Categories: Immigration

Milton Friedman Was Right. Again

One of the things that Milton Friedman pointed out was that you can’t have free migration and also a comprehensive welfare state. Not solely because coughing up $20k a year for anyone who walks across the border will quickly lead to billions doing so and there being no money left. But also because the indigenes won’t stump up the taxation for just anyone who can walk across the border.

We humans are rather tribal after all. Me, family, clan, tribe, nation, humanity, in ever widening and weakening circles.

Turns out he was right:

This paper provides a simple conceptual framework that captures how different perceptions, attitudes, and biases about immigrants or minorities can shape preferences for redistribution. Through the lens of this framework, we review the empirical literature on the effects of racial diversity and immigration on support for redistribution in the US and Europe.

The fun part of this though is this report on it. It’s from Vox so of course it cannot, possibly, mention that Friedman was right. Because to agree that St Milt could have been right about anything at all so throws the progressive project into disarray, doesn’t it?

So, given that Vox is a propaganda outfit, they don’t mention it.

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Tim Worstall

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Tim Worstall

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