On Free Immigration and Forced Integration

[P3ter_Griffin]

That's because you don't know your history.

In 1963, a long time ago but in the lives of many now living, the citizens of California, by a majority of nearly two-thirds, voted to pass a law called Proposition 14. This amended the state constitution to add the following:

"Neither the State nor any subdivision or agency thereof shall deny, limit or abridge, directly or indirectly, the right of any person, who is willing or desires to sell, lease or rent any part or all of his real property, to decline to sell, lease or rent such property to such person or persons as he, in his absolute discretion, chooses."

In other words: if you don't want to live with persons of color, you don't have to. The amendment, obviously, turned out to be unconstitutional, just like this one; and we have persons of color to this day in California. In fact, we have so many of them that California in 2008 elected Barack Obama, noted person of color, by almost the same margin that its 1963 predecessor passed Prop. 14.

That in no way relates whether an individual would buy a property that could never be sold to certain counter-parties. What this says is, as the owner of the property, you cannot be forced to rent or sell your property to any individual, for any reason. And I 100% agree, Prop 14 shouldn't have needed to be passed in the first place, it is inherit in an individual's property rights. The reason to not buy a property with such conditions is that, even if it is in your best interest as you determine them, even if it is your desire, you would not be allowed to expand your customer base to include those excluded by the contract.

As in the last thread we interacted, you seem to be completely ignorant of the existence of joint ownership arrangements. Sadly, as you learned nothing then, I don't very well see how you can be expected to learn anything now. But I'll go ahead and talk you through it in the hopes that someone else reading this might not be quite so mentally impaired.

lol, you sure are quite the prick. I know very well of joint ownership, my girlfriend and I own our house jointly.

It is possible for two or more people to join their assets in order to purchase a piece of property that none of the individuals in question could afford on their own, thereby granting them joint ownership over the property. Individuals who make this sort of arrangement are generally referred to as "corporations." If a corporation were to purchase a town or village (or a mall!), it would likely want to rent out the various buildings and stores within that territory in order to turn a profit on the land. Corporations, by their very nature, occasionally take actions not supported by all of their shareholders. Thus if 51% of the voting shares in a corporation wish to instate a policy that bans "beggars or bums or homeless . . . Moslems, Hindus, Jews, Catholics, etc." from corporate property, such a policy will be put in place over the objections of the 49%. Would you object to this? If so, on what grounds?

I agree with that. Although, to be nit picky, how can you achieve 51% of the voting shares when there is a disagreement and only two owners, as you stated here:

If two people were to purchase the town or village, is it your assertion that in doing so they thereby ought to lose their right to freedom of association?

btw, normal people call corporations of this nature a "government."

No, no they don't. I have heard Walmart, etc, referenced exactly zero times as a government.

[P3ter_Griffin]

Is it fair to say, mucus, that you have derailed so far from the original intent of this thread because Hoppe's writing is indefensible garbage? Also, is it fair to say you too disagree with Hoppe's piece, other than the historical aspects and the advocation for European only immigration?

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

That's because you have the blood of the Anglo-Saxons running through your veins, I'd wager.

Negative.

Here is a very long article that I'd appreciate it if you read

Why would I read that? Put something in your own words already.

[Reece]

And as we see, the government is in fact able to do all of these things. It follows logically that they must indeed possess these rights.

This is just an argument over semantics then. As you've said before:

The answer to your question hinges on how we choose to define "right." There are two reasonable definitions that lead to very different answers.

1) If we think of the word "right" as referring to some objectively extant property in nature, then the answer is no, because "rights" in this sense do not exist - nobody has any "rights" whatsoever. "Rights" are simply fictional entities, somewhat akin to unicorns or dragons. People talk about them, but when they do they are simply confused about what is real and what is not.

2) If we think of the word "right" as referring to a legal or political right, then the answer is yes. The word "right" in this sense is synonymous with the word "power." Does the state have the "right" (power) to transfer property between citizens on a whim? Obviously - states do this sort of thing all the time. You are correct that the victims of these forced transactions are very often outraged - and yet the transfers take place nonetheless. This is because states tend to be radically more powerful than the citizens they own. These citizens/slaves sometimes construct moral systems according to which such transfers are illegitimate in order to justify their feelings of outrage - that is the origin of the definition of "right" referred to in the paragraph above.

You assumed the second, while it's pretty clear I was talking closer to the first. I'm not going to argue over a definition, so I won't use the word anymore, but my previous post was using rights as ethics based rules on who should control what. And, as I said before (but you didn't reply to), the ethical look at "rights" isn't just some unicorn. Both of us look at things as "good" and "bad." You think economic freedom is "good" and redistribution of wealth "generally bad." These are both value judgments that don't have any firm basis in reality, and yet you still hold them. Whatever the reasoning (that people are generally happier under economic freedom, that economic freedom sounds cool, etc.), the reasoning still has to be assumed to be a good thing too, and the reasoning for the reasoning being a good thing has to be assumed to be good (and so on). Ethics can't be proved, but it can be built up from a place that almost everyone agrees upon.

