Free people movement is the way to global prosperity

We must accept that restrictive immigration policies are racist unless there is a morally relevant basis for tightly limiting the number of people we permit to join our privileged society.

A relevant reason cannot be a person’s birth place. This is merely a happy or unhappy accident. Much of what is important to a person’s flourishing should not turn on so little - morality requires that to the maximum extent possible luck is taken out of the benefits and burdens equation.

National security is commonly used to justify a tight migration policy. While we have a legitimate right to security, this only justifies a policy of strict security checks. This is tacitly accepted by governments. Western nations accept a far greater number of tourists than migrants.

We are relaxed about tourists because we derive a net positive economic advantage from them. This gain, however, is not a moral justification for consigning much of the world to a life of destitution, merely a western expedient.

It has also been claimed that too many foreigners would diminish our material prosperity. Research is equivocal about this. Some models suggest the opposite - that immigrants have a net positive effect on the economy.

In any event, a slight diminution in the living standard of western countries is a small price to pay to reduce global destitution. To determine whether a more relaxed approach to migration is justifiable, one cannot look at the situation only from the perspective of the locals. There is no ethical basis for ranking the interests of one person higher than another.

Arguments that open migration would lead to cultural dilution are unsound. What for one person represents cultural dilution, for another amounts to cultural enrichment. There is no objective point of reference from which these positions can be set off. They are by definition culturally relevant. Morality, on the other hand, consists of universal principles, which apply to all people equally.

This vision represents a vastly different world. People ought to be able to travel and settle in any country of their choice so long as they do not present a security threat and the nation has the resources to sustain them.

Is this likely to happen in the foreseeable future? No. Patriotism and materialism are such powerful forces that no amount of moral persuasion is likely to quickly reverse existing western migration policies. We must at least start seriously debating the notion of the free movement of people, otherwise we are forever forced to confront the racist within us.