If People Could Immigrate Anywhere, Would Poverty Be Eliminated?

I do think increasing migration from poor to rich areas is a good idea, although it should probably be scaled up slowly to make sure that there is no unexpected effects that makes the wealth of rich areas suddenly collapse.<p>I have a different cause though, which I also feel receives too little love: increasing migration between rich areas.<p>Currently citizens of EU states have the right to move freely inside the EU, subject to them getting a job or having enough independent means to not need state welfare. This is seems like an excellent idea, and surely it could scale up to a larger area than just the EU. For example, how about the EU, the US, Japan, and the rich areas of China [1]. For software developers, being able to conveniently move to the Bay Area would be really welcome.<p>[1] E.g. Beijing and Shanghai. These already have strict immigration restrictions, so including them in the common area would not expose industrial regions to immigration from agricultural regions.

<i>To see their point, imagine an American in rural Mississippi being told she cannot move to New York City to seek a better career.</i><p>Tangentially, this is exactly the situation in China today. The central government restricts movement, particularly between rural and urban areas. Many rural poor want to move to cities, but it is not legal.<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Household_registration_in_China" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hukou_system#Household_registr...</a>

Yes, but, (importantly) <i>only</i> if the immigration isn't so rapid that it destroys the cultural and social capital that makes the wealthier countries desirable targets of immigration in the first place.<p>Caplan has very insightful remarks about the benefits of immigration and the inconsistency of current policy on it. But he is unhelpfully silent on the question of the <i>upper</i> bound on ideal peaceful immigration, and yes, there certainly is one. Taking his ideas literally, we should be totally okay with Chinese army regulars "peacefully" immigrating, then using their free trade rights to import their weaponry. Sure, enacting their "takeover America" plan would be worthy of opposing (and violating free trade/movement ideals), but by then it's too late.<p>(Before you flame me: no I'm not saying that this would be the result of relaxing immigration policy; please read it carefully and flame me for the right reason.)<p>There has to be some principle that tells you when you are allowing in too many immigrants, which would stop you before you reach that point, and Caplan shows far too little interest in articulating it.

I've been thinking about the idea of free migration for a while. Not in the context of eliminating poverty, but as the perfect implementation of democracy: Vote with your feet, go to wherever you like it best.<p>If all immigration and emigration restrictions were dropped everywhere, and anyone could freely move from any country to any country, and you were full citizen of whatever country you are living in at any given point, what would happen? Would democracy as political system prevail or would people simply move in and out of non-democratic countries depending on how their respective rules work for them? Would there be inhabitable regions on earth that are abandoned because everyone moved away? Would there be countries that attract all the "desirable" citizen while other countries collapse because they were left with "undesirable" citizens? Is there even such a thing as a generally "desirable" citizen or are people only desirable to some countries but not others? If one (but only one) of those open-border countries were to start implementing new immigration restrictions (that should be possible, after all you can leave if you don't like it), would this result in a net outflow of people and the ultimate collapse of this country? Or would the country strive and be home to some kind of elite group of people? Would the world move back to a state where every country has immigration restrictions, or would we find a different equilibrium?<p>I know next to nothing about immigration policy, but thinking of this as a game is quite interesting. I wonder if there are simulations where you can model scenarios like this?

One of my mom's hippie friends brought up the idea of a single world government to me when I was young enough to think it was a beautiful idea. Every time I've thought about the idea of open borders since, the analogy of driving in traffic comes to mind. To wit, the idea of open borders seems as orthogonal to basic human nature as allowing someone to change lanes into the space in front of you. Even when it is possible that the other driver has to exit the expressway for some very real reason (mechanical troubles, physical illness), it seems difficult to overcome the reflex of NOPE. Of course the scale is different. Letting someone into traffic doesn't cost you very much, in the grand scheme of things. Outside of that one movie plot where you are one minute late and miss some opportunity that changes your life.<p>The US has been headed very much in the opposite direction for the last decade. These decisions seem very counter-intuitive and I've read and heard a number of stories where people have tried to get into the states to contribute (teach, give talks, consult) and have been sent home. Likely these stories make the romance of freedom seem all the more compelling. But I see the reality of a rate of change that has historically created a bad environment. Think New York City circa 1880.

