it enables long term business investments.
Having some amount of inequality is the only way it's possible to have long term business investments -- or any investments at all. Because we need doctors, engineers and businessmen but also miners, truck drivers and janitors. These professions will never have equal status, and it will always take more resources to train an engineer than a janitor, but it isn't "fair" that one person gets to be the engineer while another has to be the janitor. Yet that unfairness is inherently necessary if we want to have engineers.
> In particular, what about inequality caused by within country trade barriers?
The goal is to have a moderate amount of competition. Too much and everyone is making subsistence wages and no one can afford to go to college (and your government has no tax revenue to subsidize it). Too little and the inequality becomes unnecessarily excessive (which is, among other things, inefficient).
Notice that there are two different kinds of competition here. Between employees we have quite enough already, because employees largely aren't organized. But competition between business entities is currently on the low side. Compare e.g. the market share of Facebook in the market for social media with the market share of an individual Facebook employee in the market for software developers.
So the questions have different answers. The sweet spot for employees seems to be no restrictions within the US/EU but restrictions between countries. For business entities even the trade barriers between countries seem to restrict competition too much. (Or at least, a lack of trade barriers doesn't inherently lead to ruinous competition there, because there are other factors inhibiting competition between businesses.)
But the EU has a population about twice that of the US. So why shouldn't we impose trade barriers within the EU to bring this awful competition down to American levels? Similarly, India should perhaps split herself into US-sized chunks, and Biharis shouldn't be allowed to migrate to Bombay? (Shiv Sena would love this.)
Similarly, as the US grows, shouldn't we start imposing internal trade barriers to keep our size down to the optimum?
This idea that there is some optimal size that just magically happens to correspond to national boundaries is belied by the fact that countries have hugely different sizes.
But India does have a problem with excessive competition keeping wages low. The rest of the EU might actually be better off with fewer countries in it (e.g. without Greece). Measures to keep the US population stable rather than growing could be beneficial.
And there are obviously political considerations. Nobody is going to let you carve up national borders over this, so we're stuck with the existing borders even if that isn't 100% perfectly optimal. Estimating the optimal size is going to be at the "orders of magnitude" level anyway.
For anyone unaware: note that the Daily Mail is the most openly xenophobic newspaper in Britain, and RT (Russia Today) is a state-funded propaganda TV network.
Russia has a clear interest in destabilizing the European Union. The Daily Mail's motive is less clear.
What is the relevance to this discussion? Are you actually asserting that the facts raised there are false, or are you simply trying to get people to dismiss true statements?
Both sources have such low credibility that they should be ignored. That doesn't mean they're wrong, but I don't think they lend any weight to your argument.
There's a good chance that anything on RT is either false or presented in a very misleading way - they are a propaganda outfit for the Kremlin after all.
There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies.
Humans are individuals, individuals form into groups, and those groups when large and cohesive enough form into societies, civilizations, and now nation states. If those groups are to exist as a "group" they require these shared norms, values, culture to remain a viable group. If part of that culture is to exclude outsiders on the area of land on this earth that they control, then who is one individual or many individuals to say that this is invalid?
This presents a lot of opportunity for places like the United States where immigration and freedom of movement is more accepted - so you get more immigration and more growth. But that is something citizens of the US have decided, not external actors.
> There's no innate human right to freedom of movement within other societies.
Sure there is, at least if you acknowledge the notion of human rights in the first place. (There's no "innate human right" to not be tortured.)
Without governments, there is no impedance to freedom of movement. This isn't merely theoretical: as governments have become stronger and their reach extended across the globe, the ability to move freely has correspondingly decreased.
I don't think "human right" means what you think it does. Before governments, anybody could straight up murder anyone else, as long as they were ruthless enough to also murder anyone who might want to avenge the deceased. The world was a viscious place ruled by the strong, with no guarantees of anything. "Human rights" are something that didn't exist in the state of nature but were invented afterwards.
> I don't think "human right" means what you think it does.
This is a rude way of approaching a discussion. Don't make my assumptions about my knowledge.
A much better way of starting a discussion would be to state what you believe the definition of a human right is. There are in fact many different philosophical views on what human rights are, with many philosophers in fact arguing that their origin is in natural rights. [0]
> "Human rights" are something that didn't exist in the state of nature but were invented afterwards.
That's pretty much what is implied by my first line:
> Sure there is, at least if you acknowledge the notion of human rights in the first place. (There's no "innate human right" to not be tortured.)
I'm concerned about opening up the borders before we understand why some countries are corrupt and others aren't. In a place like the US, trying to bribe a police officer is unexpected, and everyone who gets involved in the situation ends up working to punish those involved in the bribery. In a place like Venezuela, bribing a police officer is expected, and everyone who gets involved in the situation ends up getting paid or threatened into supporting the status quo.
Corruption isn't the only cultural artifact that's under threat, but if we understand what's going on well enough, I'd be much more confident that opening the borders won't cause existential threat to what makes the host nations great.
That's a really interesting point. As an immigrant myself, I'd say that one of the objections to immigration (generally-speaking) which I find has the most sway is something along the lines that you have mentioned.
I genuinely believe that some of the "negative" things countries experience are directly related to certain cultural norms/values that many of their citizens may share, and that by moving to a different country, some of those values could also be embedded in the receiving country and similarly "pollute" it.
But I think that the answer to that is MORE immigration, not less. By restricting immigration, we're introducing small pebbles into the gears which allow people to find the best opportunities for themselves and their families. I think is it precisely those issues which allow public policies and cultural norms to distort so much. With MORE immigration, I think competition would very quickly weed out norms and practices which are inconsistent with a healthy and productive society. I think a story like Chavez's and Maduro's would be a lot more difficult to come by in a society where their citizens could not be forced to live under their regime.
More immigration will certainly help the countries like Venezuela, whose citizens can simply escape to better places.