Not if they're able to provide for themselves. The purpose of requiring sponsors for immigrants is to ensure that liability for any damage they do can be placed on a person with something significant to lose. It's a form of insurance, similar to the requirement that default-prone renters co-sign with a more asset-laden individual.

My point was that people here right now currently aren't required to be insured or have a sponsor, regardless of their assets. So, if this is Hoppe's position, I fail to see why he wouldn't want the government to require everyone else with few assets to be sponsored. I thought you were a libertarian (I forgot you were the same person I argued with months ago), and so assumed you would see that this would not be a good policy.

This is incorrect. As poor immigrants flow into a democratic state or country, they vote for politicians who promise to expropriate the property of citizens already living there and redistribute it to themselves. The more immigrants there are, the more rapidly this expropriation will occur. Thus an open immigration policy most certainly does make this worse.

Not all of them. Immigrants actually seem to have a pretty small impact, partially because many of them don't vote. You're also ignoring other effects:

1) As immigration increases, current locals tend to become more against welfare. These people also tend to vote.

2) More open borders also brings about competition between countries. If Mexico is losing a bunch of people, they are going to want to incentivize them to return. This generally means more free market policies, especially in the long term, which you have called a "good thing," and certainly means less property restrictions.

3) Why only focus on political changes here? Currently there are massive restrictions on the labor market. Imagine if there was regulation only allowing a certain number of cars to enter the US from other countries per year. Suppose also that local car owners often donated to pro-free market candidates. If we only look at the political change of ending this regulation, yes, it is quite possible that ending this regulation would cause more anti-free market candidates to be elected. But we're also ending an anti-free market policy by allowing cars to enter (meaning people are able to use their property more freely by being allowed to buy foreign cars). Being able to hire foreign labor and to invite people I like onto my property is of far bigger importance than being able to buy a foreign car.

I think it's pretty clear net restrictions on my property would decrease significantly with a more open immigration policy.

I see. So a group or individual that makes use of human shields renders themselves invulnerable to retaliation, in your view? If it is illegitimate to attack a tank/plane/ship with innocent civilians on board, then any army can make itself invincible and slaughter countless civilians itself simply by taking advantage of this fact. Thus, your moral system requires you to commit suicide. This should cause you to rethink it.

One could come up with hundreds of examples like this. For example, if I say theft is wrong, one could bring up an example of one needing to steal a relatively insignificant item to save a large number of people. This doesn't destroy my ethics system, it just shows that there is sometimes something far more important than a minor aggression. The murdering of the people is still wrong and the theft is still wrong, but the additional benefit from the action makes it "worth it." It isn't difficult to see that killing an innocent person is in of itself wrong while still supporting it in extreme circumstances.

[menciusmoldbug]

You possessing the watch after stealing it does not make it right. You possess the watch, but you have no right to possess it. Possession and right are two different things.

It's like you didn't read a word a said. I don't know what else to do at this point other than repeat myself.

Moral realism is false. Nihilism is true. There are no such things as "rights" in the sense that you are using the term.

Now, you are of course welcome do believe in whatever fantasies or fairy tales you like, but doing so will not change the way the world actually is. If someone steals your watch and you can't get it back, then whether you say they have a "right" to possess it or not is 100% irrelevant.

[menciusmoldbug]

Who admits to being pro-authoritarian?

I am pro-authoritarian.

[Reece]

And as we see, the government is in fact able to do all of these things. It follows logically that they must indeed possess these rights.

Just to be clear, the main argument you're having with people is because of how you define rights. Imagine if you started a thread that said "People have the right to burn and eat kids." Since they are able to do this, it would follow that they have the right to under your definition. This would naturally bring a bunch of people calling you crazy (because burning kids is clearly wrong). You would argue (correctly under your definition) that people have the right to do this because they are able to do it, while other people would argue (correctly under their definition) that they don't have the right to do this because it is wrong to kill kids. I don't see the point in defining rights in the way you are, because the general population defines it differently, and it would be easier just to say, "The government is able to drop nuclear bombs on its citizens" (or whatever the discussion is about). At the very least, defining your terms when you use them in an unconventional way could prevent much of this back-and-forth.

[mczerone]

Sorry if I'm not supposed to just post articles from other sites without comment, but I thought this was good enough to be worth sharing/discussing.

Any open-borders libertarians care to comment on Hoppe's piece here?

It's too "central plannery": My job isn't to figure out the "best policy" for the existing welfare state, it's to insulate myself from it's pernicious effects.

