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David Stearns
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4 months ago
in Bill Easterly on Peter Singer’s The Life You Can Save on Will Wilkinson
Will, I'm wondering how you respond to the worry that Collier brings up in The Bottom Billion re: liberalizing immigration/emigration: namely that emigration is likely to drain away the talented, educated people from poor countries, leaving the home countries without the concentration of educated folks that Collier views as necessary to effectuate significant turnarounds in governance and policy.
I'm not saying that people who improve their skills shouldn't be free to move to wherever they can maximize their opportunities, and I believe it would be immoral to prevent them (unless their education was subsidized, in which case I think it is reasonable to extract promises that they stay). And I don't want to minimize the real gains that accrue to those who do make it out. But while I think there are compelling reasons to encourage, or at least not prevent emigration, i'm not sure that it doesn't make many people actually worse off who don't have the skills to get out because it leaves many with fewer spillover benefits of being around educated, talented folks. Thoughts?
I'm not saying that people who improve their skills shouldn't be free to move to wherever they can maximize their opportunities, and I believe it would be immoral to prevent them (unless their education was subsidized, in which case I think it is reasonable to extract promises that they stay). And I don't want to minimize the real gains that accrue to those who do make it out. But while I think there are compelling reasons to encourage, or at least not prevent emigration, i'm not sure that it doesn't make many people actually worse off who don't have the skills to get out because it leaves many with fewer spillover benefits of being around educated, talented folks. Thoughts?
1 reply
5 months ago
in Inauguration Liveblog on Will Wilkinson
Couple things: First, the worst part of the speech was when he called for all lines between factions to dissolve. Aren't we supposed to live in a pluralist, cosmopolitan country where there are different groups of people, all holding hands and living together happily?
Second: Why aren't more libertarians creaming their pants over the fact that we've now got a president who seems to be pretty clearly repudiating torture and holding individuals indefinitely w/o any need for evidence or process, just so long as he deems them evil enough? Sure, redistribution bad! Big stimulus bad! But isn't this the kind of crap we *always* get from politicians, and given what most people would actually demand of politicians pretty unavoidable? And isn't being tortured and held w/o the writ of habeas corpus a *way way way bigger* threat to liberty than scary marginal tax rates and the stupidity of the SS system? Yes, it sucks that the president can interpret the constitution any way he wants, but GWB happened to interpret to mean that he can do whatever he wants, while Barack interprets it to mean that he can't. That should be great news to libertarians, no?
And yet Will, unless I'm missing something, the only thing you can bring yourself to praise about the man is how much it means about us that we have progressed to the point where we can vote in a black man as president.
In short: all politicians suck balls, but some definitely more than others. Seems to me like BHO actually has some things to actually recommend him. (none of this is to say that I'm not totally on board with your instinctual rejection of a lot of the collectivist boilerplate and hysteria surrounding the man.)
Second: Why aren't more libertarians creaming their pants over the fact that we've now got a president who seems to be pretty clearly repudiating torture and holding individuals indefinitely w/o any need for evidence or process, just so long as he deems them evil enough? Sure, redistribution bad! Big stimulus bad! But isn't this the kind of crap we *always* get from politicians, and given what most people would actually demand of politicians pretty unavoidable? And isn't being tortured and held w/o the writ of habeas corpus a *way way way bigger* threat to liberty than scary marginal tax rates and the stupidity of the SS system? Yes, it sucks that the president can interpret the constitution any way he wants, but GWB happened to interpret to mean that he can do whatever he wants, while Barack interprets it to mean that he can't. That should be great news to libertarians, no?
And yet Will, unless I'm missing something, the only thing you can bring yourself to praise about the man is how much it means about us that we have progressed to the point where we can vote in a black man as president.
In short: all politicians suck balls, but some definitely more than others. Seems to me like BHO actually has some things to actually recommend him. (none of this is to say that I'm not totally on board with your instinctual rejection of a lot of the collectivist boilerplate and hysteria surrounding the man.)
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Ben
Well, 1) talk is cheap, and 2) a President believing that the rule of law and human rights exist is a floor for what makes a President acceptable. Acceptable here meaning "who should not be indicted."
Will Wilkinson
David, I don't put everything into every blog post. During the campaign I clearly stated my preference for Obama over McCain mainly for the reasons you mention. And I don't especially care about marginal tax rates .
The basic idea is simple. When having skills pays, people are more likely to develop them. If brain drain was a problem in general, then places that "export" a lot of skilled workers ought to lack them. But this doesn't seem to be true. Places that "export" lots of skilled workers, like nurses, often have as many or more than places that won't let citizens leave. How can this be? Because if there is a foreign market for your skills, you are more likely to seek training in the first place. The possibility of earning higher wages abroad creates an incentive for local talent to seek training. There are lots of complexities, but that's the logic of it.
More generally, development ought to be about the welfare of individuals, not the GDP of regions enclosed by arbitrary colonial boundaries. Countries don't own people, and it isn't OK to trap individuals inside political borders, where they will be much poorer, so that they have no alternative but to contribute to the local economy.