Some Thoughts on Immigration

[Feeding the Abscess]

If we were to replace immigration and the arguments associated with societal change with economy and arguments associated with societal change, and warped the year to 2008, your arguments would be remarkably similar to those who supported Federal Reserve and federal government action to prevent economic collapse.

Realism and practicality are perfectly fine when steps are taken to reduce government activity. However, as Hoppe astutely observes in essentially every other area other than immigration, anything the government does goes awry in a hurry. Libertarian realism and practicality cease to be libertarian when the position becomes expanding State power and increasing government activity. Arguing that we need the government to keep people out in order to preserve culture sounds neat, but you of all people should know, helmuth, that entrusting the State to preserve culture is the surest way to destroy it.

The only acceptable libertarian proposal to curb immigration and its alleged deleterious effects is to eliminate state handouts. If the retort to this proposal is that this is unreasonable and won't happen - you're right, it won't happen when people like yourself, who would typically state the libertarian solution, instead abandon the libertarian solution. Additionally, it's even more unreasonable to assume that granting the State the authority and powers necessary to control immigration would work out exactly as you hope it will. As you know, the people who pull the strings in all forms of government are not libertarians.

[helmuth_hubener]

The only acceptable libertarian proposal to curb immigration and its alleged deleterious effects is to eliminate state handouts.

Not at all. There's an almost unlimited array of imaginative ideas one could come up with which would be compatible with libertarianism. As an easy example: blowing up all the immoral state-run roads and airports. That would make virtually all immigration well-nigh impossible. What do you think about that idea, Feeding? It's totally flawless, from a libertarian perspective. It's pure as the driven snow. Should we do it?

If we were to replace immigration and the arguments associated with societal change with economy and arguments associated with societal change, and warped the year to 2008, your arguments would be remarkably similar to those who supported Federal Reserve and federal government action to prevent economic collapse.

As would be the arguments of the person not wanting to immediately blow up all the roads. And yet... we don't want to immediately blow up the roads, as libertarian as that would be. Do we?

Realism and practicality are perfectly fine when steps are taken to reduce government activity. However, as Hoppe astutely observes in essentially every other area other than immigration, anything the government does goes awry in a hurry.

Oh, I think that Hoppe's anarchist credentials exceed either of ours. Perhaps we would so well, then, to not flippantly reject this as a stupid blind spot. Do we really want to say "Oh, that Hoppe, he's good on most everything else, but man, when it comes to immigration, what a dope!"? That doesn't seem plausible, does it? Not if you know anything about Hoppe. The man is rigorous.

Have you read A Short History of Man, Feeding?

Arguing that we need the government to keep people out in order to preserve culture sounds neat, but you of all people should know, helmuth, that entrusting the State to preserve culture is the surest way to destroy it.

Indeed. Government Doesn't Work!



Spoiler alert, but do you know why, according to Harry, government doesn't work? It's because government uses force to try to get people to do things they don't want to do. This is not in these people's self-interest -- otherwise they would have already been doing these things already -- and so they will take further actions in order to continue their self-interest anyway, either circumventing the government's force or twisting it into something different. Unintended consequences. The put-upon people do not just sit there and "take it." And so it never quite works out as planned.

So, what is the government doing right now vis a vis immigration that isn't working?

The answer is very simple: Forcing Americans to live with, work with, play with, buy from, sell to, and be increasingly surrounded by people:

Who are of a different race than them
Who speak a different language than them
Who have a vastly different culture than them
Who are, on average, stupider than them
Who like a very different type of music (which they play loudly)
Who have a completely different body of literature
Who are influenced by a different set of great thinkers
And finally, crescendo:
Who have a different religion than them!

That's what the government is doing right now. And guess what: it isn't working! I mean, surprise, surprise. We're all going to have a heart attack from that surprise, right? It's a total disaster. It's getting worse and worse. It could blow up in a lot of ways you and I would not like. A hundred million people -- more! -- hate this policy. They hate this massive demographic change, this massive change to their way of life that the government is forcing upon them.



They are not just going to sit there and take it.



Unintended consequences.

[IDefendThePlatform]

Well said! I, too, believe in free association.

I believe in the whole libertarian ball of wax.

The problem we face is how can we realistically get it? How can we get free association and free-market money and everything else we want? Realistically?

What do you think, IDefend? Any ideas?

As for me, I think that when one brings in realism, there are some very important considerations and consequences of immigration policy to consider above and beyond the raw moral stance (which you have given us, though only one half of it). If one brings in the imperative to actually implement libertarianism, or at least to actually see libertarian progress, or, nay, to at the very least see societies with sparks of liberty survive and not be utterly swallowed up and subsumed into worldwide statism, then one asks oneself: what is the order of operations?

Is the first policy priority to repeal all legal restrictions on immigration?

Is the first priority to blow up all government roads and airports because they are all illegitimate, moral monstrosities funded by theft?

Or are we allowed to take into account practical considerations, like:

Do we really want to inundate those very few societies with a libertarian tradition with the hundreds of millions of very poor, very non-libertarian people who would like to come?

