This is a pretty amazing discussion.
Jeffrey Miron, director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Economics at Harvard University, does a decent job in the first half of this clip discussing minimalist government, which I view as a decent first step toward a Private Property Society.
But during the second half of the clip, he goes off the rails to a dangerous degree, especially when he talks about "tax reform."
That is the cover of statist technocrats. We don't need tax reform, we need tax cuts from the current system. Government operatives just love advocating "tax reform" which results in no tax cuts at all, just a shifting of the tax burden. It is disappointing that Miron falls for this trap.
It is also disappointing that Miron calls for "open immigration," by doing this Miron fails to take his own advice from the earlier part of his discussion when he states that libertarians must go back to the basics. When this is done with regard to immigration, it is easy to see that the question is not one of "open immigration" but one of immigrants who come here to work or vacation and those who are here to take advantage of the welfare state, or those who in combination come here to work and take advantage of welfare benefits.
The libertarian solution is not "open immigration" but free immigration with a Welfare Wall.
-RW
--- The libertarian solution is not "open immigration" but free immigration with a Welfare Wall. - - -
ReplyDeleteWhat's the fundamental difference? Whose responsibility would be to create this "Welfare wall"? Mine? Yours? My aunt Cecilia's?
Because the obvious answer would be a tacit acceptance that ANY manifestation of our liberty is predicated on what the government does. In other words: personal freedom doesn't exist. We really can't have immigration until the State does... something. Of course this argument contradicts the nature of rights which exist separate from state activity. I contend that open immigration and free immigration are the same thing and that the fact the government steals money to bribe people with it is a separate issue, turning the argument that the government should do A or Z concerning welfare before there can be immigration into a Non Sequitur.