7 posts tagged “immigration”

At VDare.com, Mr. Brimelow makes a case that “Immigration is the Viagra of the State.” His article is based on a speech he recently gave at the Property and Freedom Society. Click here to read it.

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A Note on Multicultural Nations and Free-For-All Immigration

"Human beings," wrote Mr. Buchanan in his 2006 book State of Emergency, "are not blank slates. Nor can they be easily separated from the abiding attachments of the tribe, race, nation, culture, community whence they came."

It seems very naïve, if one was to ask me, when certain libertarians deny this or pretend that individual persons in actual fact are "blank slates."

When in 1991 the Soviet Union broke-up, it broke-up divided along these attachments. Thus suggesting, multiethnic and multicultural societies require force for them to be maintained.

This is what made Murray Rothbard re-think the issue. No "open borders" as such, it occurred to him, would be found in a libertarian private property society. Private property owners would, in distinct contrast with today, have full control over who could and could not immigrate or travel into and onto their roads, private neighborhoods and towns.

With that understanding, it seems fairly clear that a free-for-all of immigration would not exist. That can only be the outcome of the central government running public property and controlling private property owners' (and their voluntary associations') right to discriminate as they see fit.

(That is not to say that no immigration would take place. Obviously that would not be the case. Nonetheless, it seems lost on some that what the State brings is a free-for-all in replace of the wants and desires of different private property owners.)

Statistics today, if I remember correctly, show that as California's minority population is growing to a not-so-minority position, whites are leaving and moving to other states. This alone seems conclusive enough for one to say that much of today's mass immigration is not at all invited as they enter various neighborhoods and towns.

I.

Given that public property exists, under democratic conditions, its management will produce (unlike private property) permanent conflicts between men on how "best" they should be run. To manage them is just as much an economic affair as it is to construct them. Administrating deals with the actions of men, and action is the foundation of economic activity. This administrating of public property will be based on political sway and therefore not based in the economic reality of scarcity, and accordingly to the genuine market demand and supply that is present.

To administrate public property, however, by default any of the State's actions (e.g., expelling drug users) or inactions (e.g., allowing junk to pile up with no cleaning) will abuse the helplessly robbed taxpayers. In distinct contrast to governmentally run property, private owners can justly implement their own rules and administration preferences. Customers that enter this private property do so voluntarily because they see it advantageous to do so. They, hence, benefit ex ante. Private businesses that implement rules and administer their property have to do this, though, to please the actual demands of consumers. The free market incentive structure will also pressure these businesses to do such inline with the underline economic realities. All of this is absence under statist a setting, of course.

By necessity any public property will be inferior to private property. The same is true with the production of various services. State officials and workers, motivated like everyone else, are self-interested and under the disutility of labor (i.e., men find labor painful and want less of it). They will therefore will want as much tax revenue as is possible and to produce or "serve" as cheaply as they can get away with. While the cost of their so-called "products" or "services" will continually rise, the quality will fall. Absence competitive conditions, innovation and cutting down on costs will deteriorate. With no profit-and-loss signals, no pricing signaling, allocations will always be distorted.

At times, nonetheless, you have to take certain things as a given. There are real world realities and treating statist public property as a complete slum, devoid of all common sense in maintenance and order, would only lead to a world that would increase the harm and decrease the living standards in the daily life of ordinary men and their families. That this position is becoming more common in libertarian circles is disappointing and, in my view, extremely damaging.

Surely it is better that the State uses its stolen tax money to build a public library than a nuclear weapon. Libertarians should not take a view of "I don't care because the State is doing it." Somewhat similarly, it is better that given public education exists, it is best that they have the ability to kick out hoodlums than not being able to. Government mailmen should actually deliver the mail to where it is meant to go versus not. Should the government mailman, after all, just dump the mail in the trash or actually deliver it to the proper locations? Firemen should do the job they are put there to do. The public libraries should be able to kick out bums who disturb the tax paying victims of the library who wish to use it. Hospitals should be run in the best shape that they can. (A very large number of hospitals near the border have closed down because a statist open door policy in regards to immigration. I can find no reason for someone saying that this is acceptable.)

The view that the running or maintenance of public property should amount to nothing is to cause double harm to ordinary people. They not only get hit in the head to be forced to pay, at the point of the gun, tax money, but they also get public property that is allowed to fall into the gutter. This is the kind of view, if I am not mistaken, that Dr. Walter Block has. Arguably he is the leading scholar of libertarianism today, along with Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, and justifiably so. I find Dr. Block a source of wisdom and courage, from my reading of some of his writings and by listening to some of his online lectures. So I much admire and respect him, but I cannot accept his view on this matter. Making life worse is not the moral thing to do. Real people get hurt and makes life just more difficult. And this is why, as some libertarians actually believe, worse is not better.

Now I personally do not believe Block has a nihilistic attitude or view of the world (or thinks that "worse is better"), but I do believe that a fair number who subscribe to or share his view do, at least when it comes to the current statist world and its design. Although, unlike many of them, he believes one can support the "lesser of evil" in political elections. But, if I, as the slave, can pick between the lesser of evil; then why not the lesser of evil when it comes to the management of public property?

In the "Blockian" free-for-all idea of public property, if a man "homesteaded" a few signs on the government road----if he took them home, should that be okay? Even if it creates many hazards? Tomorrow if the State were to vanish, there would be no case against this man. That is tomorrow, not today.

Another way to look at this, is this. Let's go to the classic book Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt and the example of a young yob who throws a brick through a baker's window. What is being done is a criminal activity, of course. The boy should be punished. He should, at the very least, be forced to pay for a new window. It is an evil that should be prevented. But one evil is not equal to another evil. You cannot say that this act is as evil if the boy were to kill the baker. It would also be an evil to punish the boy who broke the window in the same way as if he killed the baker. They are not equivalents. It is therefore less evil if he causes less evil than more. Or imagine the boy stole the baker's car. If he is able to get it back, it is better that the criminal damages the car less than more. The baker would prefer, undoubtedly, to get his prized car back in one piece than none at all. So would all of us.

In a like-manner the above parallels a look into the various operations of the State. Thus, if the government runs the roads, it is better that they are run decently (for government "standards") than to run them in the worse way possible. Running them in the worst way possible would result in more accidents and fatalities. Something that should be wanted to be avoided, both in a statist society and a non-statist society. A State that snatches your kids and forces them to government school prison camps should do less damage to them than more. That is, the damage should be minimized as much as possible. Now try arguing against that! (Against minimizing the damage that those camps cause.)

As Murray N. Rothbard wrote in "What to Do until Privatization Comes" (Making Economic Sense, pp 146 – 150, sorry not online as far as I can tell), this opposite type of outlook is immoral and neither is it any kind of good strategy in the promotion of libertarianism. It could even cause a backlash.

He wrote that there are two types of statist activities. One is providing people with goods and services. The second is of direct coercion against individuals. Privatization is the goal of the first. The latter cannot be privatized and must be completely abolished. Short of the latter being abolished, Rothbard wrote, it is best that it is as inefficient an operation as it can be. We do not want efficient tax collectors! As for the first, however, we all should want to see the competitive free market provide these goods and services. Until that day comes, then what? Given that they exist with the State's monopolistic privileges, which will by necessity make these services or goods vastly inferior to the free market, they should be run "efficiently and" as "businesslike a manner as possible."

