What would happen, then, if we took a radical policy—global open borders and introduced it tomorrow? What would happen . . . if anybody could move to any other country and work legally? The estimate is that global GDP would increase between 50 and 150 percent, which is 350 trillion dollars in annual extra growth per year. . . . I’m not proposing open borders, but it’s important to understand the magnitude of the gains from freer movement of people. – Cato Policy Report, Alex Nowrasteh March/April 2015.
Fact Check: Libertarians like Nowrasteh ascribe virtually magical power to immigration as a means to promote prosperity. They vouch for this magic with various academic studies. But it would be wise to regard such claims with a healthy skepticism. The one about global GDP is a case in point. Even the libertarian website Open Borders: The Case concedes that: “Much of the literature [on this issue] is speculative, and there are many uncertainties in all estimates.”
Economists in Ivory Towers can spin interesting tales when their research is so narrowly focused that it simply ignores the complexities of the real world. Specifically, if the movement of people is always so enriching, then why during recent decades of mass immigration has the U.S. economy been so lackluster for most Americans?
As Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) recently observed, since the immigrant population of the U.S. has more than quadrupled, and now totals 40 million. He further observed that “This ongoing wave coincides with a period of middle-class contraction. The Pew Research Center reports: “The share of adults who live in middle-income households has eroded over time, from 61 percent in 1970 to 51 percent in 2013.” Harvard economist George Borjas has estimated that high immigration from 1980 to 2000 reduced the wages of lower-skilled U.S. workers by 7.4 percent — a stunning drop — with particularly painful reductions for African American workers. Weekly earnings today are lower than they were in 1973.”
Yes, mass immigration has a way of driving down wages, something that pro-immigration economists tend to ignore. It seems that they have forgotten one of the most basic principles of their field, namely the law of supply and demand. All other factors being equal, more workers mean lower wages.
Yet an even greater problem with libertarian economists and theorists is that they view human beings as interchangeable cogs and components in an international business machine—just like any other material factor of production. This dehumanizing perspective ignores the profound diversity of real human beings in terms of culture and nation. Massive population flows from one place to another are bound to cause disorder, alienation, and even violence. These outcomes must certainly will hinder economic development, rather than promote it.
Substantial research shows that growing diversity within the U.S. is breaking down the ties of community. When people have difficulty cooperating in general, they will have trouble working together to build a prosperous economy.
It’s interesting that Nowrasteh claims that he’s “not proposing open borders” when he just finished stating that open borders would make the whole planet wealthy. Perhaps even he has an inkling–somewhere deep down—that opening our borders and inviting the world is sheer lunacy.