But at the same time, it will be bad for the host countries whose social safety nets will be strained and whose citizens will now have to put up with masses with vastly different values. And the interaction will not always be pleasant (eg. Cologne incident in Germany earlier this year).
So my question to you is - why do you think its a better solution to improve condition of some societies at the expense of some other societies?
Immigration is a huge issue. It implies tremendous demographic and resource management, logistic, cultural chocks, including educational challenges.
Of course nations want to control borders. If you don't, you can't deal with the population flow and all of the above. And you need to deal with the above. Just hoping everything will be ok if you don't think about it is like hoping schools will be ok if we don't think about it.
And yet, for a long time in the past century, the U.S. dealt with a massive influx of immigration from all around the world, with all of the complications around culture, resource, and education that you mention. But it seems to me that it is one of the chief sources of the country's strength, no?
Yes, and you still had to present yourself at the border, with a passport, and be registered. Controlling immigration doesn't mean preventing people to get in, it means knowing who is coming in, and how many people, at which rate, so you can take decisions.
Besides, while it is a country strength, it did and still do have a cost. Whether this cost is worth the benefit is something you can only answer if you have metrics to do so, and illegal immigration make it hard to have those metrics, or change your policy to adapt to your new situation.
People always see immigrations as being a moral issue first, but it really is not. It has strong moral implications by nature, but it's first a management issue. Just like eduction, science, etc.
For a long time in the past century, the US didn't have any safety net. So whosoever came here essentially had to bootstrap themselves.
I believe you can have only one of the two - open borders, or social safety net. Having completely open borders with generous social safety net is mathematically impossible, unless you want to discriminate against the newcomers by denying them the benefits (which is, again, a bad thing according to many people).
> It is absolutely inexcusable that any person should "defend" any policy short of complete and total freedom of movement.
You've simply asserted this, without any explanation. Want to try giving an argument in favor instead?
In any case, it's not at all obvious to me. Let's say that I own a private piece of land somewhere. Shouldn't I be allowed to say how has the right to traverse it, camp on it, or build their homes on it? If I were forced to let anyone make use of it, I would say my rights were violated. How is immigration any different? We the citizens of country Alphastan collectively own our land and govern what goes on there. Why should we be _forced_ to let anybody tramp through it? How is that liberty, for us?
This is a very idealistic goal, but we still have no solution to issues like how the state would balance the books if the population is in constant flux. If the number of contributors suddenly decreases or the number of consumers of social services shoots up, then the state will simply go bankrupt.
If you allow total freedom of movement, you're basically creating a system similar to a business where you have zero predictability and control over your income and your costs.
In the US you are completely free to move and work in any state you want to (and a geography in the same order of magnitude of all of Europe), and it doesn't seem to cause the mayhem you suggest -- and mind you, most gov't spending takes place at the state and local level.
But you always pay taxes at the federal level, which distributes some of that income to states. Also the individual states have the mechanism to recover taxes you owe them from previous years and to pursue you for whatever violations you have committed. Additionally, state residence does exist as a concept and it is tracked in the form of state ids. It's true there are no borders but you are required to register where you live, you pay more tuition to state unis if you're not a resident of the state, etc. Just because there are no borders doesn't mean there's no control.
You can't really compare the US state system to different countries that are openly hostile or may not even talk to each other (e.g. US and Russia, or US and North Korea) and expect to have the legal cooperation that could enable freedom of movement.
>You can't really compare the US state system to different countries that are openly hostile or may not even talk to each other (e.g. US and Russia, or US and North Korea) and expect to have the legal cooperation that could enable freedom of movement.
That reveals a fundamental difference in how we see the world. The hostility which you mention is real, but I see it as a byproduct of the kinds of walls and separation we artificially place between ourselves. Let's not forget that same animosity existed between the U.S. and China, and more commercial relations reduced those tensions.
I fundamentally believe that the PEOPLE in the U.S., Russia, and yes, even the North Koreans, are fundamentally good. These artificial barriers we palce between one another create this us v. them environment, and that leads to this hostility.
How many times don't we hear complaints about "our jobs going oversaas," for instance? Mind you, many of the people voicing those complaints are also people who loudly advocate for increased job opportunities here at home. The lack of empathy for people in other nations is real. But it is created by these restrictions.
As the article states, there were no artificial barriers before 20th century. But we still had plenty of horrible wars. So I disagree with your premise that removing barriers will lead to more harmonious relations.
In fact, the barriers seems completely irrelevant to the relations between different societies. We have had atrocities without them or with them.
The UK has obviously seen a lot of debate about immigration recently, around the Brexit referendum. I've often felt like non-EU immigration was the elephant in the room during all this.
'Leave' voters have often been portrayed as racist bigots by liberal 'Remain' voters. (I'm one of the latter, and I've been guilty of this myself at times).
But if we extend the same logic to the whole world, isn't the EU basically a racist organisation? Why should a French, German or Romanian arbitrarily have special rights to enter my country, while an Indian, Mexican or Nigerian is subjected to ever harsher visa rules?
I don't know the answer, but I don't think it's possible to make the liberal case for EU freedom of movement without being something of a hypocrite. And I say this as a (confused) Remain voter.
EDIT: Before anyone says, I know there is more to the EU debate than just immigration, and that not all Remainers are liberal/lefty, just as Leavers are not all right wing. But there's no denying that immigration was the main issue on many (most?) voters minds.
>> Why should a French, German or Romanian arbitrarily have special rights to enter my country, while an Indian, Mexican or Nigerian is subjected to ever harsher visa rules?
Without saying that this is right, the general logic is that the countries in the EU have met certain criteria (economic, legal, etc.) in order to join the club. The citizens of these countries have mostly similar standards of living, education, judicial systems, etc. Hence, allowing free movement is not a big deal because it is assumed the citizens of one country won't move en masse to another, and if a significant number of them do, they won't be a financial burden on the host country. There are also a bunch of reciprocal and cost-sharing agreements (e.g. medical services may be charged to the country of origin, etc.)