It's also curious that he lays out the "private property" solution in the introduction, but abandons it's efficacy when a central state is present. He does this not by showing why private property solutions wouldn't work in spite of state policy, but by shifting his attention from acting individuals to the institution known as the state.

We still have, largely, the right to keep our property free from immigrants. If we have a problem with welfare/social programs subsidizing people, we should, First, do what we can to avoid paying into them. Then, we exercise what little control we have over the state administrating them. The third measure, restricting other people's freedom of movement, shouldn't even be on the table, as it is the least likely to work, the most costly, and the least moral option.

In all, Hoppe is a decent philosopher, but here he either confuses the object of his analysis or deliberately shifts his focus to come up with a pre-determined socially conservative solution.

[menciusmoldbug]

That in no way relates whether an individual would buy a property that could never be sold to certain counter-parties. What this says is, as the owner of the property, you cannot be forced to rent or sell your property to any individual, for any reason. And I 100% agree, Prop 14 shouldn't have needed to be passed in the first place, it is inherit in an individual's property rights.

sigh

You know, I actually seriously considered the possibility that you might be so mind-bogglingly stupid as to think that only the words I put in the post were worth reading rather than the link contained therein as well. I thought about leaving the words out entirely and posting only the link in the hopes that this would encourage you to click it.

In any case, your complete ignorance of property law has caused you to say yet another cringe-inducingly dumb thing. Rather than belabor the point, I'll simply post this:

"A covenant is said to run with the land in the event that the covenant is annexed to the estate and cannot be separated from the land or the land transferred without it. Such a covenant exists if the original owner as well as each successive owner of the property is either subject to its burden or entitled to its benefit. A covenant running with the land is said to touch and concern the property. For example, an individual might own property subject to the restriction that it is only to be used for church purposes. When selling the land, the person can only do so upon an agreement by the buyer that he or she, too, will only use the land for church purposes. The land is thereby burdened or encumbered by a Restrictive Covenant, since the covenant specifically limits the use to which the land can be put. In addition, the covenant runs with the land because it remains attached to it despite subsequent changes in its ownership. This type of covenant is also called a covenant appurtenant.


Certain easements also run with the land. An easement, for example, that permits one landowner to walk across a particular portion of the property of an adjoining landowner in order to gain access to the street would run with the land. Subsequent owners of both plots would take the land subject to such easement.


A covenant in gross is unlike a covenant running with the land in that it is personal, binding only the particular owner and not the land itself. A subsequent owner is not required to keep the promise as one would with a covenant appurtenant."

do you see now that this renders everything you have said on the subject both wrong and retarded

Covenants that run with the land are a thing. They have been a thing for a long time, and they continue to be a thing to this day. A subset of them have been deemed unenforceable because OMG RACISM, but prior to that they were quite popular. Go click the wiki link (I'll quote it for you too):
Exclusionary covenants

Before 1948, these covenants were legally used for segregationist purposes.[17]


In the 1920s and 1930s, covenants that restricted the sale or occupation of real property on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or social class were common in the United States, where the primary intent was to keep "white" neighbourhoods "white". Such covenants were employed by many real estate developers to "protect" entire subdivisions. The purpose of an exclusionary covenant was to prohibit a buyer of property from reselling, leasing or transferring the property to members of a given race, ethnic origin and/ or religion as specified in the title deed. Some covenants, such as those tied to properties in Forest Hills Gardens, New York, also sought to exclude working class people however this type of social segregation was more commonly achieved through the use of high property prices, minimum cost requirements and application reference checks.[18]:131–7 In practice, exclusionary covenants were most typically concerned with keeping out African-Americans, however restrictions against Asian-Americans, Jews and Catholics were not uncommon. For example, the Lake Shore Club District in Pennsylvania, sought to exclude various minorities including Negro, Mongolian, Hungarian, Mexican, Greek and various European immigrants.[18] Cities known for their widespread use of racial covenants include Chicago, Baltimore, Detroit, Los Angeles, and St. Louis.
History

Racial covenants emerged during the mid-nineteenth century and started to gain prominence from the 1890s onwards. However, it was not until the 1920s that they adopted widespread national significance, a situation that continued until the 1940s. Racial covenants were an alternative to racially restrictive zoning ordinances (residential segregation based on race) that the 1917 US Supreme Court ruling of Buchanan v. Warley invalidated on constitutional grounds.[19][20]:26 Such covenants were upheld by the Court in the 1926 ruling of Corrigan v. Buckley,[21] only later to be declared legal but “unenforceable” in the 1948 decision of Shelley v. Kraemer.[22]


Some commentators have attributed the popularity of exclusionary covenants at this time as a response to the urbanization of black Americans following World War I, and the fear of "black invasion" into white neighborhoods, which they felt would result in depressed property prices, increased nuisance (crime), and social instability.