And, do we really want to cause the mass starvation and death of millions of people because the grocery logistic system can no longer work because we blew up all the roads and airports?

Respectively.

I think it is eminently reasonable to take these practical considerations into account.

Helmuth I've always appreciated your contributions to this board but you are way way overthinking this. The mental gyrations you're putting yourself through to justify govt intervention are over the top. Blow up the roads? Mass starvation?

Also there are many possible solutions for actually creating a libertarian society (political action, waiting for economic collapse, agorism) but anytime I hear someone say we need more government intervention to help move us closer to a libertarian society I just can't take it seriously. It's like supporting tax hikes because you think the end result will be more people becoming anti-government.

The most realistic solution is to be consistent and clear in supporting the principles you want implemented. Like Ron Paul says, fight with ideas because that's what will lead to real lasting changes.

[osan]

Geographical arrangement matters, erowe.

Demographic arrangement matters.

multiculturalism in the absence of a strongly predominant host culture to which the minority cultures adapt themselves Is a proven loser. Twenty first century nations such as the UK and to a lesser extent America are prime examples of this.

The he progressive liberal model of social utopia is as demented as anything any school of human thought has ever concocted, and is in fact far worse than 99.9% of all.

[DevilsAdvocate]

Demographic arrangement matters.

multiculturalism in the absence of a strongly predominant host culture to which the minority cultures adapt themselves Is a proven loser. Twenty first century nations such as the UK and to a lesser extent America are prime examples of this.

The he progressive liberal model of social utopia is as demented as anything any school of human thought has ever concocted, and is in fact far worse than 99.9% of all.

Exactly. Different cultures need different governments. You can't have Sharia law one year and liberal democracy the next, depending on which cultural faction seizes the government. Different cultures need to be separate so they can pursue their own path in the world.

[Rothbardian Girl]

Exactly. Different cultures need different governments. You can't have Sharia law one year and liberal democracy the next, depending on which cultural faction seizes the government. Different cultures need to be separate so they can pursue their own path in the world.

Isn't this a fairly self-explosive viewpoint, particularly if you are not an anarchist? In order to have a cohesive nation, different cultures need different governments... but cultures split among many different lines, not (just) national ones. Your argument means we can't have people of different age groups living together; after all, it is quite clear that baby boomers will never understand millenials, and vice versa. It basically means that everyone born in a nation must be clones of one another. Can't have any income inequality, either. It means arguably one of the most successful nations (due to a decentralized political system, not because of immigration restrictions) and everyone's favorite quasi-libertarian country, Switzerland, wouldn't exist at all in its present form. After all, French, northern Italian, Romansch and southern German cultures are all very different from each other. You may as well come right out and admit that you are drawing racial distinctions rather than vague "cultural" ones.

The way I see it, people complaining about the mass overthrow of Western/"white" civilization due to brown immigration missed the boat a long time ago. European civilization began destroying itself a long time ago with the Romans, the Germanic Völkerwanderungen and the Norman Conquest. But somehow no one weeps for all the white folk who lost their cultures at the hands of other white folks.

[TheCount]

In order to have a cohesive nation, different cultures need different governments... but cultures split among many different lines, not (just) national ones. Your argument means we can't have people of different age groups living together; after all, it is quite clear that baby boomers will never understand millenials, and vice versa. It basically means that everyone born in a nation must be clones of one another.

In this conversation, culture is code for race.

[helmuth_hubener]

In this conversation, culture is code for race.

As for me, when I mean culture I write "culture," and when I mean race I write "race." I'm remarkably easy to figure out that way. I expect that all the other posters are likewise capable of expressing themselves accurately.

Do you self-appointed thought police really have to make up invented thoughts to wag your finger at? Haven't I actually written enough controversial things in this thread that you could just focus on fanning yourself in shock and outrage over them? Rather than over imaginary not-written statements?

[Tywysog Cymru]

The answer is very simple: Forcing Americans to live with, work with, play with, buy from, sell to, and be increasingly surrounded by people:

Who are of a different race than them
Who speak a different language than them
Who have a vastly different culture than them
Who are, on average, stupider than them
Who like a very different type of music (which they play loudly)
Who have a completely different body of literature
Who are influenced by a different set of great thinkers
And finally, crescendo:
Who have a different religion than them!

That's what the government is doing right now. And guess what: it isn't working! I mean, surprise, surprise. We're all going to have a heart attack from that surprise, right? It's a total disaster. It's getting worse and worse. It could blow up in a lot of ways you and I would not like. A hundred million people -- more! -- hate this policy. They hate this massive demographic change, this massive change to their way of life that the government is forcing upon them.



They are not just going to sit there and take it.



Unintended consequences.

How is that being forced on people?

Also, I haven't seen any evidence of "a hundred million people" hating integration. News flash, the majority of white people, like myself, have no issue with minorities.

Honestly, it's a lot more interesting when people are different.

[erowe1]

That's what the government is doing right now.

How is the government doing all those things?