This whole framework and inter-country cooperation doesn't exist with respect to countries outside of the EU, and that's why these countries aren't willing to take a chance with universal freedom of movement. (Just a recent example comes to mind where a bunch of non-EU migrants were deported from Greece for various violations and their country of origin refused to accept them. In the EU any member state can deport/remove citizens of another member for certain violations and the country of origin is legally required to accept them.)
Please stop using the word 'racist' where it does not apply.
The freedom of movement within the EU is definitely not based on race, but on the citizenship of any of the Schengen Area countries. "Xenophobic" is a much better term here.
Furthermore, where does it say that the freedom of movement is due to some ideology which considers all nationalities to be equal, rather than just being a policy to improve the welfare and trade between EU members?
Suppose it was known that if you allowed it, millions of people with a different ideology than you would choose to become citizens of your country, and moreover that they would then enact policies you don't agree with. Typically this argument comes from the right because the currently-disallowed immigrants are low income and would favor leftist policies, but imagine the immigrants are from conservative countries and would vote to e.g. prohibit women from traveling without being accompanied by a male relative.
Is not wanting that really "xenophobic"? There is a difference between hating or fearing someone and just not wanting them to make your decisions for you.
You're right, I don't think EU freedom of movement is based on ideology. But it was definitely used as an ideological argument by both sides during the Brexit debate.
> The freedom of movement within the EU is definitely not based on race, but on the citizenship of any of the Schengen Area countries.
That's true, but can't it still be considered racist? It may not be direct, intentional racism, but the net result of UK policy is that white people can enter the UK much easier than black or brown people.
If I require that my employees be at least 6 feet tall, isn't that a sexist hiring policy?
> If I require that my employees be at least 6 feet tall, is that a sexist hiring policy?
Do people who are at least 6 feet tall make better employees?
If you require loan applicants to have income sufficient to make the loan payments, and that is true of more white applicants than black applicants, is that a racist policy?
It would be racist to assume a black person might not have insufficient income, just because he's black and someone arbitrarily made an income statistic based in race.
You could work that same data to group people by age, gender, political bias, shoe size, arm length, eye color, favourite sport, etc and discriminate against many, many things :-) but actually you should only look at the income and decide on that.
That's a great point. I was thinking of a job where height is not an advantage, but perhaps the better analogy is to a job where height is an advantage and so the policy is not sexist/racist.
We don't really understand why some countries are corrupt, and others aren't. It might be another byproduct of industrialization and wealth, like the low birth rate and later marriage age. But, scarily, it could be a cultural accident; people in the west aren't corrupt simply because they're surrounded by others who aren't corrupt and would punish corruption.
There's other magical cultural things too - economic productivity and innovation aren't well understood either.
Anyhow, the thrust of the argument is that there's some special cultural factor that causes all sorts of incredibly valuable things to happen in countries like the UK. You don't have to bribe the police officer when you get pulled over, you can generally trust that you get what you're buying in stores, people often try to make money by innovating rather than extracting, and talking about controversial subjects gets you a discussion rather than a beating. We don't know why we have this, and opening our borders puts it at risk.
Our global system is supposedly based on something like collective
self-determination, but it’s grafted onto a map drawn by colonial
violence and pseudo-scientific ideas about Gauls and Teutons. Fascism is a
particular combination of Romantic/Victorian ambitions and modern tools
that sparks to life as the two eras grind against each other. Frankenstein
with the arms of capitalist industry and the heart of a monarchist.
Patriotic young Hitler inhaling mustard gas in the trenches, like a panel
from the first issue of a comic book.
Modern liberal states have never truly reconciled their racial character
with their democratic pretensions. I’m not clear on how such a thing
could be possible; where would a truly pluralist state draw its borders
and why? Flipping through a history book it’s hard to argue that the
nation-state system doesn’t exist for the arbitrarily divided glory of
western Europeans. The official line is that we’re supposed to ignore
that part, or be sad. But some people don’t want to ignore it and they
aren’t sad. Instead they wonder why we have the nice borders that their
conquering “ancestors” drew but all these people on the wrong sides.
If taking Mexico’s land for white people was illegitimate, then why
haven’t we given it back? And if it was legitimate, then what’s wrong
with a wall to protect our side from a reversal? The liberal patriots,
they say, are lying to themselves; there is no nationalism that is not
ethno-nationalism.
> But if we extend the same logic to the whole world, isn't the EU basically a racist organisation? Why should a French, German or Romanian arbitrarily have special rights to enter my country, while an Indian, Mexican or Nigerian is subjected to ever harsher visa rules?
Because that right is reciprocated to British people in those countries!
But that brings us back to my original point. We end up discriminating against individuals based on which country they're from.
I'm fine with discriminating against individuals based on how "beneficial" they are as a person, provided the criteria are fair and objective.
I'm not so fine with discriminating against individuals based on how "beneficial" it was to make a deal with their country.
To give an extreme example, an illiterate, unemployed German with criminal convictions can enter and leave the UK freely, while a Nigerian brain surgeon is still going to have to jump through a lot of legal hoops to live here. How is that not unfair discrimination, or even racism?
>How is that not unfair discrimination, or even racism?
It is unfair, and it is discrimination. The benefits of having unrestricted borders with Germany are simply more valuable. Like, I'm okay with unfairly admitting an illiterate unemployed German felon if it means that we get a bunch of highly valuable movement, trade, and collaboration between our countries. The German felon is part of a valuable package of cross-border interactions, and if you're not part of the package deal, you have to convince us on your own merit.
Another tack: being a German citizen is Bayesian evidence that you're probably like the average German. How is it fair to the German to spend large quantities of time and money to prove something we already have good reason to believe is true?