[gee, I wonder what could have possibly given them THAT idea?]

The reason to not buy a property with such conditions is that, even if it is in your best interest as you determine them, even if it is your desire, you would not be allowed to expand your customer base to include those excluded by the contract.

"This is an economic [cost] of [a restrictive covenant], not an argument [against] it."

oh my peter, it appears that you have been hoisted on your own petard. how very shameful.

how can you achieve 51% of the voting shares when there is a disagreement and only two owners

it's very complicated, so i'm not sure you'll be able to understand, but here goes:

suppose the two parties in question put up different amounts of money for the initial purchase - say 75% came from party A and 25% from party B, and they agreed to divide the voting shares in that ratio (as is common). then party A would have 75% of the voting shares and party B would have 25%.

No, no they don't. I have heard Walmart, etc, referenced exactly zero times as a government.

that is because wal-mart is not a corporation of the nature that i described. thus it is not called a government. very good peter.

USG, on the other hand, IS such a corporation. and it is indeed called a government. it's right there in the title: United States Government.

[menciusmoldbug]

Is it fair to say, mucus, that you have derailed so far from the original intent of this thread because Hoppe's writing is indefensible garbage? Also, is it fair to say you too disagree with Hoppe's piece, other than the historical aspects and the advocation for European only immigration?

no peter, those are not fair things to say

[menciusmoldbug]

Negative.

If you don't mind my asking, then: What is your ancestry?

Why would I read that?

People generally read things because they hope to learn something. I can see that this isn't a strong motivator for you, however.

Put something in your own words already.

No, I don't think I'll be doing that. You don't strike me as enough of a high-quality person for it to be worth my time. I would certainly support your deportation. =P

[menciusmoldbug]

This is just an argument over semantics then. As you've said before:

You assumed the second, while it's pretty clear I was talking closer to the first. I'm not going to argue over a definition, so I won't use the word anymore, but my previous post was using rights as ethics based rules on who should control what. And, as I said before (but you didn't reply to), the ethical look at "rights" isn't just some unicorn. Both of us look at things as "good" and "bad." You think economic freedom is "good" and redistribution of wealth "generally bad." These are both value judgments that don't have any firm basis in reality, and yet you still hold them. Whatever the reasoning (that people are generally happier under economic freedom, that economic freedom sounds cool, etc.), the reasoning still has to be assumed to be a good thing too, and the reasoning for the reasoning being a good thing has to be assumed to be good (and so on). Ethics can't be proved, but it can be built up from a place that almost everyone agrees upon.

I agree with almost all of this. The only part with which I'd quibble is where you claim that my "value judgments... don't have any firm basis in reality." On the contrary, value judgments are almost all ultimately rooted in reality, because embedded in our value judgments about how the world ought to be are empirical beliefs about how the world actually is. It does not follow that a value judgment can be "wrong," but it is true that the empirical beliefs upon which a value judgment is based may be wrong, and if a person comes to recognize this, they will often alter their value judgment as well.

You seem to recognize this towards the end of the paragraph, so I'm not even sure that we actually disagree on this point. I suspect that if we do, it's "just an argument over semantics."

My point was that people here right now currently aren't required to be insured or have a sponsor, regardless of their assets. So, if this is Hoppe's position, I fail to see why he wouldn't want the government to require everyone else with few assets to be sponsored.

I can't speak for Hoppe, but I do want the government to require everyone else with few assets to be either sponsored or deported. That would make this a MUCH nicer place to live, in my opinion. (Note that my belief about the desirability of this policy hinges on empirical beliefs about what it will cause the world to look like.)

I thought you were a libertarian (I forgot you were the same person I argued with months ago), and so assumed you would see that this would not be a good policy.

"My favorite analogy for official authority is the stellar cycle. If the authority of government is the temperature of the star, and the size of government is the size of the star, Washington is easily identifiable as a red giant, like Betelgeuse - enormous and cool.

For former libertarians, such as myself, this inverse relationship is critical. The paradox is that weakening government makes it larger. At least, to a libertarian, this seems like a paradox. Once it seems quite natural, you may no longer be a libertarian."

Not all of them.

You are correct that not all immigrants have a net negative effect on the present polity. My claim was not intended to be a blanket statement applying to every single individual belonging to the group in question (though I can see how it could fairly be read that way). Instead, it was intended to be read in much the same way as the sentence, "Men are taller than women."

Immigrants actually seem to have a pretty small impact, partially because many of them don't vote.

United States presidential election in California, 1988

Immigrants have a smaller impact on elections per capita than native-born citizens because they vote at a lower rate. However, it is simply not correct to conclude from this fact that immigrants "seem to have a pretty small impact," because their effect has been the largest in those places where they are most heavily concentrated, and their numbers continue to grow. As this happens, we can expect the California effect to spread.

