Immigration is a tricky subject for a lot of libertarians. If there is one issue that has caused more fights in libertarian circles it is the question of restricting a person’s right to movement.
But in a world of private property where does that right end? We know where it is in a world of public property. It doesn’t. I’m very Hoppean in my views on private property and the private production of defense. So, I have zero problem going toe to toe with the left-libertarians who refuse to divorce themselves from their principled hobby horses and who push for open borders uber alles.
It’s stupid, counter-productive and, frankly, one of the main reasons why libertarians are thoroughly corrupted as a political force in the U.S., having been neutered by the Koch brothers fighting about irrelevancies.
Immigration issues are on the ballot today. The Soros-funded invasion caravan is a thinly-veiled political stunt which is being used to fuel the unquenchable greed of globalists using Marxist arguments of envy to sow sympathy for those marching to take back what was supposedly stolen by evil white American Imperialists.
The sad truth is that part of that narrative is true. It’s also why open borders are incompatible with the world we live in today. Because both the warfare state and the welfare state create an artificially high supply of migrants and an artificial demand for subsidy of those migrants, especially, as here in the U.S. where those migrants overwhelmingly vote for the party who will further subsidize them.
This is far beyond the principle that peaceable people should be free to traverse arbitrary political boundaries.
Those artificial political boundaries are created through the application of private property of the citizens nee subjects of the government. If anyone has a claim on the property expropriated by this government it is the taxpayers themselves and not those trudging across Mexico in search of a handout.
Because like it or not, that’s what’s on the table today. That’s reality. When my grandparents came here from Italy they didn’t ask for a handout. They weren’t given one either.
All they wanted was the opportunity, which they took and were grateful for.
So, it makes me happy today to see Italian Interior Minister and all-around badass Matteo Salvini highlight just how sick and insane the whole immigration issue is by announcing he’s cutting in half the daily allowance of migrants from 35€ per day (PER DAY!) to 19€.
That’s nearly $1200 per month folks.
As Ron Paul so succinctly said on the campaign trail, when you subsidize something you get more of it.
So, Italy under the direction of an EU-appointed Prime Minister and government was handing out nearly €1 billion a year to migrants in a country under a brutal austerity program and laboring under a crushing debt load due to fiscal mismanagement.
Now, it doesn’t take an economist to tell you that people respond to incentives. No wonder everyone wants in. And this is where I break with my left-libertarian brethren.
Open borders are incompatible with public property on the subject of defense. Because the state via public roads exports behavior the community doesn’t want to your front yard and you have no direct way to combat this.
It is especially incompatible with public property in which Marxist wealth transfer systems are in place.
In fact, the political system is so dysfunctional it encourages this behavior to suit the agenda of the wealthy at the expense of the middle class. So has it been in both Europe and the U.S.
And the sick display of using economic migrants as political footballs lies at their feet. And those who stand up against this abrogation of the basic property rights of natives are labeled racists, elitists, populists and Nazis.
So, Salvini made a brilliant political move by highlighting this insane practice of paying people to come be subsidized by native Italians who, frankly, had very little say in the matter.
Because up until today I didn’t know Italy was paying these people €35 per day. And I’m sure a lot of Italians didn’t either. So, by cutting the allowance Salvini highlights the practice but doesn’t end it outright, leaving that decision to voters to continue to be outraged about.
It also puts both his coalition partners at Five Star Movement and the rest of the Italian political elite and media in a position to defend a practice that 60% of Italians are furious about, illegal immigration.
He can do this because the polls are trending in his favor. Any disagreement with his coalition partner puts them on a path to call for snap elections and reversing the terms of the coalition since The League now out-polls M5S. Salvini knows this and it’s why he can continue to push on this issue because it is 1) popular and 2) the right thing to do.
The solution to the immigration problem lies at the heart of our attitude towards government. The more power the government has to co-opt private property and the private production of defense the more the borders have to be controlled because of the perverse incentives the State engenders.
Like with most of our political problems, the solution is leaving the wealth of a community in the hands of that community to be free to try different solutions of their own accord. It isn’t more power to the state.
And to the left libertarians who think destroying the country by flooding it with economic migrants is the most efficient way to achieve that end, I say, try that in your backyard, bub.
Because it ain’t happening in mine.
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From Luongo: “When my grandparents came here from Italy they didn’t ask for a handout. They weren’t given one either.”
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From DiMaio and Salvini:
REUTERS – NOVEMBER 3, 2018: Italian Deputy Prime Minister Luigi Di Maio said on Saturday the governing coalition program must be respected after a top official raised doubts about a key pledge to introduce a minimum income for the poor.
