Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone today.
We have Bryan Caplan. A professor of Economics at
George Mason University blogger, for econ log.
And one of the world's leading Advocates of free immigration.
He has an excellent new book, open borders, the science, and
ethics of immigration. He wrote it with Zach.
Weiner Smith who did the cartoons.
I really had a blast reading this.
I can tell you to be totally honest.
I learned more on page. What was it page?
165? I learned.
That I did studying in school for five years.
Mr. Kaplan. Thank you so much for taking the
time today. Great pleasure to be here.
I wish I remember what Pete was on page 165.
Okay. Well, that is my incentive for
everyone else to buy it. But it's where you are basically
saying you summarize utilitarian egalitarian.
Oh, yes. Yes, corrina's in one single
page. So it it's definitely worth the
read. Uh, mr.
Kaplan, when you advocate for free market capitalism.
What does that mean? Free market capitalism well, so,
we've got this idea of capitalism, which is basically
all the countries where government doesn't run, almost
everything. And then free market.
Capitalism is the version of capitalism or government does a
lot less. Of course.
It's a slogan. So, as to where you want to draw
the line at it with this video, if you want to call Hong Kong
and Singapore to be free market capitalism, everything else to
be less, you could do it that way or you could say the straw,
the wine, it At a higher point. And so there are no such
countries on Earth right now for me, is a slogan.
And so it's as long as you're clear on exactly where saying,
it doesn't much matter where you draw the line.
But, you know, the idea of an economic system where you
actually live up to the ideal of having a separation of economy
and state or you're somewhere in that ballpark.
That's what I would have in mind.
And what is the moral difference between saying having the
state-run an industry and In private Enterprise.
What if I vote for someone who can really give me a lot of
benefits to the state? So, what's the mall difference
between them? Well, there are a few moral
differences between them. So most obviously, if it's a
government-owned industry, then people have to contribute to
that industry whether they like it or not.
So for example, if I don't want to patronize Amazon, I just
don't do it. I if I don't want to patronize
the university system of the state of Virginia is Long, as I
live in Virginia, I have to do it because it comes out of
taxes. So that's it.
Will one obvious small difference, is the
non-consensual nature of support for government.
Unless you just want to say counts as consent just to live
within the borders of the country.
Although that's your standard for consent.
Then you can go further say how about just knowing you didn't
leave the planet so you can send it to whatever happened on
Earth, doesn't seem too good on terms of other more differences,
of course. Also morally matters how good
the consequences are. So I think A lot of evidence
that the actual performance of privates in a private business
is far superior to that of nonprofits in general and
governments on nonprofits in particular.
Sure, you know a, an article called the anarcho-capitalist
frequently asked questions. Are you an anarcho-capitalist
and why? So, I am an anarcho-capitalist
but not the crazy kind. So the crazy kind is the person
who says, if I push a button, everything will be great.
You will immediately transition everything wonderful or
alternately someone who says, I don't care what happens.
And I think those are both naive and silly views.
However, The idea is that it is not only logically possible, but
it's feasible to have a world where what we think of as the
basic functions of government are carried on by Private
Industry. I think that makes a lot of
sense and the way that I usually think about it is just say, all
right, man. Let's start with the smallest
government, you can imagine. All right.
Now, let's dial it down, 5% more.
Can you imagine that, right? So, traditionally, there's been
an idea that government has to admit him have a monopoly over
police courts and the law. And we have, I meet someone who
thinks that I said. Well, we're already below that
because there's a lot of private police.
Right now fact, there's more private security than there are
police officers and that is states.
There are a lot of private courts.
So, any kind of arbitration system, and that's a big deal.
Right? And there's a lot of private
law. So arbitrators often will not
use the law of the government with their under, but they make
up their own rules, by course, a credit card companies, or their
own set of rules or insurance companies.
When there's dispute between their clients.
They have their own set of rules.
So just to say, it's clearly not true that we need to have a
monopoly over these things because we don't have a monopoly
and almost no one is complaining about it.
And I said, okay. So once we accept that, we don't
need him a lot Built My Monopoly and we don't have one.
Then could we have even less? And I have a long lecture, I go
over ways, you can do less and then, you know, normally, you
can talk people down to a very low level.
And then finally, you're left with such a tiny role for
government. Tiny even compared to what
people previously thought of as minimum, and there's the
question. Of, can you take out the last
pin and have the system remain? And I think ultimately the main
problem is just that if people don't expect something to be
stable, that destabilizes it on the other hand of people
expected to be stable that stabilizes it.
So analogy, like very much, is you go back to Sweden in 1000,
ad and proposed democracy and to say, man, instead doing no
matter how many with Viking Viking axe, and I'll make the
Viking accent like a modern Swedish accent instead of Just
having a viking of warlord here. Why don't we go?
And I'll write down names who we think should be the leader.
Whoever gets the most in names is will be the leader.
Right? Imagine all the Vikings
laughing, your face and their horns of Ale tipping over with
glue it with delight as they when you say that and they tell
you what your that's a stupid is, obviously whoever's the
strongest of all Lord will kill, whoever wins and they'll break
over, wouldn't make any difference and 1080.
That's true. On the other hand.
Imagine going to the modern sweet.
Cabinet and someone says, well maybe if we don't have in the
next election, we should just murder our opponents.
And in that case, people laugh at that idea, right?
In what has changed, is just social expectations about what's
normal. And I say that in a world where
people are used to the idea of government running really slow
on the courts, then to try to private sellers.
Those would go up against this problem.
It's going to be unstable because it's just totally
different. What people expect on the other
hand, if you imagine a world where People take this for
granted, then I say it would be very stable.
And then there's the question of how can you go from one to the
other? That's one of the hardest
questions social science. All we can say is Sweden.
Went from Viking Warlords to what they have today, right?
It took a while, but similarly, I say, we can go from a world of
government to a world of free market.
Anarchism not overnight not violently, but just by shrinking
the state and getting people used to things until they take
it for granted. And Tell the point where someone
who says that he's going to use violence to establish.
His rule seems not like a like a bad man, like like a fool.
Excellent say that I am someone who just really only cares about
the polar. I think, the middle class are
generally taken care of the rich have their own thing.
But I only care that poor people have opportunities in life and
no one is too poor to live or to live with dignity.
Why should someone like me support free markets or
capitalism? Right.