This video, although speaking only about allowing unrestricted immigration to the US, is worth watching for perspective.<p><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE</a><p>Unrestricted immigration would make the West's social safety nets and healthcare impossible to maintain. There would be corresponding civil unrest as a reaction.<p>The obvious first thing to do about world poverty is provide free birth control and related education.

Here's a real-world example of a mass migration occurring: German reunification. 20 years on, a disparity remains but both economies have grown substantially and towards parity, and the population figures have only shifted somewhat.[1] To some extent this is a best-case since there are other similarities among Germans, but it's an example of how it can go well.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/09/west-east-germany-split" rel="nofollow">http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/oct/09/west-east-german...</a>

H'm, I have indulged in this as a thought experiment plenty of times, and actually think it might ease the pressure of immigration, specially on countries like the United States. Although I suppose the complications of things like benefits and medical care make it probably un-implementable in practice.<p>I'm reasonably well off, childless, and if I were given a free choice of any country to emigrate to, I'm fairly sure the U.S. wouldn't be the first on my list.

A special case of this question is that the destination of the immigration is the US. Let's assume this, and let's also assume that an immigrant is magically and automatically converted into a proper US citizen (believing in women's rights, having gay buddies, etc.). Now imagine that EVERYONE outside of the US immigrates to the US. Because nobody would be left outside of the US, the US could expand to cover the entire planet. The real question now is: Is the US self-sustainable, i.e. can it function totally on its own?

There seems to be an implicit assumption that every body wants to emigrate to the US.<p>I don't that is true. If given the choice a lot of people would choose to stay. Sure, you can have more material things, but you will have to go to a strange place, far from friends and family, where you are just a stranger, that possible don't even speak the language.<p>People who decide to emigrate is because they have strong reasons. Either your situation is desperate or your are very courageous, or both. Leaving your country is really not easy.

I think something that's not discussed as much, but would resonate with the HN audience...with lots of us being full or part-time remote workers, imagine being an American and doing your remote job with the low low cost of living of living in Thailand? Or how about waking up on a beach and eating fresh Oysters in Ecuador? Imagine if the majority of your salary went into the local economy of the Dominican Republic?<p>Sure lots of Thais, Ecuadorians and Dominicans might move to the U.S. and Western Europe for jobs, but the Americans and Europeans might move to their countries and live like kings, generating tons of local jobs.<p>Now suppose you did your remote job in the countryside of South Korea (relatively cheap and has its charms), and you decide you need an junior person to help you out with your work? Why not hire an incredibly well educated local, who'd be just as happy to not take a job in a boring <i>chaebol</i> grinder? Now you're generating high-end white collar jobs?

Eliminated? No, I think that's overstating it. But reduced? Likely.

Welfare states are quite fault tolerant, but could they handle unlimited immigration? It isn't just money. Societies with high level of trust would change psychologically if too many people from states in disrepair would arrive at once.<p>How much poverty would need to be eliminated that dismantling of welfare state becomes an acceptable trade-off?

I've thought about this for a long time, as an American who twice lived overseas as a bona-fide long-term resident of another country. My wife, a first-generation immigrant to the United States, is just one of many examples of first-generation immigrants to the United States I know, from many countries.<p>From the article: "George Mason economist Bryan Caplan, whose writing at EconLog inspired Naik's interest in open borders, has offered 'keyhole' solutions as a substitute for black and white, yes-or-no questions on immigration. 'If immigrants hurt American workers, we can charge immigrants higher taxes or admission fees, and use the revenue to compensate the losers,' Caplan wrote last year. 'If immigrants burden American taxpayers, we can make immigrants ineligible for benefits. If immigrants hurt American culture, we can impose tests of English fluency and cultural literacy. If immigrants hurt American liberty, we can refuse to give them the right to vote. Whatever your complaint happens to be, immigration restrictions are a needlessly draconian remedy.'"<p>Further along in the article, what is to me the scariest possible outcome of huge immigration is mentioned: "Naik points out that 'political externalities' may be a major drawback of allowing anyone who wants to move to stable, wealthy nations to do so. Gallup polls have found that 700 million people would like to permanently move to another country, many of them from developing nations with failed political systems. If the U.S. or another wealthy nation were to see a sudden large increase in immigrants from these countries, it's possible that the new populace will vote for bad policies in their new home. As Naik puts it, some people believe that 'if you're coming from a place that has a problem, you are probably part of the problem, and if you move to a new place you might bring the problem with you.'" I would indeed want a keyhole solution to acculturate new immigrants to United States political culture (which I have seen done, for my wife) before allowing them to vote in local or national elections. One great advantage that the United States has over many other countries is that its sources of immigrants are so diverse that the immigrants tend to educate and broaden the perspective of one another. As I have related before here on Hacker News, all my grandparents were born in the United States, but three of the four spoke a language other than English at home, and my two maternal grandparents, one born in Nebraska and one born in Colorado, received all of their schooling in the German language. My grandparents learned English and learned American attitudes about civic culture because they interacted with other people who had come here from other places besides where their ancestors came from. That's always the strength of American society, and that's why I'm generally sympathetic to very open immigration policies. I am aware many Europeans don't feel the same way, but most countries in Europe LOST population to emigration until rather recent times, so the European experience with the benefits of immigration is not as deep as the American experience.<p>The other reason the policy suggestion is plausible to me is that I have visited Hong Kong, a territory that was flooded with immigrants during my lifetime, on more than one occasion. Countries that receive large influxes of people from elsewhere can learn to deal with that.<p>AFTER EDIT: Here's the website with the policy case for open borders<p><a href="http://openborders.info/" rel="nofollow">http://openborders.info/</a><p>mentioned and linked in the submitted article.

