Friedman's proposal is unworkable on several levels, as well as a basic misunderstanding of what federalism is. Federalism is not allowing states to pick and choose which Federal laws are enforced within their borders, it is the right of states to not have obligations beyond those specified to the Federal government in the Constitution imposed on them. Border control has been determined to be a Federal responsibility outside of state review. No state can voluntarily identify and turn over illegal aliens for deportation. So if the Federal government decides to stop deportations, or simply allow an order of magnitude more 'asylum seekers' in than are deported, any state polity that wishes to have less immigration is simply screwed. It also completely ignores that multitude of programs that are Federally funded but administered by the states. In order for his proposal to work, all of those programs must be ended immediately, otherwise you simply have a situation where the states with productive populations, of whatever composition, are subsidizing the other states. Lastly, apportionment of Federal offices does not depend on citizenship so there is an enormous incentive for states to import as many people as possible to maximize their power at the Federal level.
As DDF and others pointed out to me and others, two states did opt out of enforcing Prohibition, leaving it entirely to the much smaller federal police. From what I have found since, the federals played only a small part in enforcing Prohibition. He is proposing handling deportation of illegal immigrants (ETA: NOT illegal immigration at the national or state borders) the same way.
I know that's not what he said, and I suspect he's purposely ignoring it. His position is "State's Rights", not federalism, but he doesn't want to admit it for obvious reasons.
Having read David since forever, his primary basic stance is anarcho-cap and that means having the ability to defect. That's less "curse word-ey" than the poor abused sobriquet "states rights." And it does at least intersect with federalism.
He did not ignore it. He said that just as most Prohibition enforcement was a state matter and the federals played only a small part, that when states opted out of enforcing Prohibition, the federals made little impact. He is proposing the same for illegal immigrants (Note the difference between "immigrants" and "immigration"; it is crucial).
Immigration enforcement can not be a local subject. Nation is defined by people and the land they occupy. If America is a nation and not a collection of independent nations like EU, the enforcement of borders and of people that cross the borders must be unified.
Redstone's observation that "Democracy has always required a category: 'good person who disagrees with me,'" is at the heart of what enables dialog and deliberation. It requires an assumption of good faith, mutual respect, and a willingness to see a situation from other points of view. You have to be able to come to an agreement on the core facts, on what has happened. You may not agree on the impact of different possible approaches and may evaluate potential outcomes using different metrics. Many seem to have lost the willingness, or perhaps even the ability, to engage in dialog and deliberation.
Arnold Kling's fear that "humans desire the moral license to hate other groups of humans," is certainly true for at least some humans and reminds me of Immanuel Kant's belief, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." We are all flawed and need to work against our shortcomings and weaknesses as best we can.
I've had a number of fruitful conversations with ChatGPT. It's been indicated on Substack notes by some smart and learned people that is a sort of low class stupidity to share these conversations as if they are some sort of revealed wisdom. Anyway, some highlights from a conversation about morality:
"The average person can sustain a small number of deep moral systems by compartmentalizing them across roles, but modern moral culture overloads this capacity by collapsing boundaries, demanding global consistency, and treating moral coherence as identity rather than context.
Individuals, empires, and civilizations can sustain many local moralities, but only one global moral authority at a time; attempts to run more produce syncretism, hierarchy, or collapse, and history shows this pattern with remarkable consistency.
Competing global moralities in the same space
The modern world hosts multiple systems that all claim global scope:
Liberal universalism (rights, equality, harm prevention)
On immigration, Friedman's proposal is naive. It isn't a compromise, it is a surrender. Once such a benign neglect of illegal immigrants is implemented, it moves on to the next rachet- benign neglect of border enforcement. How do I know this- because I remember what happened between 2021 and 2025. Such a laissez-faire approach can only work with a much smaller federal government handing out funds raised in all 50 states.
Saying democracy works best when moral questions stay unsettled misses the point. The problem is not that they were settled. It is that they were settled without shared reasons, and enforced by institutions rather than argued for in public.
Federalism might buy some quiet, but it mistakes moral fracture for a coordination problem. It is not. It is a disagreement about what kind of society we are trying to be.
And “the current thing” is just what that unresolved argument looks like when it has nowhere serious to go.
"If illegal immigrants are mostly criminals and welfare scammers, as one side’s rhetoric implies, the blue states will bear most, although not all, of the cost. If they are mostly hard working and, immigration law aside, law abiding, blue states will prosper."
Most welfare is in the form of fleecing the federal government. Medicaid or ACA for instance. In fact higher fraud would bring money into the fraud state at the expense of the rest of the country, thus making the fraud state richer. In fact "provider taxes" are like state legislatures actively engaging in fraud to help their state at the expense of the feds.
There is so much cross subsidization between states and the fed and localities and the state that the actual net fiscal impact of individuals isn't borne by their localities and in fact an individual that is a huge fiscal drain might represent a free money spigot to the local economy.
The Blue State model has adapted to one of leveraging illegal immigrants and legal, non-English, migrants to create useful, powerful, pools of not just votes but of economy. The consequence being that the Blue States will happily accept more illegals and "disadvantaged migrants" as long as the money flows are sustained. And even if the money flows slow, the Blue States will happily tax their residents more.
At some point one would think the economic and social destruction of the Blue States would reach a tipping point. As I wrote in another comment, giving people a vote does not mean they will vote in their economic interest! That is a problem. When people vote for policies that invariably mean they will pay more and get less benefits, the Blue State model is rewarded! And that is what the Blue State voters are doing.
