It's interesting, why do you think individual states in the US "giving up their sovereignty" by way of control on migration was successful, but doing so at any broader scale wouldn't be? That's 325M people -- they're not all in California and New York, are they?

How about within Europe? The Schengen area alone is 400M+, the EU is 500M+ and Europe is 750M+. The amount of complaining about freedom of movement is really quite limited in reality given the scope of the free movement area. They've even developed a program to smooth out bringing in new countries; read up on the accession process.

Why is it that going from 5M (free movement within, say, New Zealand) to 35M (free movement within Canada) to 325M (free movement within the US) to 500M (free movement within the EU) all work -- over 2 whole orders of magnitude -- but expanding it any further would turn the world into a post-apocalyptic hellscape? Why would 1 more order of magnitude cause apocalypse when that hasn't happened yet?

Moreover, why doesn't everyone in the free movement area in Europe pile into Switzerland? Plenty of people move from eastern Europe, but there's still last I counted 38M people in Poland. They're not all in the UK, Germany or France. Local language, local culture, local jobs, economy, opportunities, family -- these all tie you to a place.

If offered a permanent life in Switzerland, would you drop everything and go? Why not? Probably all those things I listed above. I'm an EU citizen. Through EFTA, I absolutely could, forever, without restriction live in Switzerland, and yet here I am, somehow not in Switzerland. Fascinating.

This sounds like tribalism to me.

New Zealand is an interesting example, as NZ and Australia essentially have freedom of movement. Australia is a higher income nation than New Zealand, with ~25% higher GDP per capita.

There are 650,000 NZ citizens in Australia, which is about 15% of the population of NZ. New Zealand has the second highest proportion of natural born citizens living abroad in the world, after Ireland [1].

The only reason that this arrangement works well is that New Zealand has a small population compared to Australia (5 million vs 25 million). If Australia had a lower income than New Zealand and 15% of Australians came to New Zealand, it would be chaos.

New Zealand also has a large Polynesian population (but not freedom of movement). Once again, this arrangement works because the Pacific Island nations have a much smaller population than New Zealand.

If you opened up immigration from India to the USA, you wouldn't see such a beneficial relationship, as there are 3 times as many people in India than the USA.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/01/15/the-co...

Didn’t the EU have strict capital requirements for countries joining it? I am from Ireland originally and I seem to recall this being a topic of discussion when I was younger.

I would imagine that countries within the EU don’t have the same Standards of living/earnings gap between them as say a developing country & a western one. Hence, their is not the same incentive to mass migrate.

The color coded map on this article is a good example of this:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...

The GDP Per Capita of Poland is $12K USD, and Germany is $42K. This is comparable to the difference between the US territories of the Northern Mariannas and American Samoa ($13K) and California ($58K). Somehow rote economic prosperity is not sufficient to make everyone up and move or there wouldn't be an American Samoa.

[NOTE: I didn't adjust for PPP so the discrepancy is not as high as I implied it to be although it is still high; I couldn't find sufficient data in time].

>Somehow rote economic prosperity is not sufficient to make everyone up and move or there wouldn't be an American Samoa.

Probably those Samoans don't assume that they would be welcomed and be making $58K in California. More likely they'd join the millions of piss poor latinos, just without their families and old communities.

And still, with a Samoa population of 200K, there are 100K Samoan immigrants in the US and 150K in New Zealand. Most of the Samoan population (400K) live outside the country.

I’d also make the argument that restricting migration out of a country can be of benefit to that countries economy. This was the case with South Korea after its civil war:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Korea

“Following the Korean War, South Korea remained one of the poorest countries in the world for over a decade. In 1960 its gross domestic product per capita was $79,[57] lower than that of some sub-Saharan countries.[58] The growth of the industrial sector was the principal stimulus to economic development. In 1986, manufacturing industries accounted for approximately 30 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 25 percent of the work force. Benefiting from strong domestic encouragement and foreign aid, Seoul's industrialists introduced modern technologies into outmoded or newly built facilities at a rapid pace, increased the production of commodities—especially those for sale in foreign markets—and plowed the proceeds back into further industrial expansion. As a result, industry altered the country's landscape, drawing millions of laborers to urban manufacturing centers.”