Murray Rothbard goes further in saying that libertarians have to reject the  idea that public property should be run in a free-for-all with completely open access as "the law of the jungle." To quote him in more length:

For example: the government, owner of the public schools, does not have the regular right [today] of any private school owner to kick out incorrigible students, or to keep order in the class, or to teach what parents want to be taught. The government, in contrast to any private street or neighborhood owner, has no right to prevent bums from living on and soiling the street and harassing and threatening innocent citizens; instead, the bums have the right to free “speech” and a much broader term, free “expression,” which they of course would not have in a truly private street, mall, or shopping center.

Other essays by Rothbard have spoken on how once this kind of standard (open access and egalitarian principles) are applied to public property and the State it then becomes that much easier to force it on private property and individuals. An ideology of men in a society that sees that it is right that the State adopt such is an ideology that no longer discriminates or differentiates. Then the line between private and public property can start to blur. Inroads made on private property start to subject them to this ideology. And today the sad fact of life is that we all do see this. No longer does much of the discourse of men think of a restaurant, store, mall, etc. as a private establishment that is private property. Today it is thought of as "public" property.

Does this relate to immigration? Yes, because public property has this kind of open access and egalitarian ideology. It has also been forced on private property owners by the State. The remaining focus in this blog entry to The Paleo Blog will focus on this issue.

II.

Often anti-capitalists attack capitalism because of its "anarchy." The anarchy is seen through how production in capitalism is completely spontaneous by acting men. There is no central dictator guiding the process along. It is done through free individuals. Only this anarchy in which they speak actually brings order, as counterintuitive or paradoxical as it may at first seem. This process, it is interesting to note, is why it is sometimes hard to get the minds of the public to grasp why the free market is always superior to statist interventionism.

On the other hand, what exists de facto on public property truly is an anarchy (chaos). Its existence today creates a revolving door displaying this (bad form of) anarchy. Private property and the private sector does not have this, but to the extent that it has it is de jure created by the State. Take a look at the public park in a big city. At night it displays its true essence of State-chaos or State-"anarchy." It is reverse in comparison to the private Wal-Mart at night or the private park at Disney World, for instance. Now it is incorrect to reply to this to say that private property is a revolving door because it is open attracting customers. As far at that goes, the reply would be absolutely correct in commercial private property.*

At the same time, though, it is not a revolving door symmetrical to the State. It could not be. A private establishment that had no management of its property or no "law" would be looted and soon disappear. It would cause chaos. Another example would be in its hiring practice. This, too, could not be a revolving door. That is, if they want to stay in business.

Beyond the business or commercial world, private communities would obviously be the most exclusive away from crowds, noise, and strangers. This has become less true today by the State's desire to control the individual and expand its parasitic existence. It wants to make sure that "its" public property extends to all corners of "its" territory so as to make each individual household isolated and easy to control. It thus creates easy and open access. By having this access, it then expands the revolving door to all areas of society. This not only creates an immigration problem because now no longer can people decide (1) not to associate their private community with certain people, (2) close it to strangers who walk into their private community, (3) or close it away from the hustle and bustle of the center of their town or city, but it also isolates individuals and individual family households to atomize them from all social constraints and social-cultural intermediate institutions, which serve as a blockage to State control and power.

A single household does not have a revolving door to its entrance. One that did, i.e., one that had the door wide open and most likely had some goodies inside visible to the outside, would attract criminals.** This does not appear to change in its correctness applied to the macrocosmic level as it relates to public property and a nation-State. Implied in this is that given that public property does exist and that the State does exist, its control regarding access should end its free-for-all and be replaced with those that most directly connected with each given public property. The more this control zooms into those most tied into such-in-such property, the better. The ultimate goal being that it zoom in all the way until each public property becomes private.

Subnotes to this section

*[It might be important to note, even in attracting customers, the private business, nonetheless, would still not be a revolving door. Today it is impossible for businesses to discriminate. But in a free society they could. Excessively rude customers would be more likely in a free society to be kicked out compared to today under statist conditions. Businesses would want to please their regular customers by providing them a good environment.]

**[In purely economic terms, private communities would want to "let in" those that would increase and not decrease property values. They would not have just an interest in the here-and-now, but in the future because they own the capital of their respected properties. This is something that Hoppe argues in regards to immigration in comparing a monarchy to a democracy. Public property under the former would be more "conservative" relative to democracy because a classical monarchy owns the capital stock akin to a more private form of government versus democracy's temporary caretakers which make it more akin to a public (or almost unowned---as spoken about above) government. Although, I wonder if it is worse than what Hoppe deduces. In general theory he is correct from my limited reasoning, but democracy's caretaker is not just some kind of king-like caretaker. The filling of government politicians is more "spread out," so to speak, causing more calculation problems and disincentives for any "good" government. So they not only want to loot now because they might not get a chance in the future, but if they do not loot now another politician might for his "buddies" (e.g., special interest groups). So down with democracy.]

III.

Now I would like to go over some of the general ideological reasons or temperaments that some libertarians reject to the above proposal. The first has already been covered. This is the notion that public property should be run as a cesspool. They go from the notion "of here" to "privatization now" with nothing in the middle, even though that middle will sadly remain for the time being or exist until the latter (privatization) comes. They become indifferent to this "middle." A middle that can cause different levels of harm or frustration to the lives of men.

A second reason, that I have observed, is to attack this because, they say, it implies some kind of so-called "nationalism." But this is not implied in the above analysis. All that is suggested is that public property should be run more business-like and inline with the tax payers who are forced to pay for them-----i.e., to get some use out of that stolen loot and to minimize the damage of it until one day, hopefully, all of that public property is turned into private.

With that said, I personally fail to see what is wrong with the concept of "nation" or "nationality" (as long as we disconnect it with statism or a forced "nationalism"). If this makes me un-libertarian, then I guess so was "Mr. Libertarian," Murray Rothbard, un-libertarian. As he explained in his "Nations By Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State" [pdf] in the Journal of Libertarian Studies, we are not only motivated or "bond to each other only by the nexus of market exchange." There is such thing as family, language, and culture. "Every person," Rothbard wrote,

is born into one or several overlapping communities, usually including an ethnic group, with specific values, cultures, religious beliefs, and traditions. He is generally born into a “country.” He is always born into a specific historical context of time and place, meaning neighborhood and land area.

He said that a "'nation' cannot be precisely defined; [but] it is a complex and varying constellation of different forms of communities, languages, ethnic groups, or religions" and that a nation "is a complex of subjective feelings of nationality based on objective realities." Governments, it is true, have often developed from or out of nations, in a manner of speaking. Not always, though. Sometimes a State forms comprising various nationalities and holds them together artificially. Libertarians, Rothbard wrote, should welcome secession if these nationalities try to break off.  The more this is done, the better. Secession should be all the way done to individuals. We should also understand that nationality does make a difference. (It has in the world.) For example, he writes, what should the language be for a given nation-State when it comes to the "street signs, telephone books, court proceedings, or school classes of the area?"

(One issue that Rothbard mentions in the essay is the problem of citizenship when an "illegal" baby is born in a given nation-State. The solution is the one that Rep. Ron Paul offers. It should be to reject automatic citizenship. This will put an end to the parents receiving welfare, which consequently helps to subsidize immigration.)

The hostility to the idea, concept, or analysis of "nation" sometimes comes from some sort of rejection to any "group." Including a group that forms a sort of nationality, a group in a particular city, or even family. (A business too is the joining of individuals in a group.) It seems to come from the attitude that groups only exist in the "abstract," whereas individuals exist in reality. So, for that reason, we cannot talk about groups. This can get to the point of silliness. It is this that makes the direction of how to reply difficult. A group of people is just a group of individuals. The group does not exist apart from the individuals that compose it, but this does not mean that groups cannot be formed or do not exist. The world would exist in chaos if man could not make categorical (group) statements about things, man as a being included. Everything would be random. We could not say that men exist, women exist, blondes exist, and so forth.