The problem with the variance-within-federalism-argument is that net tax dollars flow from some states to others (else why bother?). Thus, one is asked to subsidize policies and practices with which one may or may not agree. This is a form of the tyranny of the majority through coerced taxation.
Even worse, I think of it as "buying souls for 20 cents on the dollar" that creates adverse selection, moral hazard, and unintended consequences, including stunted lives and undeserved wins (e.g., affirmative action). Government transfers are corrupting and the higher the transfers, the higher the corruption. "The state is a fiction by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else" -- Bastiat.
First, AK noted some bleed between states. Second, data I've seen suggests blue states subsidize red states. If that's true your concern is more or less moot.
Ok. I expect that's partly true. Note that overall there are more whites in poverty than blacks. Regardless, I'm not sure how this is relevant to blue states subsidizing red states. If all the illegals were kicked out of red states, I don't think that would change.
If you kicked all the black people out of the red states and into the blue states then that blue state "subsidy" you are claiming would be completely reversed. In any case, the gender gap assures that Democrats get the majority of welfare spending in any state.
Democracy solves none of these problems, but federalism does; and Federalism was unilaterally ended by the progressives in that great cataclysm of 1860. Note that nothing around abolitionism required the Civil War. The Brits had an equally large political challenge and solved it completely differently. The notion that certain people could not live with themselves unless they violently opposed slavery was the opening for all other moral claims to be backed by inescapable violence - even across state lines.
There was no way to end slavery without secession and secession meant a USA in perpetual political and economic conflict. Instead of a Civil War you would have had a many decades long Cold War between the Union and the Confederates.
Maybe, a ten year secession / cooling off period would have avoided the worst of the Civil War deaths and destruction. But that is only speculation. I have given a lot of consideration to criticism of Lincoln and the Union. I want to believe there was an alternative to the Civil War. But the more I read about the the South and its demands the less I can accept the idea that the South would have given up the slave economy and culture without a fight.
I'm pushing the blame back to the abolitionists themselves; to their moral sensibilities. The same totalizing sensibilities which led to Prohibition. A moral crusading stance in which the only appropriate time is now, the only appropriate scope is everywhere, through any means available.
When Lincoln spoke to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lincoln famously said something about the little lady who started the big war. The South wasn't going to move quickly on abolition and desegregation, but if it hadn't been pushed so fast on abolition, desegregation would have been relatively rapid and less traumatic, based on examples elsewhere.
True, the abolitionists made agreement difficult. However, the slavery hardliners in the south also made agreement difficult. Based on what happened in Kansas, one could have imagined the issue of slavery leading to blood across the west.
Wasn't the Whig position to allow the people to decide the slave question. The Whig position failed due to the inability to resolve the irreconcilable demands of the slavery and abolitionist hardliners.
Civil war was precipitated over the question of extension of slavery to free states. The Free-Soil party, from where Lincoln sprang, wanted states with no blacks, free or otherwise.
One of my pet theories is more or less the same: that the big picture lesson of the Civil War was that the feds could accomplish in four years what peaceful politics had not accomplished in 70 years, never mind all the death and destruction. That set the stage for relying on federal bullying afterwords.
It didn't help/hurt that the transcontinental railroad was also a federally-backed project just begging for corruption and supervision and more corruption.
The issue is that it didn't really solve racial injustice, even for the slaves and their descendants. In fact, the process of the Civil War likely made the situation worse in the medium and long term. The short term wasn't great either.
I suppose you must mean public slavery, ie incarceration. How many abolitionists were trying to abolish jails? How many people want to abolish jails? How many people want to execute criminals as an alternative? How many people want to let criminals go as an alternative?
No, incarceration is different. I'm using slavery here in the same normal usage as abolitionists, forced labor, i.e forced prison labor in this case.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime", right from the Constitution.
Most of the world prohibits slavery as a punishment, including nine US states (I'm actually curious the Constitutionality of that), the world didn't end with that little bit of magnimnity.
Friedman claims that he has opposed leftist ideology all his life, and he has also argued that 'libertarians ought to support open borders.' Indeed, in the concluding paragraph of his piece, he suggests that federal immigration laws should just be repealed because they are unenforceable in blue states. As many others have argued, however, mass illegal (and legal) immigration is an intrinsic part of the long-term strategy for the leftist takeover of political power in the United States. Just look at California, where the Democratic Party has achieved what appears to be a virtually permanent monopoly on political power at the state level thanks in large part to mass immigration. It is obvious to anyone who is not an obtuse libertarian like Friedman that what is going on in Minnesota is an attempt to engineer a leftist 'revolution from below' against the federal government, something that Friedman claims to be against. These internal contradictions in Friedman's analysis are a classic illustration of why libertarianism cannot be taken seriously.
I mostly don’t agree with Friedman’s proposal in practice, but there is NO contradiction.
Anarchy-capitalist libertarians have always been for open borders.
And as his father (basically) stated, absent a generous welfare state, open borders, as existed in this country in the 19th century, e.g., are usually prosperity-increasing.
David Friedman supports having a *much* less generous welfare state.
Friedman does indeed oppose almost all *statist* leftist ideology. IMO your characterization of the supposed contradictions in his position are just wrong.
