Immigration as an applied ethics question

The basic premise of libertarianism is that any action is OK as long as it doesn’t infringe on someone else’s rights. So you would be in favor of legalizing drugs, but not drugging and driving which can put others in danger. It gets hard with things like putting junk cars on your front lawn, which could lower the property values of your neighbors’ houses. But you start out with the assumption that actions are permissible and you have to PROVE that they infringe to get them restricted.

But a prima facie rights violation starts with the assumption that something is not permissible and then only becomes permissible when you can prove it is beneficial. For example, take the death penalty. In this case, we start out with the premise that it is banned because it infringes on the right of the convicted. You would need to have really hard evidence of substantial benefits to get it approved.

This is more important than you think because of the behavioral science research that has been done in the past ten years on defaults. A study of 401(k) investments found that when the plan was set up as an opt-in (you had to fill out paperwork to enroll), 36% of new employees enrolled. But when it was opt-out (you had to fill out paperwork not to be enrolled), 86% stayed enrolled. The implications of this for the retirement security of the population are huge.

So how do we consider something like a 401(k) plan? Economics aside for a moment, what is the prima facie assumption? Is it ethically OK to automatically sign people up for things, knowing that it will influence their behavior even if they are allowed to opt-out? 401(k)s may seem like a good thing to promote, but we can use this same strategy for all kinds of programs. Think of all the things that are now “optional.” Newsletters, sex-ed in grammar school, allocating $3 of your tax refund to federal elections, etc, etc., etc. Imagine switching the defaults on all of them.

Then I read a great blog post on immigration by Bryan Caplan at George Mason who discusses an even better essay by Michael Huemer. The economic evidence of whether immigration helps or hurts the domestic economy is so politicized that it’s impossible to get a real sense of the implications. We know it helps some and hurts others. But what is the overall impact? But what we also need to ask (and probably the first thing) is what the prima facie assumption should be. Do we let in groups unless we can authoritatively PROVE that it has an overall negative impact? Or do we keep out groups until we can authoritatively PROVE that it has an overall positive impact?

Read the blog post (and the essay if you have time). They are really worth it.

The King is dead. Long live the King

James De Long has an interesting piece today in The American. I just want to comment on one small part of his essay.

Today's society has become much more complex than the Founding Fathers could ever have envisioned. This creates the unfortunate (to De Long and I agree) circumstance that strong special interests are inevitable. There is no way to become a powerful advocate of anything anymore without specialization. And only special interests with real money at stake can afford that kind of time commitment (by hiring full time lobbyists, etc). And each interest group plays a sort of prisoner's dilemma with each other so that they can all keep their power.

This also guarantees an ever expanding government. The only way new ideas can gain any traction is to carve out a new government agency so that they aren't butting heads with entrenched interests that have more power. So instead of rethinking the crazy bureaucracy, we just add to it.

But De Long makes a very interesting observation. As the special interests control a larger percentage of the government, and the government controls a larger percentage of our lives, the special interests are starting to bump heads. You can't play the prisoner's dilemma game with too many simultaneous players because someone is bound to defect each round. So at some point, and he thinks this point is upon us, the system will break down.

What will come next? He suggests perhaps a new Constitutional Convention (which would require 2/3 of state legislatures to call). I think the lack of civic engagement would prevent this from happening. State legislatures have special interests too. His other suggestion is a third political party will grow based on the promise to exclude special interests. This may be more possible, but how well did Ross Perot do? Maybe someone like Michael Bloomberg could pull it off, being a centrist, rich, and well-respected.

I am hopeful that things will change because I don't like the long term (decades) path we are on. But I am concerned about what the change will be as I have become a bit cynical about our society. The innovation and creativity of the American people has been our greatest strategic advantage. But we haven't applied this to government very well in the past hundred years.