Immigration within the Right Framework
~An Answer to a Leaked News Network Memo Circulated on Libertarian Mailing Lists
by John Zube
A libertarian full
of territorial convictions is a total imposture.
Gian Piero de Bellis
Dear Fellow Freedom-Seekers:
I was very disappointed by you just passing on this message without a
libertarian comment and criticism, especially of the last part.
As far as the usual electioneering circus is concerned:
Almost all politicians will try to change the official outcome of elections,
legally if they can, illegally if they cannot do it legally and if they can
hope to get away with it. Frequently they succeed in that, if in nothing
else.
They do it by numerous permitted tricks and also by votes of the dead or
disallowing votes of living people, sometimes by wholesale destroying
election urns and replacing them by their own, as e.g. the Nazi
storm-troopers did, to give them a "landslide" victory.
(Actually, the votes cast for different parties were still more numerous!
Thus President Hindenburg had to treasonably transfer power to Hitler!)
We should not expect better from any politicians, libertarian ones
excepted - although dishonesty, alas, occurs even among libertarians - and
should no longer consider such "news" to be genuine "news" worth reporting
by libertarians.
Watching these circus clowns and their public performances is no more useful
than the court-watching was, when all power was in the hands of absolute
kings.
We have to get out from under their tutelage, their monopoly
decision-making, their coercion, their frauds, and become quite independent
from them. That we ought to discuss, down to the smallest detail!
You jumped, by your silence, on the popular bandwagon of blaming illegal
immigrants for the existing unemployment. I find THIS scandalous, for
libertarians!
If immigration causes unemployment, why were there not 50 million unemployed
in the US in the 19th century, as a result of the immigration of 50 million
people?
Immigration rates are not directly related to unemployment rates, anywhere
and at any time.
Actually, the Mexicans are Americans, too, as are all Middle and South
Americans, as well as the Canadians. Why should they not be free to move in
"their" continent, as much as e.g. the Red Indian immigrants did, long ago,
plus some early Chinese, Negro and Viking immigrants?
I concede the same right to any human, anywhere, on any supposedly "public"
property. They ought to be free to make private job contracts and establish
private property rights anywhere on this spaceship Earth and in the universe.
How come that libertarians, like you, don't even bother to download and
study the numerous articles against immigration barriers - that can already
be found on the Internet and the few other titles for free migration?
I did do so, so could you.
In an early PEACE PLANS issue I wrote a long contribution on free migration,
because then writings on this subject were very rare. Now they are not
yet abundant but already numerous and worth studying.
Do you think that you are excused because some of the libertarian great
minds (who did much that is very good in other spheres) still hold some
popular prejudices on immigration, as I found out to my disappointment, 14
years ago? Naming names does not help my objective. One should rather blame
causes than persons.
We have not yet perfected our enlightenment tools and the machinery for
freedom sufficiently, so that even great scholars (in other spheres) remain
attached to some popular fallacies.
We have still not made all libertarian writings easily enough, permanently
and cheaply available and have not yet compiled sufficient of the necessary
reference works. Between us we could, easily, cheaply and fast!
The 12 million Mexican immigrants are, like all earlier and all legal
immigrants, assets rather than burdens.
For those few, of any colour, white to black, who are burdens, do rather
blame e.g. the taxation and hand-out system, not the recipients, and many
other factors, mainly, I believe, monetary despotism.
The "Protestant work ethic" is actually stronger among these, mostly
Catholic, Mexican immigrants than it is among most Protestant "whites", not
to speak of other shades of skin colour or ethnic origin. They are prepared
to accept, at least initially, lowly jobs for little pay, jobs that the
longer established "natives" are refusing to accept. (Just like the
immigrant Jews did, e.g. in Germany. But already in the second generation
many of their children got a university education and often excelled with
it. That helped to turn the inferior intellectuals among the German natives
against them! Especially due to the wide-spread notions of collective
responsibility and as a result of the effects of monetary despotism. When
everybody can easily get a job and is paid according to his productivity
then aliens, foreigners, ethnics etc. will no longer be treated as
scapegoats.)
These Mexicans even create their own jobs, as I noticed in LA in 1990, where
they e.g. sold oranges, from traffic islands, to drivers waiting for the
light to change.
One of my favourite car stickers, alas, no longer produced, was: "Good
people come in all colours!" So, I finally printed out my own and stuck it
to my car. The original one, at a petrol station run by Lebanese, led to an
invitation to their family, with which I and my kids had a very good
discussion, tasting Lebanese bread and tea. Yes, degrees of racism exist
also in this "unified" Australian "nation" with people from 140 different
ethnic groups. Compulsory integration or subsidized Multiculturism do not
reduce it. Full exterritorial autonomy for all voluntary communities, plus
full monetary freedom could. As melting pots territorial "nations" work too
slowly and can lead to concentration camps like the present Australian ones
for illegal immigrants. Do you want them in the US as well???
Most libertarians are at least free traders. As free traders they see the
benefit of trading with 12 million people across a frontier. They should
come to see the benefit of trading with the same people, once they have
crossed the frontier. Then the trade is even more beneficial to both sides,
since in Northern America they are, mostly, under better management and use
better tools and equipment and at least some of the transport costs for
their exchanges can be saved there. As free traders they are already in
favour of free competition not only with these 12 million Mexican illegal
immigrants but with all of the over 6 billion people in the world. 12
million more, next door, hardly make a difference. If competition by others
made US people unemployed, then all US workers should be unemployed.
