It's interesting, why do you think individual states in the US "giving up their sovereignty" by way of control on migration was successful, but doing so at any broader scale wouldn't be? That's 325M people -- they're not all in California and New York, are they?
How about within Europe? The Schengen area alone is 400M+, the EU is 500M+ and Europe is 750M+. The amount of complaining about freedom of movement is really quite limited in reality given the scope of the free movement area. They've even developed a program to smooth out bringing in new countries; read up on the accession process.
Why is it that going from 5M (free movement within, say, New Zealand) to 35M (free movement within Canada) to 325M (free movement within the US) to 500M (free movement within the EU) all work -- over 2 whole orders of magnitude -- but expanding it any further would turn the world into a post-apocalyptic hellscape? Why would 1 more order of magnitude cause apocalypse when that hasn't happened yet?
Moreover, why doesn't everyone in the free movement area in Europe pile into Switzerland? Plenty of people move from eastern Europe, but there's still last I counted 38M people in Poland. They're not all in the UK, Germany or France. Local language, local culture, local jobs, economy, opportunities, family -- these all tie you to a place.
If offered a permanent life in Switzerland, would you drop everything and go? Why not? Probably all those things I listed above. I'm an EU citizen. Through EFTA, I absolutely could, forever, without restriction live in Switzerland, and yet here I am, somehow not in Switzerland. Fascinating.
This sounds like tribalism to me.
New Zealand is an interesting example, as NZ and Australia essentially have freedom of movement. Australia is a higher income nation than New Zealand, with ~25% higher GDP per capita.
There are 650,000 NZ citizens in Australia, which is about 15% of the population of NZ. New Zealand has the second highest proportion of natural born citizens living abroad in the world, after Ireland [1].
The only reason that this arrangement works well is that New Zealand has a small population compared to Australia (5 million vs 25 million). If Australia had a lower income than New Zealand and 15% of Australians came to New Zealand, it would be chaos.
New Zealand also has a large Polynesian population (but not freedom of movement). Once again, this arrangement works because the Pacific Island nations have a much smaller population than New Zealand.
If you opened up immigration from India to the USA, you wouldn't see such a beneficial relationship, as there are 3 times as many people in India than the USA.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2016/01/15/the-co...
Didn’t the EU have strict capital requirements for countries joining it? I am from Ireland originally and I seem to recall this being a topic of discussion when I was younger.
I would imagine that countries within the EU don’t have the same Standards of living/earnings gap between them as say a developing country & a western one. Hence, their is not the same incentive to mass migrate.
The color coded map on this article is a good example of this:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PP...
The GDP Per Capita of Poland is $12K USD, and Germany is $42K. This is comparable to the difference between the US territories of the Northern Mariannas and American Samoa ($13K) and California ($58K). Somehow rote economic prosperity is not sufficient to make everyone up and move or there wouldn't be an American Samoa.
[NOTE: I didn't adjust for PPP so the discrepancy is not as high as I implied it to be although it is still high; I couldn't find sufficient data in time].
I’d also make the argument that restricting migration out of a country can be of benefit to that countries economy. This was the case with South Korea after its civil war:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_South_Korea
“Following the Korean War, South Korea remained one of the poorest countries in the world for over a decade. In 1960 its gross domestic product per capita was $79,[57] lower than that of some sub-Saharan countries.[58] The growth of the industrial sector was the principal stimulus to economic development. In 1986, manufacturing industries accounted for approximately 30 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) and 25 percent of the work force. Benefiting from strong domestic encouragement and foreign aid, Seoul's industrialists introduced modern technologies into outmoded or newly built facilities at a rapid pace, increased the production of commodities—especially those for sale in foreign markets—and plowed the proceeds back into further industrial expansion. As a result, industry altered the country's landscape, drawing millions of laborers to urban manufacturing centers.”
A good book that talks about this economic transformation and how it was achieved is bad Samaritan’s:
https://www.amazon.com/Bad-Samaritans-Secret-History-Capital...
The books author is a Korean economist who grew up during this period. One point that he makes which is very interesting is that South Korea had very strict laws preventing its academics from migrating to other countries. Those that did travel abroad to study were forced to return and participate in the economic development of the country. He attributes this as part of the reason for South Korea’s turn around.
China is another economic success story that restricts its citizens movements. Not saying that I agree with either of these policies. Just bringing them up as eastern counterpoints to the notion that unlimited free trade and free movement are the optimal states for economic development.
>Somehow rote economic prosperity is not sufficient to make everyone up and move or there wouldn't be an American Samoa.
Probably those Samoans don't assume that they would be welcomed and be making $58K in California. More likely they'd join the millions of piss poor latinos, just without their families and old communities.
And still, with a Samoa population of 200K, there are 100K Samoan immigrants in the US and 150K in New Zealand. Most of the Samoan population (400K) live outside the country.
>It's interesting, why do you think individual states in the US "giving up their sovereignty" by way of control on migration was successful, but doing so at any broader scale wouldn't be? That's 325M people -- they're not all in California and New York, are they?
For one, who said it was successful? As you say, those US states lost their sovereignty in the process - which is exactly what I maintained nation states would probably want to maintain.
Second, unlike existing nations, those states were "tabula rasa" from a cultural perspective, huge empty areas to be filled with people (although even in this case, things didn't ended very well for the actual natives, the native Americans).
Third, it's not like those states have much of a meaningful local culture, or much on taxation and other such policies. Thank's to gerrymandering and a broken party people they can even get a president most of their people voted against. And the coasts have to suffer the politics and politicians voted by the mainland states, and vice versa.
Surely they are not the best example to make the case for "open borders while maintaining one's sovereignity".
But I guess your question is not predicated on that, but on the migration patterns to those states. As in, people didn't just jump in there from all areas -- e.g. to all end up living in California or New York and so.
But that's also a broken analogy. If NY had a much better standard of living than the other states, so much so that people were willing to leave their own states, local communities and connections, people would immigrate there in droves.
Lots did actually - e.g. millions have immigrated internally into California during the Dust Bowl crisis, creating shanty towns and lots of turmoil in the process. But while there is still work to be found around most of the 50 states, there's no much reason to predominantly prefer one over the other. And the US has been relatively stable and prosperous economy, in fact the #1 economy in the world for a century or so.
Here we're talking a billion (or more) people from developing countries that wouldn't mind to make the jump to another western country.
>Moreover, why doesn't everyone in the free movement area in Europe pile into Switzerland?
For one, because the difference in quality of life is not enough to leave e.g. Sweden or Spain, or France, or even Hungary, and go to live in very expensive country, without a job waiting for you.
You are right that "Plenty of people move from eastern Europe, but there's still last I counted 38M people in Poland. They're not all in the UK, Germany or France. Local language, local culture, local jobs, economy, opportunities, family -- these all tie you to a place." -- but we're not talking about people with "local jobs, economy, and opportunities", but about hundreds of millions in much poorer regions, that start from much lower conditions.
Second, because you need to obtain a residency permit, and prove that you can sustain yourself while in Switzerland for any stay over a few months. So willy nilly migrating there without money in the bank, being accepted into a university, or a job waiting for you is not an option. And not just that, but the Swiss have voted to restore immigration quotas for EU citizens (and already have special stricter quotas for specific countries in EU, namely the poorer ones).
It won't work because the us is so super duper awesome. Everyone would want to move here and take our guns or something.
Please don't post unsubstantive comments here.