So let's go back to my book open borders, because the heart of
that book is saying that right now, there is, there's an
enormous amount of totally avoidable poverty on Earth
caused by government regulation. Because right now, there are
people who are so poor compared to almost anyone.
You see in the United States, and yet, they're Able Body, the
perfectly able to take care of themselves and they could take
care of a bunch of dependents as well.
There's just one problem and that is that is illegal for them
to move to a country where they can go and get it.
Job, so if you are a rule for Mexico, if you could just get
across the border, the US and work on a u.s.
Farm, you can make probably five times as much money as you do
back home in Mexico, but that is illegal.
So, I would say if you really care about the poor, you should.
First of all, realize that most Global poverty really is or in
the long run caused by these immigration restrictions, that
have kept people who are able to take care of themselves from in
a free market from doing so. So that's the the The first
really big thing is to realize that there is a big system of
Regulation that has locked enormous amounts of global
poverty in place. And this is totally caused by
governments, right? Because there are jobs that what
might not seem very desirable to native-born Americans, but,
which are fantastic in the eyes of most people on Earth, and
it's illegal for them to cake and take those in the law.
In the, in the same vein. I would say there's another very
large body of regulations. That is terrible for the poor.
Both domestically internationally and these are
Actions that make it very expensive to build homes, right?
So right now, the highway Jerry's, the country are places
like New York Bay Area, but you might say, why don't people in
West Virginia to just go and move there.
And the answer is that it's so expensive to get home.
They're so expensive to get the rent apartments that you
actually lose more money in rent that you would make from the
higher wages right now, you know, why is that?
You might just think this is just supply and demand, but it's
totally not. There's been a little A lot of
research on this and what's going on is that the
construction business would love to build an enormous amount of
cheap housing. However, government does not
allow it ever makes it very hard to get permission to build
their, a lot of restrictions on things.
Like how high you can make your buildings, how much of your land
you can use right? And standard estimates say that
if you get rid of these regulations really just dial
this level of Regulation. And these desirable areas the
u.s. Down to the normal level.
That this would lead to a dramatic reduction in housing
costs and desirable areas and a very large increase in total
production of the country. So I actually have this thought
experiment where I say imagine we went and deregulated the
Housing Industry as a result, the housing Supply doubled and
the price of housing fell by 50 percent.
What share of Americans would call this a disaster.
Right? And I think, actually, and most
of my time, I did a survey, most people thought that most
Americans would consider this total disaster.
Even though this is a scenario where we've doubled the housing
stock and it's half the price of what it used to be.
So you think that people would be happy and yet the general
expectation and those people have and that I have, is that
people would try to find the dark lining and the Silver Cloud
of a massive expansion of affordable housing, right?
And but again, if you care about the poor that Obviously, the
poor would benefit if they could get housing for half the cost of
what they're currently paying not only, could they just afford
a bigger nicer place. They wouldn't have to rent.
Maybe, even if you're homeless, you can afford to get a place as
a result. But furthermore, it would be
affordable to go and move into these higher wage areas of the
US and enjoy that. So those are the really big
regulations that are terrible for the poor and we can talk
about others if you want. So obviously there are some
other things government does that at least seem like they're
helpful for the poor? I think it's worth pointing out
that there are two very large bodies of Regulation which have
an enormous and bad effect for the poor to get that on the
table. The Sao regulation of
immigration. Regulation of housing.
These are two things that are terrible for the for the truly
poor. So If you're worried about them,
these are at least two massive ways of deregulation.
You should totally support. Save that.
Alright, you've convinced me capitalism creates a bunch of
stuff when people are free. They're more free to make
voluntary exchanges, which increases their overall
satisfaction, but I care about inequality.
Let's say, I see some people that have so much and I see some
people that have so little, and if they get laid off their life
is just in shambles, if I only care about inequality, why
should I consider something like free markets, right?
Well, just to sound like a broken record.
You care about inequality, should favor getting rid of
immigration restrictions? Because those trap really are
desperately, poor people and really severe poverty, while
protecting people who are already living quite well.
And then similarly with housing, right?
If you care about inequality, you should want to make housing
cheaper, so that more people can afford nicer homes and also can
live in higher wage areas, the country.
So that would be where I would start, I guess I would also
Let's see. So, I'm gonna yell at him in
terms of other things to consider.
I would just ask. So, what exactly is the complain
about inequality. Is it really an equality per se?
That's bothering you or is it spot?
Or is it poverty? So, it's also true that the best
places on Earth to be, poor are the richest countries.
So the poor and rich countries are a lot better off than the
poor in poor countries. So if your real concern is just
that some people have a low standard of living than again.
I would say that. Market capitalism, which is
really good for creating more wealth.
If your concern is simply with inequality per se, then I would
just say it's complicated. There's a bunch of things that
government does that increases inequality.
There's a by, there's a bunch of things that government does that
job that reducing it, that reduce inequality.
And so minimum, if this were concerned you should start with
all the things government is doing that.
They can equality worse and join me in trying to get rid of
those. Sure.
Hey, another aspect is say that I'm someone who just is so
terrified of monopolies. A small percentage of wealthy
people gaining so much power over an industry.
That the entire populace is left at their Mercy.
If I am, if I am just so terrified of private sector.
Monopolies. Why should I consider free
market capitalism, right? So this is starred mean if
you're afraid of Monopoly, I would say that you really should
have a public Monopoly to private Monopoly.
And so, there are a lot of cases where the government owns an
industry and controls it. So many countries have
government telephone Monopoly. So, most of Africa, prior to
cell phones had governments telephone monopolies.
And as a in large part, is result, hardly anyone in Africa
to phone because the government was just did a very poor job of
running it. So of course, right now, we have
a system where government runs about 90% of the education
system. So, you know, like if that sound
if 19. If one owner wrote a real wild
like a having 90% of the education, 90% of Industry
counts as monopolies and we think that the education would
sound was just what counts, of course, the post office cover
properly as well. Illegal to actually deliver
first-class mail, even if everyone who's directly
involved. Neighbors that.
So minimum I would just say to compare private and public
sector Monopoly and just be aware of both.
But, you know, the other thing I would say is that Private sector
Monopoly is a problem. If Government is made
competition illegal, which it often does or at least if they
hinder competition once again, so in the construction industry,
it's a very often illegal to go and entering try to compete
against existing sellers of housing.