On the other hand, the government, by its immigration laws, is forcing people not to hire people who lack the requisite government papers. That needs to stop.

[kahless]

How is that being forced on people?

Also, I haven't seen any evidence of "a hundred million people" hating integration. News flash, the majority of white people, like myself, have no issue with minorities.

Honestly, it's a lot more interesting when people are different.

You are confusing people having an issue with minorities with people have an issue with illegals and how certain groups of minorities vote. You can forget about reducing the size and roll of government in the coming years if Hispanic immigration continues at it's current rate.

Hispanics Favor Bigger Role for Government
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/0...src=prc-number

75%, Three-quarters of U.S. Hispanics prefer a big government which provides more services to a small one providing fewer services. This figure is significally lower among the public at large.

[Tywysog Cymru]

You are confusing people having an issue with minorities with people have an issue with illegals and how certain groups of minorities vote. You can forget about reducing the size and roll of government in the coming years if Hispanic immigration continues at it's current rate.

Hispanics Favor Bigger Role for Government
http://www.pewhispanic.org/2012/04/0...src=prc-number

Helmuth seemed to be suggesting that most white people don't want to associate with minorities.

[r3volution 3.0]

Here is another (potentially) convincing reason: The quality of a society is ultimately determined by the quality of the individuals in that society. Without good, quality people you cannot have a good, quality society, no matter how good (meaning libertarian) your institutions and laws may be.

If you have built a society with an average IQ of 98, and then decide to let in a flood of people with an average IQ of 87 (Mexico) or 79 (Guatemala), then the intelligence level of your society will be drastically altered. Regardless of how libertarian your laws are, you will now be surrounded by significantly stupider people. Perhaps that will be good for you personally, it could make you feel smarter by comparison, but perhaps it could be annoying to you to have to deal with unintelligent people on an everyday basis. To me, for my own personal preferences, I want to live around smart people. I think a more intelligent society is a better society.

That's just one metric. If you have a neighborhood that places a high value on work ethic, full of very hard-working, diligent people, that seems like a good thing to me. Hard work can be encouraged by being libertarian, by allowing men to keep all the fruits of their hard labor, but the character trait cannot be created. If you invite in a flood of people with a more lazy character, a "siesta" culture let's say, the nature of your neighborhood is going to change. It just is. It's going to be full of lazy people. Why? Because you just had a bunch of lazy people move in. It's simple physics.

Perhaps you value living in a city full of people with high skill and usefulness, pride in what they do, high competence. I certainly do. If you allow hundreds of thousands of low-skill people to move into your city, what will you have? A city full of low-skill people!

So, this simple fact of reality that the quality of a society rests upon the quality of its individuals -- a highly individualist insight that we as libertarians can readily understand and agree with -- leads us to the conclusion that it would be beneficial to have quality controls upon who can come into one's society. Not all individuals are of the same quality. Rational people who are interested in living in a high-quality society will invite people into their society that have something to contribute, that will raise the average and make the society a better place. They will not invite those who will lower the average and thus deteriorate the society they've worked so hard, for many generations possibly, to build.

Adding a person of below average quality (however defined) to an existing society does not harm that society, provided there's no redistribution. Bob's being a lazy idiot doesn't cause any of his neighbors any harm: it doesn't make them dumber or lazier, nor does it lower their material standard of living. In fact, absent any redistribution, such that Bob must support himself by his own labor, the addition of Bob to the community materially enriches the community by an amount equal to the difference between his wage and his marginal revenue product (the former always being less than the latter).

The people who would be making the decisions about who to invite into their society are the owners of that society! The legitimate, bonafide owners. If the owner or owners of a neighborhood is/are opposed to allowing someone to live in that neighborhood, they can't move in. Sorry!

That's property rights.

That's freedom.

That's liberty.

The "liberty" to go trample on someone else's grass is not liberty at all.

Are you arguing that voters are or should be recognized as the legitimate owners of all the land in the country? Do you think that communal land ownership is a good arrangement? If it's acceptable for them to exercise their alleged property rights to deny immigrants entry, would it be acceptable for them to exercise these alleged right in order to extort money from the rich redistribute to themselves ("pay or leave the country"), or to impose price controls ("charge no more than $X or leave the country), etc, etc?

Taking a modern democratic state, and defining the voters as equal-share owners of the state, does not transform it into a proprietary state and thus justify its actions. The essence of the proprietary state is not that whoever exercises the power can be characterized as an owner (if that were true, every state would be a proprietary one, and the concept would be meaningless), it is that those ownership shares are alienable. As long as the right to vote is not saleable, characterizing the American democratic state as a proprietary one is nonsense. A so-called proprietary state, where everyone has an equal and inalienable ownership share, is simply democratic socialism.

Well, the lower-quality people, if there are lower-quality people, will affect my life a good deal less (understatement) if they are two thousand miles away in a different sovereign nation than if they are my next-door neighbor, or checking my groceries, or robbing me. Surely you agree with this. Surely you cannot seriously expect to be able to hold and defend the position that it doesn't matter where anyone lives.

