There’s a difference between “labor mobility” reform, and “open borders”. I don’t know how often these two are conflated by effective altruists. Open borders is the idea a nation removes all restrictions for people from any country to exit and enter the country to live and work there. A reaction is citizens of a country worry this will flood the citizenship or immigration systems, will put strains on government welfare systems, and dramatically change the nature of the countries culture. I haven’t read too much on open borders yet, but I blieve a counter to this worry is open borders doesn’t ensure legal citizenship or other entitlements or political rights, such as the right to vote, are granted to any migrants moving in for work and a better economic life. Some advocates of open borders claim changing the nature of the granting citizenship in a given country also be changed to assuage these worries, while implementing open borders at the same time would realize most of the economic benefits of the policy.
Labor mobility reform is immigration reform which makes it easier for professionals and/or laborers to move between countries, particularly from developing countries to developed countries. I think the greatest example of this is easing the way for the most educated professionals from developing countries to move to and be engineers or doctors in, e.g., the United States. The Open Philanthropy Project (Open Phil) is still investigating labor mobility as a possible space to make grants for policy reform to. The result of their investigation hasn’t come out yet, and while they may conclude it’s intractable, there investigation yet complete or published. I’ve never read the phrase “open borders” or a euphemism for it in any blog posts or conversation notes from Givewell or Open Phil. Thus, we cannot and should not assume “labor mobility” implies “open borders” when talking about Open Phil.
Not that you, Jonathan, Topher, or anyone else in this discussion does that. I’m just making the point to repeat help us all out when having this conversation with others more broadly. I’m surprised Dr. MacAskill made a blanket statement labor mobility is intractable, considering labor mobility is a broad tent which could imply relatively modest reforms to only a single law restricting the ease by which a certain type of professional can emigrate to work in a country, to very broad reforms applying to any sort of laborer in general.
I haven’t read Doing Good Better yet. What more did Dr. MacAskill expound upon labor mobility?
MacAskil discusses this in a section titled “international labor mobility” but does not mention “open borders” or draw the distinction you have. He writes:
“Increased levels of migration from poor to rich countries would provide substantial benefits for the poorest people in the world, as well as substantial increases in global economic output. However, almost all developed countries pose heavy restrictions on who can enter the country to work.
…
Tractability: Not very tractable. Increased levels of immigration are incredibly unpopular in developed countries, with the majority of people in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom favoring reduced immigration.”
As the quote you provided shows, labor mobility was rated as “not very tractable”, not “intractable”. Moreover, labor mobility was given that rating because it was judged to be politically infeasible, in light of the low popularity of even modest migration reform proposals, and not because we lack evidence from RCTs, or due to blindness to the mechanics of political change. So I think you are mischaracterizing what was said in the book.
I have serious worries about this sort of policy leading to worse world over the medium to long-term. In the short term, we have the massive benefits of open borders, but over the long run, a united world but one with a caste system.
There’s a difference between “labor mobility” reform, and “open borders”. I don’t know how often these two are conflated by effective altruists. Open borders is the idea a nation removes all restrictions for people from any country to exit and enter the country to live and work there. A reaction is citizens of a country worry this will flood the citizenship or immigration systems, will put strains on government welfare systems, and dramatically change the nature of the countries culture. I haven’t read too much on open borders yet, but I blieve a counter to this worry is open borders doesn’t ensure legal citizenship or other entitlements or political rights, such as the right to vote, are granted to any migrants moving in for work and a better economic life. Some advocates of open borders claim changing the nature of the granting citizenship in a given country also be changed to assuage these worries, while implementing open borders at the same time would realize most of the economic benefits of the policy.
Labor mobility reform is immigration reform which makes it easier for professionals and/or laborers to move between countries, particularly from developing countries to developed countries. I think the greatest example of this is easing the way for the most educated professionals from developing countries to move to and be engineers or doctors in, e.g., the United States. The Open Philanthropy Project (Open Phil) is still investigating labor mobility as a possible space to make grants for policy reform to. The result of their investigation hasn’t come out yet, and while they may conclude it’s intractable, there investigation yet complete or published. I’ve never read the phrase “open borders” or a euphemism for it in any blog posts or conversation notes from Givewell or Open Phil. Thus, we cannot and should not assume “labor mobility” implies “open borders” when talking about Open Phil.
Not that you, Jonathan, Topher, or anyone else in this discussion does that. I’m just making the point to repeat help us all out when having this conversation with others more broadly. I’m surprised Dr. MacAskill made a blanket statement labor mobility is intractable, considering labor mobility is a broad tent which could imply relatively modest reforms to only a single law restricting the ease by which a certain type of professional can emigrate to work in a country, to very broad reforms applying to any sort of laborer in general.
I haven’t read Doing Good Better yet. What more did Dr. MacAskill expound upon labor mobility?
MacAskil discusses this in a section titled “international labor mobility” but does not mention “open borders” or draw the distinction you have. He writes:
“Increased levels of migration from poor to rich countries would provide substantial benefits for the poorest people in the world, as well as substantial increases in global economic output. However, almost all developed countries pose heavy restrictions on who can enter the country to work. … Tractability: Not very tractable. Increased levels of immigration are incredibly unpopular in developed countries, with the majority of people in Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, and the United Kingdom favoring reduced immigration.”
As the quote you provided shows, labor mobility was rated as “not very tractable”, not “intractable”. Moreover, labor mobility was given that rating because it was judged to be politically infeasible, in light of the low popularity of even modest migration reform proposals, and not because we lack evidence from RCTs, or due to blindness to the mechanics of political change. So I think you are mischaracterizing what was said in the book.
Were you thinking of this piece? http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120179/how-reduce-global-income-inequality-open-immigration-policies
I have serious worries about this sort of policy leading to worse world over the medium to long-term. In the short term, we have the massive benefits of open borders, but over the long run, a united world but one with a caste system.