You're also ignoring other effects:

1) As immigration increases, current locals tend to become more against welfare. These people also tend to vote.

2) More open borders also brings about competition between countries. If Mexico is losing a bunch of people, they are going to want to incentivize them to return. This generally means more free market policies, especially in the long term, which you have called a "good thing," and certainly means less property restrictions.

I hope you'll believe me when I say that I am by no means ignoring these other effects. As a point of fact, I have literally used these precise points to argue in favor of open borders less than a year ago. I have since been persuaded that I was wrong to. Here is a blog post addressing the other effects in question. Key quote:

"This argument is so freaking Mad Max that I actually quite like it. Burn down the world and you take the welfare state with it. Yeeaaaahhhhh! (I’ll leave it to more responsible voices to point out any possible flaws.)"

Because I see myself as a somewhat responsible person, I'll take this opportunity to say that I do not think destroying social capital and trust are good things, even if they result in less overall support for welfare. I would much rather live in a place with high social capital/trust + welfare than a place with low social capital/trust - welfare. Moreover, the welfare is likely to continue anyway, especially as the number of welfare-supporting immigrants begins to overwhelm the number of welfare-opposing natives.

3) Why only focus on political changes here? Currently there are massive restrictions on the labor market. Imagine if there was regulation only allowing a certain number of cars to enter the US from other countries per year. Suppose also that local car owners often donated to pro-free market candidates. If we only look at the political change of ending this regulation, yes, it is quite possible that ending this regulation would cause more anti-free market candidates to be elected. But we're also ending an anti-free market policy by allowing cars to enter (meaning people are able to use their property more freely by being allowed to buy foreign cars). Being able to hire foreign labor and to invite people I like onto my property is of far bigger importance than being able to buy a foreign car.

Have you read much Friedrich List? No? I can't recommend him highly enough. Google Books is your friend here - go!

I think it's pretty clear net restrictions on my property would decrease significantly with a more open immigration policy.

You are plainly a pretty smart guy, and I respect your opinion. However, I am also a pretty smart guy, and I happen to think the precise opposite. Perhaps if we were to exchange explanations for our beliefs, one of us might be persuaded to change his mind. Does that strike you as possible?

One could come up with hundreds of examples like this. For example, if I say theft is wrong, one could bring up an example of one needing to steal a relatively insignificant item to save a large number of people. This doesn't destroy my ethics system, it just shows that there is sometimes something far more important than a minor aggression. The murdering of the people is still wrong and the theft is still wrong, but the additional benefit from the action makes it "worth it." It isn't difficult to see that killing an innocent person is in of itself wrong while still supporting it in extreme circumstances.

Forget about destroying your ethics system - I'd like to return to your initial claim, which I disputed:

"You don't gain the right to use violence against an innocent person just because the government is using violence against you."

It seems to me that in the quoted paragraph above, you are conceding that this is not in fact correct. On the contrary, you may very well gain the right to use violence against an innocent person if the government (or some other person/entity) is using violence against you. No?

[menciusmoldbug]

Just to be clear, the main argument you're having with people is because of how you define rights. Imagine if you started a thread that said "People have the right to burn and eat kids." Since they are able to do this, it would follow that they have the right to under your definition. This would naturally bring a bunch of people calling you crazy (because burning kids is clearly wrong). You would argue (correctly under your definition) that people have the right to do this because they are able to do it, while other people would argue (correctly under their definition) that they don't have the right to do this because it is wrong to kill kids. I don't see the point in defining rights in the way you are, because the general population defines it differently, and it would be easier just to say, "The government is able to drop nuclear bombs on its citizens" (or whatever the discussion is about). At the very least, defining your terms when you use them in an unconventional way could prevent much of this back-and-forth.

But burning kids is not "clearly wrong." That's the whole point! The mere fact that >99% of people agree with the statement "burning kids is clearly wrong" (including me!) does not make it true. In fact it is false. There are no such things as objective rights or wrongs, and pretending otherwise makes it difficult (if not impossible) to move peoples' moral needles. If you want to do so, you have to start by analyzing the world as it actually is and convincing people that their view of things is wrong in some important empirical sense. Appeals to morality are toothless.

[Carlybee]

I am pro-authoritarian.

Why?

[menciusmoldbug]

Why?

Briefly: Because I favor order over chaos and believe that order can only ever be the product of authority. This is not to deny the importance of what's commonly called "spontaneous order;" I merely deny that such order is quite so spontaneous as is sometimes imagined. Absent a backdrop of some violent enforcement mechanism, I do not believe that the magic of markets can do its job.

[Carlybee]

Briefly: Because I favor order over chaos and believe that order can only ever be the product of authority. This is not to deny the importance of what's commonly called "spontaneous order;" I merely deny that such order is quite so spontaneous as is sometimes imagined. Absent a backdrop of some violent enforcement mechanism, I do not believe that the magic of markets can do its job.