Surely you aren't suggesting that the collective residents of an area have the right to violate the property rights of an individual resident of that area, as by prohibiting from hiring someone at his grocery store who they find objectionable, or (say) prohibiting him from painting his house a color which they find unpleasant? If this is your actual position, then you've abandoned private property altogether and turned into a democratic socialist. As noted above, characterizing the residents as equal owners of the land in the area (effectively, of the local state) doesn't solve the problem; that's just another way of saying democratic socialism. To solve the problem, you'd have to say that these residents do not own the land in the area until/unless those shares of ownership are alienable: which is to say, since voting rights are in fact not alienable in the US at present, that you cannot characterize the US as any kind of proprietary goverbment, and thus cannot justify any of its actions on that basis.

But I try to understand. Really I do. I make the effort. Could you be coming at this from just a pure altruistic / save-the-world point of view? Could it be your only interest in politics, in philosophy, in life, is to improve all of humanity in aggregate? You're not concerned with whether Maine gets better, could care less whether the quality of your own life gets better, you are such a big-hearted, Universal Man you've risen above such selfish ugliness and care only about humanity as a whole. Is that basically it?

That's the starting point of any ethics worthy of the name.

Note that this in no way implies egalitarianism, not even equality under the law.

It might be that a rigidly hierarchical society is the best means of benefiting humanity as a whole.

The point is that everyone's well-being ought to be considered.

This is a very important question. In a community where everyone is a full-deed unrestricted landowner, each land-owner can of course do whatever he wants (theoretically at least, but there may be strong social pressure). But in a neighborhood with deed restrictions, with covenants, everyone would be bound by the covenants. All the neighbors can agree -- and it must be unanimous -- to bind themselves to not sell or rent to anyone not meeting whatever standards they want to set. Maybe no violent criminal record, maybe a certificate of good character from their church, maybe take an IQ test, maybe meet with the neighbors and convince them he'd be a good addition -- the neighborhood could make whatever entry requirements they want.

And that's all perfectly fine. The problem is in pretending that the entire US is such a homeowners association. First, in view of how property rights have actually developed in the US, how the government was formed, etc, it simply isn't. Second, even if we don't care about such technicalities (and I admittedly don't), you don't want to treat the US like a giant homeowners association: not if you want libertarian outcomes. You know what kind of outcomes you'll get from an HOA of the size and structure of the US? Exactly the same outcomes we actually get now, because the change would only b semantic. Functionally, there's no difference. You'll have all the evils of democracy, under the dishonest name of proprietary government. To beat a dead horse, for true proprietary government, with all its advantages, it must either begin as non-democratic or, at least, have the equally held shares be alienable (so that it will rapidly become undemocratic, as shares are concentrated into fewer hands).

Putting up a border is essentially turning the entire country into a gated community.

No, it's just maintaining the democratic socialist state, and proposing that it pursue a particular policy that you favor. See above.

I would say never. A homeowner's association is a contractual entity. So long as it remains a contractual entity, it is not a state.

A state claims and enforces a monopoly on the ultimate resolution of all disputes within its boundaries, including disputes involving itself. It also claims and enforces the privilege of unilaterally deciding how much to money to take from people within its boundaries. If a homeowner's association started arrogating to itself such power, it would transform into a state (if it did it successfully, which is unlikely). But so long as it is a contractual entity, not a forcibly-maintained monopolist in dispute resolution and taxation, it is not a state and furthermore is legitimate and not deleterious to liberty.

An HOA, or any other kind of proprietary community, is functionally identical to a state (provided it is not under the jurisdiction of another state).

"Functionally identical" = having the same practical abilities to extract taxes (call them rents) or make laws (call them lease terms), whatever the formal differences

Incicdentally, this is not a criticism of proprietary communities (I'm all for them).

Basically the state is not subject to any contract -- it sets the terms of all contracts, and can change them at any time, and so effectively there can be no real contract with a state. A homeowner's association (or any other system of governance people might, and surely do, want to set up) is bound by its contract, which it does not have authority to unilaterally interpret. No one (in their right mind) would sign a contract with another person or entity stating that that person or entity had the right to change the contract however they wished to impose whatever requirements on you they desired, and the right to decide themselves, unilaterally, whether or not they were in violation of the contract!

Contracts would restrain HAOs about as effectively as constitutions restrain states.

On Free Immigration and Forced Integration

See this thread.

So, how about the Constitutional argument? What is the Constitutional position on immigration?

As far as I can see, there is absolutely no provision in the Constitution giving Congress the authority to make any restrictions on immigration per se. Congress is explicitly authorized to make naturalization laws and citizenship requirements. They are not allowed to prevent people from becoming tourists or resident aliens.

What's more, the federal government did not put any restrictions on immigration until 1878 or so, and then only meaningful restrictions in the 1920s. So there was a long period of no federal restrictions on immigration whatsoever, which makes sense, since they don't seem to have the authority to make any such restrictions.

That's right.