Nonsense. To paraphrase the punchline to an old economists' joke, Friedman's ideas work 'in theory,' but in practice, there are internal contradictions because, as Adam Cassandra says below, 'the welfare state isn't going anywhere.' And Milton's claim that open borders are usually prosperity-increasing absent a generous welfare state is implicitly based upon the assumption of the so-called 'blank slate.' During the 19th century, immigration was mostly from Europe, as well as from China and Japan. Immigrants from Somalia and other 3rd world ****holes aren't going to give you the same bang for the buck. Also, the USA was industrializing during the 19th century, so labor was need for factory work. Now Elon Musk is saying don't bother going to medical school, because within a few years robots will be performing surgery better than trained surgeons, and AK is posting links to articles about the 'leisure shock' from AGI and what welfare policies will be needed to address it. With regard to your comments below about legal versus illegal immigration, until we know how the effects of AI unfold, a pause on legal and illegal immigration is sensible. And I basically agree with what Mark Kirkorian says about legal immigration. The best policy is to impose a strict and limited quota on legal immigration, because if you look at how our immigration policy has worked in recent decades, the only sensible conclusion is that it is politically impossible for Congress to enact an immigration law that will select for the best and the brightest. Indeed, it seems to do the opposite, with the resettlement of so-called 'refugees' being the biggest debacle.
I didn’t say this particular idea was good. Or practicable.
I just said there was nothing contradictory about it.
Nor did anything you say contradict my assertion…
That you disagree with my assertion that immigration is prosperity-increasing is fine; I won’t bother engaging you further on that. I cannot teach you economics, though Adam Smith might.
I'm not a dude, I have a PhD in economics, and I suspect Adam Smith would have been horrified by the ongoing mass immigration from the 3rd world into Scotland and other parts of Great Britain. The economic analysis of men like Adam Smith is implicitly based on the 'high-trust cultures' in which they were fortunate to live, and the analysis falls apart when you import masses of people from low-trust cultures.
My daughter calls people of all sexes “dude”, and I learned my use of that description from her.
I am truly shocked at your claim that you have a PhD in economics, given your long rant suggesting that even if illegal immigration was eliminated you favor little to no legal immigration. Citations of AI as reasoning for same are equally non-economic.
Even as we don’t likely differ much in practice re: what is to be done now given the intransigent, irresponsible left in this country.
Right, we agree that the problem is with the left, but it seems to me that you don't need a degree in economics to question the need for more legal immigration when folks who are knowledgeable about AI are predicting that existing lawyers, programmers, surgeons, and so on are going to be losing their jobs, and new graduates in the same fields will not be able to find work.
I think it was Friedman's father who said, "You can't have open borders and a welfare state." Since the welfare state isn't going anywhere, even when we all take a haircut, open borders are insane or nefarious. There is little reason to believe that the Left, or whoever was in charge during the Biden regency, won't do it again at their first opportunity.
As a classical liberal I support much more legal immigration and unlimited high-skill immigration.
For me the most infuriating thing about the left’s position on illegal immigration is that it has utterly prevented a sensible discussion of legal immigration policies.
Yes, there is indeed a minority fraction on the right that wants no (or almost no) immigration at all.
Those people are wrong, if one cares about the general welfare of existing Americans.
But not only do I not blame them, but I side with them that until we are confident that wholesale illegal immigration is gone for good, it’s not possible to change the legal immigration system to allow more legal immigrants.
I don’t know if the Founders thought they were doing something idiot proof. But we know for a fact, they did not think they were doing something that was godlessness-proof, wherever they themselves landed along the continuum of religious belief. Jefferson - he who attended church in the Capitol building itself - did not even think this.
Which lends a certain difficulty to this sort of discussion.
“Please do not use the comments section to discuss the Minneapolis situation.“
In any event, many wise people suggest waiting 72 hours before commenting on current events. The extra time to wait and ponder ensures that the rider is in control and not the elephant.
It seems to me that one of the core tenets of democracy is that everyone is required to “play by the rules” so to speak. When it comes to illegal immigration, the law and courts have consistently and clearly specified the rules of the game. Entering the country illegally is a crime and that crime is only enforceable at the federal level. The states themselves have no enforcement jurisdiction and they can assist or not in those federal enforcement efforts.
Being the good little libertarian that he is, David Friedman would like to obfuscate these clear rules because it somehow offends his moral sensibilities. So much for moral free politics as articulated by the libertarians.
So much for your understanding of libertarians or DDF's article. The federal control of national border immigration would be unchanged. It would take legislation or a Constitutional amendment to allow states to have a say in deportation of illegal immigrants. There is a difference between "immigration" and "immigrant".
I think the problem is that we understand the libertarians a little too well at this point. Their signature sauce smells rancid. Open borders, legalized narcotics, large scale gambling and unfettered free trade with our political enemies are cultural and fiscal losers. That’s why their ideas will always lag behind those of the other dweebs like the Green Party.
I don’t think you are correct re a Constitutional amendment.
RIchard Epstein - “The Libertarian” himself - points out that nowhere in the Constitution gives the federal government the right to enforce immigration policy, and in fact states did this at the time of the founding of the country.
In practice, of course this has changed, including with some laws, and I agree with you and anyone sane that given a welfare state and free movement between states then this must be handled at the federal level, but it’s actually NOT a constitutionally enumerated federal power.