Insofar as a libertarian says that only individuals have rights, they are correct. All human beings have a right to their person and property. This consistent moral or ethical code logically rejects the idea of collective "rights." And when a libertarian says that we should judge individual persons qua unique individuals and treat them as such is also correct. But then to make the jump of group egalitarianism, or something of this nature, is something quite different. That is a "revolt against nature."

As the reader can clearly see, I take a "Hoppeian" position on immigration and agree with Murray Rothbard on the subject, meaning, and importance of "nation." The solution to the immigration problem is to be found in section II. Outside and independent of this more libertarian analysis, I happen to partly agree with Mr. Patrick Buchanan (see his books State of Emergency and The Death of the West) on what makes a framework for liberty (and a division of labor) possible, and how it interrelates to culture.

Today immigration is one unrelenting wave, and this is what makes it different than before. A people with different allegiances and a different language. Rightfully or wrongfully (I believe rightfully) the vast majority of the public does not want this. (Xenophobic, or whatever other smear term wished to be used, or not.) The trouble is that public property is what opens the doors, in particular the doors to their various communities. It destroys the freedom of men. As is so often the case, the interests of ordinary men and those that fill the State are reverse.

As Mr. Llewellyn Rockwell said in the introduction to The Irrepressible Rothbard:

Everybody with a noggin understands that millions storming across the southern border would cause an economic, political, and cultural upheaval. Libertarians should also understand that such a policy would, on net, make us less free, especially because the welfare state slathers tax dollars on all comers, and because, thanks to civil rights, minority aliens automatically have rights to trample on property and privacy, rights properly denied to the majority of natives.

(Rockwell continues that it was this that caused Murray Rothbard to revisit the issue. That Rothbard thought it was "the central government [that] uses liberal immigration policies ... as a means of unsettling bourgeois property holders and increasing the power of government.")

The unrelenting wave of immigrants do not have to assimilate. This causes a lot of resentments and hurts the bond between people, which is not just governed by the "cash nexus." (Life, after all, is not purely economic.) The language barrier is getting deeper. And I would not call bilingualism in any society a healthy thing. No more than a society that has a barter or partial barter (e.g., more than one hard moneys) economy. Both are somewhat equivalent in terms of an analogy. Both hinder the development of a complex division of labor; be it barter problems of double coincidence of wants or language communication problems. There is another way they fit as an analogy, as far as I can tell, and that is any developed society that has either of the two can only be caused by a Leviathan State.

A third reason is that many libertarians only look for a "formula." They like exact questions and exact answers. Everything, to them, is like a geometric puzzle. Each puzzle requires a perfect geometric solution. Since there is no "rational" way to say how public property should exactly be run (in relation to immigration or not), it should not be run at all----again, even though it exists and will continue to exist in its monopolistic form for the time being by the force of the gun. But there is an answer: The only way to specify how public property should be run, given that they exist, is through decentralization and a libertarian temperament of common sense. Many libertarians do not like that. There is not always a formula for this, almost (in the good sense) "conservative," temperament.

Of course, public property is on shaky grounds. Its existence is illegitimate. Evil and destructive ideas can be implemented on public property, but a libertarian temperament should be able to discern. It should fight against those evils; including the immoral idea that public property should be run into the gutter (which can only cause harm). That is the purpose of having this temperament. But decentralize, always.  All the way until each piece of public property becomes private. More decentralization results in the tendency to run public property as it would if it were private (by being in the hands of those by it). Freedom is the ultimate answer to all questions of the political and judicial.

IV.

Now, personally, I do not expect anything to be done in terms of immigration and public property. It is not in the federal government's interests to do much of anything----democratic government in particular. The real solution to the problem is privatization and as quickly as possible. Let the "borders" of private property work. That will not only bring the good ideal of freedom of movement, but also eliminate any forced integration which creates hostility in society and violates property rights. It distorts the market. This, though must be admitted, will not happen any time soon. Sometimes, if I am to be fully honest, it is this that does push me to a more "Blockian" position on immigration. I become my biggest skeptic.

Now if this is to be ever truly solved on day it will probably be (with my pessimist side speaking) when the United States Empire collapses. The first trouble with this, though, is that the less any kind of cultural bond can be formed, the less likely any division of labor will be strong enough to introduce a truly free stateless society. The second trouble is that a natural aristocracy, in which H. L. Mencken spoke, needs to exist. Freedom will not necessarily be what is called for when that collapse happens. The average man is content in whatever the present order of things is. He just goes along with the flow. He finds it hard to discern right from wrong when he is a part of that flow. He is also unable to see that the culture is in a major crisis, and that the West is dying. The democratic mob is easy to be in contentment, and this contentment is fine to go along with tyranny.

There are reasons to be more optimistic than before, however. There exist men of great stature talking about the evils of statism. Classical liberal ideas are coming alive. Dr. Ron Paul is one of those great men of stature. He is talking about the evils of the federal reserve, fiat money, empire, and socialism. Dr. Paul is against "open borders." There are also centers of great erudition promoting the cause for liberty, especially the Mises Institute. More people than ever are reading Austro-libertarian literature. This is very true for the young, like myself, even with my limited capabilities. The ideals of liberty are snowballing. And it is ideas where the battle is at.

Murray Rothbard, the joyous libertarian that he was, was a long-term optimist. While I love Rothbard, this is something I do not share as much. That puts me into the more doom-and-gloom camp of Albert Jay Nock. But looking at the Ron Paul Revolution, Rothbard, as is usually the case, might have been right all along.

Some Online Resources:

• The Paleo Blog's "The Problems of Pro-Trespassing Libertarians" --- Has many external links as well. Plus see follow-up.
• "Nations By Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State" by Murray Rothbard
• "On Free Immigration and Forced Integration" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
• "Natural Order, the State, and the Immigration Problem"
• Immigration Debate in the Journal of Libertarian Studies (pro & con): "Are There Grounds for Limiting Immigration?" by Julian Simon; "A Libertarian Argument Against Opening Borders" by John Hospers; "A Libertarian Case for Free Immigration" by Walter Block; "A Libertarian Theory of Free Immigration" by Jesus Huerta de Soto; "Immigration Into A Free Society" by Tibor R. Machan; "The Case for Free Trade and Restricted Immigration" by Hans-Hermann Hoppe
• "Nationalism and Liberalism: Friends or Foes?" by David Conway
  
• VDare.com's "Libertarians and Immigration Archive"
  
• David Gordon on Peter Brimelow's Alien Nation
• Download Alien Nation
  

“In brief, culture is an exclusive, which is to say, self-defining creation, which satisfies needs arising from man’s feeling and imagination. Every culture has a kind of ontological basis in social life, and this social life does not express itself in equality, but in a common participation from different levels and through different vocations.” --- Richard Weaver

I am in the process of reading Visions of Order: The Cultural Crisis of Our Time by Richard M. Weaver. It has an introduction by Russell Kirk and a foreword by Ted J. Smith, III. I have only read the very first chapters and have skimmed some of the rest, but it is the usual rigorous presentation and analysis you would come to expect from the great Weaver. This book deserves a summary and review here at The Paleo Blog. I'll endeavor to put together one that does it (partial) justice in a week or two, depending how things work out in blog time.