This comment over at Bryan Caplan's blog pretty much sums it up nicely: (<a href="http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/02/open_borders_in.html#252166" rel="nofollow">http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2013/02/open_borders_in....</a>)<p>1. Poverty is endogenous to population, not exogenous. Admitting a flood of poor immigrants to your country makes your country poor. All this stuff about being born on the wrong side is misleading, because the difference between the two sides is not natural resources or something* but the people themselves.<p>Also your stuff about willing employers and landlords is incomplete, because those people do not keep immigrants in cages. The immigrants impose stiff externalities on other people in the destination country, who are not able to adjust their costs and benefits vis-a-vis immigrants by lowering their wages or raising their rents.<p>2. Restricting immigration is necessary to avert the destruction of the high-capital-to-worker society which is uniquely conducive to technological progress. Even if mass immigration may please some poor immigrants in the short run, it is 'eating the seed corn.' As commenters have pointed out to you before, virtually all the world population growth in the last two centuries has been enabled by the diffusion of technology from advanced countries to poor ones (and one reason most formerly-poor countries are still poor is that they put nearly all their economic growth into population growth rather than capital accumulation, so they stayed near the Malthusian limit!). Transforming all the advanced countries into poor countries by mass immigration will kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Anyway, hard-core utilitarianism is a suicide pact; clearly non-adaptive. The moral duty to refrain from harming strangers, which is a form of cooperation (offer to participate in 'mutual altruism') does not extend to a duty to relieve all strangers' opportunity costs of not having been born or invited into the community.<p>Also, there are diminishing marginal returns to immigration. The first few poor immigrants may enjoy big wage gains over their home-country wages (though higher cost of living in rich countries will mitigate those gains) but as more immigrants arrive to compete down wages and fill all the jobs enabled by the available industrial capital, each new immigrant gains less and less over staying home. (We know for sure there isn't much demand for low-wage workers in rich countries-- low wages==low demand!) It is therefore misleading to suggest that open immigration will relieve much poverty around the world, because only a modest amount of migration will force the marginal gains to zero. Sadly, by that point, the quality of life for citizens of the (formerly) rich countries will have dimished toward poor-country levels. So open borders means economically destroying rich-country citizens to benefit a small percentage of world poor people. Temporarily.<p>3. You tend to destroy your own credibility when you lie, even by omission or by statistical legerdemain. Poor immigrants pay much less in taxes than they (and their offspring) consume in benefits. This is very well documented (in Europe as well as in the US) and conceded even by (intellectually honest) open-borders advocates, and it has been pointed out to you with links to reliable references many times. The closest you can come to justifying your propaganda is to average (as Julian Simon was wont to do) a few hyper-rich Google-founder-type immigrants in with the millions of low-IQ Mexican peasant illegal aliens. That's dishonest because we don't need open borders to admit math geniuses-- we do that already.<p>4. The "guest worker" approach doesn't work: (1) even immigrants "ineligible for benefits" collect them. They have children and claim welfare payments and schooling for them.<i></i> They get sick or injured and go to the E.R.. They file for EITC. (2) Poor immigrants excite the sympathy of nice people, the duplicity of leftist politicians, and the cupidity of businessmen. Every grocer in a neighborhood of poor immigrants funds politicians who work to extend benefits to immigrants because the grocer wants his customers to spend more money and he doesn't mind if that money is taxed away from citizens somewhere else. Every employer of poor immigrants is a big advocate for government subsidies to them because those reduce the wages the employer must pay to maintain his workforce-- it's a matter of socializing costs and privatizing benefits. In our society, the only way to avoid subsidizing poor immigrants is to exclude them from the country.<p>(Nobody is "forcing" anyone to go and live in Haiti. Your prospective immigrants already live in Haiti. They were born in Haiti. Haiti may be a dump but the Haitians made it that way. Americans have no duty to import Haitians to make America a dump like Haiti. Americans who feel sorry for Haitians can send them money. Hope springs eternal, but experience is the best teacher. More than a century of American experience with Haitians in and out of Haiti suggests that no amount of subsidy improves Haiti because the Hatians themselves squander any resources given to them, and bringing Haitians to the US simply adds mouths to the welfare rolls (and inmates to the jails). The only way to "fix" Haiti-- an approach I oppose completely-- would be conquest and imperial administration. I do not advocate doing that.)<p><i>Generally speaking. Oil sheikdoms and so-forth are noise.<p></i>*Eventually a disproportionate number of the children of low-quality immigrants become criminals and impose additional stiff costs on citizens.

