Society How do you feel about open borders?

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M

member 3289

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This is where we part ways. We don't need modern slaves to maintain a good quality of life.
You want your grass mowed for $30 a cut?

No way you're getting that price with a couple fucking gringos holding weed wackers.
 

Yossarian

TMMAC Addict
Oct 25, 2015
13,489
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Someone said something about not having borders on the Moon or Mars when we eventually colonize those places, cant find the post cause its 0200 but you can bet your ass we will be creating very man made borders on the Moon and Mars as soon as the second group gets there. Animals like us create borders as a matter of instinct. We've done it in Antarctica very very recently.
And better be damn sure it's going to be called Amoonica.
 
M

member 3289

Guest
But that would cost money elsewhere since this is untaxed employment. We end up losing the money on the other side. The employer gets to make the extra money, and you get to pay more taxes, or higher fees for governmental services. It will come back to us somehow. This is why automation presents such a challenge. And in the dawn of automation, where do we fit illegal workers, or more importantly, where do we fit in?
We have to keep them as ignorant and in the dark as possible so that they don't abuse our social services.
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
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And in the dawn of automation, where do we fit illegal workers,

Subsidized human labor and de facto slave labor prevent us from advancing to whatever technology is most appropriate for the job. It makes businesses reliant on this artificial labor pool.

We only have as many fast food workers because of the government providing them cheap healthcare, housing, groceries. Otherwise, businesses would be forced to weigh the REAL cost of manual labor or versus automating.

As a well to-do taxpayer, I'd prefer my burger and other services cost the reality up front, instead of hiding on my April tax return (and decades of hidden ledgers in the national debt)
 

Splinty

Shake 'em off
Admin
Dec 31, 2014
44,116
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You want your grass mowed for $30 a cut?

No way you're getting that price with a couple fucking gringos holding weed wackers.

That's exactly what it costs to get gringos to do it in Southeast Texas.

Local bubba's got into the mowing industry when, coincidentally, the construction industry cratered.

But this is a common appeal. You say they won't, but you have to then tell me what the cost difference would be since you know it can't be done for that rate.

Is it 5 bucks more? 3? That's the missing piece for this to really have merit in weighing pros and cons.
 
M

member 3289

Guest
Subsidized human labor and de facto slave labor prevent us from advancing to whatever technology is most appropriate for the job. It makes businesses reliant on this artificial labor pool.

We only have as many fast food workers because of the government providing them cheap healthcare, housing, groceries. Otherwise, businesses would be forced to weigh the REAL cost of manual labor or versus automating.

As a well to-do taxpayer, I'd prefer my burger and other services cost the reality up front, instead of hiding on my April tax return (and decades of hidden ledgers in the national debt)
Btw thanks for the tip about claiming a tablet purchase on my tax return.

I never actually bought a tablet, but I did claim one.
 

BeardOfKnowledge

The Most Consistent Motherfucker You Know
Jul 22, 2015
60,554
56,071
In an open border scenario, capital would no longer be at all restricted from owning property in foreign lands and the cost of supply chains would presumably be the only restriction on driving labor costs all the way down. This would be as close to the impossible free market you describe. Do you think this is favorable?
There are so many variables you aren't addressing I could never pretend to have an answer to that question.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
22,915
Here is the standard liberal argument for open borders:

The Case for Getting Rid of Borders—Completely

Every liberal friend of mine believes the above. Many far more aggressively than the author. Describing borders as "arbitrary lines" or "man made barriers" is a common pejorative against the current design of the nation state.
Alex Tabarrok is a right wing libertarian. I'm not sure what kind of liberal friends you have unless they're stoners from Austin.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
22,915
There are so many variables you aren't addressing I could never pretend to have an answer to that question.
The premise of a thought experiment is elaboration. The burden of addressing variables is on the people who indulge in the experiment. Otherwise why comment at all?
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
22,915
Who would be the governing body and what law would rule the land?

Or are we talking a scenario where each country maintains it's current laws, but we can just walk freely between them.

For me I couldn't give 2 fucks. I can already go to other countries. Apart from Canada probably. And I don't wanna go there .
We're talking whichever scenario you feel is more likely or workable. Do you feel open borders are only possible with continued national sovereignty? Do you think national sovereignty is feasible if citizens can freely go where they choose?
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
22,915
Genius ideas sound insane at first.

