I wonder if there’s possibly any way of imposing symmetry on the whole open borders thing, in a way that would matter.
If you decide to split the difference and make some areas open borders and other areas closed borders to that closed-borders people can live by themselves while open borders people benefit or suffer from the consequences of their decisions, then open borders people will come back six months later and demand the closed borders areas be opened immediately as a moral demand.
If you decide to make open borders contingent on paying off closed borderers with money, the open borders crowd will decry this as immoral and unfair to the global poor.
If you make anyone who comes in via open borders the financial responsibility of open border-supporters, they will decry this as immoral and unfair, because they are individuals and the people they are bringing in are individuals, and culture has nothing to do with their behavior and this is all the fault of those dity closed borderers.
However, it isn’t actually possible to solve global poverty with open borders. To meet the carrying capacity, the nations themselves must be made significantly more productive, and that means greater infrastructure and fewer children in order to concentrate parental investment.
This is not really what I meant.
I meant more like “can we impose open borders on the countries that are going to be net sources of immigrants”.
Countries like Brazil are already pretty lax about their immigration policies, but this wouldn’t do much of anything to decrease opposition to open borders.