So you've got that kind of thing going on, but on the other hand,
I would say if it's just that a private business has succeeded
because they've offered consumers, a better deal than
anyone else. Then I would say this is
actually nothing, that's makes sense to complain about.
So we think about Emma, On I am continually baffle Apple that
anyone is mad about Amazon. So I just say this is the best
store that has ever existed in human history by far.
I don't even see how you can really argue it.
It is a endless source of cheap convenient products, right?
And yet people somehow managed to find something bad about it.
There is an interesting puzzle. How can they have such a great
market share and yet still be continuing to serve because the
consumer so Faithfully might think they would say already.
We've won, we don't need to give you a good deal anymore.
Right? And this is often a fear about
Monopoly is sure they get to be number one by.
Do being good. But once they are number one,
then they can become bad. I'd say me, really what we see
is that firms like this. Generally you're always looking
over their shoulder because they know that if they stop, not only
being good, but they have to keep trying to improve to stay
ahead of whoever might catch up with them.
So, when you picture it, when you think of it that way, then
you realize that private sector monopolies, were they just get
it by making consumers. Happy is not only not a Woman
actually is the source of many of the greatest things we have
in our lives, right? And furthermore.
Now something that I did not anticipate 30 years ago.
When I first started, you saying economics is that we would come
to a world where there are numerous famous monopolies that
give their product away for free Google.
This is a machine that simply provides all human knowledge of
the universe. Does it for free, you can search
all you want endlessly vertex. It's for pictures videos.
And what do they charge nothing? Right YouTube.
Similarly, you know, they charge nothing.
Some of these are freemium where you get a fantastic product or
free if you want even more, fantastic product, you pay a few
dollars a month and then there you have it.
So this is what we'll, what we generally see with private
sector monopolies, is that they got there for a reason?
Sometimes the reason is that they got the government to ban
competition, but the ones that people are complaining about
right now, it's almost entirely just that they deliver a great
deal. And people are amazingly
ungrateful. Right?
So 30 years ago. I would have been surprised that
you would see famous companies, giving the product away for free
and even more surprised that people would be so angry at
them. Even, 10 years ago.
I was thinking like, well, Google is finally knock this
idea that big business is bad out of the American public
because it's just so obvious that it's great for them.
But I was wrong. Then it turns out that people
can be angry about anything. That was the first thing I came
to mind when you said, what if we doubled housing and cut the
price in half? I go ALC would be so upset.
You'd never hear the end of it. Why are some countries wealthy
in some countries? Poor?
Well, there are a bunch of reasons, but I would say that in
the long run. The biggest reason is economic
policy. So there is a set of economic
policies that are very helpful for economic growth.
So these policies generally involve having a high degree of
economic, freedom, stable, private property.
So that is a big part of an especially doing this for a long
time. So if Haiti went and got very
free market policies today, they still be pouring a year because
a lot of this is cumulative. It's also being very open to not
just international trade but International Investment.
International Investment is not just money.
It is also know how its organization its management.
So these are very important things but there's any other, a
bunch of other factors that have to be given that you have really
have to think about. So a lot of evidence that
average National Intelligence matters, and this does vary by
country and that's just a fact. Some of that is probably versus
causation, but probably some of it is not just location.
There's two. So being in the tropics, seems
bad for a bunch of reasons. You got tropical disease.
You've got your Sergio, just Tha temperature making makes it hard
to work in. Most most occupations.
There's a book about Singapore, arguing.
I think pretty convincingly. The air conditioning was very
important for Singapore to develop would have been hard
without it and then obviously, if you step back further another
really big fact is science and you know, Tech science
technology. So in the year 1 AD, you could
have had totally free market policies and yet they still
probably would have been really poor compared to France today
because they wouldn't have been just having free-market
policies. Doesn't immediately give you
science technology over the long run.
I would say that it probably does but that too is complicated
and it does seem like you'll get a period of stagnation which may
have something to do with policy.
But as far from the only thing and then finally you start
getting the ball of Technology bowling again, right?
So you've got that and a bunch of other things.
So War obviously is really bad for Development.
So that's can really hold things back.
Especially if even when you have peace, people are worrying about
that. Another world is going to break
out. So there's that and there's just
things like savings rates. So if people in your country
blow through all their money really quickly and you don't end
that by itself is likely to retarder, economic growth, you
could just get International investors and it would be very
wise to make them feel very comfortable but still seems like
simply being In different country tens of by itself.
Tends to reduce the amount of a better investment you get.
So it's important to get investment domestically that
really helps. So there's that and you and you
just play other things. So, possibly religion makes some
difference to. So, what's the religion your
country. There's a long debate about
whether it was really helpful. Be Protestant versus Catholic.
Think at this point. There's a lot of doubt that
matters or least matters anymore, but you've got that.
And I mean, I guess I would say, the honest answer is named any
factor and it probably matters so much.
Right now. So people like to have really
simple models but we turn better.
Yeah, like I often think in terms of yesterday, but what can
you do? Well in terms of policy?
And that's where I would say. Terms of policy, you want to
have very high economic degree of economic freedom.
And you also want to have a peaceful foreign policy.
So that you are not getting your country destroyed and conflicts.
Again, of course, there's like, well, this isn't the best way to
shoe have keys former War saying, I think sometimes a lot
of times it's not a lot of times preparing for war causes of war
that wouldn't have happened. Otherwise because you terrify
other countries, I always like to say that the Soviet Union or
got very safe when the Red Army collapsed because the only
reason they were in danger really was that the rest of the
world was terrified of them because they were their army was
too scary. Sure.
What if I am someone who just cares about the cleanliness of
the environment? Everything else is materialistic
nonsense. I only care about having a clean
place for me and my cat, because I'm so scared of the
environment. I'm not even having kids.
What do you why? Should I support free market
capitalism? Because he literally, you only
care about yourself and your cat, then you would be good for
the environment of all the human beings perished, right?
So if by definition the invite like a good environment is
whatever. It's like without humans there.
I would say that seems like a very strange view.
I got many more than a few people actually even hold that
view. What I would say about someone
who just says look I would like to enjoy a nice dinner living
but also to have nice Environmental Quality.
That's what where I was saying. There is that researchers have
found something something that's called the environmental
kuznets. Curve.
And it comes down to this when you're really poor, Economic
Development, seems to make the environment worse.
