I think EA is missing education as a priority. Here are the best reading on the subject.
Education and Health: Redrawing the Preston Curve Wolfgang Lutz Endale Kebede
Global Sustainable Development priorities 500 y after Luther: Sola schola et sanitate Wolfgang Lutz
Hunger and Public Action by Amartya Sen and Jean Dreze
all of them freely available online to read
Best not to impute such meanings on the EA forum.
I regard “open borders” in the same category of as discussion about -isms, totally useless. In the US political context “open borders” is used to as a scare tactic. Which is why I regard the term as propaganda . (I am not imputing motive to you)
It is much better to talk specific numbers. US on average has been gaining 1 million residents a year for the last 20 years, and this is showing signs of slowing down. On the margin this can be changed with immigration policy. Overall though the long term trend is for people choosing to stay in their home countries as they get better educated and as their demographics change.
looking at the numbers does not do a great job of determining how natives will perceive and react to things
Perceptions are different from reality as you point out. Let’s not reinforce the false perception by using loaded words.
The condition where the state does not exercise controls on immigration in a meaningful practical sense.
By that definition I cannot think of countries that have open borders in recent history (say last 50 years). We should also look at it from the demand side, if any western country had open borders its population could double within a year, this is beyond the realm of possibility.
In recent times the highest immigration that was accepted was Germany in 2013-2018 time they accepted .7% of their population every year. In US it is .37% and that level has been declining. USA has solid control of immigration, to the point where expected wait times for getting a green card is in the order of decades for some countries. (Discrimination by country of origin is built into US law and has always been)
“Decriminalize attempts to cross the US border, and end migrant detention.”
This has obvious benefits of increasing immigration and reducing the problems associated with border enforcement.
I expect illegal entry to still be a civil offense, instead of a criminal offense. I expect them to be deported back to their country of origin. This is much more humane, and better use of US effort (money).
Immigration will not increase all that much with this policy. Why? Mexico is an upper middle income country with fertility rate is 2.2, in addition women aged 15-24 are finishing 11.3 years of schooling. Mexicans are relatively content to stay in Mexico. This is similar to immigration trajectories of Ireland, UK, Japan etc.. etc..
Undocumented immigrants from Mexico dropped from a peak of 6.9 million to 4.9 million. I expect the numbers to fall (or stay flat)
What about El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala? Overall undocumented immigrants have fallen from 2010-2017. Even taking out mexico the increase is only 250 thousand, roughly 40,000 per year or 0.01% of US population per year. Source here
The education indices are increasing with its follow on effects of fall in fertility. Total population of Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador is 32.6 at the max we can expect 10% of their population to come to USA (mexico peaked at less than 6.3%). So we can expect 3.3 million over a ten year period in the worst case. This adds .1% to USA population each year in the worst case.
open borders could pose similar problems for the robustness of American political liberalism
A definition of open borders is needed. I see it is a propaganda term without any meaning, used to make people afraid of “them”.
US admits 0.37% of its population as permanent residents each year. At what point would you say it has open borders if it admits 1%, 2%...10% each year?
https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/10/07/key-facts-about-refugees-to-the-u-s/
American inability to control the border.
inept border control
I don’t see this at all. Unless one defines ineptness as no one should enter US via the border. I expect 300,000 people entering without inspection in the worst case or 0.1% of the population. I expect a third of them will return or be deported over the next 10 years after entry. This is hardly inept border control, or an emergency.
oh good. now we are thinking about individual countries their histories and lessons that they can offer. Amartya Sen/Jean Dreze introduced me to this way of thinking in their book Hunger and Public Action, their latest “An Uncertain Glory: India and its contradictions” is good too.
Glad you brought up HDI which consists of three parts Education, Life Expectancy and Income.
In South Africa Education as you noted is up, Income is basically flat, Life Expectancy on the other hand in back to 1993 levels after crashing hard due to he AIDS crisis. South Africa given the history of apartheid should be analyzed as two populations 1) White 2) Blacks + others. Unfortunately I don’t have the disaggregated data for those groups.
OTOH, there are countries with very little increase in time spent in school which have seen huge increases in HDI.
Care to share the list? Oil (or resource) wealth is one way HDI increases without any real change in people’s lives. I discount that kind of HDI improvements.
Relevant latest data on HDI
http://hdr.undp.org/sites/default/files/hdro_statistical_data_table7_15.pdf
But my point was that your blanket statement about there being no countries which implemented widespread K-12 education and didn’t have huge welfare gains
I wrote that to be slightly provocative, can we find one country that is an exception it’s possible (I have been looking and haven’t found one). The fundamental point being that when we look at countries and their history we find that education levels explain life expectancy. This can be seen from China (pre-reform 1979), Taiwan, South Korea, Jamaica, Sri Lanka, Kerala, Mauritius, Cuba etc..