A good book that talks about this economic transformation and how it was achieved is bad Samaritan’s:

https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capital...

The books author is a Korean economist who grew up during this period. One point that he makes which is very interesting is that South Korea had very strict laws preventing its academics from migrating to other countries. Those that did travel abroad to study were forced to return and participate in the economic development of the country. He attributes this as part of the reason for South Korea’s turn around.

China is another economic success story that restricts its citizens movements. Not saying that I agree with either of these policies. Just bringing them up as eastern counterpoints to the notion that unlimited free trade and free movement are the optimal states for economic development.

>It's interesting, why do you think individual states in the US "giving up their sovereignty" by way of control on migration was successful, but doing so at any broader scale wouldn't be? That's 325M people -- they're not all in California and New York, are they?

For one, who said it was successful? As you say, those US states lost their sovereignty in the process - which is exactly what I maintained nation states would probably want to maintain.

Second, unlike existing nations, those states were "tabula rasa" from a cultural perspective, huge empty areas to be filled with people (although even in this case, things didn't ended very well for the actual natives, the native Americans).

Third, it's not like those states have much of a meaningful local culture, or much on taxation and other such policies. Thank's to gerrymandering and a broken party people they can even get a president most of their people voted against. And the coasts have to suffer the politics and politicians voted by the mainland states, and vice versa.

Surely they are not the best example to make the case for "open borders while maintaining one's sovereignity".

But I guess your question is not predicated on that, but on the migration patterns to those states. As in, people didn't just jump in there from all areas -- e.g. to all end up living in California or New York and so.

But that's also a broken analogy. If NY had a much better standard of living than the other states, so much so that people were willing to leave their own states, local communities and connections, people would immigrate there in droves.

Lots did actually - e.g. millions have immigrated internally into California during the Dust Bowl crisis, creating shanty towns and lots of turmoil in the process. But while there is still work to be found around most of the 50 states, there's no much reason to predominantly prefer one over the other. And the US has been relatively stable and prosperous economy, in fact the #1 economy in the world for a century or so.

Here we're talking a billion (or more) people from developing countries that wouldn't mind to make the jump to another western country.

>Moreover, why doesn't everyone in the free movement area in Europe pile into Switzerland?

For one, because the difference in quality of life is not enough to leave e.g. Sweden or Spain, or France, or even Hungary, and go to live in very expensive country, without a job waiting for you.

You are right that "Plenty of people move from eastern Europe, but there's still last I counted 38M people in Poland. They're not all in the UK, Germany or France. Local language, local culture, local jobs, economy, opportunities, family -- these all tie you to a place." -- but we're not talking about people with "local jobs, economy, and opportunities", but about hundreds of millions in much poorer regions, that start from much lower conditions.

Second, because you need to obtain a residency permit, and prove that you can sustain yourself while in Switzerland for any stay over a few months. So willy nilly migrating there without money in the bank, being accepted into a university, or a job waiting for you is not an option. And not just that, but the Swiss have voted to restore immigration quotas for EU citizens (and already have special stricter quotas for specific countries in EU, namely the poorer ones).

It won't work because the us is so super duper awesome. Everyone would want to move here and take our guns or something.

Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.

>Human history can be viewed as a slowly dawning awareness that we are members of a larger group. Initially our loyalties were to ourselves and our immediate family, next, to bands of wandering hunter-gatherers, then to tribes, small settlements, city-states, nations. We have broadened the circle of those we love. We have now organized what are modestly described as super-powers, which include groups of people from divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds working in some sense together — surely a humanizing and character building experience. If we are to survive, our loyalties must be broadened further, to include the whole human community, the entire planet Earth. Many of those who run the nations will find this idea unpleasant. They will fear the loss of power. We will hear much about treason and disloyalty. Rich nation-states will have to share their wealth with poor ones. But the choice, as H. G. Wells once said in a different context, is clearly the universe or nothing.