I know immigration control is an unenumerated power and unconstitutional, but it's my understanding that immigration control was close to impossible in any practical sense. No one (except the captain!) cared if sailors jumped ship. South Carolina, I think, jailed all African crew until the ship left, to avoid free blacks and slaves seeing independent blacks, but I have never read of any immigration control over most passengers. Big ships had to use big ports, for the warehouses and transportation connections, but small ships could offload just about anywhere. Especially the way the slave states hated the north's high tariffs, I imagine smuggling was rampant. Ellis Island didn't begin processing immigrants until 1892.
What is democracy good for? Democracy - the free will of individuals - is integral to the economy. We must acknowledge that democracy works for enabling producers to figure out what consumers want.
In the political realm, the benefits of democracy are less certain. It certainly matters that voters can "fire" a politician by choosing not to reelect a candidate. But when it comes to choosing representatives, democracy is piss poor. Voters struggle greatly to choose good representatives mainly because they are not given good choices! Furthermore, voters seem to struggle to understand the consequence of their choices.
Watching the "Blue states" struggle with winter utility bills is illustrative. Making energy less abundant and less affordable is the advertised plan of the Democratic party! High electricity prices are a direct consequence of policy that Democrats have proudly advertised. Voters voted for this! And I bet they will continue to vote for high utility bills all while realizing NO TANGIBLE BENEFIT from that policy.
As Mencken wrote, Democracy allows voters to get what they want, good and hard. But why do voters choose pain? That is the mystery. But it adds evidence that political Democracy is not the public good it is claimed to be.
Nice piece on democracy and morality. Good reminder that democracy and and morality are mostly separate policies. Maybe I hadn't thought about how they aren't completely separate, at least not in the way you mention.
I don't know about only enforcing immigration law in red states (what about blue cities in red states?) but an emphasis on enforcement in blue states seems a bad choice for both red and blue.
And I live in a blue state due to one very large city/suburbs. The rest is pretty much all red, including a small town with a pork processing plant known to have illegal (and legal) immigrants that I don't think causes any problem. Maybe the worst problems with illegal immigrants are in the cities which are mostly blue?
The main problem of illegal immigration is it requires government to ignore the law. Once government starts choosing what laws it will enforce, it becomes awfully attractive to choose to break laws that favor the political incumbents.
What we see in Minnesota is a system of corruption that began with the premise that it was "good" to give a "helping hand" to a disadvantaged group. That warm fuzzy then snowballed to a system of corruption on the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars.
All laws are selectively enforced. That comes with both good and bad. Regardless, 100% enforcement requires a police state we almost certainly don't want.
That's just one aspect. As long as there are open borders between states, an open border to the outside world in one state is an open border to the world in all states.
Is David Friedman really so blind that he can't see that?
I just realized this is analogous to the Dred Scott case, back when the USA had states where slavery was legal and states where it was illegal. The Supreme Court held that since slaves were personal property, a slave-owner could take a slave into a free state without the slave being freed. But that meant that de facto, every state was now a slave state.
Any free state resident could have slaves by going to a slave state to get them and then returning home. The free state prohibition of slavery was effectively meaningless.
Not going to lie, that surprises me though I agree with that ruling as you described it. Usually it's quite the opposite and states don't honor other states law even if the object/behavior in question originated there.
Be careful with claiming blindness in others. He makes it very clear that (1) he is not talking about national borders and immigration, and (2) illegal immigrants are not so stupid as to gather in states where they are subject to deportation.
But I wonder how this would work day-to-day. The USA doesn't have check-points at state borders, so there would be free movement between "enforcement" and "non-enforcement" states. Yes, "illegals" would be "subject to deportation" in enforcement states but how likely would that be as a practical matter? It is more difficult when different states have effectively different immigration laws.
Which could lead to some unintended consequences. In order to actually enforce the immigration laws, Congress might require everyone to obtain and carry a national ID card while in the country, like a drivers license is required when someone is driving. Perhaps Congress would require cell phones to broadcast separate IDs for legals and illegals (phones are regulated by the FCC). These signals could be constantly monitored. And once monitoring is started for one purpose, it can be extended for all sorts of other purposes. (Solve for the equilibrium?) That's not a society I want to live in.
The more the residents want to deport illegal immigrants, the more they will deport, and the more illegal immigrants will stay away. It's self-adjusting. The details don't matter.
Friedman's proposal is unworkable on several levels, as well as a basic misunderstanding of what federalism is. Federalism is not allowing states to pick and choose which Federal laws are enforced within their borders, it is the right of states to not have obligations beyond those specified to the Federal government in the Constitution imposed on them. Border control has been determined to be a Federal responsibility outside of state review. No state can voluntarily identify and turn over illegal aliens for deportation. So if the Federal government decides to stop deportations, or simply allow an order of magnitude more 'asylum seekers' in than are deported, any state polity that wishes to have less immigration is simply screwed. It also completely ignores that multitude of programs that are Federally funded but administered by the states. In order for his proposal to work, all of those programs must be ended immediately, otherwise you simply have a situation where the states with productive populations, of whatever composition, are subsidizing the other states. Lastly, apportionment of Federal offices does not depend on citizenship so there is an enormous incentive for states to import as many people as possible to maximize their power at the Federal level.
As DDF and others pointed out to me and others, two states did opt out of enforcing Prohibition, leaving it entirely to the much smaller federal police. From what I have found since, the federals played only a small part in enforcing Prohibition. He is proposing handling deportation of illegal immigrants (ETA: NOT illegal immigration at the national or state borders) the same way.
