Global openness, they argue, is the only way to resolve the injustices that have generated or maintained so much poverty in the world. Their case is primarily a moral case: morally defendable individual rights include economic freedom across political borders. They argue that a strong presumption exists for liberty and this presumption is impossible to invalidate. They also present an economic case for openness, which is the only way to increase prosperity over the whole planet. It is an interesting book of philosophy informed by economics (as it should be).
Van der Vossen and Brennan believe that justice must be compatible with “common-sense moral intuitions and ideas” and with empirical facts. For example, economists have shown that the quality of institutions (social, political, legal, economic) is a determining factor in economic growth and we must include this factor in any theory of justice. What is needed is “positive-sum global justice”—that is, win–win cooperation among individuals as opposed to simply taking from some individuals to give to others.
Good institutions are built around the rule of law, private property rights, and economic freedom. These economic rights are “human rights” by themselves, the two philosophers argue, adopting the usual rights-talk of mainstream philosophers.
‘Yes’ to mass migration / If economic rights are defendable within national borders, they seem to also be valid in interactions over national borders. Thus, there is a moral presumption for free trade and free international mobility, just as such a presumption applies within a given country. This presumption may be defeated, but only with justifications. To assert that normal economic freedoms stop at a political border because they are superseded by the group rights of people across the border presupposes a demonstration that group rights (already a fuzzy construct) are sufficient to defeat the presumption of liberty. This is not easy to do.
How could the moral presumption for free mobility and thus free immigration be defeated? Certainly not by economic arguments, the authors argue persuasively. Economic research suggests that free mobility of workers, whereby every individual can move wherever his work is most valued in the world, would greatly increase global GDP, perhaps by as much as 50% to 150%. Open immigration would be a win–win, just as free mobility within a country increases economic efficiency.
The two philosophers, who know much about economics, debunk standard economic objections to open immigration. Immigration cannot generally push down wages, if only because (as they could have noted) immigrants also increase the demand for other goods and services and thus the wages in those other industries. Did women push down wages when they arrived on the labor market? And, anyway, would that be a good objection to their freedom to work? The answer to both questions is negative.
As for the welfare state, it does not justify cutting immigration. As a matter of fact, immigrants in America don’t seem to use the welfare state more than the natives. Assuming there is a welfare-state problem, it would only justify cutting welfare payments to immigrants, not cutting immigration—although this would raise other issues.
Van der Vossen and Brennan confront the “illiberal immigration” argument proposed notably by economist Paul Collier. Van der Vossen and Brennan explain this argument as follows: “Immigrants bring along their cultures, ones that lack support for the rule of law, democracy, and freedom.” “As a result,” the argument continues, “allowing people to move freely from poor to rich societies undercuts the very institutions that make prosperity possible, and with it social stability and liberal freedom.” Open immigration would destroy the very institutions and features of free societies that make them attractive.
Note that Van der Vossen and Brennan use the term “liberal” and its opposite “illiberal” to refer to classical liberalism writ large and its opposite. “Liberals” include libertarians as well as those American-style liberals who believe in the presumption of liberty.
To the Collier “illiberal immigrants” objection, the book offers many counterarguments. First, the implied extreme scenario of the liberal receiving country transforming into a poor, illiberal country is not likely. Liberal cultures have proven to be extremely robust, as American history shows. Second, the authors admit that “forcibly preventing immigration could be justified if it really were necessary to avoid this nightmare scenario.” At worst, they add, the danger of illiberal immigration would be a reason to restrict immigration from institutionally bad countries only—assuming that such discrimination would be constitutionally or politically feasible.
And if it were legitimate to block illiberal immigrants in order to preserve the liberal society, would it not also be legitimate for, say, Virginians to protect themselves against West Virginians? It won’t do to answer, “No, because Virginians and West Virginians are from same country,” because the moral legitimacy of prioritizing fellow citizens is precisely what needs to be demonstrated.
We are back to the need to defeat the presumption for liberty in order to oppose international openness. “We need to know,” Van der Vossen and Brennan write, “why countries are supposedly justified in doing things to foreigners that they would view as horribly unjust if done to their subjects.” We must avoid the circular argument that fellow citizens must be prioritized over, and protected against, foreigners because the latter are different; and that the latter are different because fellow citizens must be prioritized.
Doubts about open borders / Is the two philosophers’ defense of open immigration as tight as it appears? Is the invasion objection so easily dismissed? Isn’t it likely that, past a certain threshold, illiberal immigrants would destroy liberal institutions and prosperity?
It is not mainly—or at least only—a matter of the right to vote, which immigrants don’t immediately obtain anyway and which could be postponed longer. It is more a matter of informal institutions being toppled by an invasion of people with different cultures. Think about the rules of tolerance. Or think about trust, a certain level of which is important, especially in a free society. Some research suggests that trust can be best, if not only, maintained among individuals who generally follow the same rules and share the same culture.
Assume a million-strong liberal society with liberal institutions and imagine that two million illiberal immigrants take up residence in their midst. It seems obvious that the invasion will change this society’s institutions. Predictability of human behavior will diminish. Mistrust will increase. People will self-segregate in different enclaves. Individuals will feel more and more insecure. To maintain some sort of social peace, laws will eventually change. Social relations will become more regulated and individual liberty more controlled.
