Paul van den Bergen via luv-talk wrote:
There are two things I like about Open Borders, beyond the right to migrate freely.
The first and most important is that it forces you to adopt a humanist global mindset rather than a parochial nationalistic open - we are literally all in this together.
The second is that free and open migration isn't really that big of a problem as it's made out - almost all migration is economic, at least in the sense that it is expensive to move, let alone risky. Only a relatively small fraction of people who'd want to can actually afford to. Everyone else is stuck where they are...
Obligatory observation that when capital can move more easily than labour, capital can move to where wages are low, and labour can't move to where wages are high. i.e. freedom of movement indirectly counteracts wealth concentration. See e.g. Marx & Engels 1848, Piketty 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependencies_by_t... re refugee admission into Australia, consider our sub-replacement total fertility rate (TFR) means we need refugees to avoid deflation (because shrinking population = shrinking economy). The Australian immigration policy has (basically since forever) been about letting in people that are ALREADY rich and/or skilled, on the basis that they'll be a net win for the economy. AIUI in the last 30 years or so, the rest of the anglosphere has said "what a swell idea, let's copy it". Probably the best argument against that is that it's only effective for one generation. i.e. if you take in a poor unskilled refugee, their kids are just as likely to become rich or skilled as anyone else in their class (because we have equality-of-opportunity, right? At least in theory.) (That last claim really needs some citations, but I'm too lazy to dig them out tonight, sorry.)