Not what he said. While states can assist by turning over known illegals, I'm pretty sure he was talking about federal efforts.
I know that's not what he said, and I suspect he's purposely ignoring it. His position is "State's Rights", not federalism, but he doesn't want to admit it for obvious reasons.
What are the obvious reasons he doesn’t want to admit it? I am afraid I don’t see them.
Having read David since forever, his primary basic stance is anarcho-cap and that means having the ability to defect. That's less "curse word-ey" than the poor abused sobriquet "states rights." And it does at least intersect with federalism.
Anarcho-cap denies the existence of state and thus open borders so Friedman is hardly a neutral.
I don't think "neutral" exists in this context.
He did not ignore it. He said that just as most Prohibition enforcement was a state matter and the federals played only a small part, that when states opted out of enforcing Prohibition, the federals made little impact. He is proposing the same for illegal immigrants (Note the difference between "immigrants" and "immigration"; it is crucial).
Immigration enforcement can not be a local subject. Nation is defined by people and the land they occupy. If America is a nation and not a collection of independent nations like EU, the enforcement of borders and of people that cross the borders must be unified.
You start with an assumption and argue that immigration enforcement has to match. You need to start with defending your assumption.
Assumption is that one should immigrate legally.
Redstone's observation that "Democracy has always required a category: 'good person who disagrees with me,'" is at the heart of what enables dialog and deliberation. It requires an assumption of good faith, mutual respect, and a willingness to see a situation from other points of view. You have to be able to come to an agreement on the core facts, on what has happened. You may not agree on the impact of different possible approaches and may evaluate potential outcomes using different metrics. Many seem to have lost the willingness, or perhaps even the ability, to engage in dialog and deliberation.
Arnold Kling's fear that "humans desire the moral license to hate other groups of humans," is certainly true for at least some humans and reminds me of Immanuel Kant's belief, "Out of the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made." We are all flawed and need to work against our shortcomings and weaknesses as best we can.
I've had a number of fruitful conversations with ChatGPT. It's been indicated on Substack notes by some smart and learned people that is a sort of low class stupidity to share these conversations as if they are some sort of revealed wisdom. Anyway, some highlights from a conversation about morality:
"The average person can sustain a small number of deep moral systems by compartmentalizing them across roles, but modern moral culture overloads this capacity by collapsing boundaries, demanding global consistency, and treating moral coherence as identity rather than context.
Individuals, empires, and civilizations can sustain many local moralities, but only one global moral authority at a time; attempts to run more produce syncretism, hierarchy, or collapse, and history shows this pattern with remarkable consistency.
Competing global moralities in the same space
The modern world hosts multiple systems that all claim global scope:
Liberal universalism (rights, equality, harm prevention)
National moral sovereignties
Religious universalism (Christian, Islamic)
Identity-based moral systems
Technocratic/managerial ethics
Market moralities (“choice,” “efficiency”)
None accept being merely local.
Each claims:
Moral authority
Enforcement legitimacy
Non-negotiability"
On immigration, Friedman's proposal is naive. It isn't a compromise, it is a surrender. Once such a benign neglect of illegal immigrants is implemented, it moves on to the next rachet- benign neglect of border enforcement. How do I know this- because I remember what happened between 2021 and 2025. Such a laissez-faire approach can only work with a much smaller federal government handing out funds raised in all 50 states.
Saying democracy works best when moral questions stay unsettled misses the point. The problem is not that they were settled. It is that they were settled without shared reasons, and enforced by institutions rather than argued for in public.
Federalism might buy some quiet, but it mistakes moral fracture for a coordination problem. It is not. It is a disagreement about what kind of society we are trying to be.
And “the current thing” is just what that unresolved argument looks like when it has nowhere serious to go.
Agree, Not just democracy, any state requires shared moral assumptions.
"If illegal immigrants are mostly criminals and welfare scammers, as one side’s rhetoric implies, the blue states will bear most, although not all, of the cost. If they are mostly hard working and, immigration law aside, law abiding, blue states will prosper."
Most welfare is in the form of fleecing the federal government. Medicaid or ACA for instance. In fact higher fraud would bring money into the fraud state at the expense of the rest of the country, thus making the fraud state richer. In fact "provider taxes" are like state legislatures actively engaging in fraud to help their state at the expense of the feds.
There is so much cross subsidization between states and the fed and localities and the state that the actual net fiscal impact of individuals isn't borne by their localities and in fact an individual that is a huge fiscal drain might represent a free money spigot to the local economy.
The Blue State model has adapted to one of leveraging illegal immigrants and legal, non-English, migrants to create useful, powerful, pools of not just votes but of economy. The consequence being that the Blue States will happily accept more illegals and "disadvantaged migrants" as long as the money flows are sustained. And even if the money flows slow, the Blue States will happily tax their residents more.
At some point one would think the economic and social destruction of the Blue States would reach a tipping point. As I wrote in another comment, giving people a vote does not mean they will vote in their economic interest! That is a problem. When people vote for policies that invariably mean they will pay more and get less benefits, the Blue State model is rewarded! And that is what the Blue State voters are doing.
The problem with the variance-within-federalism-argument is that net tax dollars flow from some states to others (else why bother?). Thus, one is asked to subsidize policies and practices with which one may or may not agree. This is a form of the tyranny of the majority through coerced taxation.