Why do you think authoritarianism is necessarily antithetical to chaos? Sometimes it relies on chaos to justify it's existence. Sometimes it creates chaos.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

People generally read things because they hope to learn something.

I know why people read. You did not answer my question.

I can see that this isn't a strong motivator for you, however.

I can see that putting things in your own words is not very strong for you.

No, I don't think I'll be doing that. You don't strike me as enough of a high-quality person for it to be worth my time.

You won't being doing it because you really don't know how.

If someone steals your watch and you can't get it back, then whether you say they have a "right" to possess it or not is 100% irrelevant.

Your opinion about relevance is irrelevant to what exists, namely that possession of something and right to possess something are two different things.

I am pro-authoritarian.

Okay, well, heil Hitler.

[menciusmoldbug]

Why do you think authoritarianism is necessarily antithetical to chaos?

I don't. Certain authorities can have the effect of creating rather than quelling chaos.

Sometimes it relies on chaos to justify it's existence.

I believe this is a valid justification.

Sometimes it creates chaos.

Agreed. I do not view a broadly pro-authoritarian disposition as requiring that one support all possible authority figures.

[helmuth_hubener]

Consider the following situation: Suppose I built a house and sold it to another party with a provision in the contract stating that the purchaser agrees not to sell or rent the property to "Jews, Germans, Catholics, homosexuals, Haitians, families with or without children, or smokers," and furthermore that any sale of the property they may make in the future must contain this clause as well, thereby ensuring (if the contract is enforced as written) for all eternity that the property will not be owned or rented by "Jews, Germans, Catholics, homosexuals, Haitians, families with or without children, or smokers." Is this a valid contract? Should it be enforced? If not, why not? If so, are there any similar contracts that could be made which should not be enforced, in your opinion?

It's a little more complicated than that. A contract needs a counter-party.

[menciusmoldbug]

It's a little more complicated than that. A contract needs a counter-party.

Consider the following situation: Suppose I built a house and sold it to another party with a provision in the contract stating that the purchaser agrees not to sell or rent the property to "Jews, Germans, Catholics, homosexuals, Haitians, families with or without children, or smokers," and furthermore that any sale of the property they may make in the future must contain this clause as well, thereby ensuring (if the contract is enforced as written) for all eternity that the property will not be owned or rented by "Jews, Germans, Catholics, homosexuals, Haitians, families with or without children, or smokers." Is this a valid contract? Should it be enforced? If not, why not? If so, are there any similar contracts that could be made which should not be enforced, in your opinion?

[Reece]

I agree with almost all of this. The only part with which I'd quibble is where you claim that my "value judgments... don't have any firm basis in reality." On the contrary, value judgments are almost all ultimately rooted in reality, because embedded in our value judgments about how the world ought to be are empirical beliefs about how the world actually is. It does not follow that a value judgment can be "wrong," but it is true that the empirical beliefs upon which a value judgment is based may be wrong, and if a person comes to recognize this, they will often alter their value judgment as well.

You seem to recognize this towards the end of the paragraph, so I'm not even sure that we actually disagree on this point. I suspect that if we do, it's "just an argument over semantics."

Yeah, I agree.

I can't speak for Hoppe, but I do want the government to require everyone else with few assets to be either sponsored or deported. That would make this a MUCH nicer place to live, in my opinion. (Note that my belief about the desirability of this policy hinges on empirical beliefs about what it will cause the world to look like.)

Okay, so suppose 250 years ago, someone came across some completely unused land in the US. They then "homesteaded" it by turning it into a small farm. Suppose they then passed it on to their children, who passed it onto their children (and so on). They don't have much money, but there's no evidence that they will resort to crime. Don't you think they have an ethical claim to the land? If they don't have the required assets and can't find a sponsor, wouldn't it be unethical to deport them?

Also, would the amount of assets be fixed? Some people can do far more damage with their crimes (someone with a drug company for example could potentially kill tens of thousands of people) than others.

"My favorite analogy for official authority is the stellar cycle. If the authority of government is the temperature of the star, and the size of government is the size of the star, Washington is easily identifiable as a red giant, like Betelgeuse - enormous and cool.

For former libertarians, such as myself, this inverse relationship is critical. The paradox is that weakening government makes it larger. At least, to a libertarian, this seems like a paradox. Once it seems quite natural, you may no longer be a libertarian."

I don't think this holds up to the empirical evidence. Countries with no military, for example, tend to have relatively small governments. I think size of the country might be a better identifier for smaller governments, although there are exceptions there too.