Weaver is more known for Ideas Have Consequences, but, according to the late Mel Bradford in American Conservatism: An Encyclopedia, Visions of Order might be his more important book.

The author, of course, is a citadel of conservatism, properly understood. In the process of reading it has made me ruminate on a few tangent issues. The first thing is technology, in particular the Internet. The second thing is man's loss of community and sense of being.

The Internet

One thing I do think is the truth is that, while I am tremendously thrilled in so many ways with technology and the Internet for an almost infinite number of reasons (there is no need to analyze them in detail here), becoming too attached to it is destructive for any individual. A man that becomes obsessed or too attached with the Internet loses his place, of where he is, where he came from, and the many natural real face-to-face attachments he has to the "world outside" the net. Surfing the Internet, posting on a blog or two, email, and some online shopping is fine and wonderful. Making a few online-buddies is great too. The Internet is a great place with many wonderful things. (And sadly bad things too, of course.) I cannot stress that enough. But then again, many of men---especially the young----make it their basis of daily activity for life. It consumes it, too much. Are you to some extent guilty? Maybe, probably. Me? Yes, no doubt sometimes. (I spend time to produce sometimes long and repetitive blog posts.)

There are even web community sites out there that encourage you to post your daily activities hour-by-hour online for all the world to see. You have man getting caught up in all the chat rooms, forums, and the like. They become obsessed and infatuated with it, and lose a hierarchy of values for making an actual life for oneself. I would not call this healthy for mind, body, or spirit. At the extreme end, it can help shatter man (and mankind). It deforms personality. Of course, I defend the freedom to do such. The mob-mentality will do its thing. It is not as if the State, or I, can make life better to even the tiniest of degrees by dictatorial force. But that does not make it above examination or make a search for higher ideals for a culture and society nugatory. Man will always be required to be in an interminable state of cerebration, man being short of perfection and always in the possibility of heading to ruin or annihilation.

You might ask, What about the guy who makes his living online? There is nothing wrong with that. There should be no objections. It is a fine profession. He should be able to judge the proper balance in his life. Hopefully he is able to determine what is best for him correctly. And only he can do that, but one wishes he does contemplate that balance and not ignore it.

Community: "Globalization," Immigration, and Statism

I can understand more why some (paleo)conservatives attack "globalization." That is to say, I understand relatively more the temperament of this view. It is true that half of the attack I see as erroneous. Some of the error is in not seeing the difference between a free market and a statist (welfare for the rich) market or free trade and what is currently in existence. It is also not taking into account what, as Henry Hazlitt would hammer on, is the seen and the unseen when it comes to economic transactions.

It would be in vain to deny certain directions of a free market, but the chief principle is that under freedom such directions are organic. It flows with traditional settings and it flows with institutions and institutional development. Does a more international market come into existence under free conditions? Surely, yes. This should not be seen as a negative, not the least of which includes the reality that third world nations develop into higher living standards. Something that should be praised by all. In such a process, though, it further increases our living standards. It may even make certain jobs obsolete, but all to the good for the redirection into new areas. It is the two-sided transaction that makes this process possible in the first place. It does not contradict itself if such redirection happens. It happens based on the initial premise of mutual advancement. Real free trade is a blessing on community strength and well-being. It is also something that promotes peace between peoples. But be this as it may.

One aspect of this, by the way, is that if genuine free trade exists it will cause less immigration into the U.S. There will be less reason to move. Protectionism, on the other hand and all things being equal, will promote more immigration. It is funny because the position from a Buchananite would actually lead to things that would actively promote what is not wanted. If only he and his followers would read some good economics [PDF].

The immigration angle of what is currently taking place before our eyes, in my view, does bring danger. Some consider this part of today's "globalization."* Now there is nothing wrong with nationality, no matter what some left-libertarian will tell you. It does not originate out of the State; anymore than language has its genesis from State. Probably a good way to "gauge" the artificiality of today's immigration is by observing the bilingualism that is expanding. An underlying fabric to any society or division of labor is language. Just as a complex free market needs a hard money and must evolve out of a barter system, a market needs a common language in which people are attached to. It is of the most essential and necessary bonds to any society. (One example at end.)

*[Again: I do see danger in today's statist globalization.]

A main theme of The Paleo Blog has been the subject of social-cultural institutions and its relationship to statism. A point brought up several (!) times is that by giving more authority and control to the State, the less other areas of life will have in meaning and authority. In particular this is true for institutions that are essential for society to live and grow, like family. It is also true for church and community relationships. A Wal-Mart in a free market brings no harm to society or a small town. But when we lose community relationships/interactions, culture and church, we are harmed. We are harmed when we lose its hierarchy.

To quote Weaver one more time:

“A just man finds satisfaction in the knowledge that society has various roles for various kinds of people and that they in the performance of these roles create a kind of symphony of labor, play, and social life. There arises in fact a distinct pleasure from knowing that society is structured, diversified, balanced, and complex. Blind levelers do not realize that people can enjoy seeing things above them as well as on a plane with them. Societies with differentiation afford pleasure to the moral imagination as an aesthetic design affords rest to the eye.”

The State has never been the savor of community and conservative-oriented (non-statist) tradition. The State has done nothing to serve a conservative like the great Richard Weaver. Quite the opposite of doing any "good." The loss of the small town feel or the sense of community can partly be seen how a State has the means and the desire to break it up and stretch public property to all corners of "its" territory. It wants all family households, and especially individual persons, to be as tied to it as possible, if only to tax them as much as they can get away with. Major interregional roads or highways do not exist solely as the means for the advancement of economic exchanges. This I would call a "good." From the frame of reference of the State, contrariwise, it is seen as a powerhouse for control: for taxation and various regulations, least an institution stand in its way---it does not like any kind of (even indirect) competition. It is thus likely to create more such roads and highways, due not to market/people demand, but for its benefit.

Statism will consequently artificially facilitate an environment in which any kind of cultural development becomes less possible. For a culture to be whole it needs an ideal. It (i.e., the men that compose it) needs therefore to use judgment to discriminate against lesser values or ideas that lead to the opposite result. This kind of cultural metaphysical force cannot hold when statism controls spatial relationships and private property arrangements.

One aspect of this is immigration and assimilation. Instead of private property, in a sense, "regulating" immigration, the State opens all public property up in a free-for-all. (See my entry on the subject here.)

Property owners in the "public" sphere have very little discriminatory ability. Since discrimination results in ridding oneself of risks and lower property value, statist interventionism will promote a decline in civility and in fact promote a boost of dis-civility (by making it less expensive than under normal conditions, loosely speaking). They will hire disruptive men in fear of the State hammering down of them. Likewise, for the most rude of customers. For example, a Wal-Mart near-by me has hired a couple of people that cannot even speak English---literally. It is there business to do so, of course, and I hold no resentment or animosity to the given persons who were hired. Not at all. (I find such emotions damaging to oneself.) But what is the chance it was out of fear from State?

A Reply to Local Neocon Talk Radio Show: Topics include the Libertarian Party in Arizona, Trade, Globalism, Sweatshops, and Immigration...

The Libertarian Party in Arizona

Every time libertarianism is mentioned on this particular show, the producer, who you could consider a co-host of this show because she is so much involved in the on-air discussions, says that no one wants to be associated with the Libertarian Party in Arizona because it is filled with kooks and crazies (or something of that effect). She probably has some kind of grudge or something or another with Ernest Hancock, who by all accounts, from what I can tell, seems like a fine gentlemen. He is very dedicated to the libertarian cause, smart, and honest. He might be “eccentric,” that is all.

