Open Borders

Economist Bryan Caplan makes the bold case for open borders—that is, allowing people to move from one country to another as they wish. This controversial proposal can be understood as a free-market approach to the problem of poverty. People living in poor countries, he maintains, face expropriation and harm from their own governments and from a wider domestic culture that constitutes effective protectionism for rich countries, whose governments then feel justified in limiting immigration. Eliminating this hidden trade protectionism would allow international trade in labor to flourish and drive economic growth that could even raise global happiness levels.