Di Maio, who is leader of the anti-establishment 5 Star Movement, said the citizen’s income measures would be up and running in the first three months of next year…
…When the ruling coalition came to power in June, 5 Star and the League included a citizen’s income pledge in their so-called “government contract”…
…The head of the League Matteo Salvini, who is also deputy prime minister as well as interior minister, said later on Saturday there was no disagreement with the 5 Star Movement…
…Rome has said that its plans to fund welfare benefits, earlier retirement and investments through higher deficit spending will boost growth and cut debt…
“under a brutal austerity program”..? There is no austerity, no neoliberalism, no fiscal responsibility here in Italy, only growing public spending and debt. Matteo Salvini on this is particularly bad. The economists who wrote his program – Bagnai and Acquilini – theorize that the State can borrow at will without ever repaying any debt. If they could they would print money by tons.
“Because up until today I didn’t know Italy was paying these people €35 per day.” It’s not exactly like this, they don’t pay immigrants €35 per day, they spend €35 per day for every immigrant. About 32 Euro goes to the cooperatives and privates that host them. Only €3 per day goes to the immigrant. Also the migrant is often confined in the structure and has not the permission to work and pay his way. So it is true that it is a completely idiotic system, with no benefit for migrants or taxpayers.
Also the most part of illegals in our country are not arrived from Africa with rubber dinghy, but are people who arrive from East Europe by plane, bus and car, and stay here over the legal period. The most part of them work, don’t ask anything to the State, don’t do any crime, and it is inserted into the economy. I myself tried for years to regularize the situation of the polish caregiver of my grandmother, but absurd laws and absurd bureaucracy make that impossible. She had a house, she earned her money. My family, and other too, guaranteed for her, but the idiotic quota system (pure central planning) let her out.
So I am against illegals, but also I am convinced that 90% of the problems stem from how idiotic are our laws. My opinion is: don’t pay for them, don’t reclude them, don’t tax them, let them work, and flush down the toilet the quota system. On this Salvini is quite bad: it’s true that he want to cut the public funds for this system (good), but he is deaf on anything else.
He also have a broader stance on migrants that simply cut public fund for them. He promotes a deliberately hostile regulation of their activities, business and stores. He is a nationalist that promotes protectionism: he wants subsidies for Italian products and tariffs for foreign products. He lunched a campaign against peddlers because peddlers are very often foreigners (and particularly black). He stands for nationalization of Alitalia, our repeatedly failed, expensive and useless national air flag company, and he looks at foreign investment with suspicion. He often criticize globalization, and that can be good, but he never distinguishes between political globalization and economic globalization, and he often attack the latter, with a tone of general hostility to the free market. He wants to exclude foreigners from the welfare system, but he also wants to expand the welfare system for autochthonous. I don’t think that he is a racist, but he flirts for electoral reasons with openly racists people, like Casa Pound, that is a neofascist party ( this is not an inference: they are proud to be fascists).
And he is allied with 5stars, that is a movement completely bad, a mix of nationalism, communism, incompetence, ignorance, stupidity like I had never seen before. The result of this alliance is the worst govern I’ve seen in my life. They will really destroy our country. They already take many measures against the right to work: from measures against Deliveroo and Foodora, to measures against Amazon, from mandatory closures to price regulations, and abolition of some forms of flexible work.. and they call it “Dignity decree”! This is a national socialist government and it is taking Italy to become like Venezuela. So, yes, Salvini is politically incorrect and there are same areas were he is better than others, but at the end of the day he is still very very bad.
(P.S. please forgive me for my bad english)
The only way to properly have free migration is (just as you said) an elimination of both welfare programs and public property.
If all property is privately owned, then it will be properly taken care of by its respective owner(s). But when it becomes public property, no one takes care of it properly. The tragedy of the commons. And allowing these migrants to qualify for welfare programs ensures that they will tell their friends, and these programs will continue until someone has the courage to yell, “Stop!”
Immigrants are the symptom. The problem is govts irresponsible meddling helping to destabilise already fragile regions then throwing the borders open to those naturally fleeing disaster zones. Perhaps if our govts weren’t such trouble-makers these problems wouldn’t arise or would be manageable scale. How do we deal with our own rogue govts?
You are correct that immigration is a symptom of the deeper problem of government meddling outside its borders
With further thought it must be particularly galling for Italians that the USA’s and UK’s adventures in the Middle East have contributed to de-stabilising countries but Italy is the first port of call for those fleeing – not UK or USA.
You have no idea