> But if we extend the same logic to the whole world, isn't the EU basically a racist organisation? Why should a French, German or Romanian arbitrarily have special rights to enter my country, while an Indian, Mexican or Nigerian is subjected to ever harsher visa rules?
I've seen this mentioned by many people; all of which said they'd voted Remain, but argue in favour of Leave in every discussion. Interesting nonetheless.
Answering the question itself: A French a German or a Romanian have the right because their countries reached and agreement with the UK. The other countries have not. That agreement is called EU.
I can't see the hypocrisy in that. If the UK doesn't like that agreement anymore they're free to walk away. Oh, wait... :-)
I'll admit I was playing devil's advocate with my arguments.
What I was trying to point out is that making a moral defense for EU freedom of movement (as many remainers did) is basically impossible without being a hypocrite. There are, of course, other reasons to defend it.
I find it an uncomfortable fact that almost all modern immigration policies judge people by where they happen to have been born rather than their personal qualities. People have taken issue with me using the word racist (I still think it applies, even if we're not strictly talking about ethnicity), so what's the correct term? Nationality-ist?
> What I was trying to point out is that making a moral defense for EU freedom of movement (as many remainers did) is basically impossible without being a hypocrite. There are, of course, other reasons to defend it.
Your logic is flawed. EU FoM is not a barrier to increase FoM by adding more countries to the FoM treaties. It is a barrier if you want to do so unilaterally: i.e. if the new FoM country doesn't meet the required criteria to join the FoM space. It's a shame because that might mean that country has a lack of human rights respect or civil liberties, so we make it more difficult for its citizens to escape... But that's why we should be mindful about refugees and asylum seekers.
Man, it's funny how some people argue that the EU is racist because of FoM (talk about twisted arguments) and then they don't want to get any refugees from non-white/non-slavic/non-catholic countries that are escaping literal hell.
Going back to FoM, one of the Brexiteers mantras was "Turkey is going to join the EU and we will get flooded!"; which would be another step in extending FoM to more countries.
Funnily enough it was the UK the one pushing for a fast Turkey accession... and in any case it's vox populi that ain't gonna happen in decades due to Turkey not meeting the requirements by a long shot.
> I find it an uncomfortable fact that almost all modern immigration policies judge people by where they happen to have been born rather than their personal qualities.
Yes, it's a shame we have to come down to that. However it seems that's the fastest way to approve FoM between countries and, you know, at least "it's not personal". I'm not trying to defend it and I wish we had something better (like FoM for all), but other systems have shown to be less fair:
And if you're in the UK surely you can watch all those Aussie Border Control shows in Dave or one of those Freeview channels - an American dude flying to Oz with his GF for holidays was refused entry because he got caught with some pot 20 years before in the US. Also there was this Aussie dude that overstayed his UK tourist Visa by something like 14 years (no kidding!) and he was sent back to Australia effectively destroying his life (friends, partner, ...) - were any of those fair? I would argue "no", other people might say "yes" - I don't really know what's the right answer, but it's clear that's not easy to decide who gets in and who does not.
Individual qualities are also subjective and subjected to other influencing factors: I'm sure you have in mind a Visa points system.
What makes you think that that's the best system? Are we good at evaluating how "good" a person is? With that points system, would we still get unqualified EU labour to fill in jobs? If we don't, those factories might actually move to the country of origin of that cheap labour, throwing a sizeable % of British workers into the benefits system (and only a part of them would be able to get out - see Thatcher's years), putting a bigger strain into the welfare system. Wait, actually that might be the Tory plan after all, destroy the welfare system :)
> People have taken issue with me using the word racist (I still think it applies, even if we're not strictly talking about ethnicity), so what's the correct term? Nationality-ist?
IMHO "racist" perfectly conveys the message and it's only challenged by those who don't want to be tagged as "racist" while being so. You could get picky and use "xenophobic" which would be the 100% right word as far as I know, but I'm on your same side on this one: Arguing that racist is not the right word is an argument usually used by racists :) and pointless.
To an extent, technology (and the internet in particular) has made the world a smaller place and reduced the significance of borders. I heard a lot of arguments during the campaign around immigration and jobs but they didn't talk about the impact of technology.
I could write more but I'd just be repeating the blog post I wrote recently (https://unop.uk/automation-and-remote-jobs/). The video in there is worth a watch if you're interested in the early days of Silicon Valley.
Nationality doesn't necessarly equate with race. For instance I'm sure that it doesn't matter if you're black or white German when receiving benefits of EU. It does matter what nationality you are.
Passports and citizenship in many ways are the most unfair thing in the world as your place of birth influences what you can do in life.
For many of us the idea of having a bad passport is only theoretical in nature but it decides many things in life for others and sets stupid arbitrary ceilings that should not exist.
I often see stories of people quitting their jobs and travelling the world and how awesome it is. It's sth I look forward to doing but being the holder of a Kenyan passport, I highly doubt I'll actually manage to "travel around the world", given all the legal barriers setup against passport holders from developing countries.
A good number of countries require visa. Being granted a visa is often an uphill task, with demands made for your bank statements, proof of income to ascertain you have a job to come back to, proof of hotel bookings for where you are headed or proof you have somebody to host you, any other proof to show that you are indeed visiting to do what you are claiming is the purpose of the trip. It's an endless list of demands and they could still deny you the visa.
I find that Chris Rock has the best summary of it with his "I'm American" routine: "What, you think you’re better than somebody from France ’cause you came out of a pussy in Detroit?"
Nothing specifically American about it though. Many people in France think they're better than Syrian refugees because they're born from a pussy in Paris.
You can easily turn this around, since some people think the other citizens from EU should cater to their beliefs because they were born from a pussy in Kabul and Damascus.