Immigrants have a smaller impact on elections per capita than native-born citizens because they vote at a lower rate. However, it is simply not correct to conclude from this fact that immigrants "seem to have a pretty small impact," because their effect has been the largest in those places where they are most heavily concentrated, and their numbers continue to grow. As this happens, we can expect the California effect to spread.

California helps your case, but states like Texas flipped the other way despite a massive number of immigrants coming in (last voting for a Democrat in 1976). States like New York are extremely authoritarian without the immigration problem. I would have to see a study in order to be convinced that it's a large impact, perhaps comparing cities with high immigration and low immigration, correcting for other policies the states pushed through before the immigrants came.

I hope you'll believe me when I say that I am by no means ignoring these other effects. As a point of fact, I have literally used these precise points to argue in favor of open borders less than a year ago. I have since been persuaded that I was wrong to. Here is a blog post addressing the other effects in question. Key quote:

"This argument is so freaking Mad Max that I actually quite like it. Burn down the world and you take the welfare state with it. Yeeaaaahhhhh! (I’ll leave it to more responsible voices to point out any possible flaws.)"

I think the blog post does not answer my criticisms sufficiently. On competition:

Consider two companies: Effective Inc. and Loserbum Corp. Both have very different corporate cultures, adequately reflected in their names. Under market conditions, Loserbum Corp. either learns some lessons from Effective Inc., or it goes under. Net benefit or no great loss to the world in either case.
But along comes Caplan, to bawl out the stockholders, management, and other employees of Effective Inc. “You monsters! Don’t you care at all about the guys at Loserbum Corp.? They have the same moral status as you, don’t you know? Here’s the true, radical free-market plan: All managers and workers of Loserbum get to enter your company, work there, introduce their business strategies and working practices,until we reach equilibrium. Equilibrium is what markets are all about, see? Sure, Effective Inc. will degenerate significantly, but imagine all the utility gains of the poor Loserbums! It all comes out in the wash.” But … but … countries aren’t companies. Well, maybe not exactly, but they’re competitive institutions, or at least, the more they are, the better they work. The most important thing is true equally of both — to the extent they are able to externalize and pool their failure, the less they will learn.

Caplan was not talking about competition between pieces of land, but competition between governments. Let's use the blogger's framework and consider the US government a company, just for the sake of the argument. As the blogger pointed out, the US company does not wish to allow anyone to work for the US government who wants to. That's the case now, and would be the case under open immigration. But the US company does want as many customers (taxpayers) as possible. A smart restaurant doesn't have signs saying "Whites only" and a smart government doesn't have a sign saying "US born people only (or approved non-US born)." No, they should want more people paying for their services. Whether they are "loserbums" or not, a company generally prefers more customers. Now, it's true there are some exceptions to this example; some places only accept people that dress nicely, some clubs are very restrictive, etc. But in general, this example points more to an open immigration policy working than a closed immigration policy.

Furthermore, this is an incredibly weak example, and doesn't even hit the whole competition argument. Not only are more people free by moving to live under the freer government, the less free government also wants to attract the person back. And the government is not the only service provider in the country. By allowing someone to move here, they also get to pay for thousands of other services and work for thousands of different companies, voluntarily. So, open immigration would be like forcing one company (the US government) to allow a certain group of customers, while closed immigration would be like freeing the one company (the US government), but forcing every other company not to hire or accept a certain group of people.

"Although poor immigrants are likely to support a bigger welfare state than natives do, the presence of poor immigrants makes natives turn against the welfare state. Why would this be? As a rule, people are happy to vote to “take care of their own”; that’s what the welfare state is all about. So when the poor are culturally very similar to the rich, as they are in places like Denmark and Sweden, support for the welfare state tends to be uniformly strong.

As the poor become more culturally distant from the rich, however, support for the welfare state becomes weaker and less uniform."

This argument is so freaking Mad Max that I actually quite like it. Burn down the world and you take the welfare state with it. Yeeaaaahhhhh! (I’ll leave it to more responsible voices to point out any possible flaws.)

The blog post doesn't address "any possible flaws" in this argument. It seems to throw it out without considering it. Your response is much more interesting:

Because I see myself as a somewhat responsible person, I'll take this opportunity to say that I do not think destroying social capital and trust are good things, even if they result in less overall support for welfare. I would much rather live in a place with high social capital/trust + welfare than a place with low social capital/trust - welfare. Moreover, the welfare is likely to continue anyway, especially as the number of welfare-supporting immigrants begins to overwhelm the number of welfare-opposing natives.

I don't think immigration destroys social capital or trust, except maybe on a per capita basis. But someone's trust for someone already here wouldn't change, or perhaps might even increase. Only the trust for the immigrant would be low. But, if we're worried about the immigrant, then I think it's clear that despite the low trust for him, he is better off here than in his previous country. And, as they are here longer, they become part of the population, and I'm guessing their political views move more toward the norm (as the children and their children are integrated into the society). Remember, almost everyone here today is descended from an immigrant who came in recent centuries. While I do think this alone may cause a slight increase in welfare in the long term, I think the other pressure (competition between governments) pushes it in the opposite direction.

