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Comment by cojxd | Hacker News Reader

>The Dream of Open Borders Is Real—in the High Arctic

For whom is open borders a dream?

For me: I grew up in Europe in times where the wall came down in Germany, a shared currency was established (Euro) and all European borders within Europe where suddenly passable without passport, visa checks, money exchange, someone judging you, etc.. Of course this caused other problems to solve, but the general feeling of freedom and being able to go some other country and even being able to live and work there was very liberating for me and motivated me to travel a lot (easy and relatively cheap in Europe by railroad). I don't want to argue whether or not this is possible for the whole world and what it would take, but it surely is a dream for me to live in a (global) society that makes this possible.

Have you been to other European countries before Schengen? I keep hearing how much easier it is now that you don't need your passport for travelling in Europe. I've traveled quite a bit before Schengen and the Euro went into effect, and I've never spent more than five minutes at a European border, and rarely more than five minutes exchanging currency. Granted, it's easier to know that they are robbing you at some tourist trap if you don't need to convert amounts in your head, but I'm not so sure that's a good thing if you want to enjoy your trip...

That's for traveling, and the same currency is quite nice, especially when visiting multiple places in one trip.

But the possibility of moving permanently (or to study at the university) to another country without needing a visa, well, that's a game changer. Not to mention the agreements between European countries (e.g. If you move, there's no need to change your driving license)

> But the possibility of moving permanently (or to study at the university) to another country without needing a visa, well, that's a game changer.

Is it though? I mean it's sure helpful if that's what you want to do, but it's not like that was impossible before. Given that relatively few people make use of it (relative to the population) it seems to be a small win, easing the bureaucratic process for a small number of citizens (that, I suppose, in Western Europe are generally wealthier than the average, and wouldn't exactly have to jump through hoops before).

No, not wealthier than average, at least looking at all the expats I've met. It is not about the money, at least for me. I refer to the feeling of insecurity you get when your studies or contract are over, you don't yet have a new one, and you might have to take all your belongings and move out of a country where you lived for years, just because you can't renew your visa. As an EU citizen outside my home country but still in the EU, I don't have that. Many PhDs from Turkey I have met ended up like that. You don't want to even risk that kind of situation.

Also in the past people moved abroad for work. Now it's easier, from a bureaucratic and economic perspective. Doesn't mean everyone WANTS to move: most people are perfectly happy living in their hometown, or at least same country, as long as you can make a living there[1]. But this should not surprise anyone, it's not that most refugees would leave their countries if they could find a job and security in their homeland .

[1] btw, I have no stats but the feeling is that most internal migration in Europe is from the poorest countries and/or social classes to the richest countries. Which, again, makes a lot of sense...

> Given that relatively few people make use of it (relative to the population)

[citation needed]

There are vast numbers of cross-border workers and internal (to the EU) migrants. I don't have numbers, but I really think that statement is misleading.

Most (I'm going out on a limb here and would say: the super majority) lives and works in their home country. It's different for tourism where most have traveled to different countries, but it's not like 30% of the population in the EU is living outside the country they were born in.

I'm half German, half Croat. Granted, I was just a kid, but I can remember hour long waiting times at the borders. Even today, with only the border Croatia-Slovenia remaining (and, back to Germany, our beloved Interior Minister's Grenzpolizei checking tourists for not carrying refugees), the waiting times can be hours. The earlier we can get rid of this crap, the better.

What is also a benefit of ever more unification across Europe: communication. Family vacations in Croatia meant next to no communication with friends back in Germany as phone calls and SMSes were ludicruously expensive, and mobile internet roaming all but unaffordable. Now? No roaming charges any more.

“phone calls and SMSes were ludicruously expensive, and mobile internet roaming all but unaffordable. Now? No roaming charges any more.”

except Switzerland.

Multi-hour delays at European borders were not unusual before, and persist at the external land borders of the Schengen area.

The common currency is valuable for more than just tourism purposes. A business in one country can much more easily trade with businesses in other countries if it doesn't have to deal with currency risk and the resultant necessary hedging, and if the business is selling services to consumers the single currency allows them to compete with businesses across the whole Eurozone on a level playing field. That's just considering currency; the single market is of course a much broader concept.

I think you're mixing up travel without a hassle which everybody likes to exist, with open borders which is a way more complex idea. EU is not an open-border place, I, for example, has to obtain visa to enter it.

It is you who are mixing up inner and outer. The EU is an open border place (or at least, the Schengen area is) for those who reside there. For some other countries' nationals to enter a visum is required. The EU was never about 'open borders' at the boundaries, in fact there are a lot of requirements on the boundary states and they get compensation for that.

The EU was never about 'open borders' at the boundaries

That's exactly what I wrote. Open borders as an idea is about global free movement. Schengen on the other hand is just a bigger kind of fenced area, international agreement simplifying travel and trade for citizens of participating countries. When @cojxd asked "For whom is open borders a dream?" I'm pretty sure it was meant as an idea/ideology. Because, if someone agrees to lift this border, but not that - there's simply nothing to discuss. It's a kind of position acceptable for almost everyone.