Even worse, I think of it as "buying souls for 20 cents on the dollar" that creates adverse selection, moral hazard, and unintended consequences, including stunted lives and undeserved wins (e.g., affirmative action). Government transfers are corrupting and the higher the transfers, the higher the corruption. "The state is a fiction by which everyone attempts to live at the expense of everyone else" -- Bastiat.
First, AK noted some bleed between states. Second, data I've seen suggests blue states subsidize red states. If that's true your concern is more or less moot.
It is better to write, red voters subsidize blue voters.
??
Much of the money sent to the red states by the federal government is actually spent on Democrat voting demographics.
Ok. I expect that's partly true. Note that overall there are more whites in poverty than blacks. Regardless, I'm not sure how this is relevant to blue states subsidizing red states. If all the illegals were kicked out of red states, I don't think that would change.
If you kicked all the black people out of the red states and into the blue states then that blue state "subsidy" you are claiming would be completely reversed. In any case, the gender gap assures that Democrats get the majority of welfare spending in any state.
Democracy solves none of these problems, but federalism does; and Federalism was unilaterally ended by the progressives in that great cataclysm of 1860. Note that nothing around abolitionism required the Civil War. The Brits had an equally large political challenge and solved it completely differently. The notion that certain people could not live with themselves unless they violently opposed slavery was the opening for all other moral claims to be backed by inescapable violence - even across state lines.
There was no way to end slavery without secession and secession meant a USA in perpetual political and economic conflict. Instead of a Civil War you would have had a many decades long Cold War between the Union and the Confederates.
Maybe, a ten year secession / cooling off period would have avoided the worst of the Civil War deaths and destruction. But that is only speculation. I have given a lot of consideration to criticism of Lincoln and the Union. I want to believe there was an alternative to the Civil War. But the more I read about the the South and its demands the less I can accept the idea that the South would have given up the slave economy and culture without a fight.
After some deliberation I've decided I disagree with BenK. That was before reading your comment but you've added further reason.
The south seceded, took control of various military garrisons, and fired on Ft Sumpter because they saw they were losing via democratic process.
That said, the emancipation proclamation may well be the real start of what he claims resulted from the war.
I'm pushing the blame back to the abolitionists themselves; to their moral sensibilities. The same totalizing sensibilities which led to Prohibition. A moral crusading stance in which the only appropriate time is now, the only appropriate scope is everywhere, through any means available.
When Lincoln spoke to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Lincoln famously said something about the little lady who started the big war. The South wasn't going to move quickly on abolition and desegregation, but if it hadn't been pushed so fast on abolition, desegregation would have been relatively rapid and less traumatic, based on examples elsewhere.
True, the abolitionists made agreement difficult. However, the slavery hardliners in the south also made agreement difficult. Based on what happened in Kansas, one could have imagined the issue of slavery leading to blood across the west.
Wasn't the Whig position to allow the people to decide the slave question. The Whig position failed due to the inability to resolve the irreconcilable demands of the slavery and abolitionist hardliners.
I'm not yet sure if I agree but it's an interesting assertion I hadn't heard. Thx
Civil war was precipitated over the question of extension of slavery to free states. The Free-Soil party, from where Lincoln sprang, wanted states with no blacks, free or otherwise.
One of my pet theories is more or less the same: that the big picture lesson of the Civil War was that the feds could accomplish in four years what peaceful politics had not accomplished in 70 years, never mind all the death and destruction. That set the stage for relying on federal bullying afterwords.
It didn't help/hurt that the transcontinental railroad was also a federally-backed project just begging for corruption and supervision and more corruption.
The issue is that it didn't really solve racial injustice, even for the slaves and their descendants. In fact, the process of the Civil War likely made the situation worse in the medium and long term. The short term wasn't great either.
All the abolitionists cared about was banning slavery. They got it.
Except they didn't, just private slavery.
I suppose you must mean public slavery, ie incarceration. How many abolitionists were trying to abolish jails? How many people want to abolish jails? How many people want to execute criminals as an alternative? How many people want to let criminals go as an alternative?
No, incarceration is different. I'm using slavery here in the same normal usage as abolitionists, forced labor, i.e forced prison labor in this case.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime", right from the Constitution.
Most of the world prohibits slavery as a punishment, including nine US states (I'm actually curious the Constitutionality of that), the world didn't end with that little bit of magnimnity.
Friedman claims that he has opposed leftist ideology all his life, and he has also argued that 'libertarians ought to support open borders.' Indeed, in the concluding paragraph of his piece, he suggests that federal immigration laws should just be repealed because they are unenforceable in blue states. As many others have argued, however, mass illegal (and legal) immigration is an intrinsic part of the long-term strategy for the leftist takeover of political power in the United States. Just look at California, where the Democratic Party has achieved what appears to be a virtually permanent monopoly on political power at the state level thanks in large part to mass immigration. It is obvious to anyone who is not an obtuse libertarian like Friedman that what is going on in Minnesota is an attempt to engineer a leftist 'revolution from below' against the federal government, something that Friedman claims to be against. These internal contradictions in Friedman's analysis are a classic illustration of why libertarianism cannot be taken seriously.
I mostly don’t agree with Friedman’s proposal in practice, but there is NO contradiction.
Anarchy-capitalist libertarians have always been for open borders.
