Why I Like Free Migration

Summary: My long-term goal is open borders, because they're humanity's best tool for reducing global poverty. I favour a gradual easing of barriers to migration, with the long-term goal of globally open borders.

Arguments For:

My primary reason for the belief is the deluge of economic evidence that barriers to migration are the single most impoverishing distortion to the global economy. They cost us about US$78 trillion in global production (Sources 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Enabling people to move to wherever their labour is most valuable would double world GDP. Migration is the single best policy tool humanity has for alleviating poverty (6)

Restricting people's movement is to deny them the opportunity to improve their quality-of-life and, for many, to condemn them to a lifetime of suffering.

Responses to Common Arguments Against:

• **Parochial Argument: "**Open borders would make my country much worse" I think this is a valid argument in principle. Where you land on this argument will depend on A your assessment of the benefits/harms to your countrymen, B your assessment of the benefits/harms to potential migrants (see above), C how much weight you place on benefits/harms to your countrymen, and D how much weight you place on benefits/harms to potential migrants. Personally, I believe A is currently a moderate negative in many wealthy countries (but could be made neutral or positive with better policy), B is very positive, and C is only very slightly higher than D. Overall this makes me supportive of migration but wishing we would focus our debate not on "Is migration good or bad for our country?" or "What number of migrants should our country have?" but instead on "How can we maximise migration in a way that shares benefits and minimises the harms". I acknowledge that someone could have valid reasons to be anti-migration if they believe A is necessarily a huge negative and they have a tiny D.
• **Epidemiological Argument: "**Under open borders, the culture & institutions of wealthy countries will be destroyed, making everyone worse off" I think this is a valid argument in principle. But current evidence suggests that the institutions of wealthy countries are strong enough to handle much more migration than currently takes place (7)
• Environmental Argument: "People moving from poor countries to rich countries will increase carbon emissions and doom us all" I think this is a valid argument in principle. However, in today's world, people getting richer always increases CO2 emissions, so this is a moral argument that it is justified to keep people poor in order to prevent CO2. If you support this moral argument then you should believe that your country should be made poorer to reduce CO2. You first.
• Sovereignty Argument: "Under open borders, there would be no sovereign nation-state" I disagree. You can still have citizenship and nation-states even with open borders; there are open borders within the EU but Luxembourg is still a sovereign democratic country with citizens who vote.
• Concern Argument "Open borders would make origin countries much worse" I disagree. Migrants send remittances back to their families which helps improve living standards in origin countries (8). The economic evidence shows that emigration tends to improve wage and employment conditions for non-migrants (9).

What does this mean in practice?

I fully acknowledge that throwing all borders open instantly would likely lead to considerable conflict. Which borders should be opened when is conditional on a bunch of factors such as infrastructure, geopolitics, institutions, cultural distance, wealth disparities, etc. This is why I favour open borders as a long-term goal.

How would I achieve this? I'd like to see a gradual relaxation of barriers to movement among our existing interwoven system of tiered institutions: city < nation-state < regional groupings (EU, AU, ASEAN, Commonwealth) < globe (UN). For example, CANZUK would be a step in this direction.

This comment is therefore not intended to advocate for any specific immigration policy, but rather as a set of guiding principles.