Immigrants should not be blamed for mass unemployment. Libertarians should
recognize the real causes of it. Among the more obvious and already widely
known ones are e.g. minimum wages, compulsory licensing, zoning and building
restrictions, compulsory taxes, avalanches of laws and regulations. But all
these are almost minor - when compared with the money issue monopoly of the
FED and its coercive powers: Legal tender, i.e. compulsory acceptance and
compulsory value for its paper dollars.
If e.g. local shopping centres were free to issue their own notes,
redeemable in their ready-for-sale goods and services, then they could
issue, at any time, their anticipated sales totals for the next few weeks,
many billions, in their own sound currencies, using better and agreed upon
value standards, paying their expenses largely with them and making short term
loans to employers for goods and services.
(Under special precautions, which should also be applied even when using
government paper money, they can also be used to pay and repay long-term
loans. People would have to save goods and services warrants etc. and invest
them properly and use new issues of them for the repayment of these loans.)
Sound currencies are not impossible. They are merely outlawed. Thus we all
suffer from monetary despotism, well, except the monopolists of the FED. But
every leash has two ends. With all the power of the FED they cannot cure the
FED's inherent problems.
Competitive exchange media, subject to free market rating and voluntary
acceptance or refusal, cannot lead to an inflation of prices and wages
expressed in sound value standards. At most they could be over-issued and
themselves depreciated. But to do so would be against the rational
self-interest interests of both, issuers and acceptors.
What exchange media provided by governments are really largely amounting to
are: MEDIA TO PREVENT EXCHANGES. And their paper dollar standard is not a
sound value standard. It is a rubber-band standard, that sooner or later
breaks.
Like any monopoly, the issue monopoly PREVENTS rightful and desirable
exchanges. Thus government money issues should somewhat be renamed. They do
not deserve the name "exchange media".
Who can propose a more accurate term for them? Monopoly money is correct but
not yet hard-hitting enough. Monetary despotism describes the whole system,
but not yet its exchange medium. Forced and exclusive currency is accurate
as far as it goes but does not describe its value standard monopoly and
coercion sufficiently. Someone called them "requisitioning certificates"
with some tax foundation. Think about the best possible term for it and try
to popularize it.
We need complete monetary and financial independence from the "services" and
disservices of Central Banks. Who does still believe that they are
effectively guarding any currency? (However, remaining believers in it
should remain free to suffer under it, as long as they can stand it.)
Americans, in the past, largely took such independence, illegally, e.g.
during the monetary crises of 1893 and 1907.
We need a monetary and financial revolution, too, but one that is much
better prepared and goes much further. It could also be effective very
fast - and remain effective to prevent all monetary and financial crises,
permanently.
Presently there are some monetary freedom experiments, but mostly badly
informed and thus badly organized ones. Most of their organizers are simply
unaware of the rare literature on the subject. That can be remedied, e.g.
with CD-ROMs.
With sound, competing alternative exchange media and clearing avenues all
possible and desired exchanges could take place unhindered by the money
monopoly and the value standard monopoly.
This brings me to the real motive for writing this letter:
[placed by the webmaster on a separate page; this information can be read now or if you prefer not to interrupt the course of this essay, when you have finished reading it]
This information will not make us powerful but could make us influential
enough to achieve full exterritorial autonomy for ourselves - as well as for
others, even our enemies. To that extent they could very well become our
allies and only territorial despotisms, including some democratic and
republican ones, would remain our common enemies.
At the same time, we could come to offer these enemies solutions to their
remaining problems, which they, on their own, might never stumble upon. Once
they are reduced to volunteer communities, they could become our allies as
well. Turning most of our enemies into allies or at least neutrals, could be
our most profitable job.
Already, at least most of the "democratic" territorial States are more
peaceful than are the openly despotic territorial States. (See the extensive
researches of Prof. Rudy Rummel, who would also like to see his numerous
webpages offered on a single CD.) But their very existence still breeds
revolutionaries, terrorists and does not make them safe enough from attacks
by totalitarian or tyrannical regimes and does not allow them to defeat such
regimes fast and easily, with a minimum of bloodshed, judging by much of the
historical experience.
While we do not need a single policeman (territorial powerful State) for the
world. An ideal international federation of ideal local militias for the
protection of individual rights and liberties could come to serve very well
in that function.
Then any excuse for top politicians, offering their flawed services in this
sphere, would come to disappear.
But, to give even the devil his due: US air and rocket power, during the
wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, was not as indiscriminate and severely abused
and misdirected as it was e.g. in WW II and in the Korean War and in the War
in Vietnam.
At least an attempt was made to distinguish between palaces, military
installations and cottages. Thus these wars came closer than the wars of the
French Revolution came to its slogan: War to the palaces, peace to the huts.
Indeed, there are alternatives to warlike interventions - but we should not
expect them from territorial regimes.
Even most libertarians have so far failed to seriously consider them and try
to develop or publish them.
In my two libertarian peace books, also reproduced on this CD [described on the separate page], I have
combined such views as far as I could. Libertarians have largely ignored
these libertarian books. To that extent and by largely eliminating the
libertarian policy alternatives from their considerations (except
isolationism or non-intervention), they have surrendered the field to the
territorial statists and their governments and thus should not blame them if
territorial warfare States continue to do their things.
If you can point out to me a libertarian revolution or liberation or defence
program, please, do!
Will it take many CD-ROMs to reproduce all libertarian writings? Will a few
hundred be already enough?
Even less DVDs and blue light CDs would be needed.
Can we afford to ignore these options any longer? Are we so very successful
without them?
PIOT, John Zube
Panarchy In Our Time: To each the government or non-governmental society of
his or her dreams!
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