Migrating to Libertarianism

I turned on the TV in my motel room to discover multiple CATO institute fellows waxing poetic concerning Bush’s new immigration proposal. Indeed, O’Reilly even introduced the pro-“growth” Stephen Moore as “libertarian.” This seemed to be a somewhat distasteful word for O’Reilly – although, to give the guy the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was just hard for him to apply this term to Mr. Open Borders himself.

Those familiar with the work of Hans Hoppe and like-minded Rothbardians already know that libertarianism, understood as a doctrine concerning the primacy of negative property rights, does not equate with the open borders policy CATO is helping to shepherd the country towards. Indeed, insofar as one sees the elimination of coercive government as the ideal, the goal is the elimination of borders of the United States. For, of course, if there was no US, there would be no US borders. “Open,” “closed,” or “slightly ajar” does not really come into it.

However, there are other versions of libertarianism beyond the Rothbardian. If one adheres to a more classical liberal brand of libertarianism, wherein government is both to exist and to protect property rights, then one is presumably going to be a fan of government-controlled borders. And one could certainly argue that the proper role of government here is to screen out threatening individuals and equipment, and let everything else through to the property of private citizens – citizens who welcome the new arrivals onto their property.

Let us suppose this classical liberal view is correct. Would this be in keeping with the policy advocacy of CATO? Of course not. As both CATO and the Libertarian Party recognize, the libertarian ideal is both to eliminate government controls over which “friendlies” may enter your property, and also to eliminate most of the governmental borrow, tax, and spend which occurs today. The question, then, is whether the order in which we dismantle the government matters. “CATO libertarians” apparently think that it does not. They are quite willing to blindly cut away at whatever government intrusion they can find. More power to them, you say?

Perhaps not. The fact is, the “lexical ordering” by which we instantiate the libertarian idea is absolutely crucial. This is true whether one's libertarian ideal is anarcho-capitalist, classical liberal, or some mixed form, such as the “market polyarchy” I propound. (Market polyarchy is based in furthering potentially endless movement toward the anarcho-capitalist ideal, achieving this movement through massive political decentralization and the furthering of truly contractual federal arrangements, so as to allow for real juridical competition among various governmental and quasi-governmental organizations in a given territory.) As Rawls noted in describing the lexical ordering involved in instantiating the liberal welfare state, even when it comes to one’s most basic principles, it is important to describe which principles are to be given priority. Otherwise, one will be undone by the abstraction involved in laying out political programs based not in tradition, but in highly thematized philosophical arguments. This abstraction will make a mockery of one’s principles, leading to their realization in name only, and not in fact.

That is precisely what is happening today when we read of supposedly “libertarian” immigration programs. An ideal of limiting government intrusion into the hiring of foreign workers is forecast as being better realized – but only from the perspective of an abstract thinking that does not recognize its own limits, or the need to critically safeguard against bumping up against them. From the perspective of a critical libertarianism that knows “what is true in theory, is not always true in fact,” the recent immigration proposals are no kind of “better realization” whatsoever. Indeed, from a true libertarian perspective, things would be immeasurably worse, as additional workers would enter the country and rely upon government services such as public schools and public roads. Worse yet, these workers will ultimately be eligible for citizenship, thus giving them the opportunity to help vote in yet further anti-libertarian programs. And anyone who is familiar with the average value set of workers from the Third World knows that such programs are exactly those that will gain support from changing the composition of the American citizenry in the manner that would follow from the Bush administration programs.

In saying this, I am of course relying on the assumption that the descendents of the wave of immigrants brought in under the Bush “guest worker” programs will not revert to the norm represented by the current native US citizenry (i.e., when it comes to voting habits). This is a difficult assumption, since it involves a prediction about the future. But I use this assumption on the grounds that we have no reason to expect such a reversion to the norm. Certainly, third and fourth generation Americans will vote more like the rest of the population than would the first generation that got citizenship. But there is little reason to expect that massive differences won't remain, and that these differences will not tilt toward the typical support of citizens originating in the 3^rd world for anti-libertarian policies (again, I speak here of the typical and the average only). As such, we have reason to fear current immigration proposals as a real, ongoing threat to American liberty, even apart from the more immediate threat represented by impact on government education, transportation, and health spending, et al.

The fact is, so long as one has democratic government, one needs to have strict controls on who can become a citizen, and these controls need to represent the democratic will of the current citizens. Today, nothing like this is occurring. Not only do Americans not favor plans to expand Third World immigration, one cannot suppose that American would offer such support even after reflection to a “narrow equilibrium” (a view that would represent their better-informed position).

Today and for the foreseeable future, Third World immigration influx represents a change in the overall value set of US citizens in transformative, and not merely additive, fashion. There is nothing good about this for current citizens, unless one holds that movement toward a value set favoring increased government intrusion represents what current Americans would choose if they could only reason better (and this is a foolish thing to believe). As such, the only motive one could assign American citizens for abandoning more of their “nativist” sentiments would be a humanitarian one. Thus, one might hold that, if Americans thought about the issue sufficiently, they would be willing to sacrifice a good deal of their ability to see their values realized politically, in order to offer an economically favorable haven to disadvantaged foreigners.

It seems to me that this is nothing like what American citizens would come to believe if they could reason better. As even Rawls saw, liberty must come before securing favorable economic conditions for the disadvantaged. Most Americans would very strongly agree.

January 12, 2004

Marcus Verhaegh [send him mail] is an instructor in philosophy at Kent State University. Here is his philosophy website.

Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page