The ancestors of that pussy in Paris built an advanced society with equal rights, education, respect, etc. That's why people born from a French pussy deserve that, while people from other societies do not.
Is it our fault that other people that have had the same hundreds of years to build advanced societies haven't done it? Do we have to literally live worse because of it?
> Is it our fault that other people that have had the same hundreds of years to build advanced societies haven't done it?
For tens of millions of people that were conquered by, or had democratically elected leaders overthrown by, or had their economies crippled by (US, UK, Russia)
I suspect it has a lot to do with the rise of relatively cheap global travel and strong disparity in the median wealth of different nations. 100+ years ago could you travel from a poor country to a wealthy country with relative ease and expect to raise your own standard of living? Either the journey was expensive and arduous, or the situation in places you could travel to was not likely to be a massive improvement on your own. There are very strong exceptions of course; Irish people leaving the famine come to mind, but it pretty much came to people dying to push them to make the trip.
Also, 100+ years ago an immigrant was less likely to be viewed as a burden, because there were fewer (if any) government supports for regular citizens. I'm pretty left politically, but I acknowledge that the more government spends on its people the less likely the government (and the voters) are to be inclined to let newcomers in who are not immediate contributors.
States in the US have different laws (consider income tax rates), and travel inside the US is super cheap, but we don't see people migrating like crazy to avoid taxes or get free stuff from the government.
I think "to avoid taxes or get free stuff from the government" was an essential condition on what you just quoted. And for what it's worth I think I agree -- I don't think I know anyone who has moved to a state mainly for tax reasons. (Though I do know people who have avoided moving to California, allegedly because of taxes.)
Though maybe the fact that people can move to take advantage of state giveaways, is a big constraint on the way they're currently designed? What conditions does Alaska put on its Permanent Fund payments?
People change states all the time, and generally for reasons you might think. It's not so much "I want to lower my tax burden" but "my paycheck will be higher and my housing costs lower - and the schools are better!", which of course is often related to tax policy.
I beg to differ with your last argument, France and USA have really different approach in how they support citizens, yet both are currently really opposed to let newcomers enter their borders.
I think one problem is like you said, the huge improvement in ones' situation when moving to a new country.
Why is there such a big difference ? Why money is concentrated in so little space and groups of people?
France and the US, while different, both offer far better supports to their people than most of the world enjoys. Social security, free public schooling (admittedly of dubious quality), physical security, etc.
Another issue, I suppose, is that if you've built yourself a population-stable enclave where the prevailing values match those you think are best, you will be understandably hesitant at permitting large influxes of people with different value systems.
For instance, say you've built a society that is ecologically sustainable and the birth rate is equal to the maintenance rate. Will you be pleased when the nation next door where people have far more children despite knowing the Earth is well over carrying capacity sends you its people during famine?
A hundred years ago it was much more expensive to travel, and governments less forgiving about cultural differences when enforcing local laws against immigrants. That doesn't mean it would be a sane policy today.
To put it another way, would you be okay with the entire Chinese army "immigrating" in preparation for an attack, as long as they all represented themselves as private citizens during the trip?
If not, then you agree with immigration restrictions in principle, "and we're just haggling over the price".
Nowadays, travel is much more efficient. Therefore, we have to artificially make it difficult, otherwise large migrations will occur.
Suppose you are on a ship carrying a thousand people. If all people want to go to the left side then there's a big chance the ship will sink. Passengers are free but there must be some limitations to what they can all decide on total.
This discussion is synonymous with whether countries should even have borders. If borders aren't policed, they may as well not even exist.
It would be great if all people were kind and caring, if there were no corruption, war, terrorism, religious fanaticism, crime or discrepancies in standards of living. But we've seen over and over that the road to hell is paved with good intentions. The problematic migrant situation in Europe is a good example of that.
The problematic migrant situation in Europe is a good example of that.
Is it? Are illegal immigrants more likely to cause problems that both natives and legal immigrants? From what I can tell, at least the attacks that make the news have all been perpetrated by people born and raised in Europe.
Which of the massacres were perpetrated by refugees or illegal immigrants?
The Nice attack was made by a legal immigrant, living in France for more than a decade. The Brussels ISIL cell members were almost all born in Belgium, France or Sweden. The Charlie Hebdo shooters were born in France, as was the guy who took those hostages in the supermarket. The Munich shooter was born in Germany.
Born in France doesn't mean socially and culturally integrated. Many of these attackers were children of immigrants who either didn't integrate because of their own cultural beliefs or because the host society didn't provide the necessary conditions. Whatever the reason, these people didn't feel like they belong to the host societies and radicalized. If anything, these attacks are examples of unsuccessful integration and of the failures of free movement and immigration of people of radically different cultural beliefs, and not the other way around.
I think people in Britain, and indeed many 'white' countries, are less bothered by the colour of one's skin than the tone of their culture and intent behind their immigrating.
If you're not coming here to integrate, but just coming for money and with no thought of being part of my culture, why on Earth would I joyously welcome you?
What would be said if I were to move to somewhere like the middle east and insist upon being a cider-swilling yob?
.
Disclaimer: My partner is Italian and I'm a cider-swilling British yob. Well, a bit of a boor at least.
Brits are the less likely to speak Spanish among the immigrant community in Spain. Most of them don't speak the language at all and have no will to ever do it, even though they plan on dying in Spain. They stick together in all-English ghettos and do nothing to integrate in the local culture.
Based on your rules: Do you want Spain to send something between 350k and 800k pensioners back to the UK? I'm sure the NHS would be thrilled.
Of course, the difference is that Brits are "wealthy" compared to someone from a poorer country. It always comes down to money and never to race or culture.
Even funnier — a Brit whose father has lived in Spain for over 30 years, has paid taxes and run a successful business there and although parallel to the ex-pat community in the very far south, not really ever been a part of it. He speaks Spanish and has a polyglot of international friends from all across Europe.