> Because, if someone agrees to lift this border, but not that - there's simply nothing to discuss.

You're pretty wrong about that. Borders are a nuisance, and lifting all of them is a good long term goal to have. But in the intermediary we can only move so fast. Saying that you don't want to discuss lifting individual borders as long as we are not lifting all borders is like saying you don't want to make a first step as long as we're not agreeing to walk all the way to the destination. That's not how societal change is achieved, it is achieved one step at the time, usually without lofty long term goals and every border that falls is one more step along the way towards open borders and should be applauded.

don’t all countries in the EU have a 3 month stay period after which you have to register as a resident? i’m a european that has lived in multiple EU countries and the hassle of moving between them is more or less the same as moving across the globe.

I have an EU passport and have still yet to live there. I need to act fast and relocate from the US for a few years while the dream is still alive :-/

For me. I'd love to see open borders, where everyone has the freedom to move to where they can achieve their goals and dreams, rather than being restricted to the country where they happened to be born. How many Einsteins have been born in Africa, but denied the chance to make the contribution to humanity that they could have?

(And before the cynics note that open borders are incompatible with welfare states, that's not necessarily true, and the path to open borders is a long one, not a sudden change we can make without massive upheaval right now.)

And before the cynics note that open borders are incompatible with welfare states, that's not necessarily true

Ok, why is that not true?

And I'd argue that any Einsteins born in Africa are going to find moving to another country and near impossible task regardless of how open the borders are.

OP said not necessarily true

Take universal basic income, if combined with open borders, you are attracting people who would like to also get (say) $1000/m, who will now use that welfare to induce demand on people who may like to trade this freshly minted coin for some service they can render, so the economy grows through immigration instead of debt.

so the economy grows through immigration instead of debt.

Without debt how would the state pay the monthly income for the increasing number of people coming to collect it?

MMT would suggest that the government prints money and then adjusts taxes to control inflation.

So you have a bunch of new people move, they start collecting UBI, the government prints money to fund the new liabilities, the newly-immigrated spend their UBI, incomes/revenues go up for businesses, the overall size of the pie grows, and if inflation starts to get out of control you raise taxes such that everyone is still better off than before.

Unfortunately this wouldn't work because of politics. You need a relatively reactive monetary & tax policy which just is not realistic.

But what happens when you can't raise taxes any further? Or the high taxes shrink the motivation of the people running businesses to expand their businesses.

The money has to come from somewhere or you _will_ have runaway inflation.

They spend what they get - few people surviving on $12k/year are saving much. So do the people who sell them stuff, as do their providers, and so on and so forth. At every step, some taxes make their way into the state's coffers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiplier_(economics)

Eh, this doesn't really work well with too much immigration running in to land and water use issues, along with uncontrolled need for infrastructure expansion.

Let's not forget that this does cause some negative externalities. I like the idea of it overall, but I think we need fewer people on the planet (1bb max probably) and a more overall educated and wealthy population for it to be successful. You would probably also want to start with non "western" countries (including Japan etc.) because if you start with, say, the US and the EU, it would almost immediately become uncontrollable. It also doesn't factor in disruption in local communities, changing how others live their lives or how they afford to live their lives now. Some of the tensions we see now are directly linked to mixing of cultures (and subsequent local divisions). At least that's how I see it.

Open borders != citizenship.

How many non-Einsteins from Africa and Asia would want to move to Western countries if given a chance? a few hundred million? A billion? How does a say Germany or France support a couple hundred more million people all at once?

I think open borders is inherently a call for decreasing standards of living for the populations of those countries where most of the migration would be directed to. I just can't picture a scenario where hundreds of millions of people move to my country within a short span of time and not completely destroy the infrastructure under the weight of sheer numbers.

Me. I hate how the planet is arbitrarily sliced up. I hate the bureaucratic nonsense involved in going to various parts of it. I hate how my wife is forced to choose between citizenship in her country of birth and citizenship in her country of residence. I hate how our children have to get government approval just to visit their grandparents. And I hate how my welcome home to my own country after a brutally long plane ride is a long line, an agent who treats me like a suspected criminal, and the threat of upending my life.

Cool, but we're not going to do much about changing that anytime in the near future. The vast inequality between different places along with massively overpopulated locations in others sees sure to that.

No shit. That’s why it’s a “dream.”

For me. To be precise: it is mostly a reality, a very highly appreciated one. I am also a German who grew up in western Germany before the wall came down. Since then, two things have changed. First and most obvious, the division of Germany has ended. The inner German border was the cruel evidence of what is needed to forcefully split people apart. As there was not just the Berlin Wall, but the whole border over several hundred kilometeres became a heavily fortified border. Basically just from one side as most of the guarding was in keeping east Germans from entering the west. It was walled, fenced, fully controlled by guard towers and even had robot guns which would automatically fire ony anything moving in the zone. This was certainly an example of all the suffering a closed border brings.

