Western countries are not saving migrants. The migrants are saving them

The West is like an old childless couple in a fairy tale. They find a child in a peach — let’s call him Momotaro. However, Momotaro is brown so they throw him in a cage (US version) or drown him (European version). The old couple dies hungry and alone.

In the actual story, the old couple welcomes Momotaro, who is a wonderful child. Momotaro goes on to defeat the wicked Oni (bandits) and comes back with a bunch of treasure. The parents have a comfortable retirement.

This fairy tale is how immigration actually works. Wealthy countries have declining birth rates. They are old. They find a peach at their doorstep — young migrants. Those young families grow the economy and pay taxes. Treasure.

Immigration is not charity and letting them in is not benevolence. It is economics. Western countries are not saving migrants. The migrants are saving them.

The Economics Of Migration

Developed nations are literally dying. This is a map of age dependency ratios around the world. The blue countries are demographic black holes, where more old people are drawing resources from less young.

These countries desperately need young people to work (and fund their social programs). This demand is a force of economic gravity, acting across borders. It attracts young families from across the world. This is economics in action, the invisible hand allocating scarce resources, in this case people.

Aging white people need brown people to change their bedpans and feed them and intimately care for them in old age. Aging countries need immigrants to drive their economies. These governments need young workers to pay taxes that fund current entitlements.

There is no charity here. This is just supply and demand.

The Politics Of Migration

The politics of migration, of course, is very different. Immigrants are cast as a drain on resources (not true) and as criminal, lazy and inhuman. The whole immigration debate is based around the fundamental injustice of closed borders — a modern feudal system that traps people based on the circumstances of their birth.

Closed borders leads to economic constipation. Economics works when resources flow where they are most needed. Money, goods and — most importantly — people. With completely open borders, the global economy would double in size. That is the opportunity cost of racism and nationalism. We would all be twice as wealthy if we weren’t such assholes.

The fact is that for the economics to work, these politics must change. Closed borders must be overthrown all over the world. All human beings deserve to be free — this is an economic and moral fact whose time has come. The half-measures are to allow a bit more refugees and migration, but the true resolution is to tear down hard borders completely.

Open Borders

Open borders seems impossible or too radical to suggest, but it has been that way with all social justice movements. Feudalism and slavery and apartheid were once deeply entrenched systems, but they had to be fought to expand both individual and collective prosperity. Open borders is the moral and economic challenge of our age, and we must rise to it.

Immigrants should not be treated as a burden or a humanitarian problem. They should be welcomed as a long-barren couple would welcome a child. Countries should not spend money on border security and concentration camps, they should directly invest in migrants, refugees and especially their children.

These precious gifts of human beings will slay the wicked Oni (unfunded entitlement programs) and return countless treasure to the countries that take them in. To the world. Like a child emerging from a peach, immigration is a blessing. We must change our politics to let this blessing in.

Further Reading:

THE CASE FOR OPEN BORDERS
~ Why Brown People Can’t Be Influencers
~ Immigrants Are The Children Rich Countries Forgot To Have
~No Children In Cages
~Why Are Brown Passports Shitty And White Passports Good?
~Birth

~ Forget the Wall Already, It’s Time for the U.S. to Have Open Borders
~ A world of free movement would be $78 trillion richer
~ Britain’s Populist Death Spiral