He's now looking to move back to Britain over the next few years (at least partly), and having paid into his own private pension and as part of his working career, the Spanish government one — should he not get a pension and healthcare in Britain? If not, then why this whole EU thing? If so, then why not British pensioners in Spain, etc?
Besides, 'Old Brits living off Spanish pensions' is a bit of a tired trope — many of them get fed up after a couple to a few of years, leaving local Spaniards with cheaper housing options as they offload their failed investments before they do mave back. The ones who don't, try integrating. Sounds like a bit of a win-win for Spain?
Laterally, in my time in the North of England and here in London, I've found that Spanish (and Italians, and French, etc) all also self-ghettoise, so as an adult I've shed the shame I once felt at the behaviour of ex-pat Brits abroad because — surprise, surprise — everyone does it.
For starters: You're not replying to any of my points really, but I'll go along answering to yours so you'll see we're in fact not so far in our opinions.
Before we start, one of my points is: A Visa points system will disqualify an enormous amount of Brits living abroad, thus potentially sending them back (or illegally staying).
> should he not get a pension and healthcare in Britain? If not, then why this whole EU thing? If so, then why not British pensioners in Spain, etc?
That's precisely the point. He should get a pension. He lived well through the FoM period - why do you want to kill it now? Isn't your dad proof that the EU works for the people?
> Besides, 'Old Brits living off Spanish pensions' is a bit of a tired trope —
It's not Old Brits living off Spanish pensions. They are living off their own earned pensions, what are you on about?
The "problem" is that one of the arguments against EU FoM is "all those immigrants put pressure on the NHS" - when the UK exports pensioners (more prone to use healthcare) and imports young people (less prone to use healthcare).
You know your dad is not the norm, a good example of integration. The most common thing is for the pensioners to cluster in ghettos and hardly learn the language.
But don't get me wrong; I'm not complaining, I think they should be free to live their lives as they want. Can't see a problem with them preferring to socialise with people that speaks their language and shares other cultural references. Nothing wrong with that.
> many of them get fed up after a couple to a few of years, leaving local Spaniards with cheaper housing options as they offload their failed investments before they do mave back. The ones who don't, try integrating. Sounds like a bit of a win-win for Spain?
See? This is a problem. Some of you are incapable of self-criticism. Your migration is good, everyone else's is bad. You could pretty much say the same about any EU national going to work to the UK:
"they go to work there, pay taxes, pay rent or mortgage, spend money, many of them get fed up after a couple to a few of years, leaving local Brits with cheaper housing options as they offload their failed investments (or stop renting) before they do mave back. The ones who don't, try integrating. Sounds like a bit of a win-win for the UK?"
> Laterally, in my time in the North of England and here in London, I've found that Spanish (and Italians, and French, etc) all also self-ghettoise, so as an adult I've shed the shame I once felt at the behaviour of ex-pat Brits abroad because — surprise, surprise — everyone does it.
Bingo.
The difference is though, these other people learn the language because they haven't come to the UK to retire, so they have to learn. So, forced by the circumstances, you get an extra side of integration int the UK that you don't get in Spain.
> You have your view on things — I have mine.
And they're not so different. I just find curious why people like to overlook their own issues and highlight those same issues on the other people. That's why I said "funny a Brit says that :-)".
For the record: I live in Britain and I love the country and the people. I am just worried that, in my humble opinion, they'll self harm themselves in the name of anti-immigration policies; because they've been told foreigners are bad and Brits are good - when in reality there's no difference.
Words like "tone of their culture" are exactly the problem. Can you imagine if you weren't allowed to travel somewhere because of the tone of your culture? Do you enjoy being restricted from travelling to Saudi Arabia because you popped out of the wrong vagina?
I'm not from the UK but I can tell you firmly that words like "black culture" are just racist dogwhistles here in the US
Travel, or permanently relocate? There's a distinction - quite massive one. No one gives a hoot about tourists.
And I meant with the self-denigration in my post to imply that my own 'culture' has its own tone - as indeed does every culture. It's a question of whether they have the potential to be inter-compatible.
And my point is that compatibility should be measured on an individual basis, not based on where you happened to be born. Assuming that all people from one place share a culture is what got us into this mess in the first place.
It isn't already? And if it's not by individual reckoning, what construct from upon ahigh would you suggest be instituted to make these decisions en-masse, outwith local consensus?
All people from one place do generally share a culture, generally speaking - sure, any atomisation of said generalisation will throw up exceptions, but that doesn't make the generality any less valid in its local context.
We're monkeys - somewhat illogical meatsacks bound to our nature and emotions - not robots able to rewrite our own truths to fit some other's sense of hyper-morality.
Sorry, that's not reality.
- ed
Cripes that was a garbled response. Sorry - long weekend..
>All people from one place do generally share a culture, generally speaking - sure, any atomisation of said generalisation will throw up exceptions, but that doesn't make the generality any less valid in its local context.
How is this any different from
>All people from one race do generally share a culture, generally speaking - sure, any atomisation of said generalisation will throw up exceptions, but that doesn't make the generality any less valid in its local context.
Acting based on stereotypes of what someone who's born in a country may more or may not be is not only unethical, but stupid.
Look, I'm not saying citizenship or where you live shouldn't be a factor at all, I'm saying they should be near the bottom. In essence, the questions should be more "what have you done, what do you want to do, how will immigrating here help advance society?" and less "which country were you born in? how much money can you contribute?" which seems to be the way things work now.
One of the few sane posts here that is considering the realities of "the borderless world".
There are reasons why countries all over the world have immigration policies. Each country is interested in immigration that serves its interests, and the leaders are well aware of the negative consequences of unrestricted immigration.
The experiments with this like the Schengen Area might not survive the consequences in the coming future.
Most people here seem to blinded by some liberal pipe-dream.
