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Liberalism and Socialism pp 109–138Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Can Socialism Allow Open Borders?

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Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism ((PASTCL))

Abstract

This book’s central question concerns whether socialism and liberalism can be reconciled. We are worried the answer is no. We will not quite prove that in this paper, but we will raise a number of substantive worries, which perhaps some socialist theorist will be able to resolve

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Chandran Kukathas, Immigration and Freedom. New York: Oxford University Press, 2021, pp. 20–25.

  2. 2.

    https://www.vox.com/2015/10/31/9650030/denmark-prime-minister-bernie-sanders.

  3. 3.

    https://www.fraserinstitute.org/sites/default/files/economic-freedom-of-the-world-2017.pdf.

  4. 4.

    G. A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism (Princeton, 2009).

  5. 5.

    See Jason Brennan and Peter Jaworski‚ Markets without Limits (Routledge‚ 2016), pp. 96–103 for a review of the empirical literature, which generally shows that capitalism societies make people more virtuous while socialist societies do not.

  6. 6.

    Gerald Gaus, Contemporary Theories of Liberalism (Sage, 2004), 207.

  7. 7.

    John Locke, “The Second Treatise of Government,” in Peter Laslett, ed., Two Treatises of Government, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1960/1689, 283–446, II.2.6.

  8. 8.

    Ibid.

  9. 9.

    See, e.g., Christopher Freiman and Javier Hidalgo, “Liberalism or Immigration Restrictions, But Not Both,” Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 10 (2016): 1–22.

  10. 10.

    G. A. Cohen, Self-Ownership, Freedom, and Equality (Oxford University Press, 1995), 59–9.

  11. 11.

    Aaron Edlin, Andrew Gelman, and Noah Kaplan, “Voting as a Rational Choice,” Rationality and Society 19 (2007): 293–314.

  12. 12.

    Ilya Somin, Free to Move (Stanford, 2020).

  13. 13.

    Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, Why Nations Fails. (Crown Business, 2013); Hernando de Soto, The Mystery of Capital (Basic Books, 200); David Weil, Economic Growth (Pearson, 2007).

  14. 14.

    For instance, people reasonably worry about whether increased immigration will lead to job losses for current citizens, will swamp public goods, or will cause crime. For a review of the economic literature on these issues (which generally says, on the contrary, that immigrants will create jobs and will not cause crime), see van der Vossen and Brennan 2018.

  15. 15.

    Michael Clemens‚ “Economics and Emigration: Trillion-Dollar Bills on the Sidewalk?” Journal of Economic Perspectives 23 (2011): 83–106, 85.

  16. 16.

    Michael Clemens, Claudio Montenegro, and Lant Pritchet‚ “The Place Premium”‚ World Bank Policy Research Paper 4671 (2009).

  17. 17.

    Glen Weyl‚ “The Openness-Equality Trade-Off in Global Redistribution,” The Economic Journal 128 (2018): F1–F36.

  18. 18.

    Gary Becker‚ The Economics of Discrimination (University of Chicago Press‚ 2010); Anne Krueger‚ “The Economics of Discrimination,” Journal of Political Economy 71 (1963): 481–501; Richard Posner, The Economy Analysis of Law (University of Chicago Press, 2014); Edmund Phelps‚ “The Statistical Theory of Sexism and Racism,” American Economic Review 62 (1972): 659–661.

  19. 19.

    For research indicating discriminatory employers are more likely to go out of business, see Pager, Devah, “Are Firms That Discriminate More Likely to Go Out of Business?” Sociological Science 3 (2016): 849–859.

  20. 20.

    Giovanni Facchini, Anna Maria Mayda, and Prachi Mishra, “Do Interest Groups Affect US Immigration Policy?,” Journal of International Economics 85, no. 1 (September 2011): 114–128.

  21. 21.

    Karl Marx, “On The Lausanne Congress,” International Workingmen’s Association 1867. Available online at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/documents/1867/lausanne-call.htm.

  22. 22.

    Friedrich Engels, “Condition of the Working Class in England,” 1845. Available online at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch06.htm.

  23. 23.

    Ibid.

  24. 24.

    V.I. Lenin, “Capitalism and Workers’ Immigration,” 1913. Available online at: https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1913/oct/29.htm.

  25. 25.

    Richard Wolff, “Capitalism’s Crisis through a Marxian Lens,” in Capitalism Hits The Fan. Northampton, Massachusetts: Olive Branch Press, 2010.

  26. 26.

    Ezra Klein, “Bernie Sanders: The Vox Conversation,” 7.28.2015. Available online at: https://www.vox.com/2015/7/28/9014491/bernie-sanders-vox-conversation.

  27. 27.

    On Rawls as a reticent socialist, see William Edmundson, John Rawls: Reticent Socialist. Cambridge: Cambridge University Pres, 2017.

  28. 28.

    John Rawls and Philippe Van Parijs, “Three Letters on The Law of Peoples and the European Union,” Revue de philosophie économique 7 (2003): 7–20.

  29. 29.

    Milton Friedman, “The Economics of Free Speech,” in Kurt R. Leube, ed., The Essence of Friedman. Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1987, 9–17, 9.

  30. 30.

    Ibid.

  31. 31.

