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.