The image of a dead three-year-old Syrian refugee washed up on a Greek shore sparked renewed international focus on the waves of Middle Eastern and North African immigrants fleeing their war torn homelands. The issue has been presented by politicians and the media almost exclusively through a statist lens: a choice between government-imposed integration as proposed by open borders advocates, or government-enforced exclusion advocated by nationalists who wish to wall off their nation from foreigners. But we must never lose sight of fundamental issues, namely property rights and the freedom of voluntary association.
For this reason, we felt it was important to bring back an article written in 2005 by Dr. Per Bylund addressing the complexity of the immigration issue. Dr. Bylund reminds us:
With the state as it is today, should we as libertarians champion open borders or enforced property rights (with citizens’ claims on “state property”)? Both views are equally troublesome when applied within the framework of the state, but they do not contradict each other; they are not opposites.
To dive deeper in this important topic, Dr. Bylund joined Jeff Deist for this week’s episode of Mises Weekends.
And in case you missed any of them, here are this week’s featured Mises Daily articles and some of our most popular articles at Mises Wire:
- Real Wealth Weaker than GDP Stats Show by Frank Shostak
- An Unhappy Union: Marriage and the State by Andrew Syrios
- Why the Greeks Should Repudiate Their Government’s Debt by Simon Wilson
- After the Greek Crisis, Euro Elites Dream of a Unified Euro State by Ryan McMaken
- “Mathiness” vs. the Logic of Action by Jonathan Newman
- Without Government, Who Would Force a Men’s Barbershop to Cut Women’s Hair? by Ryan McMaken
Next Week
All eyes will be on the Federal Reserve as the FOMC meets to consider raising interest rates for the first time since 2006.
Jeff Deist and James Rickards discussed what the Fed will do on this episode of Mises Weekends.
Monday, September 14th, is the 66th anniversary of the first edition of Human Action.
