[amarkov]

> Obviously I can't verify this, but for example he had a professor who actively taught that nations are a completely artificial social construct, and as such all immigration policies of any sort are illegitimate and harmful.

But that's a very mainstream position in economics, with much stronger arguments behind it than ideological purity. And it's typically supported by libertarians more than progressives, since the arguments are weakened by strong government-provided social services.

This is what I worry about, when I hear people complain that their views aren't tolerated on campus. Are they really being shut down by intolerant professors who won't accept dissent? Or are they dismissing ideas they don't immediately find reasonable as far-left propaganda and refusing to listen?

[smallnamespace]

This was hearsay from a secondhand source so I can't opine as to whether the interpretation was accurate.

However there are obviously large cultural, economic, security and other logistical issues that would be caused by completely opening up national borders -- we're certainly no longer in the era before WWI when nobody needed a passport. The classroom certainly sounds like a legitimate place to bring up these rather mainstream viewpoints.

Did some research and it does seem like there are both student- and teacher-led protests that are crossing the line into unreasonableness (from my perspective), e.g. protests against a humanities class for being too Eurocentric [1], or student demands for a Jewish professor to be fired because he publicly disagrees with a 'Day of Absence' event that asks for white students and faculty to stay off campus [2].

Then there's the promulgation of microaggression theory on campuses, which seems perfectly tailored to encourage all students to view every statement in the least charitable light[3] and to search for possible racism, sexism, or other possible -isms.

The fact that some people on the left are acting in a way where any disagreement with some interpretation of 'progressive' ideals automatically leads to accusations of racism is alarming, and is exactly the sort of prejudice (in the literal definition of the word) that I think fellow liberals should rally against.

[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/09/11/reed-college-...

[2] https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/05/30/escalating-de... -

[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/09/the-ris...

[aaron-lebo]

But that's a very mainstream position in economics, with much stronger arguments behind it than ideological purity.

What mainstream economists believe all immigration policies are illegitimate and harmful? Not being snarky.

That would be considered a fairly ideological stance in most other fields. I've never heard that expressed in political science (some overlap with economics) from anyone but people on HN and Reddit.

[michaelbuckbee]

Yeah, it's just impossible to know how biased this interpretation or the initial statements from the professor were.

Lots of things like these are discussed in the same way as physics professors say: "Imagine an infinite frictionless plane" - that it's a model for thinking about concepts and not a policy plan.

Imagine a completely borderless world where the only goal is literally economic efficiency - capital and labor are able to migrate freely anywhere and anything less is harmful in a strictly economic sense.

Practically, that's a bad idea for lots of reasons (like it might be economically efficient for someone to murder me, but I'd find it rather inconvenient) - so maybe some rules about passage of criminals and you can go on from there.

[amarkov]

The standard example is Michael Clemens, who argues the total cost of closed borders to the world is in the trillions of dollars. If you want an article reviewing more views: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/10/14/why-e...

The basic argument is just the standard free market argument. if A would like to sell their labor and B would like to buy it, and the government intervenes to stop them, that destroys whatever value they could have gotten from the exchange. The fact that there are some border markers between A and B doesn't change that value, although it may introduce externalities.

[camgunz]

It's essentially a weird labor market protectionism policy, and really no economist argues protectionism is good.

[m00g00]

Libertarians support open borders as a means to free movement of labor. As you alluded to, they also do not believe in taxpayer funded social services, much less granting rights of citizenship to not-naturalized immigrants.

This combination of ideas is not at all what is being espoused in liberal universities. They are pushing for both open borders (or at least amnesty and much less restrictive immigration laws) and guaranteed social services for immigrants.

Libertarians certainly don't view nations as "completely artificial illegitimate social construct" and I seriously doubt most college professors are teaching from that ideology's point of view. Libertarians are often as demonized as Republicans at universities.