I am not an “insider” or follower of the workings of the Libertarian Party in Arizona (far from), but I do know it is stronger in Arizona than most (if not all) other states. During the 2004 election, Hancock running for the senate got the highest percentage any Libertarian running for that office has gotten anywhere else or any other time. He broke the record, it appears and if I remember correctly. Obviously then, she does not know what she is talking about. How are the Libertarians in Arizona “a joke” (her words) by those that help run it and organize it, if they do better and poll higher than the majority of other Libertarians? They must be doing something right!

To clarify, she was not attacking the Libertarian Party for being so small relative to that of the major political parties, but was attacking it for being run so poorly as to being weaker than what it otherwise could be. She was attacking the “jokes” of the party. Of course, no one can prove that support would be higher or lower if the major players changed. But she proves herself wrong if we compare the Libertarian Party in Arizona to other states.

Mission of Libertarianism

And, also, if the Libertarian Party does anything, it should be to spread ideas. It should be a tool for education. I am aware that many in that party want to turn it into a much more moderate version to become electable, but that misses the point of why it was created. By doing that (and the national Libertarian Party has done that), you also throw out principles. Libertarianism does not win and cannot win by throwing out values. Say, for example, the Libertarian Party tried to assimilate to the now mainstream position on healthcare. And say by doing this, the Libertarian Party started to (somehow) grow and those running for office in this party started to win. The question then would be: So what? Libertarianism did not win: statist ideas won. That is not a victory-----not at all.

So if this talk radio show producer believes that the idea is to win elections by undercutting the philosophy of liberty, she is dead wrong. Someone like Mr. Hancock is a no compromise libertarian and Arizona is lucky to have someone like that.

I know there was some brew-ha-ha in the Libertarian Party about changing its platforms. They did and trimmed it down to a more “acceptable” level. Mr. Hancock tried to stop that. I remember him reporting into Charles Goyette’s show. Mr. Goyette replied that “anytime you try to collectivize something, it is doomed” or something like that. He’s right.

Sweatshops and Trade

Another topic came up in response to libertarianism on the radio show. This was from the guest host who was filling in, not the producer. He said, paraphrasing: “Doesn’t the free market build factories in foreign nations for slave labor? Doesn’t it bring in all of this immigration?”

The protectionist right meets the anti-capitalist left in their slogans and propaganda. What is “slave labor”? When I think of slavery, I think of it meaning that someone is coerced into working for another. If the person refuses to work, then that person will be put into chains and forced to work. Slavery is the condition of being subject to the chain and whip. Factories that open up in Third Worlds are not slave workshops. To the contrary, they are beneficial to both us here in America and those that choose, by free choice, to work for them.

Those that decide to work for such factories do so because they believe that it is more beneficial to work there than to work at some other place. If this were not the case, then they would make a decision to work some place else. Hence, the opening up of the factory is beneficial to them. The alternative, in many cases, is starvation or even prostitution. Activists that try to stop the building of these factories condemn these people of the Third World to go into worse conditions. It is they who produce misery and poverty and not the capitalists. When the capitalists open up this new line of work it also adds to the future development of the people that live in such Third Worlds. More wealth and production is created. It frees up the market place into new areas of production. This will remain true as long as the market is relatively free (the freer the better) and will grow as much as the people in question are capable of growing. The more evil capitalist pigs who try to squeeze every penny, the better. See Thomas J. DiLorenzo's article "How 'Sweatshops' Help the Poor".

We benefit too in such a process. A more wealthy and prosperous neighbor does not make us get poorer. Opposite is the case! Just as, when Bill Gates makes his fortunes, he does not do so at the expense of our pocketbooks. There is a two-way “action” or relation. Mutual benefit occurs.

Questions that arise concerning the loss of jobs is fruitless then, as long as there is a free competitive market. I am not saying that an individual in question does not hurt if he no longer has a job or anything of that nature. But there is more than meets the eye. When production is increased or when costs shrink, the market place is freed up into more areas in the lines of production. It is a twist on the broken window fallacy of economics.

The long-run and net benefit is positive. If the calls for protectionism were true, then it would be exactly like saying that any new areas of development in the progress of technology should be discouraged and halted. Reasoning that says that new technology kills jobs is the same logic that calls for protectionism. But new technology, while it may kill some jobs, frees the market place up in new areas. The pyramid of production capabilities to fulfill different wants and desires is expanded. And the list of new wants is endless.

Just to be clear, libertarianism does not defend statist corporatism. Probably most huge multinational companies are one way or another in bed with the government. They are grated special (non-market) privileges, favors, and protection from competitive market conditions. Many of them owe their entire existence or their high status because of governmental regulations. So, yes, “imbalances” are created that do lower present and future production, lead to irrational economic behavior, and destroy and limit jobs. But we all should try to understand this and discriminate between the two. Anomalies like this exist because of statist interventionism in the first place. Adding a whole set of new regulations will further push these imbalances.

In addition, I have heard some protectionist-conservatives decry trade as “globalism” and as a means to spread multiculturalism. On many pages, except outside of pure libertarian ethics, I am on the same page as many of these paleoconservatives. Like paleolibertarian Thomas Woods, I am libertarian in politics and (old style) conservative in most other areas. But on this subject, these particular paleoconservatives make little sense to me. Government centralization is bad. And I reject it. This is why I am against all of these so-called “free” trade agreements. They harmonize power. It is a step backwards for liberty --- not forward.

As far as multiculturalism, this makes even smaller sense to me. Trade deals with trade: Movements of people deal with immigration. It is apart and different from trade. Movements of goods deals with the movement of goods (products). Getting good television sets, for example, from Japan is not embracing “multiculturalism.” Buying things more interconnected with culture, such as food and cuisine, happens like any other trade between people. One finds it in his advantage to get, say, a recipe and certain ingredients. He does so because he finds advantage. Good things are helped promoted, while bad ones will generally sink in the market place. It also helps promote some of “our” good values to them.

(In the essay "Weaver of Liberty," Joseph Stromberg quotes Weaver saying the following: "two rights must be respected: the right of cultural pluralism where different cultures have developed, and the right of cultural autonomy in the development of a single culture." As Dr. Stromberg replies, this is libertarianism property understood. There is not some big gap here.)

Immigration

The second objection to the free market was on immigration. This is a more complex task. In trade, there is a sender and a receiver. Governmental interventionism exists in trade, but, as far as I can right not see, does not overly stimulate free trade relationships. Hmm...This I will have to think about, I might be wrong.* What it does more of is overly stimulate anti-trade relationships instead.

However, in immigration there is not always a sender and a receiver. The movement of people is on property. He who controls a given property controls who can be on it and move on it.

*(A stimulus to trade with other people in another country would occur, for example, if the government heavily regulated X industry. X would then look relatively more attractive at places outside the U.S. But my guess is that government instead overstimulates the opposite.)

Public property is in an almost chaotic management in terms of how it handles movements of large amounts of people. Welfare and other services provided by government stimulate an influx of immigration that is unnatural to the free market. The question of how much immigration would or would not occur in a truly free market without government is unknown. There is no formula that we can use. But I can think I can safely predict that immigration would take on a whole different form.

Today’s public outrage on immigration helps to show that much of the current influx is not welcomed. Social tensions have risen. Crime has increased. And, as one would expect, movement in a given area no longer requires assimilation. As huge blocks of people move in, assimilation is no loner required. Communications breakdown, social-cultural-racial hostilities increase, and the complexity of the division of labor decreases in scope as a result. Without a communication glue to hold people together (language), participating in a complex and diversified division of labor becomes less possible.