He is welcome in my tent, as are you. I am an anarcho-capitalist libertarian. Anarcho-capitalism is all about private property rights: systematized and absolutized. "Labor" cannot just go wherever he pleases. He can only go where he is invited, with the permission and good graces of the property owners. There exists no right of immigration in a free society. It is not a real right. It doesn't exist. It's a philosophical error.

Yes, but this is misleading. There exists no right of free immigration in a free society only because the "right of free immigration" means nothing other than that the state has no right to restrict immigration (since any such effort necessarily violates property rights). As with all rights, it reduces to nothing more than a restatement of a particular case of the general right to property. And that certainly still holds in a free society. One's neighbors cannot arbitrarily violates one's property rights by prohibiting one from hiring Pedro. I see that you understand and agree with this, from what you've already said, just reiterating for the benefit of lurkers..

[LibForestPaul]

How?

Move to mexico, let me know if it matters.

[erowe1]

Move to mexico, let me know if it matters.

Can you answer the question?

[helmuth_hubener]

Can you answer the question?

Don't bother, LibForest (I already did, and he ignored the answer). A better, more challenging question might be the converse: How, or in what ways, does geographical arrangement not matter?

Now in some ways modernity has seemed, on the surface, to make geographical arrangement matter less, due to better communications and logistics. But on balance, I would say that actually as societies have become more sophisticated it has come to be more and more important! I think that it probably is the case that, on balance, location is more important now than ever before. Far more.

Network effects.

There are certain things that cannot be done effectively anywhere but Silicon Valley.

There are certain things that simply cannot be done anywhere but Shenzhen.

[helmuth_hubener]

Isn't this a fairly self-explosive viewpoint, particularly if you are not an anarchist? In order to have a cohesive nation, different cultures need different governments... but cultures split among many different lines, not (just) national ones. Your argument means we can't have people of different age groups living together; after all, it is quite clear that baby boomers will never understand millenials, and vice versa. It basically means that everyone born in a nation must be clones of one another. Can't have any income inequality, either. It means arguably one of the most successful nations (due to a decentralized political system, not because of immigration restrictions) and everyone's favorite quasi-libertarian country, Switzerland, wouldn't exist at all in its present form. After all, French, northern Italian, Romansch and southern German cultures are all very different from each other.

Short version: "because spectrum, therefore non-existent."

Slightly longer: "Because there are many different dimensions of human difference, and almost none of them have sharply delineated borders, but instead fade into each other, people are morons (and of course bigots and racists and just all-around unacceptable people) for being more comfortable with some humans than others and for feeling they are more similar to some than to others. Stupid morons. They make me so angry."

Thanks for stopping by, RothbardianGirl! Always happy to see you around to share your unbelievably radical egalitarian point of view. Even though you cannot defend it and have no interest in trying to do so, still to just share it gives us some variety and I appreciate that.

The way I see it, people complaining about the mass overthrow of Western/"white" civilization due to brown immigration missed the boat a long time ago.

Not at all -- there are many societies run by whites and consisting almost exclusively of whites. They are generally very nice societies, the nicest, most desirable societies this Earth has upon it.

Of course, that's probably just a coincidence.

[helmuth_hubener]

Helmuth seemed to be suggesting that most white people don't want to associate with minorities.

It would be more accurate to say that people -- all people, of any race -- do not like new minorities. They don't like new people moving in and messing things up. "Messing things up" means "changing things in pretty much any way."

Does that make more sense? Could you go along with that, Tywysog?

[helmuth_hubener]

If the community has always been 20% black 80% white (or whatever it is) for your whole life, that is another story. There may be tensions, but those people are basically used to each other in a way that they are not with newcomers.

[helmuth_hubener]

An HOA, or any other kind of proprietary community, is functionally identical to a state (provided it is not under the jurisdiction of another state).

Nope. It cannot decide disputes involving itself.

Contracts would restrain HOAs about as effectively as constitutions restrain states.

Nope, because a homeowners association -- or agricultural cooperative, or religious fellowship, or workers' union, or car manufacturing corporation, or any other voluntary association -- cannot unilaterally interpret its own contract. It cannot arbitrate disputes involving itself. No one would sign a contract which said "I can do whatever I want to you, forever." That would defy all principles of jurisprudence, and indeed of common sense.

As the State, of course, does.

[Rothbardian Girl]

It would be more accurate to say that people -- all people, of any race -- do not like new minorities. They don't like new people moving in and messing things up. "Messing things up" means "changing things in pretty much any way."

Does that make more sense? Could you go along with that, Tywysog?

