The 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.