Worse. And so just picture being in a
small Agricultural Society and then you start getting some
industry. Normally, what happens at first
is that the environment gets worse, you get air, pollution
and water pollution. However, and when the all the
income in your society and Converse in your Society gets to
monitor level, then what we see fairly reliably is that this
reverses and then the society start to clean up and then
eventually you've got to what is typical in the first world where
you have both a high standard of living and it Environment.
So it's called the environmental kuznets, curve.
Because it's a curve First Development makes the around the
worse. Then it stabilizes, and then
develop further development makes the environment better
essentially once people can afford to make things clean.
Then they make things clean. All right, so that's the main
story say. Now, I would also say that often
measures of Environmental Quality people use are
deliberately slanted to make modern society look bad because
they don't measure the filth of earlier societies.
So, for example, Example, usually, we don't when we
measure Environmental Quality, look at amount of horse manure
anymore. But what hat Leah, what did the
internal combustion engine? Do it cleaned.
The horse manure off the streets.
So, 100 years ago. Let's see now.
All right, hundred and twenty years ago.
Let's say just to be safe. The streets of New York City,
would have been completely blanketed in horse manure, which
is not just unsightly and malodorous.
It also spreads disease through fly.
Eyes and all kinds of other disgusting, things like that.
And the internal combustion engine of this went and
basically made the horse obsolete after time, and so
indirectly got all that horse. Manure off the street.
Now, in modern measure Environmental Quality, we just
take for granted that we don't have forced me to wear
everywhere. But if we were doing a broader
measure not of particular kinds of emissions, but of how does
the air smell overall? How breathable is the are like,
then we would see See that capitalism and modern technology
and combination have improved things a lot more than even that
simple cucit's curve would have, you think?
If we were to embrace a pure system of free markets and
capitalism, who would protect the workers.
So what I say is there's no who that protects the workers.
It's rather a w. It's competition, right?
So right now, of course, milk, most workers get very little
protection from the government's really?
Yes. So who protects comic really
like, who protects Tom Cruise? Right, Bob, who protects
lawyers? All right, so, you know, they
all who protects Engineers or computer programmers for all
these cases. There's some laws on the books,
but they're so irrelevant to what the occupation is, though.
Almost no computer program is working for anything.
Remotely close to minimum wage. Minimum wage is not protecting
him, right? And similarly.
So if we're matter of the computer programmer, feels like
things are not safe in the job. Yes, you don't call boscia and
wait around to see what happens or you could complain or just
find another job. So even now in practice, almost
everyone, just relies upon competition.
In to take care of them. And you like, even when you
complain to an employer about something, there's a tax that
threat which is if you don't deal with my complaint, then
what I'm going to call the government on you sometimes more
often it is I will be dissatisfied worker if you don't
address my concerns and then when I get in a good
opportunity, I'm going to leave. And this is what most employers
are worried about is that their workers will be dissatisfied and
we'll leave and I would say the same principle goes for
lower-skilled workers as well. Is that?
It is the competition that protects them.
There are. Of course a lot of laws that
would at least apply for lower-skilled workers like the
minimum wage. Although there.
I would say that when you really study the economics, you realize
that it's a lot more complicated than the usual view, usual view,
just says that you're depressed worker and the government comes
and helps you. And then your helps the end,
right bought almost every Economist who has looked at
this, as it's more complicated than that because of all you
needed to give a low skilled worker.
Good life was a fifteen dollar, an hour minimum wage.
Why stop there? Why not 25?
Why not 50? Why not 100 right in this
eventually? Almost, everyone will say.
All right. Well made it a hundred dollars
an hour for a fast food worker than maybe the job would
disappear and that's a very reasonable thing to think.
All right, but then wait a second.
Well, what makes you think that a hundred dollar minimum wage
does cause unemployment, but a fifteen dollar per hour, but if
you do are $15 per hour, minimum wage does not cause
unemployment. And I have to say, I've never
gotten any halfway, decent answer to this.
Right. So anyway simulators your simile
for a law that requires that you give all of your employees
Healthcare. This is something almost
Everyone likes and yet this does not in any way mean that an
individual worker gets health care because it essentially just
says that employers have to either give you health care or
not. Hire you And obviously they may
very well to make the decision to not hire you.
When people are thinking about hiring a nanny, then it's pretty
obvious that if there's a bunch of regulations about the hiring
of Danny's, a lot of people say forget it.
I'm not going to bother. But somehow they imagine that
for businesses. They don't think this way.
And again as to why businesses would not be responsive to the
cost of Labor in the cost of Regulation.
I just can't imagine where anyone would get this idea and
finally just to get a really good idea of how labor markets
actually work for those. Workers right now.
There are millions of workers that do not actually have legal
protection, the United States, because it is illegal for them
to work at all. So illegal immigrants cannot
legally be working in the United States at all.
And yet you find that when they go and get jobs, they are not
paid 10 cents an hour, right? Instead, even in the illegal
Market, you see that employers are concerned about competition.
So if I'm employing some workers illegally still, this does not
mean the workers are slave, is they Go and work for another
employer. It legally and employers have to
go and consider this right and Me.
By the way, this is also very relevant to another very popular
worker. Protection is legal protection
against discrimination. So, there is an idea that
without discrimination laws employers would be
discriminating left and right. And I say, well think about this
illegal immigrants are people against whom it is illegal, not
discriminate. According to law.
You must treat illegal immigrants very differently.
People that are legally allowed to work.
Namely, you're not allowed to hire them at all, and yet, even
though it is perfectly legal to discriminate against
discriminate against illegal immigrants.
In fact, it's required, people are worried that employers won't
do it. They're worried that if that of
all you say is they're not protected that employers will
hire them anyway, right? So what's going on here?
I think the answer is people realize employers are mainly in
it for the money. And therefore if the law simply
said, You can hire illegal immigrants if you want, but they
can't, but they aren't but it's late, but they are not protected
from discrimination. They realize that employers will
hire them and that's why the law actually says, you may not hire
them, you will be punished if you hire them because otherwise,
they know that employed that to these Market, mechanisms
competition would work. And in the absence of laws, that
prevented employers, who hire illegal immigrants, would be
really easy for legal owners, get a job.
And even now when there's a bunch of law, still illegal
immigrants, find And because employers are willing to break
the law to make money. What is social desirability
bias? Ah great question social
desirability bias is one of the most important and well
validated ideas and off psychology.
It says that when the truth sounds bad people lie and often
they get sucked up into their own lies so much that they start
to believe completely nonsensical things.