Easterlin Paradox can be explained by Education levels
Education and Happiness: a Further Explanation to the Easterlin Paradox?
Like I mentioned earlier, I have very little interest in economic growth. Education is a necessary but not sufficient condition, I said as much when I wrote ” Education drives Health, and in case of market economies it drives wealth also.” implying that other policies have an effect on wealth. Cuba is a good example, it is almost on par with USA in terms of life expectancy, babies per woman, but not money. This is because of their education levels.
Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova are ex USSR countries, the transition from communism had been catastrophic in 1990′s. Even so their human development indicators are decent with life expectancy at 70+ years. Micronesia is behind at 65 years life expectancy.
Babies per women are around 3 for micronesia and Kyrgyz Republic, with moldova less than 2. Those countries are doing ok, even as I wish things were better for all of them.
I already listed the best papers I have read above in addition you can read Amartya Sen’s books.
Hunger and Public Action published in 1991 is still worth reading, his comparison of India, China, Kerala is illuminating.
Wolfgang Lutz and his coauthors papers are good too
https://scholar.google.at/citations?user=QRH1wRYAAAAJ&hl=en
Hello Henry_Stanley,
Any one downvote without comment is understandable. I persistently get downvoted. At that point most people leave the community. Are those the norms that we want to create?
I never downvote people I disagree with, I ask them why and try to learn from them (or teach them).
I have very little interest in economic growth. I value basic education, followed by health.
The best papers on the subject are Education and Health: Redrawing the Preston Curve Wolfgang Lutz Endale Kebede
Global Sustainable Development priorities 500 y after Luther: Sola schola et sanitate Wolfgang Lutz
You can find detailed education dataset at http://dataexplorer.wittgensteincentre.org/wcde-v2/
Gapminder which i linked to earlier has a lot of data loaded into it. https://www.gapminder.org/tools
The idea that education is important is not new. Since the early 1990′s UNDP has published Human Development Index, consisting of Education, Health and Income. Why the EA community discarded education is beyond my understanding.
The HDI of 1990′s is itself based on the older Kerala Model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kerala_model
Kerala had good social indicators by 1970 just 2 decades after independence and has been ahead of China until very recently in those indices. Amartya Sen discusses Kerala, China, Tamil Nadu in his books.
perhaps countries which didn’t produce huge welfare gains also implemented widespread K-12 education
That list of countries is zero.
On the contrary, countries with widespread education always had huge welfare gains. They did well in terms of life expectancy, under 5 mortality rate, babies per woman (a reasonable indicator for modernity, and women’s empowerment).
If they were market economies like Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong they also had gains in income. China saw major improvements in education and social indicators pre-1979 reforms, it saw improvements in income after opening up, and social indicators have since improved (after a stall in 1980′s). (Not forgetting or dismissing the great Chinese famine)
Cuba on the other hand has high life expectancy but very little money. It’s educational levels for women aged 15-24 are close to USA (not talking about quality) 13.3 vs 13.9
No surprise that the life expectancy of Cuba and USA are also close
In summary Education drives Health, and in case of market economies it drives wealth also.
ok cool. we are in agreement that communist countries had serious problems. even so China pre-reform (1979) had good social indicators that should not be dismissed as if they dont exist.
I re-read that post kbog, I am not advocating any -isms here. However I do see a bias for capitalism/free markets on the forum and ask for clarification.
I asked an unanswered question on that post some time ago https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/ktEfsoGfBFGsaiY46/overview-of-capitalism-and-socialism-for-effective-altruism#TuY7ouzjFpeS7zYB2
In general I dislike arguing about -isms. I think policy. For me Universal Basic Education, Universal Basic Healthcare, Universal Basic Income are policies that I strongly support.
The order is also important first Basic Education, then Basic Healthcare, then Basic Income that is how an ideal government would prioritize.
I am not disagreeing, I am asking for clarification for the following sentence
“best reply to the left/socialists is probably that their empirical track record is much worse”″
From the dawn of agriculture until the industrial revolution, we were ruled by kings, dynasties came and went, but the basic structure of kings remains.
What we have today is a continuation of that old system, in a new garb.
Is decolonization an overthrow of capitalism? Yes the russian revolutions was overthrown, but the authoritarian Chinese government is still in place, as are plenty of dictatorships e.g. Saudi Arabia, Cuba.
In any case I have no interest in revolution, overthrowing systems, or even thinking about them.
My original question was asking about comparison between “capitalist” and “socialist” systems. Since it was asserted that “left/socialists is probably that their empirical track record is much worse”.
I have never had positive karma on this forum. Don’t be abusive EA forum.
If you think I am wrong vote me down no problem. However take the time to explain why.
he is referring specifically to the empirical track-record of attempts to overthrow capitalism, which is indisputably abysmal.
