The Science and Ethics of Open Borders Immigration: A Comprehensive Guide

BalooZ: J'aime beaucoup l'auteur, pour son dessin et surtout pour son humour et son spectre d'intérêts et de connaissances très large !
Je recommande la lecture de cette BD, pour l'ouverture d'esprit à avoir sur l'immigration.

France on Aug 23, 2023

Leo: Loved reading this book. It has a lot of good points and is for right wing and left wing people alike. If you are right wing you will find many of your fears answeredy if you are leftwing you will get valuable arguments and facts you didn't knew before. It's US centric but that doesn't really is a big problem except if you are set in your mind about this issue in your country anyway.

Germany on Nov 26, 2022

Pedro de Oliveira Vianna: As a huge fan of Zach from SMBC and Soonish, this book is a little weird to review. Bryan Caplan tries to explain his point of view and arguments in a very good way, the first few chapters are really amazing. However, because they are using a comic book style this book lacks the humour that one would expect. It’s lightly funny and has a couple of jokes, but old time readers of Zach’s works will find it a little underwhelming.

If you’re looking for open border economics, other books might be better. If you’re looking for witty science comics, SMBC will entertain you more. If you wants both, I guess that’s your only option.

Canada on Apr 04, 2021

A Person who Reads: As a disillusioned former libertarian living in a state currently being (ineptly) run by libertarians, I've developed a real loathing for the Libertarian party and its ideology. However, if all libertarians were as ethically consistent as Bryan Caplan, I would have a lot more respect for them (though I would still disagree on some key points).

The first thing I want to say about this book and its reviews: Ignore the anti-immigration reviewers who are accusing the book of using a bunch of "straw-men" to misrepresent their true ideas (which they don't want to share, of course). As a public policy researcher, I've studied some immigration policy myself - the ideas used against immigration are generally not complex, nor nuanced, nor intelligent, frankly. Knee-jerk fear-motivated backlash rarely tends to be well-thought-out. I doubt a lot of them even know what a strawman is, aside from a word they throw around on the internet when they can't make another argument, but don't want to admit that their current arguments have been debunked.

Defense of the book aside, Caplan's libertarianism is a bit glaring at times, as is his training as an economist. His idealistic faith in...

United States on Jan 24, 2021

Pedro Andrés Rangel Walteros: In "Open Borders", Bryan Caplan and Zach Weinersmith argue in favor of open immigration system in which any qualifying individual could move to any place in the world. This idea is different than free immigration in that convicts, criminals (and presumably other non-qualifying individuals) won't be able to move around the world. The authors claim that the current "closed border" system is not only unethical but also economically subpar. if you were unlucky enough to be born in certain parts of the world, you would be unable to contribute your full potential to the global economy. In other words, a closed border system introduces restrictions in the labor market which impede the global economy to realize its full potential. The authors support their argument through different references and estimates on the potential global economy growth in an open borders system.

The authors also present a defense to the following arguments against open borders: "open borders could cause mass poverty", "open borders would cause the fiscal collapse", "open borders would cause cultural disintegration", "open borders would cause the end of freedom". Although the author's defenses are sound,...

Canada on Jan 11, 2020

Cohan S.: The book sums up the main arguments for and against unlimited immigration, and presents them in an easy-to-follow form (it can't get simpler than cartoon illustrations, really). So the book deserves a recommendation purely on the strength of the presentation. Very carefully crafted cartoons accompanying pithy arguments make a very strong case for the open borders position on immigration.

Where the book is unconvincing is in its attempts to show how everyone would benefit from immigration, including locals. The analogies don't quite do answer the questions the average reader might have.

For example, one of the key analogies in the book is that of a group of eskimos who are not very productive farming snow in colder climes. The author argues that bringing them to work in a country with more fertile place would not only benefit them (by helping them produce more for the same amount of effort) but also the benefit the locals (who could consume that produce). However at no point is the possibility of there not being enough land to go around in the place the eskimos are transferred to adequately addressed.

India on Nov 17, 2019

lindsay: This book is written by an economist who very obviously knows this issue well. The first half of the book concerns a whole range of objections critics might have against open borders. He presents each of these objections fairly and clearly, and he responds to each of them as persuasively as can be done in a brief graphic novel. If you object to immigration because of economic, cultural, or political worries, he's got you covered. His writing is an honest and systematic response to his harshest crtiics, never propping up any obvious strawmen.

The latter half of this book is about his solution, open borders. He presents his case from a diverse range of philosophical perspectives. He shows that if you're a utilitarian, a deontologist, a libertarian, a Christian, a Rawlsian, a liberal or conservative, you too should be in favor of open borders! And if not open borders, at least consider "keyhole solutions," policies that allow for immigration but that target the particular concern you have about immigrants. His arguments are stronger and more persuasive than most you'll see floating around in the news.

Finally, all throughout this book is Zach Weinersmith's artwork. Each...

United States on Nov 08, 2019

William KielyWilliam Kiely: If you're like 73% of Americans, you either think immigration should be kept at its present level or decreased. While support for immigration is on the rise, only 27% of Americans think the level of immigration should be increased. Even fewer people believe that national borders should be opened completely so that people can be free to live and work where they'd like. Yet in Open Borders economist Bryan Caplan and cartoonist Zach Weinersmith make the case that open borders is the only moral policy prescription.

From Chapter 1, "Global Apartheid" (pictured): "Immigration laws tell peaceful people where they're allowed to live and work. Immigration laws don't merely *allow* discrimination, they *require* it. It's wrong to tell people where they can live or work because they're black... or women... or Jews. Why isn't it equally wrong to tell people where they can live or work because they were born in Mexico, Haiti, or India?"

Opening borders would roughly double world GDP, hastening the end of poverty and unleashing an unprecedented level of wealth leaving almost everyone better off. Even if U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement wasn't committing a great injustice...

United States on Nov 04, 2019