Alright, so some of the most obvious examples of this are.
If you ask people, if they went to church a higher share of
people say, they Once then really did, when we go and look
at bodies that were there. If you ask people how much money
they give to charity, people claim to give more money to
charity than they really do. If you ask them how much they
drink, they claim to drink less than the actual sales of alcohol
show. They do in fact drink, right?
If you ask them things like you are you are you a better than
typical driver more than half. The population says that if you
ask people, you know, how kind you are you compared to others,
how generous right then for all these These things we see is
there is a gap between what sounds good and what really is
happening. Bringing.
One of my favorite ones is. If you ask people, if you were
pregnant with a Down Syndrome, baby, would you abort?
Most people say, no, yet. We have numbers on the fraction
of people find themselves in that situation saying that in a
very large majority do itís. The difference between what
sounds good and what people actually do in fact, do right.
Now, this is a very general idea.
And you can and once you really appreciate you can see it almost
everywhere. But in particular, I say you can
seal so much of this in politics.
For example, you'll see in politics of people will say,
completely nonsensical. Things.
Like nothing's more important than education.
I don't care what your, what Your ideological views are.
This is an absurd statement food is more important than
education. Obviously, obviously.
Right, if you either food or no education or education, no food.
Which one are you going to choose light?
Or when people say things like, it would be better if we have
been better to have for us to go to war than to lose one inch of
territory. Oh, really?
It's predict ulis. Who can one is, your territory
is not very important, and the war would be terrible.
Right? And then you land it once again,
you can obviously see that when people are talking about war
politicians, make a bunch of statements, why that are cheered
with great Vigor by their people saying we will die before we
surrender and yet what is every country to do when they actually
have to choose between death and surrender?
They surrender. So, you know, perhaps the most
obvious case being an imperial Japan when their rhetoric of
death and their glorification of death.
Is it off the charts and yet couple nuclear bombs get dropped
and like, wow, there's death and they'd be.
All right. So that's what we see.
Right? And I say that when you listen
to the regularity of the justifications people, give for
a lot of government regulations, government ownership.
When you actually listened, it really just does come down to
social desirability bias. And you know, it sounds that
people say what sounds good without really thinking about
whether it, whether work. Well, you know, meal.
So sometimes I think people are lying to meet more often.
It's just that people have heard the lies so much.
They actually have internalized them.
So things like the only on the minimum wage is it was just
great. It's a way of helping workers
like sounds good. Like what about a million wage
$100 an hour? Wouldn't that have some bad
effects so you don't really favored that to you.
So then what makes you think that having a fifteen dollar
minimum wage River of oil, 15, a of dollar per hour.
Minimum wage isn't bad. And same thing goes the oh, like
with many complaints about immigration things.
Like, if one American is harmed. It's like tell me anything good
that has ever happened. That didn't harm one American.
Yeah, that goober Uber harm. Many more than one Americans.
The mechanization of Agriculture harm, many Americans.
So what we're not going to allow any kind of progress if there's
one. Person who shares my citizenship
who's harmed by it again. It sounds good.
It's the kind of thing you say in a speech, but it's
ridiculous. I want to get into open borders,
the science and ethics of immigration here.
Now. I did some research and Garrett
Jones who works at George Mason University has written a
response to your book saying incomes in the United States
would fall as much as 40%. Bernie Sanders was on.
Oh, gosh. I'm sorry.
It just slipped me. I think vox.com.
And he said this is actually a conspiracy by the Koch brothers
to bring in low paying job. ABS in order to stifle
competition. So rate so wages, can't go high
enough. So I'm someone who just cares
about poor Americans. I see poverty all around me.
How can we take anymore? For Heaven's Sake, right?
So two things. All right.
So there's the very silly Bernie Sanders argument, which has to
back up. So let me let me just explain
how exactly it is that immigration increases the wealth
of mankind. So the idea is that you have a
lot of Metallics trapped in poor countries.
And if you move it to rich countries virtually overnight,
the workers don't discern more money, but they produce a lot
more and they don't consume all the extra stuff.
They produce instead. They sell it to other people
then partake in the benefits. So, when he should moves from
Haiti to Florida, they get it going.
Get a job at a restaurant and suddenly they are producing much
more value than they were back in Haiti because they are saving
the time of people with much higher value or a Mexican goes
and works. Moves from a farm in Mexico to
farm in the US. Suddenly, they are earning five
times as much money because they're growing five times as
much stuff as they did under American Management on American
Farm rather than a neck under Mexican Management on a Mexican
Farm. I notice this is not the silly
argument, the more population equals more production.
This is the sophisticated argument that when you move
people from a low productivity area to high productivity area,
the production of the world goes up as a result.
Bryce. This is the way that immigration
increases wealth. Now I kind of have measured how
much does the wealth go up by the Roma Lancers are enormously
for two reasons. First of all, a lot of people
want to move by most estimates billion plus, people want to
move and when they do move their productivity increases
enormously by a factor of say five.
So if you move a whole lot of people and their pretty goes up
by a lot. This means that the production
of the world goes up by a whole lot.
So they typically will be something like you double the
production. Action of the World by in a
ultimately, in a world of open borders.
All right, now when people start worrying about this, so there's,
you know, there is, of course, the story that Nintendo
production wouldn't really go out there something wrong with
that. Now, Garrett Jones actually just
critique, he accepts that and then he did and what he says, is
that, all right. So what's the deal that that
mask seems to work out? Least in a simple model but by
the simple models his by the way, so it's not just any old
simple model with his simple model, but then There's the
question of the distribution of the games.
So what Garrett says, is that we could measure over world where
everyone moves the United States production, the world doubles,
but then he says that natives would native, the other people
are currently here would get a lot for.
Right? And why is this?
Because he says that based on other estimates, that there
would there be very little inequality.
And so, as a result of having very little, very little in
equality, while the average would double The Americans.
Find that they are getting a small increase over this
doubling of the world average. Right?
But since they'd only be getting a little bit more of the world,
average, that would still be less their debt.
Currently getting right now right now, Americans would
probably be running several times what the global average
is. So suppose Americans earning
five times. The global average Garrett's
argued is basically like well Americans afterwards would get
basically like 10 or 20% more than twice the world average.
Righto, the current world average and that's less than, or
the getting right now. So my reply to that is, this
goes against all of our experience with large increases
in production, the past and we have a bunch.
