TheSchoolofAthens Posted January 14, 2015 Posted January 14, 2015 I am reading Mises's Omnipotent Government and have come across his section on Total War. He says: "These considerations are not a plea for opening America and the British Dominions to German, Italian, and Japanese immigrants. Under present conditions America and Australia would simply commit suicide by admitting Nazis, Fascists, and Japanese. They could as well directly surrender to the Fuhrer and to the Mikado. Immigrants from the totalitarian countries are today the vanguard of their armies, a fifth column whose invasion would render all measures of defense useless. America and Australia can preserve their freedom, their civilizations, and their economic institutions only by rigidly barring access to the subjects of the dictators. But these conditions are the outcome of etatism. In the liberal past the immigrants came not as pacemakers of conquest but as loyal citizens of their new country."Perhaps I do not know what issues came along with immigration around the time of WW2, but I do not think that barring access to immigrants who live under dictators. Of course this wouldn't be an issue in a totally anarcho capitalist society, or anarcho capitalist region, because people could come and go (at least to free areas) as they so desire. But socialist, fascist, and communist - advocates of violence - professors poisoned the universities. These advocates of violence created their own political parties, organizations, etc. Americans with family ties to America for generations could still defend socialism, or whatever other violent system they preferred to advocate for, and become socialists.I think I remember Stefan talking about Mises and his immigration views in a video once, but I may be wrong. Any links on it would be appreciated. What are your thoughts?
square4 Posted January 14, 2015 Posted January 14, 2015 Mises was not an anarchist, but a minarchist. Occasionally, there are some pro-state ideas in his writings, unfortunately. I am currently reading Human Action. In this book, he often explicitly refrains from doing a moral evaluation, because he claims that is all arbitrary, and it is also not the job of an economist. So he simply describes what he thinks will be the outcome, given the circumstances. An implicit argument from effect. The question whether immigration control is moral in this case, could be rephrased to: Is it moral to attack a person, who possibly has plans to use a gang to violate other people's rights? I would say, this is immoral.
cab21 Posted January 17, 2015 Posted January 17, 2015 i think loyalty to the new country sounds more reasonable than banning based on citizenship even in that statist framework. ayn rand would be banned from the usa and stuck in the ussr had that been the policy, amung many others. 1
TheSchoolofAthens Posted January 17, 2015 Author Posted January 17, 2015 i think loyalty to the new country sounds more reasonable than banning based on citizenship even in that statist framework. ayn rand would be banned from the usa and stuck in the ussr had that been the policy, amung many others. Exactly what I thought while reading, never would have been an Ayn Rand aha :/
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