Have you read much Friedrich List? No? I can't recommend him highly enough. Google Books is your friend here - go!

I'll look into him. Do you have a specific book in mind?

You are plainly a pretty smart guy, and I respect your opinion. However, I am also a pretty smart guy, and I happen to think the precise opposite. Perhaps if we were to exchange explanations for our beliefs, one of us might be persuaded to change his mind. Does that strike you as possible?

Yes. My above points (especially #3, quoted again below) were my reasoning behind this assertion. The blog post didn't address #3, and you just responded by referring to Friedrich List (which will take some time to get through, and I'm not sure which of his works would have the answer to my point, if it even exists in his works). It would be helpful if you quoted or pointed me to the relevant passages

Why only focus on political changes here? Currently there are massive restrictions on the labor market. Imagine if there was regulation only allowing a certain number of cars to enter the US from other countries per year. Suppose also that local car owners often donated to pro-free market candidates. If we only look at the political change of ending this regulation, yes, it is quite possible that ending this regulation would cause more anti-free market candidates to be elected. But we're also ending an anti-free market policy by allowing cars to enter (meaning people are able to use their property more freely by being allowed to buy foreign cars). Being able to hire foreign labor and to invite people I like onto my property is of far bigger importance than being able to buy a foreign car.

Forget about destroying your ethics system - I'd like to return to your initial claim, which I disputed:

"You don't gain the right to use violence against an innocent person just because the government is using violence against you."

It seems to me that in the quoted paragraph above, you are conceding that this is not in fact correct. On the contrary, you may very well gain the right to use violence against an innocent person if the government (or some other person/entity) is using violence against you. No?

No, I don't think you gain the right. If, for example, I saved the world and didn't need to kill any innocent people to do it, the vast majority of people would see it as wrong for me to kill someone after this. But if I killed the same person in order to save the world, most people wouldn't see it as wrong. The killing in of itself is still an ethical negative, but it being necessary to the stopping of a much larger aggression may make the total act (not just the killing) an ethical positive. So, while you didn't gain the right to kill someone, it is possible that you avoided giving other people the right to retaliate after committing the act.

[Reece]

But burning kids is not "clearly wrong." That's the whole point! The mere fact that >99% of people agree with the statement "burning kids is clearly wrong" (including me!) does not make it true. In fact it is false. There are no such things as objective rights or wrongs, and pretending otherwise makes it difficult (if not impossible) to move peoples' moral needles. If you want to do so, you have to start by analyzing the world as it actually is and convincing people that their view of things is wrong in some important empirical sense. Appeals to morality are toothless.

Okay, but to the vast majority of people (probably everyone on this forum), it is wrong. My point was just that a lot of the confusion in this thread is over a definition - I think the same thing happened last time as well. There isn't anything inherently wrong with your definition, but most people connect rights with ethics (not even just libertarians - most liberals now think gay people have a "right" to marry, even in states where gay people clearly cannot marry, for example), so it can be a bit confusing.

[helmuth_hubener]

If I just "sell it," and then am out of the picture, then whose rights are being violated 100 (1000?) years later when the property is sold to a Jewish Haitian? Who is going to have grounds to sue?

No, as I said, it's a little more complicated than that. Dead people can't bind live people in perpetuity simply by making a proviso, as in your example. A proviso with no built-in consequences. There must be an "or else." There must be a counter-party to enforce the "or else."

This can be fairly easily accomplished by, for instance, owning an entire neighborhood, and setting up such restrictions as you want along with, probably, a neighborhood governing system. You then sell off each individual lot, with these restrictions and agreement to this system written into the deed. If there is a violation, the neighborhood association may repossess the lot because you are in contractual violation with them.

[NorthCarolinaLiberty]

I am so much smarter than you that we can barely be said to belong to the same species.

That's because you don't know your history.


Sadly, as you learned nothing then, I don't very well see how you can be expected to learn anything now. But I'll go ahead and talk you through it in the hopes that someone else reading this might not be quite so mentally impaired.

You might say so, but your ass does seem to be bleeding profusely. Might wanna get that looked at.

You know, I actually seriously considered the possibility that you might be so mind-bogglingly stupid...

...caused you to say yet another cringe-inducingly dumb thing.


...do you see now that this renders everything you have said on the subject both wrong and retarded

...it's very complicated, so i'm not sure you'll be able to understand,

You don't strike me as enough of a high-quality person for it to be worth my time.

However, I am also a pretty smart guy,

You keep asking about people learning things. I'll tell you one thing I've learned. I've learned that you're fairly insecure in your intellectual abilities.