The sentence ended with “(although there are successes and failures from both approaches)” which changes the meaning to me. Will wait for the author to clarify.
This is the reason I don’t like labels of left/right/socialist/communist/capitalist/fascist etc.. It is much better to discuss policy.
The track record of attempts to overthrow any system of power are abysmal, I don’t see much point in thinking or discussing overthrowing anything.
The best reply to the left/socialists is probably that their empirical track record is much worse
Care to explain?
As an american i think “socialist” healthcare is UK or Europe/Canada as better. Basic education until 12 grade (hight school) in USA is free another “socialist” policy
Why are those “left/socialist” policies bad, and what is the track record that you are referring to.
When looking at the huge human welfare gains in China, Indonesia, Vietnam, Singapore, South Korea and Hong Kong in the second half of the 20th century, no-one argues that this was because they engaged in more interventions of this type.
Every single one of them via government policy ensured that their kids had basic education (upto 12 years of schooling). This was prior to their economic growth. How do we know that human well being today is not caused by investments in education?
This could go the other way also. Education can cause reduced disease risk burden, education allows people to participate in industrial economy, and therefore increases money.
How do we know that when countries transform from illiterate to educated. It is an effect of money, and not government policy?
How exactly does the transformation happen? Suppose there were no public schools in the USA or UK would the population be able to buy education? Would the country be more or less educated?
I agree EA community relies on RCT’s too much.
However Education not economic growth is key for human well being. I have written on this subject multiple times on the forum.
A partial response is at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aKWCxW76z_jHcweyGDNMzdt4hajJcF_sBDcQr6hkxCA/edit?usp=sharing
Posting it as a doc with everyone having comment access
Thanks Aaron for your response. I am assigning positive value to both improvements in knowledge and increased energy use (via tapping of fossil fuel energy). I am not weighing them one vs the other. I am saying that without the increased energy from fossil fuels we would still be agricultural societies, with repeated rise and fall of empires. The indus valley civilization, ancient greeks, mayans all of the repeatedly crashed. At the peak of those civilizations I am sure art, culture and knowledge flourished. Eventually humans out ran their resources and crashed, the crash simplified art forms, culture, and knowledge was also lost.
The driver is energy, and the result is increased art, culture, knowledge and peace too. Reason and humanism have very little to do with why our world is peaceful today (in the sense that outright murder, slavery, colonialism are no longer accepted).
I read the book by Pinker and his emphasis on Western thought and enlightenment was off putting. We are all human, there are no Western values or Eastern values.
Hans Rosling puts it beautifully “There is no such thing as Swedish values. Those are modern values”
I think Socialism is too vague, or any -ism for that matter. I prefer thinking in terms of policies. Universal health care, universal basic education, universal basic income. Those three buckets are big enough to think about. Asking policy questions avoids the problems of asking is health care socialism (if it is then is UK socialist?) -ism questions I have not found to be productive.
I live in a very liberal part of USA. I searched for “Open Borders” in my local library and found 3 books.
First a children’s book which can be ignored.
“Open Borders Inc.: Who’s Funding America’s Destruction? by Michelle Malkin published in September, 2019” “America First: Why Americans Must End Free Trade, Stop Outsourcing and Close Our Open Borders by Paul Streitz published in 2006″
The assumption in those two books being that US already has open borders, which is why I say it is a loaded word.
FPgen does not use the words “Open Borders”, they don’t even have a position paper just a list of things they want.https://www.fpgen.org/policies/fixing-the-broken-immigration-system
I use loaded words only when people describe themselves in that way. I would not use it for FPGen but would use it in context when discussing “Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration Paperback – October 29, 2019 by Bryan Caplan” here authors themselves choose to describe their views as “open borders”
For FPGen it is your opinion that their policies constitute “open borders” as you wrote before “Decriminalization doesn’t necessarily mean open borders, but in concert with the other proposals here, I think it effectively would.”
I already gave you data about undocumented mexican immigrant numbers falling, total number of mexican immigrants has also fallen https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/mexican-immigrants-united-states
I also gave you specific reasons of why this is happening repeating myself “Mexico is an upper middle income country with fertility rate is 2.2, in addition women aged 15-24 are finishing 11.3 years of schooling. Mexicans are relatively content to stay in Mexico. This is similar to immigration trajectories of Ireland, UK, Japan etc.. etc..”
I prefer to see numbers, not just words. Total number of undocumented immigrants went down in the last 10 years https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/07/12/how-pew-research-center-counts-unauthorized-immigrants-in-us/
So overall immigration is solidly under control in USA, whether it should be higher or lower is another debate, and its pointless to discuss “open borders” because such a policy is not being advocated by anyone with even a remote chance of coming to power.