So we have the Industrial Revolution, very large increase
in production and the game's not primarily go to factory owners.
The gains were very broadly, spread like similarly, with
vaccines. The games in, primarily go to
people, that Mako that manufacture vaccines, or invent
them. They would all the people didn't
die, the internet, the games. Rarely go to computer,
programmers. Similarly.
I say that it's not reasonable to think that almost all or all
of the gains are actually interesting Garrett scenario.
It is that more than a hundred percent of the games.
Go to migrants. I say that is totally
unprecedented. We've never seen anything like
that before in human history for any large gain in production.
So any in his story is literally that there be a doubling of
direction of the world, but more than 100 percent of the game,
would go to the emergence. And I say that's just
unprecedented. So it's totally unreasonable
protection. But I do see where he's coming
from now. Bernie Sanders, where he's
coming from. It's unclear.
He doesn't quite say that we should just forget about
everyone else on Earth and I only care about Americans,
right? So he still enough of an
old-line Marxist to feign being an internationalist, but it's
more along. The lines of it would be worse
for them to because we be under undermining, the international
labor movers something like that.
So, and everybody, we just say that if you really believed him
and you should be against technological progress as well,
because it's the same idea of you figure out a way to
accomplish more with your people and then what's going to happen
to the for workers. Right.
And again to this guy, he has a lot of appeal.
Except for the fact that it contradicts 200 years of human
history, where technological progress has been awesome for a
living standards. Although of course, sometimes it
is bad for individual workers in a particular affected industry,
but you always have to. Remember, you're not just a
worker, you're also a consumer. So if there's a lot of progress
in your industry, but every other industry stagnant that can
indeed be bad for you. On the other hand, if there's
progress in a bunch of Industries, including yours,
then obviously, this has been a fantastic Moon And every reason
we should think this feature in the future, I mean, really what
I said is, selfishly speaking, when should want is open borders
every occupation, except you're out.
Yeah. So for me, the best world would
be where we have open borders, but we Deport all the foreign
war professors. Right.
That would be ideal for me because then I would get all
kinds of great stuff produced by people that are not professors,
but there would be much less competition in my field.
And so I would have more money to spend on a much better basket
of goods, right? So there is that when you put it
that way, you realize, all right, what about the deal,
where there's open borders for all occupations, including your
own and I say that that is especially long run a fantastic
deal. I wanted to get into the mindset
of someone who is passionately in The closed borders position
and he says can all 7 billion people on the planet just
wandering and walk around the roads.
Can they set up tents and sleep on my side of the street
forever? Another words at some point.
We only have a we have a scarce amount of resources, whether
they're provided coercively by the state or not.
If we have so many immigrants Heavens, how can we possibly
take in all these people? Write something totally fair
question. What I would say is, if all
seven billion came today, it would be a complete disaster.
However, all 7 billion are not going to come.
Today. We have a lot of historical
experience with how migration actually works.
And the normal pattern is that if you open up immigration
between two countries, that previously didn't allow it at
first, it's just a trickle and then it gradually snowballs and
over the course of years, and decades does become a large
number but in that case it's fine because it gives industry
plenty of time to build a new housing, create the new jobs.
And even like, is this a pipe dream know, this is what
happened to the United States a bunch of times.
Right. So this is your so the United
States when it got independence would have had about one percent
of the current population that it has.
Now. What happened was that partly?
There's natural population increase, but a lot of that is
immigration, if all if three or million people moved to the u.s.
In 1789, that would have been a disaster.
Right? In people be starving in the
streets. However, when you do it over the
course of centuries, you can multiply population a
hundredfold and it's not only, is it fine.
It's awesome. And now with a now, for the
question of this mean that people could sleep in tents and
so on no reason, there's no reason at all that you, this
cannot steer that you can still have a currency laws and other
things like that. So, me right now, of course,
it's legal for anyone in the u.s.
To move to New York City. There's a small amount of
homelessness. They are.
Although it has very little to do with open it with the fact
that you can move there and a lot more to do with policy of
New York, City governments, but you know, what I would say, is
that in terms All things like people sleeping on the streets.
There's already a bunch of laws and that are around, you know,
that kind of thing. And you're wondering like
wouldn't people just move to the most desirable place all depends
upon real estate costs. So reason why there's right.
Now, a lot of people want to live in New York City except for
the cost of living right now, of course, if we had both open
borders and heavy deregulation of housing, then there would
just be a very large building boom.
But even there, there is a, there's a limit to how fast you
can build a whole lot of housing but But it's a lot faster than
people think, right? So we can see how much housing
the building in Texas, were regulations, very light.
Right? And we could do a lot more than
that. If we really actually wanted to
write in if demand was there, right.
So anyway, so, you know, the many like, you know, like are
there examples of this or how does this work?
So my favorite example, I talk about in the book is 1902, the
US, Supreme Court, declared open borders of Puerto Rico, an area,
much poorer than the United States at first only a few
thousand came. But then more came and more came
it snowballed. And now about 100 years later
more than half of people, Puerto Rican descent live inside of the
50 United States, but there was never any big brother though.
There was never a big problem. This is the way that Puerto
Ricans who did come they were very seamlessly integrated.
They found a much better life for themselves.
And along the way they made Puerto Rico, basically the
richest place in the entire Caribbean.
There was a hurricane so that throws off the comparison a
little bit but in Puerto Rico was not a very Girish part of
the Caribbean when the u.s. Took over and now it's virtually
the richest part. And so it's not that brain drain
went and ruined it or anything like that and instead, allowing
that open border and not only let a lot of people leave and
make money but also allow the people that were left behind to
go and enjoy a lot of other benefits.
And so looks like it's been not only great for believers, but
they for the stairs, too. Sure.
Um, I recently went to Mill Avenue a place in Phoenix,
Arizona, and I hadn't been there in like 10 years.
And the first thing I noticed is that it went from like being
like a, an all white all English-speaking town to like
basically. Now, it's a lot of Indians are
there and very few people speak English.
One thing that just little Indians from India, Indians from
India, correct? Yes.
Thank you. So, the first thing that hit me
was, do I want this for the entire country?
Of course, the libertarian in me, says, I don't like something
I can I have a voluntary or violent way of trying to go
about solving it so I can just do anything.
I want. However, I did see the fear that
is in a lot of people's minds. When they say, my entire country
is changing. The culture is changing.