James Buchanan’s contractarianism may illuminate the problem under investigation. The parties to a Buchanan-type of (implicit) social contract would see their country as a club with a controlled membership precisely in order to preserve their liberal institutions. This approach, which Van der Vossen and Brennan do not discuss, would not justify completely closing the border to foreigners. It is unlikely that the contracting individuals would unanimously agree that, for example, foreign spouses could not immigrate or that citizens could not hire foreigners as nannies or business employees. But it could justify some reasonable and not-illiberal control on immigration.
Free trade: a simple case / Compared to the murky case of immigration, trade represents a simple case. Van der Vossen and Brennan argue that the right to trade internationally is, just like the right to trade domestically, a basic right that is essential for an individual to pursue justice and the good life—notwithstanding philosopher John Rawls. The moral presumption for the freedom to trade internationally seems as irrefutable as other economic freedoms.
The economic case reinforces the moral presumption: free trade has been shown to lead to increased production and a radical drop in poverty. Following the law of comparative advantage (of which Van der Vossen and Brennan provide a good explanation), free trade benefits both poor and rich countries, just as it benefits different regions within a country. The authors could have added to their arguments that free trade between California and Mississippi benefits people in both states even if wages are 40% lower in the latter.
In Defense of Openness finds that no good philosophical argument overcomes the moral presumption for free trade. For example, “exploitation” in sweatshops is not a good argument. Working there is the best option for the poor who choose it; otherwise they would have chosen another option among those open to them— scavenging dumps or prostitution, for example. Closing a sweatshop amounts to removing the best option of its workers, making them worse off. “We shouldn’t take away a victim’s best option on the grounds that it is unjust unless we can replace it with an even better option,” they write (emphasis in original). (See “Defending Sweatshops,” Spring 2015.)
The two philosophers also answer an argument of Aaron James, a philosopher at the University of California, Irvine. Abolishing a tariff (or another obstacle to trade), James argues, hurts those who benefited from it just as establishing it hurts those who previously traded freely. In both cases, he claims, some lose and some win, and there is no presumption one way or the other. Ignore the fact that those harmed by a tariff shoulder a higher cost than the benefits of those it favors, which is the same as saying that free trade leads to a net benefit in terms of money. Van der Vossen and Brennan emphasize that the ban of a liberty does not have the same moral status as the restoration of a liberty.
Note that a Buchanan type of social contract creating an island of liberty cannot conceivably limit free trade as it can constrain immigration. The parties to the contract are unlikely to unanimously accept that protecting their liberty and liberal institutions requires limiting their freedom to trade goods and services over the country’s borders more than within their country. On the contrary, the power to limit trade with foreigners would put too much power in the hands of Leviathan.
Positive-sum justice / One major strand of In Defense of Openness is the idea that justice or the correction of injustices—the focus of the political philosopher—can best be attained through individual liberty and economic growth. Consider the injustices created by colonialism, which may partly explain the poverty of many of today’s underdeveloped countries. The two philosophers point out that the depredations of the natives may explain as much. Moreover, the residents of the colonizing countries were probably exploited by their own imperial governments: “Empires don’t pay for themselves.” The moral and efficient way to correct such past injustices is not to impose a collective responsibility on today’s descendants of the colonizers, but for them to open their borders and markets. Since everybody would benefit, it would be positive-sum justice.
Many philosophers, such as Thomas Pogge of Yale University and Nicole Hassoun of Binghamton University, argue for some form of international redistribution toward poor countries. There is no need for morally and economically doubtful redistribution, reply Van der Vossen and Brennan. What is needed is simply to stop the current injustice of government-imposed obstacles to international trade and mobility.
Foreign aid cannot be defended from either a moral or an economic viewpoint. As many economists have observed, the large amounts of aid given over the last five decades have had practically no effect—or worse, have fed corrupt regimes and thus retarded economic growth. Experience has shown that trade liberalization is the way to cut world poverty. Trade, not aid! “The main way people in developed societies have contributed to ending poverty abroad,” write Van Der Vossen and Brennan brilliantly, “has been through buying Made in China products.” And the buyers have benefited, too.
Free trade is justice. “Not only do people have a prima facie right to exchange goods without coercive interference,” the authors write, but also “allowing them to do so generally works to the benefit of everybody.”
Climate change—which the authors take very seriously— is often used as an argument to restrain economic growth. To the contrary, the book argues, growth can provide the resources to mitigate the effects of climate change without harming developing countries, which are responsible for much of the current growth in greenhouse gas emissions. But economic growth requires international openness, which would also allow the people who are most harmed by climate change to move to more hospitable places. “The choice, the authors write, “is largely between a world much better equipped to deal with poverty and climate change, and a world much worse in both respects” (emphasis in original).
“What we owe people around the world is openness,” concludes the book’s postscript (emphasis in original). Van der Vossen and Brennan provide several strong arguments for abolishing at least some immigration restrictions, but I have argued that completely open immigration is very questionable. In fact, the two authors are often less radical than they appear at first sight. The presumption of liberty perhaps is what’s most important: departures from it need justifications. At any rate, the book remains a good antidote to the current irrational discourse and callousness against the convenient scapegoats that immigrants represent. And Van der Vossen and Brennan’s case for free trade is unassailable.