Typical american self-centered bu*it. Streets filled with homeless people and unemployment over 25%. Yet somehow world poverty would magically disappear if entire world population would move to New York or California.

Only in a very simplistic model. Otherwise, the answer is no.

A really good way to make this happen would be for the US to just "open its borders" around the rest of the world so that every place currently outside of the US becomes a US state. (Either that or China should do it.)<p>Think of the efficiency: it would save many thousands of tons of fuel, reduce greenhouse gas exhaust, save people transport time and travel stress, etc.<p>It reminds me of the old "How do you move Mt. Fuji?" challenge. Problem solved. Next question please.

NO. There are plenty of places that only allow you to build a home on 25 acres. You can't build a home in these places if you're poor.

No. Two reasons:<p>A. Poverty is always relatively defined. There will always be a bottom n percent in the population.<p>B. A high bar for immigration acts as a filter to select the hardest working, most intelligent, most willing to take risks, and sometimes the richest. Take that filter away and the profile of immigrants looks quite different.

I think once a country reaches a stable population, you can implement free immigration. You could have multi country treaties where for every person that is allowed in another country you could have one person get in. That would keep flows under control and give freedom to the people.

The mobility of labor will never offset the negative externalities of globalized mercantilism.

Immigration has nothing whatsoever to do with relieving world poverty and could never fulfill such a goal.<p>The primary effect, and perhaps purpose of immigration (excluding asylum), is to keep labor costs down. One could even convincingly claim that wages, in general, are controlled by immigration and certainly not the "free market".<p>A useful side effect is that it maintains a healthier demographic profile.

As long as there are privately owned central banks and debt based money there will always be extreme poverty.

The costs of such a project -- downward pressure on working class wages, elevated levels of crime among urban poor, dangerous and degraded public schools, etc. -- are not born by writers at The Atlantic, or economists like Bryan Caplan. They know semi-literate peasants pose no threat to their livelihood and they don't feel any more solidarity with another American than would with urban poor in Bangladesh. That people in positions of influence can believe such things is a damning indictment of the United States.<p>In historical terms, there is an important distinction between <i>inimicus</i> vs <i>hostis</i>; that is, hostility between individuals <i>within</i> a given political order vs hostility to the political order itself. To someone who views a country as nothing more than a utilitarian vehicle for atomized and rootless individuals to maximize their earning potential, this distinction vanishes and thus someone like Bryan Caplan -- a rootless cosmopolitan in every sense of the word -- can publicly and proudly endorse to the destruction and displacement of a people in their own country.<p>People like this are not men with legitimate opinions and ambitions -- a man who is a traitor to his own people is by definition an evil man and a criminal. He is categorically animated by malice and he's an unjust <i>hostis</i> (enemy) of his own society.

Open Borders can eliminate poverty only if evolution from the neck up doesn't happen.