Posted on 12/29/2001 2:29:14 PM PST by traditionalist
By Jared Taylor
Almost all libertarians (with the exception of the heroic Von Mises Institute) want open borders because they think border control is just one more tyrannical act of government. Hans-Hermann Hoppe, a libertarian who teaches economics at University of Nevada at Las Vegas, has finally set the movement right on this question. Free immigration, he explains, is a misnomer. What the open borders crowd are really pushing is forcible integration, a denial of the rights of natives. This argument is just one of many that make Democracy—The God That Failed deeply subversive, even revolutionary.
This book is a powerful critique of government, specifically of democratic government, which Prof. Hoppe thinks is worse, theoretically, than monarchy. It marshals the laws of economics and human nature to explode one liberal myth after another.
For example, many people think “free immigration” and “free trade” are necessary complements, but Prof. Hoppe points out they have little in common. Free trade requires willing buyers and sellers of goods, but immigrants walk across the border whether they are wanted or not. Even if there are employers who want immigrants, it does not mean other citizens want to share parks, shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with them. Therefore, if capitalists really want foreign workers, they should keep them in self-sufficient company towns rather than force them on the rest of us.
Prof. Hoppe points out that antipathy towards those unlike one’s own group is perfectly natural and no obstacle to trade:
“From the fact that one does not want to associate with or live in the neighborhood of Blacks, Turks, Catholics or Hindus, etc., it does not follow that one does not want to trade with them from a distance. To the contrary, it is precisely the absolute voluntariness of human association and separation—the absence of any form of forced integration—that makes peaceful relationships—free trade—between culturally, racially, ethnically, or religiously distinct people possible.”
Immigration policy, in Hoppe’s controversial view, is just one example of how democracies are inferior to monarchies. A king takes a proprietary view of his kingdom—because he owns it—and wants to increase the value of the estate he will pass on to his heirs. By contrast, Hoppe argues, democratically-elected rulers act like tenants who want to get as much out of their temporary occupancy as possible. They have to appeal to the mob to be elected, and once in office care more about short-term exploitation than long-term improvements.
An owner/king has a simple immigration policy: He expels criminals and losers and admits only productive people. Prof. Hoppe explains how presidents are different:
“[B]ums and unproductive people may well be preferred as residents and citizens, because they create more so-called ‘social problems,’ and democratic rulers thrive on the existence of such problems. Moreover, bums and inferior people will likely support egalitarian policies, whereas geniuses and superior people will not. The result of this policy of non-discrimination [in immigration policy] is forced integration: the forcing of masses of inferior immigrants onto domestic property owners who, if the decision were left to them, would have sharply discriminated and chosen very different neighbors for themselves.”
It is egalitarianism—the myth behind one-man-one-vote—that Prof. Hoppe dislikes most about democracy. “There is nothing ethically wrong with inequality,” Prof. Hoppe explains, but democracy promotes the idea that inequality is an outrage, which leads to indignation over differences of wealth and income. Politicians win elections by promising to reduce these differences, which means one of the central tasks of government is redistribution of wealth by taxing away the property of one group of citizens and giving it to another.
Transfer payments of this kind foster a spirit of larceny:
“Everyone may openly covet everyone else’s property, as long as he appeals to democracy; and everyone may act on his desire for another man’s property, provided that he finds entrance into government.”
Since candidates win office by appealing to covetousness, “prime ministers and presidents are selected for their proven efficiency as morally uninhibited demagogues.” Kings, on the other hand, were not necessarily bad people. Moreover, they didn’t believe in equality and didn’t have to win votes, so had neither theoretical nor practical reasons to redistribute wealth.
Prof. Hoppe takes the view that cultural conservatism is not compatible with the big-government nanny-state democracy inevitably brings. Social security and Medicare support people in old age and makes them less dependent on their children, thus weakening family ties and reducing birth rates. Support for single mothers encourages illegitimacy. All such programs subsidize irresponsibility.
Ultimately, it is inherent in the nature of government—which Prof. Hoppe defines as “a territorial monopoly of compulsion”—to increase its powers and exploit citizens. If there must be governments, they should do nothing more than protect property against fraud, crime, and foreign invasion, but as Prof. Hoppe explains, they always want to do more:
“In the name of social, public or national security, our caretakers ‘protect’ us from global warming and cooling and the extinction of animals and plants, from husbands and wives, parents and employers, poverty, disease, disaster, ignorance, prejudice, racism, sexism, homophobia, and countless other public enemies and dangers.”
