This just in: Open Borders: The Science and Ethics of Immigration, has made the New York Times Bestseller List! The one line summary – “An economics professor argues that opening all borders could bolster the global economy” – is an bizarre understatement. Far better to say, “An economics professors argues that opening all borders would swiftly created unprecedented prosperity” or better yet “An economics professor argues that immigration restrictions are an economic and moral disaster.”
Still, I’ll take what I can get!
READER COMMENTS
Ivan
Nov 7 2019 at 9:59am
Bryan,
Firstly, the book is awesome! While I was not 100% convinced of the thesis before reading it, your book, in totality, has enough persuasive arguments to move me closer to the open borders camp. I am still not quite there, but very much convinced we should have much more immigration vs. the current state.
True to your tenets, I love that it’s not preaching to the choir and portrays arguments and concerns against immigration very fairly.
I have been reading it out loud to my family and even to my 7mo old son who loves the illustrations. I am probably going to buy 5-6 more copies just to give out to friends and family.
Secondly and finally, the fact that it’s got enough sales to get on the NYT bestseller list is amazing. Many more people need to be exposed to this issue in way that you have framed it up.
Ivan
Thaomas
Nov 7 2019 at 5:02pm
Perfect agreement (except about the 7 mo son) 🙂
JFA
Nov 7 2019 at 3:31pm
I recently watched Wild Wild Country, a Netflix documentary series about the Rajneesh group that set up camp in rural Oregon. I am a fan of arguments for increasing immigration from there current levels, but that documentary decreased the probability that I would ever support open borders.
Michael
Nov 8 2019 at 8:00am
Excellent documentary! I loved it. But I’m not sure I understand the connection.
Do you think open borders are the cause of cults? Could the same cult not have sprung up in India? In fact, that’s where it started. It could have just continued to spread there. And we’ve had cults start in the US as well.
I’m unsure if the connection you’re drawing is valid.
nobody.really
Nov 8 2019 at 1:15pm
If it weren’t for immigration, the rural Pacific Northwest wouldn’t be overrun with vampires; we’d just have wholesome Native American werewolves. And they’re totally hot.
(But this is based on a whole different set of documentaries….)
JFA
Nov 8 2019 at 2:37pm
It’s not about the cult but about the way it was pretty easy for a cohesive group to take over a small town and to nearly overwhelm the voters in an effort to takeover an entire county by bringing in more people (I think it was 6000 homeless people). So it’s more about the levels of immigration that might overwhelm institutions.
Matthias Goergens
Nov 10 2019 at 1:35am
The keyhole solution is to just not give the immigrants voting rights, if you that’s your concern.
Mark Z
Nov 11 2019 at 1:10am
That’s probably politically impossible. I imagine even some pro-immigration people would see letting immigrants in but denying them voting rights as more outrageous than just not letting them in.
nobody.really
Nov 8 2019 at 1:22pm
“An economics professor argues that selling books about opening borders could bolster his personal economy….”
Congrats, guy.
Daniel R. Grayson
Nov 8 2019 at 3:41pm
Congratulations!!!
Michael Sandifer
Nov 10 2019 at 1:48am
Congratulations. I’m glad to see open borders get popular attention.
Joseph E Munson
Nov 10 2019 at 9:23am
I’m already converted and have been for quite some time, but if 1 year ago, you asked me if a book advocating open borders could be treated seriously AND be a new york times best seller I would say you’re a crazy person.
Yet here we are.
We are in an age of super fast technological change, perhaps its not too crazy to hope for super fast societal change as well.
Comments are closed.