So you basically admit the problem is not immigration, or the nonviolent movement of individuals, but the part where they "mess things up." And by the "changing things in pretty much any way," does that mean I have the right to be angry when a white couple age 65+ moves into my neighborhood? They're boomers, they likely vote for people who will preserve SS and Medicare, and so they're probably going to mess things up. Why is there never any vitriol towards them? In any case, the "messing things up" is the root of the problem, no? It's the statism. Yes, I do have a problem with people feeling "uncomfortable" when others who look different and speak another language happen to move in, because those people resort to violence over what are really learned prejudices. Frequently the minority moving in has gained neither critical mass nor influence; thus, it is not they who are proposing handouts, but rather opportunistic members of the government. So, at the end of all this, I remain unable to see how a migrant worker picking vegetables is at the root of the problem. People only perceive these people as messing things up because they're dependent on an inefficient allocation mechanism (the state) to make them comfortable. Linguistic and cultural assimilation went fairly "well" back in the "wild days" of Europe (and I am sure in other parts of the world as well) when there generally weren't states that were organized enough to give people everything they wanted and take it all away.

Those great "white societies" you speak of were formed, coincidentally (?), not only with efforts from within Europe. Their societies and cultures owe a great deal to the migrations of people from the Middle East and the steppes. Immigration has the potential to unleash gains in wealth, genetic diversity and overall productivity like the human race has not seen in a long time, but people's expectations (based on the bloated modern state) prevent them from seeing any other way.

Eta: I'm not sure why you chose to blindside me passively like that, but I was trying to show why the "different cultures need different governments" logically must reduce to an "every individual for himself" mentality (anarchic self-secession) since as DA very aptly notes, people are not interchangeable widgets. By his logic, therefore, it is impossible to get two people to agree to any form of government.

[helmuth_hubener]

I'm not sure why you chose to blindside me passively like that

I don't know what that means to "blindside you passively," but presumably it relates to my playful unsympathetic "translations" of your post.

I hope you were/are not too offended by that. It wasn't meant in a mean-spirited way. I really do like you and appreciate your contributions. I think you are smart. Ultimately, though, I pretty thoroughly reject egalitarianism, so probably you're going to hate me no matter what. And let's be honest: you don't ever try to defend egalitarianism. It's just assumed, it's just part of what you believe, and probably you don't think it needs defending, it's so obvious and so universally accepted in all the circles you hang out with.

Plus (even worse?) I am old-fashioned, and as you have previously stated you hate old-fashioned people and they infuriate you. Understandable. I sympathize and am sorry to be infuriating (I try to be decent to everyone on RPF), but yet I am not going to change to please you.

If you ever do feel the need or desire to debate egalitarianism, I am sure that would be an invigorating and interesting conversation.

On the immigration issue, I think that ultimately anti-egalitarianism is the strongest basis for those that wish to limit immigration. Or, from your perspective: basically to embrace racism. If all humans are basically identical, if there's no human bio-diversity, if there are no differences between ethnicities and everyone is fundamentally compatible and equally susceptible to believing in and valuing liberty, being peaceful, being smart, and being good in all the other ways we would want them to be, then why not let anyone and everyone in, indiscriminately? I mean, there are lots of other arguments that could be and have been made to be discriminatory and selective in who is allowed to immigrate, but that is the best, strongest, most rational, and most urgent argument, in my opinion. "That" being the argument, the truth, that all people are not equally susceptible to believing in and valuing liberty, being peaceful, being smart, and being good. Genetics matter. Genetics matter a lot.

And that's maybe not fair. And I know you don't like it. You don't want to believe it. You may refuse to ever believe it. It's racist, it's sexist, it's elitist, it's unfair, it's unequal, it goes against all your strongest moral convictions. OK, fine. It's just true.

but I was trying to show why the "different cultures need different governments" logically must reduce to an "every individual for himself" mentality (anarchic self-secession) since as DA very aptly notes, people are not interchangeable widgets. By his logic, therefore, it is impossible to get two people to agree to any form of government.

Taking his statement literally and then taking it rigidly and logically to the extreme, you are of course absolutely right.

I doubt his statement was meant to be taken in that sense, but if so you have decisively refuted it. Probably closer to what he meant would be something like: "Making peoples with very different, incompatible belief systems about how society should be and forcing them to all live under the umbrella of one winner-take-all monopoly government will lead to everyone being dissatisfied with the results and basically to big problems, hatred, etc." Your reply to this should of course be that this is not a unique problem with immigrants. And you would of course be right. The United States, for instance, is simply too big and too diverse a country to have a large amount of central control. Michiganders are very different than Okies and they both are very different than Alabamans and all three are extremely different from New Yawkers. Anyway, not a unique problem, true, but that doesn't mean it's not a problem with immigrants at all. Because it is.

So you basically admit the problem
...the problem
...the root of the problem

It must be nice to have just one Problem. Just One Great Problem that subsumes all other problems of every stripe, such that there are no other problems. Just that One. The Problem.

Yes, I do have a problem with people feeling "uncomfortable" when others who look different and speak another language happen to move in, because those people resort to violence over what are really learned prejudices.

They're really not. The evidence is that even plants can sense genetic distance in other plants, perhaps through very subtle root shape and branching differences, and they like plants that are closely related brothers and cousins more than more distant relatives, even though they are all the same species, even all the same strain.

https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/...-plants-do-it/

And certainly humans have this same ability.

The Selfish Gene, Rothbardian Girl. I'm sorry -- I didn't make the rules.