-Carl Sagan

I think we’ll get there. But not overnight. People must be willing to put down their parochial concerns.

My guess? Interplanetary travel will do this. Unification is intrinsically linked to transportation and communications breakthroughs.

People a few hours away can have different cultures and languages, but you think people literally months away from each other will somehow be more united? Why? How much in common will a third gen asteroid miner who can die if his environmental controls so much as hiccup have in common with someone living in a functioning biosphere? A coal miner and s Wall Street banker already see each other as practically from different species, just wait until they more or less are.

> Interplanetary travel will do this

That's optimistic. Do you mean when the first person steps on Mars (or orbits Venus!) or large scale travel?

> Do you mean when the first person steps on Mars (or orbits Venus!) or large scale travel?

Interplanetary capabilities will rapidly collapse the list of releveant societies. Reducing then number of parties in the room facilitates agreement.

Nah, then we will end up having interplanetary strife between earth, mars, and the belters.

A unified Earth fighting a unified Mars is still a unified Earth.

I can understand the culture argument in smaller or isolated communities. Sometimes they can feel like they dislike incomers from the next town over.

With the free market in the EU why has the whole population of Greece not yet moved to Germany or France for the opportunity? Even with freedom of movement many won't want to, or have financial and family ties. The biggest surge came when the poorer Eastern European nations joined the EU and we had noticeable Polish and other communities forming - but were far from being swamped. The UK didn't become less the UK because of it. London, Manchester, Liverpool and the other major cities have had big immigrant communities since the early 1800's, long before passports and border controls. Border controls only really started in WW1.

America is more interesting. It was built on immigration and looks back to origins far more than many other nation's immigrants do - as seen by so many self identifying as Italian American, Irish American etc, and visiting their roots in Europe or wherever. With that identity so commonly given, it _is_ a big part of the culture already. That melting pot became America. It is America.

Why did it stop being a source of pride and development and become something to discourage? They don't lack space or opportunity.

>With the free market in the EU why has the whole population of Greece not yet moved to Germany or France for the opportunity?

Those who could (spoke German or English, had degrees, had no prospects in Greece, had connections abroad, etc), that is, around 500000, have already immigrated in the last 10 years.

That would be like 16 million Americans leaving the US in a decade, including most 20-40 with a degree. That's on top of two millions or so that immigrated out of Greece in the 20th century.

Not everybody left, because there are benefits (cultural and otherwise, like the climate), that they don't want to miss, they have strong family ties (including a strong culture of taking care of their parents), they have houses and property here (and would have to start from nothing abroad, and they have no degrees. Last, but not least, the civil servants (close to 20% of the population with their nuclear families) still have jobs, while 2 million others (out of 10) are too old to go anywhere and start any career abroad (50+, pensioners, etc).

It's still just 0.5% a year. If Chinese emigrated at the same rate it would be 7m a year. Well within the scope of other countries to manage.

After the war the whole British Empire had the right to live and work in the UK - all 1bn of them. Even with adverts encouraging them to come they only came in tens of thousands a year. The economic differential was even higher then. I think the French Empire gave the right of residence in France around WW1.

The significant mass migrations have come from wars and disasters. Such as Syria most recently. Economic migrations have always been far lower.

>If Chinese emigrated at the same rate it would be 7m a year. Well within the scope of other countries to manage.

Other countries would be "well within the scope" to manage 70m Chinese coming in in a decade?

(Other countries being the 5-10 more preferable immigration destinations -- the US, UK, France, Germany and co -- it's not like the Chinese will go en masse to Chile or Romania).