And as his father (basically) stated, absent a generous welfare state, open borders, as existed in this country in the 19th century, e.g., are usually prosperity-increasing.
David Friedman supports having a *much* less generous welfare state.
Friedman does indeed oppose almost all *statist* leftist ideology. IMO your characterization of the supposed contradictions in his position are just wrong.
Nonsense. To paraphrase the punchline to an old economists' joke, Friedman's ideas work 'in theory,' but in practice, there are internal contradictions because, as Adam Cassandra says below, 'the welfare state isn't going anywhere.' And Milton's claim that open borders are usually prosperity-increasing absent a generous welfare state is implicitly based upon the assumption of the so-called 'blank slate.' During the 19th century, immigration was mostly from Europe, as well as from China and Japan. Immigrants from Somalia and other 3rd world ****holes aren't going to give you the same bang for the buck. Also, the USA was industrializing during the 19th century, so labor was need for factory work. Now Elon Musk is saying don't bother going to medical school, because within a few years robots will be performing surgery better than trained surgeons, and AK is posting links to articles about the 'leisure shock' from AGI and what welfare policies will be needed to address it. With regard to your comments below about legal versus illegal immigration, until we know how the effects of AI unfold, a pause on legal and illegal immigration is sensible. And I basically agree with what Mark Kirkorian says about legal immigration. The best policy is to impose a strict and limited quota on legal immigration, because if you look at how our immigration policy has worked in recent decades, the only sensible conclusion is that it is politically impossible for Congress to enact an immigration law that will select for the best and the brightest. Indeed, it seems to do the opposite, with the resettlement of so-called 'refugees' being the biggest debacle.
Dude you’re shifting the goalposts.
I didn’t say this particular idea was good. Or practicable.
I just said there was nothing contradictory about it.
Nor did anything you say contradict my assertion…
That you disagree with my assertion that immigration is prosperity-increasing is fine; I won’t bother engaging you further on that. I cannot teach you economics, though Adam Smith might.
I'm not a dude, I have a PhD in economics, and I suspect Adam Smith would have been horrified by the ongoing mass immigration from the 3rd world into Scotland and other parts of Great Britain. The economic analysis of men like Adam Smith is implicitly based on the 'high-trust cultures' in which they were fortunate to live, and the analysis falls apart when you import masses of people from low-trust cultures.
My daughter calls people of all sexes “dude”, and I learned my use of that description from her.
I am truly shocked at your claim that you have a PhD in economics, given your long rant suggesting that even if illegal immigration was eliminated you favor little to no legal immigration. Citations of AI as reasoning for same are equally non-economic.
Even as we don’t likely differ much in practice re: what is to be done now given the intransigent, irresponsible left in this country.
Right, we agree that the problem is with the left, but it seems to me that you don't need a degree in economics to question the need for more legal immigration when folks who are knowledgeable about AI are predicting that existing lawyers, programmers, surgeons, and so on are going to be losing their jobs, and new graduates in the same fields will not be able to find work.
'libertarians ought to support open borders.'
By definition.
I think it was Friedman's father who said, "You can't have open borders and a welfare state." Since the welfare state isn't going anywhere, even when we all take a haircut, open borders are insane or nefarious. There is little reason to believe that the Left, or whoever was in charge during the Biden regency, won't do it again at their first opportunity.
Agreed.
As a classical liberal I support much more legal immigration and unlimited high-skill immigration.
For me the most infuriating thing about the left’s position on illegal immigration is that it has utterly prevented a sensible discussion of legal immigration policies.
Yes, there is indeed a minority fraction on the right that wants no (or almost no) immigration at all.
Those people are wrong, if one cares about the general welfare of existing Americans.
But not only do I not blame them, but I side with them that until we are confident that wholesale illegal immigration is gone for good, it’s not possible to change the legal immigration system to allow more legal immigrants.
I don’t know if the Founders thought they were doing something idiot proof. But we know for a fact, they did not think they were doing something that was godlessness-proof, wherever they themselves landed along the continuum of religious belief. Jefferson - he who attended church in the Capitol building itself - did not even think this.
Which lends a certain difficulty to this sort of discussion.
“Please do not use the comments section to discuss the Minneapolis situation.“
In any event, many wise people suggest waiting 72 hours before commenting on current events. The extra time to wait and ponder ensures that the rider is in control and not the elephant.
It seems to me that one of the core tenets of democracy is that everyone is required to “play by the rules” so to speak. When it comes to illegal immigration, the law and courts have consistently and clearly specified the rules of the game. Entering the country illegally is a crime and that crime is only enforceable at the federal level. The states themselves have no enforcement jurisdiction and they can assist or not in those federal enforcement efforts.
Being the good little libertarian that he is, David Friedman would like to obfuscate these clear rules because it somehow offends his moral sensibilities. So much for moral free politics as articulated by the libertarians.
So much for your understanding of libertarians or DDF's article. The federal control of national border immigration would be unchanged. It would take legislation or a Constitutional amendment to allow states to have a say in deportation of illegal immigrants. There is a difference between "immigration" and "immigrant".
I think the problem is that we understand the libertarians a little too well at this point. Their signature sauce smells rancid. Open borders, legalized narcotics, large scale gambling and unfettered free trade with our political enemies are cultural and fiscal losers. That’s why their ideas will always lag behind those of the other dweebs like the Green Party.