Those great "white societies" you speak of were formed, coincidentally (?), not only with efforts from within Europe. Their societies and cultures owe a great deal to the migrations of people from the Middle East and the steppes.

Right, where would we be without sauerkraut and the number zero? Seriously, though, I'm glad you chose the example of the steppes. So you are saying that maybe all the great achievements of Europe economically culminating in the Industrial Revolution would not have happened had not Genghis Khan invaded Europe, and then Attilla the Hun? Maybe. I can't refute counter-factual history. But regardless: this was not exactly peaceful, happy "immigration," was it? Genghis & Co. did not just mellowly come in and, like, "coexist," man, like the bumper sticker exhorts.

Mountains of skulls. Is this really what you want to defend, Rothbardian Girl? Is this the means that you think is justified by its (supposed, speculative) end (of contributing to the great European project)? Is this hill of carcasses the hill you want to die on?

Immigration has the potential to unleash gains in wealth, genetic diversity and overall productivity like the human race has not seen in a long time, but people's expectations (based on the bloated modern state) prevent them from seeing any other way.

It can. It certainly can. It also can not. Can you see that possibility? Given the decivilizationalizing trends Hoppe explains, chances are good that it will not. Millions of Middle-eastern Muslims has not made France better. Tens of thousands of Somalis have not made Minnesota better. Millions of Mexicans and Central Americans have not made Texas better. Hasn't happened. They have made things worse.

The data is in. I see no reason to suspect these results will change in the future.

[Rothbardian Girl]

You know, I've heard it said that Marxism was more popular among literary critics than actual economists because Marxism offers relatively simple explanatory tools for really complex phenomena. I have a feeling the "HBD"/IQ obsession/excessive reductionism serves the same purpose for people who don't know much about philosophy, history, religion or linguistics, the forces that shape cultural differences they're so hellbent on explaining.

Genetic differences cannot explain why certain countries "converge" economically and others do not. As an example, HBDers would argue that the fact that South Korea has been enormously successful in the past 50 years when compared to, say, Ghana (the two countries had similar GNP and overall economies) can be explained in terms of, "South Koreans valued thrift and hard work, and Ghanians do not." They will attribute these cultural differences to genetics. But suppose the same comparison was being made in 1955 instead of 2015. A snapshot of South Korea in 1955 would have the HBD charlatan suggesting that East Asia would be doomed to permanent poverty, perhaps because of the relative import placed on conformity in Asian nations. In other words, HBDers employ some reverse induction to try to link together very disparate concepts - genetics and economic success. You can make literally anything fit any narrative if you try hard enough.

This is how this sophistry works: any time you see an observable difference between two populations, you come up with a genetic explanation for that difference. And along with that, you invent "just-so" stories to back up all these explanations. South Korea used to be poorer than Japan and is now basically equal? Thrift! Hard work! The Irish used to be poor as $#@! and are now relatively rich? Must be all those awesome European genes. But in statistics, we have problems with this approach. Each and every genetic explanation that you cram into your model adds a new parameter to this model. You are "overfitting the model," in other words. K=N. So now what ends up happening is that you are employing post-hoc reasoning, or testing hypotheses suggested by the data, or whatever one wishes to call it. The point is, it's bad stats, and it leads to useless models.

These are just a few of the troubles with excess reductionism, and why "HBD chick" and the rest of her ilk will not receive an ounce of respect from me, despite sometimes cloaking their faulty stats in eloquent packages.

[helmuth_hubener]

Your post addresses my post not in the least.

Of course, you know that. Just pointing it out.

As for me, I did not claim anything about genetics explaining all the differences between the economic success of nations. Nor would I. I believe there are many such factors. I believe that the most important factor is the liberty of each nation. If one looks at the level of economic liberty in the nations of the world, and compares that to the level of economic growth occurring in these nations, the correlation is unmistakable and very strong.

Plus, allow me to make your case for you much better than you did. It would be very difficult to explain the economic difference between South Korea and Ghana? North Korea genetically. This was the same people. They're all Koreans. Sure, there's doubtless been some genetic divergence since the bifurcation, and of course the north was slightly different than the south even before, but so was the east different than the west. They are the same ethnicity, shared the same culture, spoke the same language, so how come that one got rich and the other got poor? There's only one big, huge, obvious variable that is not identical in each: the political system!

Likewise, it would be pretty difficult to construct and support a genetic explanation for the difference in fortunes of East Germany and West Germany. Again, it's as close to a controlled experiment as you can get in the social sciences, and the result was resounding: liberty works, and not just a little. Liberty matters -- a lot!

I have no idea what horrible crimes this HBD Chick has committed to make her an Unacceptable Person to you. I am not very familiar with her nor "her ilk." I referenced her perfectly good explanation of a perfectly good scientific article as an illustration of a well-established genetic principle that completely contradicts and obliterates what you said about preference for the genetically close being "a learned prejudice." It is natural to have a preference for one's own race, even more-so for one's own ethnicity, and increasing more and more to a very strong loyalty and affinity for one's own family. Why is it natural? The same reason it's natural to want to reproduce: passing on your genes. You share a ton of genes with your family, a lot with your ethnicity, and some with your race (these are just broader and broader categories expanding out, like class, phylum, kingdom). It is natural to want to protect your sister, it is natural to care about your tribe, and it is natural to care a whole lot less about that other tribe.

