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Comment by energy123 | Hacker News Reader

This is basically an argument that China should become more like North Korea rather than the other way around.

Reality is that remittances and the skills that emigrants eventually bring back to their home country far exceeds any negative effects. Policymakers know this which is why they don't deter this from happening. In many countries they actively encourage it, such as is Philippines.

When economists talk about "no free lunch" they are specifically talking about abnormal profits. They are not talking about the fact that voluntary decisions of private actors can lead to positive sum outcomes in utility.

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> This is basically an argument that China should become more like North Korea rather than the other way around.

How exactly?

I’m no pro-China advocate (I’m Australian and live with the mixed outcomes of our ties with China, and I have no strong feelings about what Australia or the US should do with respect to China or anyone else).

But (leaving aside arguments about their “true” motives and assuming good faith), China invests in the economic development of many weaker countries and doesn’t try to brain-drain them. The U.S. and western allies invested heavily in the redevelopment of Germany and Japan after WWII, and all countries involved ended up much stronger.

It’s that spirit that I’m talking about.

Because China allows brain drain, seeing it as an eventual source of innovation, but North Korea doesn't. Building walls to keep people in doesn't work. There are many industries in China that only happened because of brain drain. If they followed your argument and stopped people from leaving like North Korea, all those industries wouldn't exist and they'd be a poorer country. Their missile program wouldn't exist or would be much weaker. Many such examples.

That’s not my argument at all. You’re responding to a straw man interpretation of what I wrote.

I’m saying that for a country like the US, the idea that brain-draining the best from the rest of the world will have unmitigated positive outcomes is false.

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