Is this a pop quiz???
I think they work well together to destroy cultural norms and promote anti-social behavior. People are not naturally good all the time, in all circumstances. Floods of alien immigrants, importing their often violent cultural attitudes, cause an inevitable clash. Just read the headlines of any newspaper. Tell me again that mass Muslim immigration is good for Europe.
Any rule of law, yours or mine, requires respect and a certain virtue of character. Many immigrants lack that, coming from a society based on graft or tradional class/caste/tribal privilege. It takes TIME and effort to create a good citizen. Open borders means allowing our culture to be overwhelmed, our understanding of our Constitution of be watered down, schools dumbed down, etc. It's a burden we are not morally required to accept, this unlimited altruism toward the world's huddled masses. If you like open borders, are you also a 'one worlder', ie, would you like to see contracts between individuals replace the 'arbitrary' borders and laws of nations and states, or does a nation, such as the United States of America, have the right to set its own standards for admission, and set its own, very culturally specific norms for behavior (for example, laws against hard drugs, prostitution and gay marriage)? This is where libs and conservatives part company, with Randists somewhere (I guess, since I am not a Randist) in the middle.
Are you an economist? Do you teach at Auburn University, NYU or George Mason, by any chance?
No, I just have common sense, some experience with real people, and the right to express myself, until and unless JR or Mods intervene. To paraphrase George Putnam: This in one FReeper's opinion. I welcome yours.
>>"People are not naturally good all the time, in all circumstances.... It takes TIME and effort to create a good citizen." <<
That's what the 2nd Amendment is for. :)
Look, -- I've listened to George Putnam, and I listen to Dennis Prager nowadays, too. As an economist, I simply don't think "ideas" matter, I believe that only INCENTIVES matter (price signals, COSTS or consequences for certain behaviors, etc.)
People will "behave" themselves if there are CONSEQUENCES (penalties, punishments), and also rewards.
If those incentives are firmly in place, backed with a strong legal system - voila, a "civil society."
I realize there are economists - like James Buchanan, and many classical liberal philosophers, who think as you do -- that we only need to encourage an "ethics" of freedom an personal responsibility -- that if the social institutions are in place and people share common moral beliefs, THEN we will have a peaceful, civil market order.
I think all it takes is a hand gun, and the ability to enforce contracts. That's not cynical, it's just a realistic approach to human conduct. Sometimes "actions (or, to borrow from Mises' title, 'Human Actions') SPEAK LOUDER than words." (words, meaning: institutional beliefs, moral suasion, used to 'convince' people to "be good.")
And this approach has some empirical support: You ought to read some of the economics literature in the area of econ called, "Law & Economics" -- it suggests that micro level (decentralized) control of force, handguns, during the expansion of the West in the US for example, quite nicely worked to enforce property rights & promote civil conduct - for example. It is a very interesting area of study. I tend to "go there," to explain/understand the evolution of civil society.
I long ago abandoned Social Contractarianism as basically silly and vacuous -- lacking in any real, concrete social-policy content -- after studying it extensively.
And as historian Robert Higgs has observed, even with a firm "Constitution" designed to protect individual freedoms in place, -- there is always the loop hole of 'The Emergency Powers Act' allowing big government intrusions & regulations back in, at any time -- due to some "social emergency," dontcha know. Let's keep things nice & decentralized -- it works. Power corrupts, absolute power.... You should read Higgs' work, sometime; he has some keen insights, though it may seem (on the surface) that he's cynical & pessimistic. What he is doing is calling for the "solution" of Hayekian spontaneous order as opposed to social contract, because he understands that people respond to incentives, and government officials are "self-interested maximizers" who can't be trusted -- or rather, CAN be trusted, to follow their OWN self-interests ...as economists predict!
Hope you find these thoughts helpful!
Cheers,
Pam in Los Angeles