These people don't necessarily, we can't even speak the same
language. Let alone the same values.
Do you think how do you respond to the major cultural?
All downside that might happen as a causal result of an open
border policy. So I'd be very surprised if a
large area of Indians had. Many people that didn't speak
English. I can leave that English isn't
their first language, but you know, so literally they actually
didn't speak English at all. No, I'm sorry.
They were not speaking English. I'm sure they all probably spoke
English, but it was not the language.
They were speaking amongst each other.
So, I mean, I would say that your first thing a huge
difference between English and not being your the language.
You're currently speaking. We're not speaking at all.
So the cultural gap between someone with two languages, one
of them being English, and someone who speaks only one
language is in, it is in English.
It was between these two scenarios.
I say these are night and day scenarios actually for purposes
of assimilation, and labor force participation and just being
able to interact. So many gays in terms of
language that, you know, this is something where there's good
data on it and it comes down to this.
So, people that arrived in the u.s.
It's not speak English. They've never actually become
really fluent right with much frequency because learning a new
language fluently. When you're done was hard.
However, 100 years ago, their chaos, their second generation
immigrants, their kids learn to speak fluent English and this
remains totally true today right now when with the cease to be
true, I say that we see Speech, true.
If you get an enormous number of immigrants from a country where
they all speak the same language and they are also very
geographically, concentrated on the other hand, if you've got a
lot of Rinse, but from a lot of different countries where they
don't speak the same language. Then again, English remains
focal language. And of course, around the world
right now, English is already the vocal language the point
where you can be a tourist almost anywhere on Earth and
still very few countries. Do you struggle as a
English-speaking tourist? Because you're almost always
find some people that do speak it.
So anyway, I would just say that this is something we're
especially Market forces, but also just the desire for people
to get a better life for themselves.
It's kind of a Market Force got, you know, the old Bayou, but all
of it is just so you'll call. Ya'll culture cultural
transmission means that there's actually a very high level of
linguistic, assimilation. And I go further and just say
that when you go and look at second generation, we rinse the
degree of cultural assimilation is also very high.
So I'm going to say again. This is not the kind of thing
that makes too much sense to worry about.
So you'll people worry about assimilation.
Usually, what they do is they look at Second Generation
migrants and they find any differences between them and the
native one. And they're never hard to find.
I say this not a reasonable metric of assimilation.
What you want to do is to create a Continuum where you have say,
the average person in India is at zero.
The average person in the u.s. Is at 100 and then you go and
say, where would you put second generation immigrants from India
on this year? 100 scale?
And I'd say probably you put them in about somewhere between
80 and 90. So to me, that means we have 80
to 90% of similarly assimilation, which is fine more
than enough for almost any practical purpose.
And they say, if you need more than that, then you're just
being unreasonable. And especially when you realize
how much cultural change there is over time.
So, I think my, my parents are both in their 80s.
How culturally comfortable they feel in America right now.
It's not at all. And it's not because of migrants
primarily is because young people that are descended from
them are two different from them, right?
So, they grew up in the 1930s and they got a certain way
things were then. And then what happens is, it
happened is there were many parts their culture that they
failed to convince, the younger generation were worthwhile and
so culture changed, right? And I say this kind of cultural
Change Is Us the flip side of freedom and the slogan saying
you have no right to your culture.
Why not these cultures other people?
My mom doesn't have any right to have her culture remained
Catholic because for that to be. So it would have to deprive me
of my freedom of religion. Right?
And once you can accept that, it's okay for cultures to change
over time without migration. Then I don't see what this
moderate change. That you get from migration.
We why? That's why, that special, or
would justify anything further thing in my, oh my oh, my
reaction to people complain about cultural change is always,
maybe you're right. So why don't you sell your
culture promote it? Right?
Instead of complaining or trying to stack the deck by saying,
people don't agree with you aren't allowed to be here.
How about you try to convert people, right?
In right now, of course. There are many countries on
Earth where their repressive governments that are desperately
trying to keep Western and American especially American
culture out. Right?
So Saudi Arabia doesn't want have American culture in there,
right? Iran does not want have American
culture, the Ayatollah had this great word.
He called it West, toxification West, toxification.
These Western ideas. Western attitudes, western
movies, women, wearing skirts, all this stuff.
He says, that's poisonous coming in, and we need to crush it.
And I say there's a kernel of insight there.
Namely. IE if there's just free
competition between cultures, Western culture generally does
win and this is going to be especially clear people can
actually leave repressive countries and come to a place
where there's a free market and culture or something close to
it. And so with the Ayatollah can't
do it and I can't really do anything about it.
Terrific, I definitely recommend reading the book, IT addresses
virtually all the primary rebuttals.
Someone would have to open borders, whether they're a
progressive, whether they're conservative or whether they're
a Libertarian such as myself. I got three more questions for
you. They're all more or less the
same thing. What is the most important thing
you learn from the work of Jason Brennan?
Most important work I learned for the from the work of Jason
Brennan. The actually pray.
A probably the thing though. His work that I've learned the
most from. Is his why not capitalism, which
is reply to Jerry Cohen's classic work.
Why not socialism? And what's really neat?
That Jason does the book is he just says, all right, look, we
can imagine a society of totally cartoonishly, nice.
Sweet, people who still want to have capitalism and we can
imagine what that would be. Like and he relies very heavily
upon the Mickey Mouse clubhouse TV.
Show for kids. Ed's where he says, look there's
clearly Capital Society. All the characters don't stores
are in business is, but they're all really nice.
They're all really nice. And he says, in this is what's
wrong with Jerry Cohen spoke. As he talks about a society
where everyone is super nice in the Socialist, and Jason says,
look, really all the mileage is coming from the niceness and not
from the difference of policy and it's not true that nice
people would necessarily want. Socialism, just in the same way
that a really nice person might not want to co-author a paper
with another person. They might want to write.
Singly so they can express themselves in a undiluted
fashion. So, to, in a capitalist Society
really nice person might want to run their own business.
They can do it their way, Express their individuality, and
selling. That's, that's a really nice way
of explaining it, right. So anyway, so, you know that
they're so he takes what he verse media presents, the Jerry
Cohen argument. And he really pervasive in this
very persuasive way of saying what do you want to be part of a
campaign group where everyone was buying and selling things
for everyone else? And people were Acting all
greedy and Jason says well, you know probably wouldn't would
want to be in a nicer can't but it's the niceness that matters,
but we could also have an Eye Society based upon free market
principles. And in fact, he says that one
work better, right? And of course, it's not very
nice to make someone follow the rules of your group when they
want to do their own thing. What is the most important thing
you learned from the work of Michael humor now?