You do seem to be missing the point that history shows that people do not migrate in large numbers, outside of war, famine and other natural disasters.

Even with open borders Chinese would not migrate at that rate when they are in a very different economic state to Greece. China is a place to migrate to rather than from as it grows in world status. It's inconceivable they would leave at that rate without first being a basket case (difficult without a Euro-comparable situation), or war and the traditional causes of significant migration.

Has EU freedom of movement resulted in dissolution of sovereign states? Did the absolute and total freedom to migrate by the two major empires result in the dissolution of UK and France?

Open borders is a great idea but is not compatible with democracy. Garett Jones writes well on this topic. Immigrants from parts of the world with bad institutions will likely lower the quality of the institutions in their new countries, but only in democratic nations.

I prefer other forms of governance to democracy, such as Futarchy and certian forms of meritocracy in which standardized testing and sortiton are combined. One thing radical open borders would do is bring in an era of competition in governance, as for the first time there would be significant competition for citizens. Overall it is a good idea, but those who believe in the welfare state have little choice but to shun it.

> Immigrants from parts of the world with bad institutions will likely lower the quality of the institutions in their new countries

The world's leading democracy, the U.S., is populated almost entirely by immigrants from non-democratic parts of the world and their decedents. With every wave of immigration, the claims are the same: They don't share our values, they won't assimilate, etc. It goes back to German immigrants around the time of the American Revolution (Ben Franklin had some particularly harsh words for them), and then Irish, Italian, Chinese, Eastern European, Latino, Catholic (Papists!), Muslim, Jewish, etc. etc.

The results never seem to match the theory; the current democracy and institutions of the U.S. are built by those people. Democracy means faith in governance by the people, and the very good news is that it works out very well relative to other forms of government.

I can't really understand the downvotes here, these are facts. Here's a brief history of anti-immigrant propaganda in the US through the years to back up OPs claims. The anti-German sentiment in the late 1700s is new to me, to be honest.

Franklin on Germans: “A Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them and will never adopt our Language or Customs any more than they can acquire our Complexion.” [1] Boy was he right, Freunde.

[1] https://immigrantarchiveproject.org/brief-history-anti-immig...

Those stupid, swarthy Germans. [0]

[0] https://qz.com/904933/a-history-of-american-anti-immigrant-b...

> "If people could migrate freely around the world" what would stop that from happening?

Most people wouldn't want to move. The EU has freedom of movement, and there's plenty of migration, but it's not like everyone from Romania up and moves to Germany.

A lot of people did move though. In the last 15 years, the population of Belgium increased by 10% due to migration. Those are incredible numbers.

Sure, that seems significant, but it didn't increase by 100% which is the premise coldtea bases their point on.

Romanians cannot just move to Germany, because they are not in Schengen zone. The other East European countries also couldn't, they had 7 years long limitation on movement (they could enter, but not work in the bordering countries). Nowadays, they can work there, but they still have no right to request social security or other social services.

You can not have both free social services and totally open borders without ruining your economy. Pick one or another.

(1) Just because a country isn't in the Schengen area doesn't mean that you don't have freedom of movement. Switzerland isn't but via EFTA most EU citizens are free to live there -- the Eastern bloc included. Same with Norway.

(2) The accession process is meant to smooth the transition, nobody is suggesting opening up the floodgates tomorrow and seeing what happens, that's hyperbolic. Any abolition of movement restrictions would have to be gradual to be successful, and you could use EU accession as a model.

(3) EU member states are required to meet certain very high standards on social services and welfare. The whole bloc has socialized medicine. Member states have reciprocity agreements ensuring migrants have access to the same level of care they'd get back home (look up EHIC cards for instance). This is not much different from how Canada administers social programs between provinces.

Europe absolutely has free social services, democracy and freedom of movement -- and a very successful economy. The GDP of the EU is 21T PPP adjusted in 2017. The US is 18T.