(And the costs of providing increased welfare and other governmental functions is probably more than that of providing basic protection and enforcement near the border between Mexico and the United States.)

Liberty for people need people more-or-less unified. When people have different attachments, different faiths, different beliefs, and so forth, this does not promote a tendency for a free environment. Paleoconservative Pat Buchanan is exactly right on this.

Now with this said, government thrives on artificially making movement to all places as easy as possible. Because taxation on as many people as possible requires government to have easy access to all private property. Government also needs this easy access to control as many people as possible. Instead of internal order being provided by, for instance, heads of households and families, government needs to dismantle any natural authority and atomize individuals loose from these (voluntary --- private property law based) natural and organic institutions, authorities, and elites.

The “borders” of property are dismantled by the State. This is what gives government more power and allows it to expand its territory. It must defuse them in order to have greater control and to tax more. A North American Union logically would demand open borders.

And guess what? Neoconservatives want a North American Union. They know that open borders is part of that package. President Bush and the Republicans that support him, in typical neocon fashion, are condemning all of those who reject his amnesty as racists, bigots, nativists. I have sadly heard/read a few libertarians use those words for those that do not believe in open borders as well.

In light of all of this, one can say that immigration in a free market would take a different look. Immigration would not transform communities. The division of labor grows when there exists a social-cultural bond between people. Businesses and capitalists could not “externalize” the costs of new immigration onto other people. All immigrants would be invited under a free market. There would be no forced integration or forced exclusion.

As far as wages are concerned in the debate over immigration, this is not an argument against immigration. I believe that the reason against this influx of immigration is (partly) above in some of the previous paragraphs. It is not that they lower wages that causes problems. The same economic fallacies, I believe, are used here as they appear in the arguments that protectionists use.

Here is more on immigration on The Paleo Blog:

• The Problems of Pro-Trespassing Libertarians
• More on Immigration
• Immigration / Individual & Collective / Organic Culture & Private Law
• Culture - Social - Language - Religion Ties Matter
  

I hope all of you had a Wonderful and Blessed Easter!

• Taki's Top Drawer has provided some articles during this Eastertide with a Catholic bent. Please check it out, if you are so inclined. They are good articles.
  
• 

  VDARE dot com
  VDare.com has a article on the War Against Easter here.
• James Fulford at VDare.com's blog was kind enough to link to my entry on immigration: The Problems of Pro-Trespassing Libertarians. Thank you, sir!
• Paleo libertarian at yahoo dot co m is my email address, if you want to contact me and don't have a VOX account.

(A follow-up ~ The Paleo Blog: "The Problems of Pro-Trespassing Libertarians")

Being Practical: Imagine a Deadly Situation

It seems that it is reasonable that a case can be made that the idea of “open borders” is incompatible with libertarianism. Trespassing is against libertarian values. It must be by invitation. But libertarians sometimes forget more practical issues. The social problems connected with mass immigration are an example.

Here is an extreme example. God forbid this should happen, but what would open border libertarians say if it did: Imagine some very bad sickness spread in Mexico. While private individuals can do their best to try to avoid potential people that have this deadly virus, there is so much government property it would be very difficult to do so completely. The answer would be clear: control the border. But would “open border” libertarians reject this because of their principles?

Welfare to Illegals

Why make the distinction at all? That is, between illegal and legal immigrants when it comes to welfare? Even libertarians that are open borders typically make the diction. While they might be against welfare in general, they still make the distinction.

Free Trade & Immigration

Those that favor free trade can also oppose “open borders.” In free trade there is a sender and a receiver. In much of today’s immigration there is not this kind of relationship.

Hans Hoppe mentions that those that do not want to see all of this immigration should support genuine free trade. The incentive to for immigrants to immigrate to America will than lessen. (However, it is also possible, he mentions, that if we adopted genuine free trade this could have a negligible effect on the number of immigrants because it may make the U.S. even more attractive to live in.)

Expanding Government Objection

One thing that I am very much sympathetic with, is the objection by some libertarians that increasing government would have to occur one way or another with real border enforcement. Not all open borders libertarians are unreasonable and do understand the practical issues and dangers of open borders, but still hesitate because of this.

But why does the national government have to be the enforcer? Why not push people and the movements that want to slow down immigration to decentralize the issue? Why not the states affected deal with it?

Yes, problems can creep up with government doing its job at the borders. But that is to be expected in our statist world. That’s why I say that the message needs to get out decentralizing this issue as much as possible. Forget about the national government.

“Couldn’t border security not only keep un-welcomed people out, but keep us in?”

Again, there is always that risk with government (a coercive monopoly compared to a free market) in charge. Let me use my example from the previous immigration blog entry: If someone breaks in my house, who am I cam going to call? I can only call the state. If, God forbid, a murder took place, I can only look to the government to catch the bad guy. There is nothing, that I can see, that is un-libertarian of me that would say, given the current context of the world, the state police should do what they are supposedly designed to do in terms of private crime that violate libertarian ethics.

Other Objections

"If immigration should be by invitation only and enforced by the government, then so must newborn babies."

I saw a couple of libertarians saying this. I do not understand how this analogy holds water. It seems, in my humble opinion, very silly. Of course new born babies (leaving aside issues like rape) are invited. They have a place of living. The parents are providing for it in all ways. Etc.

Utilitarianism

Arguments of a utilitarian nature must be rejected. Even if the utilitarian cases proves (and this is an if) that no border enforcement increases economic prosperity, it does not disprove the case for immigration by invitation only. People can prefer lower living standards to higher ones because they prefer, for example, dissociating themselves with someone. People can value things more than money. Austrians, of all people, should know this.

The objective of the paleolibertarian is to cut down the government and abolish it. It is my contention that libertarians that support open borders lead us to the very opposite; i.e., more statism, the deterioration of individual liberty, and social chaos. As Hans-Hermann Hoppe teaches us, “open borders” is a complete government fabrication. This fabrication would not exist in anarcho-capitalism. “Open borders“ only result from a Leviathan State.

Immigration is one of the most debated topics in libertarian circles. It is difficult to say what group has a greater number of people in it. I am inclined to say the “open border” folks. Those that are closer to the Mexican border, on the other hand, are probably more inclined, at least relatively speaking, to take the view that is more hostile to “open borders” due to their proximity to the fronts lines.

Yes, it may seem somewhat strange at first: How can those that want to demolish the State want some kind of border enforcement?

Maybe this will help. Here is another way to look at it: The state exists. This is a given. If one can only call the state police when someone trespasses on one’s property, then this is something one will have to do. There is no away around this fact, at least in the given environment. The government exists. It has a monopoly of certain things. Libertarianism would say that this should not be so. However given the current environment, what are the next best alternatives? The government outlaws competition when it comes to law and order. Because of this fact, it is better that the government provides some kind of court system, which can and does uphold some basic libertarian principles (e.g., protection from private thieves and private murders), then to have nothing at all. Understand, this does not mean that the free market could not handle these things. It is because of the fact that they are outlawed. It is also due to the fact that the public has not come to terms with the logic of anarcho-capitalism.

What is the fundamental axiom of libertarianism? It is that no one has the right to violate the property rights of others. Implied in this is that no one has the right to trespass on another’s property. Therefore, no one has the “right” to immigrate. One cannot unconditionally immigrate into my house, for instance. You can only enter my house if I allow you to do so. I may also attach conditions if you enter my house. But clearly you cannot enter it without my permission or invitation.

