It’s rather against the point of the article to start talking about the above examples of privileged questions…
Even so, it’s worth noting that immigration policy is a rare, important question with first-order welfare effects. Relaxing border fences creates a free lunch in the same way that donating to the Against Malaria Foundation creates a free lunch. It costs on the order of $7 million to save an additional American life, but on the order of $2500 to save a life if you’re willing to consider non-Americans.
By contrast, most of politics consists of policy debates with about as many supporters as opponents, suggesting there isn’t a huge welfare difference either way. What makes immigration and international charity special is the fact that the beneficiaries of the policies have no say in our political system. Thus the benefits that accrue to them are not weighted as heavily as our benefits, which means there’s a free lunch if overall welfare is what you care about.
I think it’s plausible that immigration policy is in fact an important question but less plausible that that’s why people talk about it. (Similarly, a privileged hypothesis need not be wrong.)
It’s rather against the point of the article to start talking about the above examples of privileged questions…
Even so, it’s worth noting that immigration policy is a rare, important question with first-order welfare effects. Relaxing border fences creates a free lunch in the same way that donating to the Against Malaria Foundation creates a free lunch. It costs on the order of $7 million to save an additional American life, but on the order of $2500 to save a life if you’re willing to consider non-Americans.
By contrast, most of politics consists of policy debates with about as many supporters as opponents, suggesting there isn’t a huge welfare difference either way. What makes immigration and international charity special is the fact that the beneficiaries of the policies have no say in our political system. Thus the benefits that accrue to them are not weighted as heavily as our benefits, which means there’s a free lunch if overall welfare is what you care about.
I think it’s plausible that immigration policy is in fact an important question but less plausible that that’s why people talk about it. (Similarly, a privileged hypothesis need not be wrong.)
xv15′s point is actually really really standard among public intellectuals and elites.
Sure.