Open Borders

One-line: The argument — central to Utopia For Realists — that freeing the movement of labor across borders, not just capital and goods, would roughly double world output.

Bregman calls borders “the single biggest cause of discrimination in all of world history”: the U.S. border effect on wages of equally-productive workers exceeds any measured gender or race discrimination. He cites estimates that full labor mobility would raise gross world product by 67–147%, and that even letting developed countries admit 3% more immigrants would give the world’s poor ~$305B more — three times all development aid. Pairs with the Effective Altruism / cash-transfer thread as the highest-leverage anti-poverty move that never happens.

Related concepts

• Utopia For Realists — Rutger Bregman’s book where the open-borders argument is developed as a central pillar.
• Rutger Bregman — the author who frames borders as “the single biggest cause of discrimination in all of world history.”
• Effective Altruism — the cash-transfer / highest-leverage anti-poverty thread this page pairs labor mobility with.

Where this appears

• Utopia For Realists