In an ideal world society would be fully based on private property. This includes things like roads, schools, courts, hospitals, et cetera. Borders in a libertarian world, as we now know them, would not exist. This does not mean, however, that today's semi-"anarchy" that is taking place by Mexico would continue or expand. On the contrary, today's open borders would be replaced by the law and order of the "borders" of private property.

Immigration takes on a new meaning in such a world, but all "immigrants" that you associate with would be voluntary. A multitude of individuals, communities, and other private institutions, in a sense, would “regulate” who does and does not enter. If a private (voluntary) community does not want foreign strangers to enter, they can be sure that they do not. Inherent in libertarianism is that people can dissociate themselves with anyone they want for whatever reason.

Private individuals, unlike the government, have the smarts to have a lock on their home door. Individuals don’t have “open borders.” We have the authority to choose---to “regulate”---who enters and who does not. Only the government has the perverse foresight to be foolish enough to have the door open to “its” geographically controlled territory. But it is much worse than that: The door is not only unlocked and wide open but inside the house there are many free gifts (welfare) waiting for those who enter! This is certainly a recipe for disaster. Government subsidizes immigration. In addition, due to the fact that “our” government is democratic, and its very nature is “open” compared to a monarchy’s “closed” nature, this tendency is further promoted. (See The Paleo Blog's "Restoring Liberty Step-by-Step: Striking Down Democracy.")

A business owner will only choose a worker that will (in his mind) benefit his business. There is no “revolving door.” If that were the case for a given businessman, then he will not be in business for long. Or imagine your home. What do you think would be the result of an “open door” policy with free giveaways inside? Do you think your home’s value will increase? The answer is a clear no. On the other hand, if you allowed some good handymen, they might improve the value of the house. But that does not come about through the “revolving door.” It is something no individual property owner would do. And they don’t. This “bad” does not just turn into a “good” when we apply it to a macrocosmic level, i.e. to a large land controlled by a monopolistic government. Immigration is only good through the active and diligent enforcement of private property rights, which include the freedom to choose and discriminate.

Today we live in a society with an ever large and growing Leviathan State. So much of private property is being stipulated to government control and dictation. Instead of people having the natural freedom to discriminate in any way, government forces people to be with those that they do not wish to be with (by various non-discrimination laws). Government produces forced integration. When someone must be forced to be with someone they do not wish to be, predictably resentment and conflict will result.

Government's existence depends on being a giant mega-parasite. It cannot live any other way. Its food does not come about through voluntary transactions, but by outright (involuntary) theft. To grow it needs more hosts that it can attach itself to. In the eyes of the government, to be healthy it needs a larger number of hosts. The greater the number of hosts the better. This is exactly why the state likes open borders! Any self-respecting libertarian should pause and reflect on this. A pretty good bet is that when government likes something, whatever that may be, then it is virtually assured that it is something that people should not like! It is the reason why this issue has gone almost unnoticed until recent years. Government has stood silent.

Citizens have gotten angry. Arizona past Prop 200 in 2004. It denies illegal immigrants access to voting and welfare. The support Prop 200 was overwhelming. But practically every single politician was against Prop 200. While a vast majority of the residents of Arizona opposed illegals having the "right" to vote and receive welfare, the politicians were only too happy to have illegals both voting and receiving welfare. Should that be a surprise? No. Democracy is all to happy to expand itself to illegals. It wants more hosts. (And because the government is democratic it also needs to expand its open entry system.) The only reason now some politicians are talking about this issue is because the public has felt the effects of immigrants they do not want to be around. There is no other reason.

For government to expand it also needs to break down and isolate the individual. Government needs to own the roads and large amounts of land. In order for it to tax someone it needs access to him. This results in "government's" property in bordering all privately owned property. This lowers people's ability to keep away people they do not wish to associate with. Once people are encircled with government from all sides, anyone can walk right into your property. This includes foreigners. Instead of being able to set up barriers to prevent unwanteds, government almost completely destroys the ability for people to do this.

From this we should be able to gather how unnatural the idea of a "open border" is. As Murray Rothbard wrote:

If every piece of land in a country were owned by some person, group, or corporation, this would mean that no immigrant could enter there unless invited to enter and allowed to rent, or purchase, property. A totally privatized country would be as "closed" as the particular inhabitants and property owners desire. It seems clear, then, that the regime of open borders that exists de facto in the U.S. really amounts to a compulsory opening by the central state, the state in charge of all streets and public land areas, and does not genuinely reflect the wishes of the proprietors. ["Nations by Consent: Decomposing the Nation-State"]

Here is what Hans-Hermann Hoppe has to say:

Through forced integration individuals are isolated (atomized) and their power of resistance vis-à-vis the State is weakened. In the “logic” of the state, a hefty dose of foreign invasion, especially if it comes from strange and far-away places, is reckoned to further strengthen this tendency. And the present situation offers a particularly opportune time to do so, for in accordance with the inherently centralizing tendency of States and statism generally and promoted here and now in particular by the U.S. as the world’s only remaining superpower, the Western world—or more precisely the neoconservative-socialdemocratic elites controlling the state governments in the U.S. and Western Europe—is committed to the establishment of supra-national states (such as the European Union) and ultimately one world state. National, regional or communal attachments are the main stumbling blocks on the way to this goal. A good measure of uninvited foreigners and government imposed multiculturalism is calculated to further weaken and ultimately destroy national, regional, and communal identities and thus promote the goal of a One World Order, led by the U.S., and a new “universal man.” ["Natural Order, The State, and The Immigration Problem"]

This is the opposite of the libertarian goal of decentralization and ultimate privatization. Centralization leads to forced integration and open borders. Decentralization and privatization leads to the opposite. It should be expected that if libertarian values were winning what would happen is the breaking away of large states into smaller ones. It is inconceivable how this would not lead to increased community power and segregation. You cannot promote libertarianism and then promote open borders. They are incompatible.

Tax payers are forced to pay for public property. In these terms it is not government that owns them, but the taxpayers in correspondence to how much they pay in. That is to say, if person x pays z percentage of the public property he owns z percentage. Murray Rothbard said that we must reject the idea that all public property should be run like a sewer just because it is public. For example, if some bum is stinking up the public library, he should be kicked out. It is true that this public library should not exist. Only private libraries should exist. However, under the current circumstances, it should be run like a business.

Stephan Kinsella in his LRC article "A Simple Libertarian Argument Against Unrestricted Immigration and Open Borders,"* gives a good example. Right now the roads are owned by government. Is it un-libertarian of me or Mr. Kinsella to want some kind of rules for the roads? Both of us agree that they should be privatized. However, given that they currently are run by government, what is better: No rules on the road or Some rules? Obviously, I think most libertarians would say that there should be some rules. Most would not say that someone like me is supporting something that is un-libertarian. Kinsella writes; "I do not personally believe it can be convincingly argued that there should be no rules on public property, because this would result in significant costs to citizens who are victimized enough." Yes, things are bad enough without making the already bad system worse. Government should not be made to run worse than it is. (Unlike what some libertarians have suggested, making it worse does not necessarily mean that it will collapse. If it did, then this does not necessarily mean that people would be smart enough to embrace anarcho-capitalism ---- they could embrace something worse. And, by the way, it is also immoral to increase the power of the state to do immoral things [even if one's goal is its collapse].)

*(And here is a follow-up.)