(1) Not that free. You can enter for up to 90 days, without right to work or settle, with mandatory registration where you stay. After that, you have to leave, if you don't have the permit to stay longer or work. The only advantage EU citizens have is, that they can get the permit in Switzerland; all the others have to go to embassy in their home countries.

Switzerland is a classic model of controlled borders and mandatory visa regime, which in some cases and for some purposes can be waived.

(2) What happened in Germany and some other EU countries in 2015, is antithesis to gradual opening of the border.

(3) That's only for the citizens of EU; not for citizens of third countries, i.e. not exactly what proponents of open borders fight for.

They could have moved to the UK but not all of them did.

The weather is bad there.. That actually is an important factor.

Note how you didn't give any single argument, just name-calling...

He cannot, except some feel-good and virtue signalling slogans. The resources for social support in most developed countries are limited even for their own citizens; taking anyone would quickly overwhelm the system, that's a basic math, even without a napkin.

For people, who do not have a good visualisation skills for numbers, there's this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPjzfGChGlE

The point is, if you want to help the people in the rest of the world, you have to help them in their countries, which I wholeheartedly agree.

I think its sweden that has one of the most liberal migration policies but yes, the idea is to let people move, which would tap into the potential like.. 66 trillion or more dollars we waste by using byzantine trade policies and silly immigration controls. Protectionism is used by the lazy to hopefully shore up against "der taking arr jerbs" when it does nothing but tank the economy.

> Would it be totally find if e.g. 9 million people from another culture come in, change the cultural climate in the place, and vote their politicians into power?

I think that might be an exaggeration and not likely what would happen. People would move to where there is demand for what whatever work they are able and wanting to provide and then approaching a stable equalibrium would hopefully occur.

Would cultures change? Yeah but that's what they do.

Edit: eh, fuck this site, instant downvote for disagreement is just as bad as Reddit. Thanks.

>why not just bring in 350 million Chinese

I don't think 350 million humans can just "come in" anywhere. I don't think it is logistically possible.

BTW, this isn't just an observation for observation sake. The magnitude of actual immigration that occurs is FAR lower than the current existing population because there are just physical limits to how many people can fit into a single plot of land. It makes arguments like the one you make far too abstract to be relevant to real life.

There are countries that had 5-10% or more or their population being new immigrants in the span of a few decades.

For a country like the US, with no ethnic cohesion, and even less cohesive culture, where everybody is an immigrant of at best 10 generations anyway, this might not be a problem.

For other countries this can have a significant impact in everyday life -- especially when it's not Indians IT scientists with H1B visas coming in, but immigrants lacking skills or coming from widely different cultures.

Does this sort of slippery-slope crap convince anyone? There are about 3.5M Chinese immigrants in USA right now. Can anyone imagine any sequence of events that would lead to that number increasing a hundredfold in any conceivable period of time? We couldn't get that many if we paid them $10k a head... One wonders what you intend to argue here, because this is nonsense.

>One wonders what you intend to argue here, because this is nonsense.

There are places that have now received (in the span of a few decades) millions of immigrants, despite the countries themselves originally being in the order or 5-15 millions to begin with.

That's the equivalent of 32 million Chinese (or whatever else) coming into the US in 2 decades.

And some of these countries regularly receive hundreds of thousands of people a year still.

It might be nonsense for rural Idaho to conceive that, but it's something that goes on elsewhere.

I thought you were talking about "350 million Chinese"? Exaggeration for effect is fine, but it would be nice to have an actual argument in addition to the exaggeration.

Which nations of 5-15M have gotten "millions of immigrants"?

Honestly I think the people suggesting this are usually totally fine with people invading western nations and voting to take their shit as long as they’re still profiting from it.

High quantity immigration could be defined as a sybil attack on the native population's norms.

There is a certain accelerationism to the idea. If you don’t believe in the welfare state this is a mechanism for heightening the contradictions of redistribution.