    David Miller, “Immigration: The Case for Limits,” in Matt Zwolinski, ed., Arguing About Political Philosophy. New York: Routledge, 2014, 533–543, 535.

  32. 32.

    Ibid.

  33. 33.

    Christopher Wellman, “Immigration and the Case for Limits,” Ethics 119 (2008): 109–141, 135.

  34. 34.

    Gene Johnson, “Greyhound to Stop Allowing Border Patrol on Buses for Immigration Checks,” USA Today. 2.22.20. Available online at: https://amp.usatoday.com/amp/4841999002.

  35. 35.

    Kerr, Sari Pekkela and Kerr, William R. 2011. Economic Impacts of Immigration: A Survey. No. w16736. National Bureau of Economic Research, 12; Friedberg, Rachel and Hunt, Jennifer. 1995. “The Impact of Immigrants on Host Wages,” Journal of Economic Perspectives 9: 23–44; Longhi, Simonetta, Nijkamp, Peter, and Poot, James. 2005. “A Meta-Analytic Assessment of the Effect of Immigration on Wages,” Journal of Economic Surveys 19: 451–477; Longhi, Simonetta, Nijkamp, Peter, and Poot, James. 2010. “Joint Impacts of Immigration on Wages and Employment: Review and Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Geographical Systems 12: 355–387; Okkerse, Liesbet. 2008. “How to Measure Labour Market Effect of Immigration: A Review,” Journal of Economic Surveys 22: 1–30; Ottaviano, Gianmarco and Peri, Giovanni. 2008. Immigration and National Wages: Clarifying the Theory and the Empirics. No. w14188. National Bureau of Economic Research. Peri, Giovanni, and Sparber, Chard. 2009. “Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages,” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 1: 135–169; D’Amuri, Francesco, and Peri, Giovanni. 2011. Immigration, Jobs, and Employment Protection: Evidence from Europe. No. w17139. National Bureau of Economic Research.

  36. 36.

    Ibid.

  37. 37.

    Goldin, Claudia, and Cecilia Rouse. “Orchestrating Impartiality: The Impact of “Blind” Auditions on Female Musicians.” American Economic Review 90, no. 4 (2000): 715–741; Bertrand, Marianne, Claudia Goldin, and Lawrence F. Katz. “Dynamics of the Gender Gap for Young Professionals in the Financial and Corporate Sectors.” American Economic Journal: Applied Economics 2.3 (2010): 228–55; Bolotnyy, Valentin, and Natalia Emanuel. “Why do Women Earn Less than Men? Evidence from Bus and Train Operators.” Journal of Labor Economics (Forthcoming).

  38. 38.

    Alberto Alesina, Armando Miano, and Stefanie Stantcheva, “Immigration and Redistribution,” NBER Working Paper No. 24733, 2019.

  39. 39.

    Ilya Somin, Democracy and Political Ignorance. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2013.

  40. 40.

    Edlin, Gelman, and Kaplan 2007.

  41. 41.

    Ilya Somin, Democracy and Political Ignorance (Stanfor‚ 2013).

  42. 42.

    Bryan Caplan, The Myth of the Rational Voter. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007.

  43. 43.

    Dan Kahan, “The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 1: What Politically Motivated Reasoning Is and How to Measure It,” in R.A. Scott and S.M. Kosslyn, eds., Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2016, 2.

  44. 44.

    Somin 2013, Lilliana Mason, “‘I Disrespectfully Agree’: The Differential Effects of Partisan Sorting on Social and Issue Polarization,” American Journal of Political Science 59 (2015): 128–145; Jason Brennan, Against Democracy. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016; Christopher Freiman, Unequivocal Justice. New York: Routledge, 2017.

  45. 45.

    Dan Kahan, “The Politically Motivated Reasoning Paradigm, Part 2: Unanswered Questions,” in R.A. Scott and S.M. Kosslyn, eds., Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2016, 7, italics in the original.

  46. 46.

    Geoffrey Brennan and Loren Lomasky, Democracy and Decision. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 48.

  47. 47.

    It’s not even clear that altruistic citizens will cast informed, unbiased votes for open borders given that rational altruists will rarely vote but rather allocate their time to other activities that do more good. See, for instance, Christopher Freiman, Why It’s OK to Ignore Politics. New York: Routledge, 2020.

  48. 48.

    G.A. Cohen, Why Not Socialism? Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009, 21.

  49. 49.

    Nelson Acosta, “Cuban Athletes Get Pay Raise, Green Light to Work Abroad,” Reuters 9.27.13. Available online at: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cuba-reform-sports/cuban-athletes-get-pay-raise-green-light-to-work-abroad-idUSBRE98Q0RM20130927.

  50. 50.

    For discussion, see Gillian Brock and Michael Blake, Debating Brain Drain. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015.

  51. 51.

    For an objection to this argument, see Christopher Freiman, “The Case for Markets in Citizenship,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 36 (2019): 124–136, 131.

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  1. Georgetown University, Washington, DC, United States

    Jason Brennan

  2. College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, VA, USA

    Chris Freiman

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  1. Whitman College, Walla Walla, WA, USA

    Matthew McManus

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Brennan, J., Freiman, C. (2021). Can Socialism Allow Open Borders?. In: McManus, M. (eds) Liberalism and Socialism. Palgrave Studies in Classical Liberalism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79537-5_4

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