On immigration

Michael Hartl — Wed, 17 May 2006 17:25:00 -0700

Immigration is a hot topic these days, so I thought I’d put in my 2¢. My solution to the immigration problem is (like many of my beliefs) politically untenable; but this blog is about intellectually honesty, not pragmatism, so here it is: open borders. There are many who argue against open borders because the ensuing flood of immigrants would overwhelm welfare programs, government-sponsored health care, the school system, and many other public services. These arguments are perfectly correct, except they are weak arguments against immigration; they are, however, strong arguments against public services.

Let’s take one of the main services people are worried about in this context: public schools. If schools were provided by private companies in the same way that, say, restaurants are, immigrants would represent additional potential customers, and their presence would be welcomed. Education companies and restaurants alike would rightly see immigrants as a new market. The reason that immigrants place a burden on the school system is that public education ignores the underlying economic reality that education is a scarce good. That is, education costs more to provide for many people than it does to provide for a few. The so-called burden derives not from a problem with immigrants, but rather from a defect in the way we provide educational services.

And so it goes for the other supposed reasons that open borders wouldn’t work. More people means more workers, more consumers, and more productivity generally. And that doesn’t go just for highly skilled workers; people in general are an economic positive, even if they are unskilled. To the extent that the “system” can’t handle new people, that’s an indication that the system itself is broken. And to the extent that immigration puts pressure on this broken system, that pressure (as computer hackers would say) is not a bug—it’s a feature. (Amazingly, I’m not the only one who thinks this way.)

Eikonoklastes by Michael Hartl: On immigration

On immigration