So go ahead, have a problem with people with a strong in-tribe preference/loyalty, because you don't have that as much, for whatever reason. Have a big, honking problem with them. Just don't pretend that you're morally superior to them.

[helmuth_hubener]

I do agree with you about excess reductionism.

We are all susceptible to it. Even libertarians.

For libertarianism doesn't explain everything.

[Rothbardian Girl]

Your post addresses my post not in the least.
Plus, allow me to make your case for you much better than you did. It would be very difficult to explain the economic difference between South Korea and Ghana? North Korea genetically. This was the same people. They're all Koreans. Sure, there's doubtless been some genetic divergence since the bifurcation, and of course the north was slightly different than the south even before, but so was the east different than the west. They are the same ethnicity, shared the same culture, spoke the same language, so how come that one got rich and the other got poor? There's only one big, huge, obvious variable that is not identical in each: the political system!

The point of the comparison was to draw on the racially charged idea that Africa is backwards in no small part because its inhabitants are somehow genetically predisposed to chaos, which is essentially the argument you seem to be making when you claim that it's no coincidence "the most successful societies have been white-dominated ones."

So go ahead, have a problem with people with a strong in-tribe preference/loyalty, because you don't have that as much, for whatever reason. Have a big, honking problem with them. Just don't pretend that you're morally superior to them.

I don't really have a problem with people who think tribally, though I'm also not convinced they exist in any great number. I do have a problem when they try to enforce that way of thinking on everyone else, or brand people who happen to select outside the pool as "race traitors" (or otherwise look down on them). Expressing preference for a certain group does not mean you have to denigrate people who are in the out-group, or bend over backwards to explain why you think they are inferior (lower IQs! ugliness! violence!).

[Tywysog Cymru]

It would be more accurate to say that people -- all people, of any race -- do not like new minorities. They don't like new people moving in and messing things up. "Messing things up" means "changing things in pretty much any way."

Does that make more sense? Could you go along with that, Tywysog?

It makes more sense, but I don't think it's a universal reality.

[IDefendThePlatform]

If the community has always been 20% black 80% white (or whatever it is) for your whole life, that is another story. There may be tensions, but those people are basically used to each other in a way that they are not with newcomers.

Which of course is absolutely not a legitimate reason to pull a gun on someone, aka "immigration enforcement."

[helmuth_hubener]

The point of the comparison was to draw on the racially charged idea that Africa is backwards in no small part because its inhabitants are somehow genetically predisposed to chaos, which is essentially the argument you seem to be making when you claim that it's no coincidence "the most successful societies have been white-dominated ones."

"Genetically predisposed to chaos"? What does that even mean? The best, most desirable societies on Earth today are certainly the ones dominated by wither whites or north-asians. That is just a fact. Well, a subjective fact -- certainly some few hippies will wax eloquent about the beauties of Bali -- but a fact nonetheless.

Maybe that is a coincidence. It could be! You see, there's a very high (basically 100%) overlap between "white-dominated" and "high degree of private property rights a.k.a. economic liberty". If you are not comfortable with the mean, elitist way that nature operates, feel free to simple attribute all the success to the private property rights and chalk up the racial difference to pure inexplicable chance.

I don't really have a problem with people who think tribally, though I'm also not convinced they exist in any great number. I do have a problem when they try to enforce that way of thinking on everyone else, or brand people who happen to select outside the pool as "race traitors" (or otherwise look down on them).

But you are looking down on them! You have a tribe, too, hate to break it to you. You are intolerant and bigoted too, hate to break it to you. You have outsiders whom you hate and despise, too. Your outsiders you slur as hicks; their outsiders they slur as spicks. It's all the same thing.

[helmuth_hubener]

Which of course is absolutely not a legitimate reason to pull a gun on someone, aka "immigration enforcement."

But do you have a legitimate reason to pull out your Big Government gun on them, the old-timers, to force them to let in and integrate with all the newcomers?

I would say you don't. And that's what's happening right now!

I don't want to pull a gun on either the old-timers or the new-comers. I want no guns pulled in aggression against anybody. But guns in defense, remember, are OK in libertarianism. The old-timers have praxeological priority over the new-comers. They were there first. They have the legitimate claim to the land. It is the man who claims the virgin land first who gets to legitimately homestead it, not the man who claims it second. The second man can come on the land only by the good graces and will of the first man. If the first man says no: no it is.

A man's home is his castle.

That is the situation under libertarianism. We need to try our best to get things back towards that "closed," "xenophobic" society where if some outsider is claiming the right to invade and live in your castle, you can just say no and there's nothing he can do about it. Because that is actually the true open, libertarian society.