So for Michael humor, I will actually go out really far and
say, there's a whole literature on whether you can teach a human
being, how to think, right? Which is overall quite -.
But I would say if there were any hope that there were
thinker, that could teach people how to think that thinker would
be my humor because he doesn't just have positions on specific
issues because a general algorithm for how to think about
anything and the algorithm. Is an algorithm is this.
First of all, start with some premises, that would be
plausible to almost anyone. All right, and that means almost
anyone, right? It's not just sure I me my five
friends. All agree on this.
Now, start with some premises would be very broadly acceptable
when you don't need to First have a whole world view before
you can see the appeal of the premise, right?
So that's Step One is, and then step two is try to construct an
argument. That were you reason very
carefully from broadly accepted premises to an obvious
conclusion. So, that is the general method
that he uses and then I was also seeing a secondary method that
the ability of the applies is to say 4L.
Yeah. Anytime you think that you've
got a very broadly acceptable, premise think really hard about
counter examples, that one and see whether there's any lessons
you can learn. And one lesson that you love
that he or that he gets out of this is any principle where you
are, I'll go especially, you know, any any ethical political
principle where you just say this.
Something is always true regardless of anything else,
principles almost always wrong. I think of this as all one
sentence moral and political theories are wrong.
Right. Then, again.
It comes down to someone, you know, so, there's a Libertarian
one. Well, you should never initiate
Force against anyone else. Well, how about, if you could
steal a dime, to save the Earth? How about that?
You still shouldn't steal the dime.
Right? Right, but it could also be
everything should be equal. All right, well, should be
equal. What if half of humankind will
die of starvation? If we equalised everything?
Should we still do that, then? All right, so that kind of
thing, right? So anyway, if you go and read
Mike's work, all of it does follow these you No principles
of thinking which I have found to be tremendously helpful and
it's something that also you can apply out-of-sample.
So it's one thing to say some general principles that he gives
you some examples and then you just repeat these examples, but
I will say that you can apply this your Marion method to new
questions and they often have right and I have used this to
get rid of many of my ridiculous and dogmatic use because often
there was some philosophical principle, but I held and then I
just thought well would this make sense to someone?
With the same, we like doing. Who does this make sense to you?
Well, this premise makes sense to advise people.
Why do I even believe it is? It actually all that obvious and
only to know. I mean, I believe it because I
got really excited when I was young about this and I've been
working it out at other people ever since.
Okay. Well, so let's stop doing that.
And let's see. Is there any principally?
What principles would seem obvious to almost anyone who was
not in the grip of some other ideology and So me, I have apply
this to many other issues, and I think I've just gotten a lot of
mileage out of it. So soon for personal growth and
for understanding the world. So for example, I don't like
until you actually reviewed my book, the case against
education. I don't think my humor really
wrote anything notable and education.
But if you read the book, you'll see that it's very humor
influenced because so much of the book is about trying to find
premises about the education system that will make sense to
almost anyone things. Like if you could Either gets
the clay or learn the material in a class but not but not
getting an F in the class or you get an A but not learn the
material, which would actually more helpful for your career.
This is something as a Mike. Didn't teach me to ask that but
this is the kind of question that you start asking.
Once you take my humorous thought seriously, and it does
lead very naturally do. Yeah.
Well most people would rather have the grade without the
learning, the learning about the grade and that along with many
other, similar questions are really the inspiration for the
book. And yeah, there's a lot of other
books also as a lot of research in it, but a great part of it is
just be you trying to start with premises that will be plausible
to someone who wasn't dogmatically convinced.
Every class you're taking is pouring skill into you.
And finally, thank you for going over time with me.
What is the most important thing you learned from Ian?
Rand was more than that. I learned from Iran's.
Let's see. So I knew very little when I
started reading her so at makes it easier.
Let's see. So, see thinking you probably
the most important thing that I learned from her is that what we
think of as philosophical skepticism and a lot of
different varieties is really to self-contradictory.
So this idea of Really? The only thing we know is that
we know nothing. It's like wait a second.
How do you know that doesn't that statement is contradict
itself. So ends, you know, she's very
good at pointing out many other flaws like that saying things
like like you can't, you know, you can't even know that you
exist. It's like I don't exist and how
am I even listening to you? Right?
So why don't you know, she doesn't have many things.
Many things along those lines where, you know, these are
mostly will be, would just call philosophical self isms.
But and in Korea, I'm not saying that she originated this because
your question was, what did I learn from her?
There are other people have made the same kind of argument.
But it was from her that I learned the to that that there
are many popular statements. What we call skeptical and
realistic philosophy, that really are just totally wrong
and that's been a big influence on me.
In terms of inspiration. She has a lot of great poetry
about the value of reason, but I would say that she was not
actually that good at reasoning. Her.
Alf Emily because she just didn't know any empirical
psychology. So I don't think that, you know,
so that you like psychologist, for example, to talk about
social desirability bias, right? And they got a lot of evidence
on it and ran was unaware of it. As far as I know.
She might have some statements that indicated that she figured
it out, but that the but still that's not nearly as good as
actually documenting it or things like confirmation bias.
One thing that you will not see much of an her about which is
fundamental to rationality is anytime you have a view that
make sense. You always ask yourself.
What are the best reason to think I'm wrong.
And that's not a very radiant question to ask.
And so while it is a fundamental part of reason, it's and she has
some great poetry about reason, but I'll call it inspire, you
know, it's inspiring. But if you really want to be
reasonable, you got to learn a lot more than what's in it,
which is what she says. And in fact, you know, in a way
do as she says, do not as she does, so live a life of reason,
but that requires that you learn a lot about the fundamental
errors that human beings are prone to.
To and then try to root them out as best you can.
Mr. Kaplan. Thank you so much for your time
today. I want to finish with a quote
from page 16 of the science and ethics of immigration.
If a foreigner wants to accept a job from a willing employer.
What moral, right? Does anyone have to stop them.
Thanks for watching Keith, and I don't tread on anyone and thank
you. Mr. Kaplan for joining me.
All right, it's great pleasure. Thanks a lot.