I like to think of it as "advanced", not insane.
In about 200-300 years, we should have evolved to that point.
Think about it. In 50 years or less we'll be colonizing the moon and Mars. Do you think there'll be are borders there?

Note I said "No World Government" which is not the same as those who tout 'Globalisim's 'One World Government'".....
I think there will be borders if there is lunar or Martian colonization, albeit not corresponding to national borders.

I also think that's still over a century away.
 

kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
22,915
Subsidized human labor and de facto slave labor prevent us from advancing to whatever technology is most appropriate for the job. It makes businesses reliant on this artificial labor pool.

We only have as many fast food workers because of the government providing them cheap healthcare, housing, groceries. Otherwise, businesses would be forced to weigh the REAL cost of manual labor or versus automating.

As a well to-do taxpayer, I'd prefer my burger and other services cost the reality up front, instead of hiding on my April tax return (and decades of hidden ledgers in the national debt)
Are you seriously suggesting in this post that low wage jobs only exist due to government entitlement programs?
 

Zeph

TMMAC Addict
Jan 22, 2015
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Are you seriously suggesting in this post that low wage jobs only exist due to government entitlement programs?
He's suggest that companies are taking advantage of those programs to pay below a living wage, and he's right. Companies like Walmart are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer because many of their employees need benefits to live, while Walmart posts record profits and their owners are some of the richest people on the planet.
 

Lord Vutulaki

Banned
Jan 16, 2015
16,651
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He's suggest that companies are taking advantage of those programs to pay below a living wage, and he's right. Companies like Walmart are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer because many of their employees need benefits to live, while Walmart posts record profits and their owners are some of the richest people on the planet.

Yep one family owns a MSH right?
 

KWingJitsu

ยาเม็ดสีแดงหรือสีฟ้ายา?
Nov 15, 2015
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kneeblock

Drapetomaniac
Apr 18, 2015
12,435
22,915
He's suggest that companies are taking advantage of those programs to pay below a living wage, and he's right. Companies like Walmart are heavily subsidized by the taxpayer because many of their employees need benefits to live, while Walmart posts record profits and their owners are some of the richest people on the planet.
I wouldn't say the corporations think about the benefits one way or another. They pay what they pay and mostly benefit in regions with low standards of living that have been abandoned by other industries. Wal-mart is a cannibal that mostly comes to pick on the dessicated corpse of once thriving conmunities. Locals can't resist the discounts and abandon local businesses because of their own depressed wages. Also because of the convenience of course.

The employees can attempt unionization or states and municipalities can regulate wages through minimum wage laws, but collective corporate power usually conspires against both. There is no free market competing for labor in regions like these, which cover vast swaths of the US and certainly the majority of the world. These are the consequences of the free market. Entitlements have a small distortion effect, but if they vanished, I'm not sure there wouldn't be Wal-Marts undercutting workers. We already see the digital version of Wal-Mart thriving in places like India and Pakistan with Amazon Mechanical Turk.

In an open border scenario, this Wal-Martification would likely spread like a cancer, though it already is online where there is next to no regulation of labor practices.
 

Zeph

TMMAC Addict
Jan 22, 2015
24,355
31,945
I wouldn't say the corporations think about the benefits one way or another. They pay what they pay and mostly benefit in regions with low standards of living that have been abandoned by other industries. Wal-mart is a cannibal that mostly comes to pick on the dessicated corpse of once thriving conmunities. Locals can't resist the discounts and abandon local businesses because of their own depressed wages. Also because of the convenience of course.

The employees can attempt unionization or states and municipalities can regulate wages through minimum wage laws, but collective corporate power usually conspires against both. There is no free market competing for labor in regions like these, which cover vast swaths of the US and certainly the majority of the world. These are the consequences of the free market. Entitlements have a small distortion effect, but if they vanished, I'm not sure there wouldn't be Wal-Marts undercutting workers. We already see the digital version of Wal-Mart thriving in places like India and Pakistan with Amazon Mechanical Turk.

In an open border scenario, this Wal-Martification would likely spread like a cancer, though it already is online where there is next to no regulation of labor practices.
Whether they are consciously doing it or not is irrelevant to the fact they are doing it. I agree that regulation is the answer.