In the United States, all this protection requires a Code of Federal Regulations that takes up 26 feet of shelf space, thus “revealing the almost totalitarian power of democratic government.” It also requires high taxes and armies of parasitic bureaucrats.
The United States is, in fact, a perfect example of the futility of trying to limit government. It has a plainly-written Constitution that enumerates specific federal powers and reserves the rest to the states and the people. But presidents and bureaucrats simply ignore the Constitution.
What to do? Prof. Hoppe thinks it is pointless to tinker with policy, thereby leaving the “territorial monopolist of compulsion” in place. He insists on outright abolition of government, with private, competing organizations assuming its few genuinely useful functions. He thinks insurance companies could protect against crime and invasion, just as they do against natural disasters. He also thinks that in the absence of government, natural aristocrats would arise to arbitrate contract disputes between citizens.
Prof. Hoppe is not optimistic government can be abolished soon—indeed, it is expanding relentlessly towards a global government that would be colossally repressive—yet he reminds us that “every government can be brought down by a mere change in public opinion, i.e., by the withdrawal of the public’s consent and cooperation.” He suggests that, after a critical mass of opinion was achieved, a few cities might secede and form “natural order” societies, whose success would prompt imitators.
Appealing as this vision may be, it is hard not to be skeptical of the idea of abolishing government entirely. Insurance companies might be able to track down burglars and rapists, but it is hard to imagine even the best-equipped among them managing to protect libertarian statelets from greedy neighbors with governments, armies – and potential immigrants. Abolition of government is the sort of experiment one might prefer to watch some other country try before attempting it oneself.
But whether a “natural order” society is ever established, it is refreshing to read an author who so clearly and logically justifies the contempt for government that is increasingly widespread. It may never be possible to put every last bureaucrat out to pasture, and so long as even a few remain we are well advised to heed Prof. Hoppe’s warning:
Once the principle of government - judicial monopoly and the power to tax - is incorrectly accepted as just, any notion of restraining government power and safeguarding individual liberty and property is illusory.
It sounds as though this Professor is well focused and very sound in his treatment of the present era, and the issues on which we should all be most focused.
William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site
But it does look like the idea of the country belonging to some "us" and "we" belonging to the country has been lost over time. The result may be more individual freedom, but also a greater vulnerability to the great currents that make their way about the world and a greater likelihood of being displaced by them. It's a risk many of us are willing to take, but I wonder if we really have any clue what we are getting into.
The pressure against our borders, and the demand for border control, arise from violations of rights: by oppressive governments in other lands, and by our own overextended, redistributive state.
The current state of the world is very sad. Essentially, if you're not a resident of one of a small group of countries, your life is likely to be nasty, poor, and brutish, and possibly short -- largely because most of the governments of the world are so predatory that the Cosa Nostra would have nothing to teach them. The desire to become a resident of one of the more civilized countries, among which our own ranks highest, needs no further explanation.
In the years before our welfare state really got cranked up, Americans had no real objection to immigrants. Anyone who came here had to support himself, just as did anyone who was born here. He had to learn English to get along here. He had to obey the laws, respect civil order and observe public peace. He was cut no slack -- and maybe was held to a stricter standard than native born Americans -- simply because he came from another land.
Today, law-abiding American citizens are at a tremendous disadvantage in coping with non-taxpaying, non-English-speaking, non-civil-peace-preserving immigrants who are frequently adopted as mascots by the professional victimists. The citizen feels a tremendous sense of unfairness about all the allowances that are made for immigrants, particularly Hispanic immigrants. Combine this with some "amateur sociology" -- Hispanic and Southeast Asian gangs rampant in our cities; Hispanic and Caribbean dominance in the drug trade; the amazing incidence of AIDS and other venereal diseases among persons of Caribbean origin -- and the prevailing distaste for immigrants, legal or illegal, needs no further explanation.
But let the deeds of governments be subtracted from the equation, and the pressure on our borders would fall to much lower levels. Of course, I'm talking wave-a-wand Utopia, here; no one believes that either the tyrannical, predatory nature of Third World governments or the American welfare / victimism state can be banished that easily. But without those drivers, why would immigrants seek America in such large numbers? Our streets aren't really paved with gold, and by now everyone knows it!
My point is this: There's no aspect of the problem that requires that we establish a positive right to control the borders, as a matter of rights theory. Professor Hoppe would have to work pretty hard to persuade me that any such right exists, even though we're agreed that these mass movements of population are part of a great geopolitical illness that must be corrected. The problem arises from the tramplings of rights by various governments.