> Each country is interested in immigration that serves its interests
A lot of immigration policies only serve the interest of a particular group or a particular industry. I don't know how to make an objective count on either side though.
Indeed. I would be fine with "open borders" as long as every subsidy and welfare program is eliminated. It is unfair for people to have free stuff from the local government just because they happen to have been born there.
Sure zajd, sounds great. The US should make a welfare /subsidy rule for the entire world. Since lots of backwards reactionaries will resist it will likely take force and war to annex unruly lands and enforce this law. Let's call the program COMINTERN for old time's sake.
It's almost as if "fairness" isn't something we should be concerned about when it comes to immigration. Almost as if... people don't have that much control over their government and should probably be treated as individuals as opposed to a "immigrant from X"
> This discussion is synonymous with whether countries should even have borders. If borders aren't policed, they may as well not even exist.
Is this an argument against the discussion? That (whether countries should even have borders) seems like a reasonable question to ask. Nonetheless, borders seem to have existed effectively for a long time without the aid of passports. From the article:
> Indeed, for much of the 19th century, as an International Labour Organisation report stated in 1922:
> > Migration was generally speaking, unhindered and each emigrant could decide on the time of his departure, his arrival or his return, to suit his own convenience.
(Also, I'm not sure it's so obviously true that not requiring passports is the same as not policing borders.)
I don't think it's at all synonymous. Borders mean a lot more than just who is allowed to cross them. Case in point, there are no border controls between US states, but states clearly have borders and maintain meaningful differences between each other.
In his book "Abroad: British Literary Traveling between the Wars" [1] historian Paul Fussell devotes a whole chapter to "The Passport Nuisance":
> As a fixture of the european scene since 1915, the passport now seems so natural that one forgets the shock and scandal it once occasioned. Robert Byron is one who treated his with a due contempt. In the space asking about "Any special peculiarities," he entered "Of Melancholy appearance," and in the square reserved for a photograph of bearer's wife he drew a ludicrous cartoon, "resulting," Anthory Powell recalls, "in the document being withdrawn."
When I read Dickens I'm always surprised how citizens could get locked out of their own city walls at night or would bribe the watchman to "forget" that they've seen the villain or hero pass the gate.
I think in the past there were much more restrictive laws in place at times, other times maybe more lax.
>But delegates ultimately decided that a return to a
>passport-free world could only happen alongside a return to
>the global conditions that prevailed before the start of
>the first world war.
I wish the article was more detailed about what was/is considered changed in the global condition.
I think the whole point of the article is to showcase that maybe you don't NEED all this additional security. I purposefuly try to avoid going to the US because of the security and bureaucracy involved in crossing this border in the first place
In particular because the number one cause of illegal immigration in the US is visa overstaying. So how exactly are the passports or visas helping that case?
>How would this data be held and who would see it or have access to it?
Same way as its currently held - by the various governments with (limited) agreements in place to to check each other's databases. Its not that big a leap to have a unified system in place I think. Or at least starting with the 1st world countries.
Not a fan of big government, but this is an area where I think streamlining things would help.
>European countries already issue biometric passports that require you to provide your fingerprints
Yeah got one of those. The fingerprints aren't actively used at borders though - just facial recognition.
You've violated the guidelines in several ways with this comment and the ones downthread. Please don't derail threads with unproductive sarcasm, complain about downvotes, make generalizations about the community, and throw insults. This is not the kind of civil behavior that Hacker News asks for, and it seriously thwarts our attempts to gratify our intellectual curiosity, so we ban accounts that do this.
If you want to ban me for insulting racists than by all means, go ahead. FWIW I didn't make any generalizations about the community, I simply said immigration threads bring out the best in it!
Really love that "making a generalization about the community" is against the rules but feel free to make generalizations about immigrants, the poor, or any other class of people that might not actually be a large portion of this community.
Remember kids, if you thinly veil your racism in economic terms, nobody's going to hold you responsible for it. Lee Atwater would be proud.
You're not being downvoted for your point. You're being downvoted for not contributing to the conversation in a meaningful way and being sarcastic (the poor man's whit).
Say something more like: Today the aggregate amount of people that can travel massive distances is much greater than it was before. No longer are a few thousand migrants traveling through a country every year, today it's literally millions. Control comes with that. As technological advancement makes access easier, the need to control that access becomes more important. An obvious recent tale of similarities is the internet.
It's the internet. I'm not writing to change minds, I'm writing pretty much to the audience that already agrees with me. Nobody thinks we're going to have a productive discussion about race in the HN comments, way better to just point out the hypocrisy and move on. Truth of the matter is the comments that are most relevant get floated to the top and if someone's gonna say some ignorant shit they ought to be called out on it.
I don't mind being downvoted, I honestly find it amusing that if you say something wrong, people will respond. Say something wrong they don't like, people attack you. Say something right that people don't like? They downvote silently.
If it makes people uncomfortable to be told their racist for calling 100 years ago a golden age... maybe they should be uncomfortable?
TLDR I'll save my effort trying change hearts and minds for when it's worth it.
> If it makes people uncomfortable to be told their [sic] racist for calling 100 years ago a golden age... maybe they should be uncomfortable?
Glossing over the faulty logic, is your entire motive for posting here is to distress the top-level commenter? You say you're not here to sway opinions. So you're just here to troll for the sake of trolling? I'll admit this is refreshingly candid, but could you just refrain from posting in the first place?
Again, not trolling, just giving a place for the educated among us to click a button and say "hey, this stupid racist shit doesn't represent the HN community"
Quite frankly the idea that we should treat all ideas with civility and respect doesn't really cut it in reality.
I consider Hacker News one of the few open minded forums today. Where a comment adds value, it's sometimes up voted. Your original comment didn't add value to the discussion and I doubt its accuracy.
