The Human Action Podcast
Per Bylund: Refugees, Property Rights, and Open Borders
Tags Big GovernmentGlobal EconomyWar and Foreign Policy
Our guest this weekend is Professor Per Bylund, whose article on immigration elicited plenty of discussion on mises.org and social media earlier this week. Dr. Bylund argues that property rights, not government immigration policies, should serve as the natural regulator of immigration and human movement. Since the state is never legitimate, "open borders" is conceptually irrelevant. Our focus as libertarians should be on property, freedom of association, and the equally important freedom of dissociation. Migrants do not enjoy unbridled freedom of movement when such movement becomes a matter of trespass.
We discuss several arguments made by Hans Hermann Hoppe regarding externalities caused by forced integration and "public lands." As usual, the problem lies with states themselves: disruptive wars and bad economic policies cause tremendous human dislocations, while welfare state incentives encourage immigration for the wrong reasons.
If you're interested in the divisive topic of immigration from a libertarian perspective, stay tuned.
Per Bylund, PhD, is a Senior Fellow of the Mises Institute and Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Johnny D. Pope Chair in the School of Entrepreneurship in the Spears School of Business at Oklahoma State University, and an Associate Fellow of the Ratio Institute in Stockholm. He has previously held faculty positions at Baylor University and the University of Missouri. Dr. Bylund has published research in top journals in both entrepreneurship and management as well as in both the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics and the Review of Austrian Economics. He is the author of three full-length books: How to Think about the Economy: A Primer, The Seen, the Unseen, and the Unrealized: How Regulations Affect our Everyday Lives, and The Problem of Production: A New Theory of the Firm. He has edited The Modern Guide to Austrian Economics and The Next Generation of Austrian Economics: Essays In Honor of Joseph T. Salerno.