Freedom, Wealth, and Peace,
Francis W. Porretto
Visit the Palace Of Reason: http://palaceofreason.com
This is factually incorrect. The welfare state didn't take off until the New Deal. The 1924 immigration act was passed long before.
It occurred to me before that the ideal libertarian government is not a republic but a constitutional monarchy, because that would utilize the monarch's interest in having no competition from the growing apparatus of state.
Goetz, can you bump our resident monarchists?
This effectively removed the states from being able to have any effect on Federal takeover. And the endless parade of unfunded Federal regulations has never stopped.
This one popilist step has done more to destroy the freedoms in the US than any other thing.
tarpon
Yeah, right! This guy sounds like a libertarian the way John Ashcroft sounds like a libertarian. ;-) (Well, he's a bit closer than John Ashcroft...)
"Even if there are employers who want immigrants, it does not mean other citizens want to share parks..."
If the citizens don't want to share parks, simply have private parks, and limit the attendance to those who can pay the attendance fee. In other words, those citizens who don't want to share parks should go to private parks.
"...shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with them."
Just who the @#$% are these people, who don't want to share shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with immigrants?! What makes these people think WE want to share shopping malls, streets, and movie theaters with THEM?! I say to these people, "Get the @#$% out of America, and let the rest of us share it with hard-working, tax-paying immigrants!"
"Therefore, if capitalists really want foreign workers, they should keep them in self-sufficient company towns rather than force them on the rest of us."
I suggest the author go live in a company town, rather than force himself on the rest of us!
"...the absence of any form of forced integration..."
There is no "forced integration" of U.S. immigrants with "natives." Immigrants buy or rent from people that willingly sell or rent to them. Case closed. If the author or anyone else doesn't want to live next door to immigrants, he should simply buy his neighbors' land whenever the neighbor wants to sell. Or rent from his neighbor when ever his neighbor wants to lease. The author has no "right" to decide who his neighbors should be, anymore than his neighbors have a right to decide whether he should live in his house/rental unit.
"Immigration policy, in Hoppe’s controversial view, is just one example of how democracies are inferior to monarchies."
No, immigration is an example of why democracies are inferior to the constitutional republic these U.S. of A. were designed to be.
"[B]ums and unproductive people may well be preferred as residents and citizens, because they create more so-called ‘social problems,’ and democratic rulers thrive on the existence of such problems."
That's why the U.S. should be the constitutional republic it was designed to be, rather than the democracy it currently is. The FEDERAL rulers would be prevented from attempting to solve social problems by the 10th Amendment. And State and local rulers would be checked by the fact that, if they invite a bunch of bums to their area, everyone else (i.e., those that actually pay taxes) will leave. (Or those who are already there will simply refuse to sell/rent to the bums, assuming that the bums don't have enough money to meet market prices.)
"Prof. Hoppe takes the view that cultural conservatism is not compatible with the big-government nanny-state democracy inevitably brings."
Like I wrote before, the U.S. was NOT designed as a democracy, but as a constitutional republic. If only Republicans would join Libertarians (and to a far lesser extent, Constitutional Party members) in demanding that the federal government be returned to its constitutional limits! Since Republicans are currently hold the Presidency, the House, almost the Senate, and the Supreme Court, if Republicans would actually follow the Constitution, virtually all problems would be solved!
"What to do? Prof. Hoppe thinks it is pointless to tinker with policy, thereby leaving the “territorial monopolist of compulsion” in place. He insists on outright abolition of government, with private, competing organizations assuming its few genuinely useful functions. He thinks insurance companies could protect against crime and invasion, just as they do against natural disasters. He also thinks that in the absence of government, natural aristocrats would arise to arbitrate contract disputes between citizens."
Professor Hoppe is a capitalist-anarchist, not a libertarian. Libertarians recognize the usefulness of limited government. Especially a limited federal government, as specified in the Constitution and its amendments.
In short, the more realistic solution to the vast majority of problems associated with immigration (and everything else) would be if Republican elected officials actually followed the Constitution! (Crazy thought, I realize.)
Mark (real Libertarian)
Professor Hoppe isn't a libertarian, based on his views. He's a anarcho-capitalist, along the lines of David Friedman (Milton Friedman's son). Professor Hoppe appears to want to do away with ALL government, which is definitely NOT libertarianism.
Mark (Libertarian)
Let's put it this way...if taxes were as low as they were prior to WWI (e.g. no federal income tax, no social security tax) the U.S. would be so close to my ideal of paradise, that I probably wouldn't even be a Libertarian. There would be no need, as Republicans and Democrats would be providing a completely satifactory level of government for me.
Mark (Libertarian)
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