And with the EU shortly after came the complete freedom of movement inside the EU. While the EU is made out of many often quite different countries, any EU citizen has the freedom of movement. That not only means I am allowed to travel to any of those countries but I have the same rights as any other citizen of that country. I could tomorrow decided to move do Edinburgh, I could do so without having to apply for anything. Just go there and look for a job. Even if any German citizen usually has little restrictions on international travel - which is great on its own - having the full rights to move is a great achievement.

The example of Edinburgh also shows how disastrous the looming Brexit is. All economic reasons aside, the pure fact that there is a new border raised in Europe is so heartbreaking and of severe consequences for all involved people. And this is the reason, the EU won't accept any treaty which does not grant the fundamental rights, like the freedom of movement.

For pretty much anyone reading this, open borders is the reality. Any of us can show up unannounced almost anywhere on earth and be welcomed in with no more than a cursory interaction with customs, at least to visit. And if you can find a job or have some savings, you could move to quite a lot of them.

I think people here would be a lot more in favor of them, if we were treated the same going to other countries as people in the developing world are treated coming here.

Being welcomed to visit for leisure or business is very, very different than "open borders"

There's a not insignificant number of professional economists who publicly support open borders. Example: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2017-02-28/wor...

> For whom is open borders a dream?

For people who see closed borders and border "crises" as largely manufactured political and tribalistic/cultural barriers.

It's a dream. There is something about our luck of being born in a good and wealthy place; then close it off, hence punishing people because they happen to be born in shitty place.

The fact that our countries are good and wealthy is not a matter of luck though.

I believe your parent is referring to the place where you’re born being a matter of luck: no decision or choice on one’s own part determines where one’s born.

The dominance of eurasian societies is very likely an accident of geography more than anything else.

You would probably find Guns, Germs, and Steel [1] quite illuminating.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

Meh, Guns, Germs, and Steel get a lot of criticism to be honest [1]. You can find plenty of counter examples that Diamond does not address.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnthropology/comments/1rzm07/wha...

On an individual level it is.

I did nothing but be born and follow the path expected off me -- handed reliable and cheap electricity, water, free schooling, internet connection; and lastly great jobs giving my primadonna arse more $$$ than I need. Idk dude, I wouldn't mind taking credit but I'm not being honest.

Not sure why this is downvoted.

A good example are the capitalist versus communist countries.

Two sets of countries making different choices and ending up with different results.

No baby in history has made an informed decision about which country to be born in.

I’m responding to the comment “good and bad countries aren’t due entirely to luck”.

No place is inherently “shitty”. Humans living there can make places shitty though.

I've formed a firm opinion that nation states with borders restricting people's movements and economical freedom based geographical citizenship is a leftover 20th century concept that we need to move overcome.

Grew up in Europe and I see no reason why others shouldn't have the freedom of movement that I have, practical consequences aside. In my book it is (or should be) a fundamental right. It's more than just travel and tourism, it's also the right to settle as long as you comply with local law.

I've been saddened and disillusioned to see the rise of support for restricted border control in my home country during the past decade.

Which do you want, a cradle to grave welfare system or open borders for all comers? You can't have both. Huge numbers of people are, for financial reasons, utterly dependent on welfare - they don't have the privilege of choosing not using it. Someone has to pay for it and for example, in the UK 50% of the population won't be paying for that in terms of income tax at all.

...why wouldn't it be? Why is a world with effectively arbitrary borders (and a huge amount of money and human effort wasted defending them) preferable to a world without borders?

If you believe in America's founders, you should believe in open borders.

America's foundational documents are based on the the social contract theory of Hobbes & Locke - they differ on some aspects, but largely agree that governments are formed to elevate people from the State of Nature - we enter into a social contract to elevate ourselves.

But people nowadays don't form governments - and very few have much influence over the government in which they live. If you are born into a country, you are subject to the governance of that country.

By restricting the right of people to relocate to new governments, we deny them the ability to meaningfully assent to the social contract in which they live. If I'm born in a "shithole country" and I don't like it, tough luck. I gotta roll the dice to see if I get accepted for immigration in countries whose social contracts and mores I do agree with. I've never agreed to the social contract under which I am forced to live.

The conservative view on borders is based on fear - the desire to protect the in-group from the out-group. Despite their objections, it is in direct opposition to the foundational ideals of this country.

I want open borders in every country which provides free government health care so that millions of retired Americans would be able to afford to move away from America. Most of America's health care dollars pay for late in life care so this would save American insurance providers and hospitals significant amounts of money. And a lot of American retirees would be able to realize their dreams of living out their retirements abroad. It would be a win-win.

So you basically just want other governments to shoulder Americans' healthcare costs. Doesn't sound like a win for them

Well, not only that. I also want American retirees to benefit from enjoying their golden years in a fascinating new location full of scenic wonders, interesting people, excellent cuisine, music, language, art, architecture and other culture. I mean, imagine what these people would have to face otherwise: the dismal, frozen landscape of a city like Fargo or Cleveland, or the blazing hellscape of a city like Mojave, California. That would just suck for them.

For the capitalists of course, need more consumers and workers, lets chase infinite growth!

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