Take for example, during early conflicts (around 0AD), people of all social standings were known to move from city to city. The Mongols (although much later, 1200s) used this mass migration as a technique to weaken economies. So, travel is not anything like what you described.
The world's history is full of far more diversity than we give credit for.
The post I was responding too was saying literally nothing about the mongols using mass migration as a technique to weaken economies. It's irrelevant to the point I was making.
It doesn't surprise me that most of the people attacking the way I'm speaking also have a backdoor opinion about the content as well.
>"Again, not trolling, just giving a place for the educated among us to click a button and say "hey, this stupid racist shit doesn't represent the HN community""
Ironically, that last part is probably a good part of why you are being down voted.
I honestly have no problems with it. I know these are controversial issues today and taking the stance of "we shouldn't have to put up with racist rhetoric in 2016 in the developed world" is not going to be a popular one, especially when you use sarcasm to convey it.
There are assuredly people who will say "it's 2016, I should be able to have my own opinions, whatever they are, and be treated as equal to others" I disagree.
When a white person laments about how much "we've given up" since 1910 it is a racist action. Sorry the truth hurts. It's similar to those that look back on the 50s as a golden age in America. Sure, it's golden if you're a white male.
We haven't given up shit since 1910, progress has been unimaginable and it's actually EASIER to travel internationally now than it was then. So yeah, if you're going to pretend like 1910 was better for this shit in some way, it's only going to be for a very select group of people.
> I see that the word "racism" has ceased to have meaning.
This is called "gaslighting". You have encountered a use of the term "racist" that you think is poor usage. Instead of confining your criticism to the specific usage of the term, you declare any and all uses of the term "meaningless".
It's intellectually lazy. Perhaps your definition of racist is "openly and aggressively advocating against one of three or four theorized racial groups". Perhaps you don't like my definition, "any and all behaviors which reinforce the systematic oppression of people based on race or other markers connected to race".
But rather than stand up for what you believe is a sensible use of the word, you wipe your hands the entire discussion. It's a childish tactic.
Personally, I think "racism" is a vital word, and it's vital that it retain a broad definition applicable to behaviors currently committed by well intentioned people (as it was 100 years ago). I believe the notion that "racism" traditionally refers to socially deplorable behavior is a false understanding of history and etymology. You seem to disagree, I would encourage you to argue your perspective.
"Gaslighting or gas-lighting is a form of psychological abuse in which a victim is manipulated into doubting his or her own memory, perception, and sanity."
I don't believe that I have attempted to manipulate anyone into doubting their memory, perception, or sanity.
> But rather than stand up for what you believe is a sensible use of the word, you wipe your hands the entire discussion. It's a childish tactic.
I stand by what I said -- If the usage above is valid, then I can infer nothing useful based on the term 'racism'.
To spell it out in full, recall the start of this thread, where someone was accused for racism because they named a policy that was in effect in 1914. _Note that the policy was not called racist. The only objection was the date.
So, based on that usage above, one meaning of racist seems to be the following conjunction:
'Expressed approval for a policy' AND 'That policy was in place at a time when racism was a problem'
And given that racism has been a problem at any point in time, then the only conclusion that can be drawn is that someone had approved for some policy at some point in time.
If this is a valid meaning for racism, then someone being called racist gives me no information about the person. I don't believe this is a useful meaning.
If you don't think a good portion of the right wing in first world countries wouldn't gladly return to that state of affairs maybe you should take a look at the Trump campaign. Facism is alive and well my friend.
What, where most people have no air conditioning, no cars, no plumbing, no internet, no refrigeration? Where most jobs are back breaking subsistence farming, and almost all the rest are marginally better factory jobs?
If you think most humans would return to that, regardless of political affiliation, you're crazy.
No to a time where people are murdered simply because of their race. Politicians running for office with 30-40% of the popular vote are calling for nuking countries with no concern for collateral damage... what would you call that?
> Unfortunately, that doesn't leave me a good term for the people like the ones that murdered most of my grandmother's family because of their race.
This is what you said.
Nukes are just a convenient way to eliminate an entire race these days. If you don't think right wingers calling for the middle east to be nuked is in any way related we're probably done here.
You're the one who asked me what you should call the people that murdered your grandmother because of her race since I'm using the term "racist" too loosely for your taste.
I'm saying, call them racists just like the people today that would gladly return to a time where people get killed just because of their race, as evident by their espoused politics.
Oh I disagree the word racist evokes a pretty emotional response regardless of how many times you use it. 2016 and all that. Just look at how much effort you're putting in to trying to prove what a "real racist" is?
It's not easier if you're from the wrong country, or surprise, of wrong color or religion. Refugee crisis is still here. So saying what you said can just as easily be labeled racist.
> Well, since you started the incivility: you're a complete and utter dingbat. Not every issue is about race. This issue isn't about race.
If you think you can have a discussion about immigration in 2016 using a "sensible, law-abiding Englishman in 1914" as your "look at what we've lost"... I just don't know what to tell you. The lack of you getting why there's a huge racial component to posting something like that... well, it's kind of beyond me.
Context matters, there's no reason to pretend like we've lost anything since 1914. The only people who have lost anything are the most privileged of people on this planet.
edit. Really not surprisingly looking at your post history "people's wages should be dictated by the market" haha why don't you just make your username "PrivilegeOwns69"
Do you have any references to support your claim that before 1914 travel was more restricted for someone of similar means from Asia, Africa, or Latin America?
'Until August 1914 a sensible, law-abiding Englishman could pass through life and hardly notice the existence of the state, beyond the post office and the policeman. He could live where he liked and as he liked. He had no official number or identity card. He could travel abroad or leave his country for ever without a passport or any sort of official permission. He could exchange his money for any other currency without restriction or limit. He could buy goods from any country in the world on the same terms as he bought goods at home. For that matter, a foreigner could spend his life in this country without permit and without informing the police.'
It's hard to believe how much we've given up.