Promoted from the Ricochet Member Feed by Editors Created with Sketch. Open Markets Are Better Than Destroyed Borders

Atlanticus
By Atlanticus
Atlanticus Member
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shutterstock_168752339The situation within Europe is alarming. The so-called Arab Spring — particularly the civil war in Syria — has displaced millions of people and further undermined the traditional system of working nation states in Europe. While not the original cause of Europe’s immigration problem, current events are accelerating them: after a dangerous crossing across the Mediterranean, these refugees are overburdening the European welfare system while leaving their own countries bereft of development.

There can be no doubt that immigration has played an important role in every era of human history. A developing culture depends on exchange: exchange of ideas, exchange of of markets, and exchange of people. Without the Roman invasions, Northern Europe would never have developed civilization. The founding of the United States — closer to our time — was essentially the product of unbounded ideas, a societal tabula rasa created by diligence and hope that lacked the burden of medieval Europe, but preserved the best of its thinkers from Cato, to Cicero, to Saint Augustine, to John Locke. Immigration is the driver of a flourishing culture.

But Europe’s open borders do not represent real exchange, and the problems faced by underdeveloped countries in North Africa and the Middle East cannot be solved by uncontrolled immigration into European welfare states. Indeed, even a short and superficial analysis of the European supranational state must concede that the European Union’s policy of a closed, internal market essentially causes the problems its underdeveloped neighbors face.

For instance, the EU distorts the free exchange of agricultural products through an enormous system of subventions to its own farmers; the individual producers in North Africa and the Middle East, in contrast, have no such advantage and cannot compete. In the period between 2014 and 2019 — curiously, the EU operates by 5-year plans — an astronomical €287 billion in subsidies will be distributed to European farmers. Besides enabling the bureaucratic destruction of the market through control of the production and even the destruction of goods in order to manipulate the prices, European policy directly contributes to the causes of poverty in other nations.

Not surprisingly, no European politician would dare to blame the regulated market. The closer an internal market is organized, the less input it receives from outside and and the less wealth is created. But the general terms of postmodern politics prohibit any dissent, so the silence of common sense is the characteristic element of the despondence. To destroy the traditional borders between states by accepting an uncontrolled immigration is a dishonest deformation of the real forces which could lead to common wealth.

People need open markets, not failed borders. But the enlightened bureaucracy in Brussels will never agree to that premise, as their raison d’être originated from the socialist presumption that a class of experts know better than the people. Their failure is predestinated as the human spirit will never surrender, but they what they cannot control and regulate and will fight to preserve what they see as theirs.

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  1. captainpower Inactive
    captainpower

    Carsten Koenig: Nonetheless their failure is predestinated as the human spirit will never surrender.

    American President George W. Bush espoused the view that “Freedom is a universal human desire.”

    That may be true, but humans have many desires.

    Where does freedom rank when compared with safety, security, and stability…or pride?

    I am not convinced that ALL people want freedom more than these other things.

    Also, I don’t want to fall into the trap the Left has with the mantra that “We are on the right side of history.” There is no guarantee that the nobility of the human spirit will prevail against the darkness of the human spirit, or worse the road to hell paved with good intentions.

    That is why we fight. We fight by giving our time, money, energy and our vote to representatives who carry our values, and by trying to spread our values to those around us.

    • #1
    • November 30, 2014, at 11:46 PM PST
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  2. Mike H Coolidge
    Mike H

    captainpower: I am not convinced that ALL people want freedom more than these other things.

    Some people want freedom, but some need freedom thrust upon them.

    • #2
    • December 1, 2014, at 4:48 AM PST
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  3. captainpower Inactive
    captainpower

    Mike H: Some people want freedom, but some need freedom thrust upon them.

    I can’t tell whether you are mocking what has come to be called the neoconservative position, or whether this is a position you actually hold.

    I do think that some are unable to overthrow their dictators. It’s not easy.

    That’s why it’s a big deal that the soviet union fell and that the West played a part in it. I am not studied enough on the Cold War to know whether the USSR would have disbanded without Western pressure. I am hesitant to assume it was inevitable.

    • #3
    • December 1, 2014, at 10:12 AM PST
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  4. Mike H Coolidge
    Mike H

    captainpower: I can’t tell whether you are mocking what has come to be called the neoconservative position, or whether this is a position you actually hold.

    I think, in an ideal sense, people should be required to deal with freedom because they shouldn’t be allowed to take it away from others.

    I agree with you that some people don’t want freedom. Morally, I believe they should be required to live with freedom whether they want to or not, so that others may enjoy freedom, where freedom is pursuing one’s idea of the good while reasonably avoiding interfering with another’s pursuit of the good.

    • #4
    • December 1, 2014, at 10:30 AM PST
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  5. Atlanticus Member
    Atlanticus
    Post author

    captainpower:

    Al

    captainpower:

    Carsten Koenig: Nonetheless their failure is predestinated as the human spirit will never surrender.

    American President George W. Bush espoused the view that “Freedom is a universal human desire.”

    That may be true, but humans have many desires.

    Where does freedom rank when compared with safety, security, and stability…or pride?

    I am not convinced that ALL people want freedom more than these other things.

    Also, I don’t want to fall into the trap the Left has with the mantra that “We are on the right side of history.” There is no guarantee that the nobility of the human spirit will prevail against the darkness of the human spirit, or worse the road to hell paved with good intentions.

    I totally agree with your objection. The basic assumption that human beings yearn for freedom does not lead mechanically to a better society. The conservative understanding of the human beings, our history and nature accepts that we are driven by forces of egoism and competition; desires which tempered by virtues can lead to a republican state. There is no optimistic law within history, shortly said, no invisible force can grant a happy end. In fact on such chimeras the leftist approach was based.

    Nevertheless, why human beings create the best when their freedom is endangered, not only as an indivuduum but also as a society? If we do not inflate freedom as a mechanical law but conceive it as a skill that is essential for individualism, then any use of freedom can fail, but it is the expression of individualism. It is the right to object to any given regulation by the state, it is the right to question scientific presumptions.

    The main place for human exchange is the market. When we see the restrictions at the universities by the expansions of code of speeches, or the closed economic markets in Europe, then there is a deeper intention involved. An enlightened bureaucracy, for dubious purposes, wants to distrupt real and common enriching exchanges. The result will be, at least in Europe, that many people escape to Europe.

    And finally, these bureaucrats are just dishonest by leaving the borders broken but the markets regulated, and controlled.

    • #5
    • December 3, 2014, at 1:45 PM PST
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