"We" understand libertarians? You got a frog in your pocket, kemo sabe? You haven't got clue one about libertarians if that's how you sum them up.
You're apparently hanging around with a different group of libertarians than I am.
I don’t think you are correct re a Constitutional amendment.
RIchard Epstein - “The Libertarian” himself - points out that nowhere in the Constitution gives the federal government the right to enforce immigration policy, and in fact states did this at the time of the founding of the country.
In practice, of course this has changed, including with some laws, and I agree with you and anyone sane that given a welfare state and free movement between states then this must be handled at the federal level, but it’s actually NOT a constitutionally enumerated federal power.
I know immigration control is an unenumerated power and unconstitutional, but it's my understanding that immigration control was close to impossible in any practical sense. No one (except the captain!) cared if sailors jumped ship. South Carolina, I think, jailed all African crew until the ship left, to avoid free blacks and slaves seeing independent blacks, but I have never read of any immigration control over most passengers. Big ships had to use big ports, for the warehouses and transportation connections, but small ships could offload just about anywhere. Especially the way the slave states hated the north's high tariffs, I imagine smuggling was rampant. Ellis Island didn't begin processing immigrants until 1892.
What is democracy good for? Democracy - the free will of individuals - is integral to the economy. We must acknowledge that democracy works for enabling producers to figure out what consumers want.
In the political realm, the benefits of democracy are less certain. It certainly matters that voters can "fire" a politician by choosing not to reelect a candidate. But when it comes to choosing representatives, democracy is piss poor. Voters struggle greatly to choose good representatives mainly because they are not given good choices! Furthermore, voters seem to struggle to understand the consequence of their choices.
Watching the "Blue states" struggle with winter utility bills is illustrative. Making energy less abundant and less affordable is the advertised plan of the Democratic party! High electricity prices are a direct consequence of policy that Democrats have proudly advertised. Voters voted for this! And I bet they will continue to vote for high utility bills all while realizing NO TANGIBLE BENEFIT from that policy.
As Mencken wrote, Democracy allows voters to get what they want, good and hard. But why do voters choose pain? That is the mystery. But it adds evidence that political Democracy is not the public good it is claimed to be.
I'm glad to see Ilana Redstone's Substack get attention. Her book is also worthwhile. Here's my review of it: https://ataraxiaorbust.substack.com/p/book-review-the-certainty-trap
Nice piece on democracy and morality. Good reminder that democracy and and morality are mostly separate policies. Maybe I hadn't thought about how they aren't completely separate, at least not in the way you mention.
I don't know about only enforcing immigration law in red states (what about blue cities in red states?) but an emphasis on enforcement in blue states seems a bad choice for both red and blue.
And I live in a blue state due to one very large city/suburbs. The rest is pretty much all red, including a small town with a pork processing plant known to have illegal (and legal) immigrants that I don't think causes any problem. Maybe the worst problems with illegal immigrants are in the cities which are mostly blue?
The main problem of illegal immigration is it requires government to ignore the law. Once government starts choosing what laws it will enforce, it becomes awfully attractive to choose to break laws that favor the political incumbents.
What we see in Minnesota is a system of corruption that began with the premise that it was "good" to give a "helping hand" to a disadvantaged group. That warm fuzzy then snowballed to a system of corruption on the scale of hundreds of millions of dollars.
All laws are selectively enforced. That comes with both good and bad. Regardless, 100% enforcement requires a police state we almost certainly don't want.
Federally funded illegal immigrants directly and dynamically impact all taxpayers.
That's just one aspect. As long as there are open borders between states, an open border to the outside world in one state is an open border to the world in all states.
Is David Friedman really so blind that he can't see that?
I just realized this is analogous to the Dred Scott case, back when the USA had states where slavery was legal and states where it was illegal. The Supreme Court held that since slaves were personal property, a slave-owner could take a slave into a free state without the slave being freed. But that meant that de facto, every state was now a slave state.
Any free state resident could have slaves by going to a slave state to get them and then returning home. The free state prohibition of slavery was effectively meaningless.
Not going to lie, that surprises me though I agree with that ruling as you described it. Usually it's quite the opposite and states don't honor other states law even if the object/behavior in question originated there.
Be careful with claiming blindness in others. He makes it very clear that (1) he is not talking about national borders and immigration, and (2) illegal immigrants are not so stupid as to gather in states where they are subject to deportation.
You're right. I was being uncharitable.
But I wonder how this would work day-to-day. The USA doesn't have check-points at state borders, so there would be free movement between "enforcement" and "non-enforcement" states. Yes, "illegals" would be "subject to deportation" in enforcement states but how likely would that be as a practical matter? It is more difficult when different states have effectively different immigration laws.
Which could lead to some unintended consequences. In order to actually enforce the immigration laws, Congress might require everyone to obtain and carry a national ID card while in the country, like a drivers license is required when someone is driving. Perhaps Congress would require cell phones to broadcast separate IDs for legals and illegals (phones are regulated by the FCC). These signals could be constantly monitored. And once monitoring is started for one purpose, it can be extended for all sorts of other purposes. (Solve for the equilibrium?) That's not a society I want to live in.
The more the residents want to deport illegal immigrants, the more they will deport, and the more illegal immigrants will stay away. It's self-adjusting. The details don't matter.
As I read it, this piece was not about the border, just illegals already here. Enforcement at the border(s) is another issue.