This also implies to government controlled hospitals. Yes, get rid of government here.* But right now it would be stupid to suggest that there should not be rules to how they are run. Hospitals have been forced to close down because of illegal immigrants. This is very dangerous.

*(Did you know that in China, I heard on talk radio, that hospitals are in open competition with each other? They actually buy advertisement to tell people to come to their hospital versus another. Talk about them moving to closer to capitalism and us moving closer to socialism.)

Imagine a given territory of land. Now if this land is fully composed of privately owned property, then only those invited would be allowed to enter. No forced integration would occur. On the other hand, if government owns a significant portion of it (or controls the private sector by various non-discriminator laws), then there will most likely be immigrants who are there that would otherwise not be. Even if they got a job, this does not mean that they are welcomed. They still need to move around in this territory. They need to live somewhere. And so forth.

This is why, considering the current circumstances (i.e. we have a government), it seems fit that government should be placed into the role of only allowing immigrants who are invited to enter. I personally no not feel that this violates libertarian ethics. Just as, considering the fact we have a government, it should round up real private criminals who rape, steal, kill. To be sure, this is not ideal. By necessity the state could never preform the job as individuals could because they can directly control their own property. But in the grand picture it is difficult to believe that open borders would not lead to an increase in government power, centralization, and social problems.

Again, besides the violation of property rights by trespassing, it is also important to understand how the state grows with more hosts. In a democratic state, what we will get is more redistribution. What also will occur is the breakdown of private property rights. This will increase the number of anti-discriminator laws on the book. As Thomas Woods wrote in "Democracy vs. Civilization":

 The massive Third World immigration that commenced with the liberalization of immigration laws in 1965 has translated into more crime, more wealth redistribution, more anti-Western multiculturalism, more interracial tension – and, naturally, more social-welfare bureaucrats to manage the inevitable social turmoil that such population shifts leave in their wake. This is why the Left favors it

He continues:

The concepts of community and private property are meaningless and empty if they exclude the right to discriminate. Discrimination is a pervasive and indeed absolutely necessary feature of life. We discriminate in the foods we eat, in the neighborhoods we live in, and in the friends we make. And we discriminate in whom we invite for dinner. There is no such thing as "equal access" to our homes.

In a "natural order" of a libertarian society a division of labor with community would seem to suggest more homogeneous communities. An advancing division of labor brings about market based hard money. In a cultural sense, transactions take place because people can communicate with each other. When you see places near the border where this is becoming less possible (communication), you see the division of labor breaking down. This is what forced integration does. The market needs a bond. An organic culture (cultural conservatism) is a important factor.

It is also very difficult to believe that a libertarian society would accept this flood of immigrants. Patrick Buchanan in his book State of Emergency: The Third Wold Invasion and Conquest of America, reports some startling figures. As he says not all immigrants are equal. The rate to which Mexican immigrants receive welfare is about two times as high as native-born Americans. (p 43) Compare this to Koreans, Filipinos, Japanese, Canadians, Poles, Brits, Germans, Indians, and Italians who use welfare less than native-borns. (p 44) Only five percent of them have not finished high school. This is in comparison to thirty-one percent of Mexicans.

He writes in Los Angeles that ninety-five percent "of all outstanding warrants for homicide, which total 1,200 to 1,500 target illegal aliens." That "[t]wo-thirds of the 17,000 outstanding fugitive felony warrants in Los Angeles are for illegal aliens." And that about "12,000 of the 20,000-strong 18th Street Gang that operates across Southern California are illegals." (p 24) One in twelve illegal aliens have a criminal record. (p 9) "Hispanics are three times more likely than white Americans to be convicted of a serious crime requiring incarceration." And that "[t]hey are nineteen times more likely to belong to a criminal street gangs." (p 24)

Buchanan's article "Does Libertarianism Lead to Statism?" Given these kinds of figures, the answer seems to be yes, if libertarianism supports "open borders." As he writes: "[T]hey are disproportionate users of social services – i.e., health care, food stamps, rent supplements, legal services and general welfare. Immigrants have become the principal propellants of the growth of the welfare state."

Karen De Coster replied in her article "Wrong, Pat, wrong." She says that paleolibertarians know better:

Buchanan's overall point about the damage done by mass immigration is correct. That is, the mass immigration to which U.S. residents have been subjected leads to a burgeoning state; props up multicultural madness; allows poor, unassimilated immigrants to garner massive amounts of welfare pork; leads to a rising class of tax consumers, as opposed to taxpayers; and has dumbed down the state-based educational system, providing even more impetus for politicians to toss additional taxpayers' money into an already-failed system.

She says that "the right to discriminate is inherent in the ownership of anything."

In Buchanan's The Death of the West: How Dying Populations and Immigrant Invasions Imperil Our Country and Civilization, he shows that this is part of a much bigger picture. Not only are floods of immigrants coming, but the birth rates of whites are falling. The Western civilization is dying. As he writes (this is true, be it a bit less, for America as well as Europe):

While world population had doubled to six billion in forty years, the European peoples had stopped reproducing. Their populations had begun to stagnate and, in many countries, had already begun to fall. [p 12]

Add to that a mass flood of immigrants from the Third World. Something is not right with this picture.

In 1960, people of European ancestry were one-forth of the world's population; in 2000, they were one-sixth; in 2050, they will be one-tenth. These are the statistics of a vanishing race. A growing awareness of what they portend has induced a sense of foreboding, even panic, in Europe.

 In the U.S., if things continue to move in the direction that they are, America will be Mexamercia.

In 1991, the Soviet Union shattered into fifteen nations along the fault lines of race, religion, and ethnicity. Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan were Asian as well as Muslim. Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia rejected not only Communist rule but Russian rule. Russians in Latvia, descendants of those transferred there by Stalin over sixty years ago, are still regarded as intruders. The Caucasus seems about to subdivide into statelets like Chechnya, Dagestan, Abkhazia, and North and South Ossetia, based on ethnicity. [State of Emergency, p 166]

Based on these kinds of evidence Buchanan says:

It appears a truism: multicultural, multiethnic, multilingual states are held together either by an authoritarian regime or a dominant ethnocultural core, or their breakup is inevitable.

Hans Hoppe writes: "Peter Brimelow, Alien Nation, pp. 124-27, has provided some recent evidence for the thesis that no multicultural state, and especially no democratic one, has ever worked out peacefully for very long."

Short of ultimate privatization of all land, then what? Hoppe says:

Abolishing forced integration requires the de-democratization of society and ultimately the abolition of democracy. More specifically, the power to admit or exclude should be stripped from the hands of the central government and reassigned to the states, provinces, cities, towns, villages, residential districts, and ultimately to private property owners and their voluntary associations. [Democracy - The God That Failed, p 148]

Hoppe recommends a system similar to what they do in Switzerland:

In Switzerland, for instance, citizenship may require that the sale of residential property to foreigners be ratified by a majority of or even all of the directly affected local property owners. [p 168]

More specifically, it means distinguishing strictly between "citizens" (naturalized immigrants) and "resident aliens" and  excluding the latter from all welfare entitlements. It means requiring, for resident alien status as well as for citizenship, the personal sponsorship by a resident citizen and his assumption of liability for all property damage caused by the immigrant. It implies requiring an existing employment contract with a resident citizen; moreover, for both categories but especially that of citizenship, it implies that all immigrants must demonstrate through tests not only English language proficiency, but all-around superior (above-average) intellectual performance and character structure as well as a complete system of values----with the predictable result of a systematic pro-European immigration bias. [pp 148-9]