Bryan CaplanBesprekingen

The book was entertaining and informative. Before reading this novel I had no idea that there was an economic factor to immigration. The author writes to the layperson so you don't need to know much about economics in order to understand what he is saying. What Caplan says about the economics is that people who emigrate will get jobs and pay taxes. Their children will be well educated and contribute to society. He believes that this is a win win for everyone even if it costs you something up front when they first arrive.

Some of the author's arguments seemed preachy. In the middle of my read, I realized that he has footnotes at the back of the book for every argument that he makes. However, there is no notation on the page advising that these notes exist or where he obtained his facts. I ended up re-reading the book in order to get his, and my own, facts straight. His data comes from good sources and his arguments for open borders are compelling. Caplan mainly argues that low-skilled immigrants should be allowed unrestricted entry into the U. S.

Overall I liked it- an economist makes the case for open borders, illustrated by SMBC's [a:Zach Weinersmith|4094380|Zach Weinersmith|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494889920p2/4094380.jpg][a:Zach Weinersmith|4094380|Zach Weinersmith|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1494889920p2/4094380.jpg], and though addressed to a general audience, as an economist he makes the argument that allowing free movement of people is primarily a lucrative financial boon globally, that the host country gains needed labor while the workers who come here benefit from quality of life as well as sending money back home which raises quality of life there.

The suggestion of using keyhole solutions to address specific conservative grievances is literal gatekeeping, though, and already contributes to the astronomical amount of time waiting "in line" for an opening, whether it be for skilled workers or people who marry and must prove via documents/social media posts/friend testimony/etc. that their relationship is legitimate.

And of course, so much of discussion over immigration policy is based on old evergreen xenophobic arguments- the same "they won't assimilate because they're too Other/they bring disease and drugs/etc." arguments were applied to the Chinese 150 years ago and repeated for various other groups, so unfortunately addressing the actual "economic concerns" by citizenists may fall on deaf ears. Could be a persuasive argument for that elusive moderate, though.

As a person who expected to never have kids now contemplating parenthood, this book was, uh, rhetorically useful; it got me thinking about things in a different way and challenging some of my long-held beliefs. It tries to walk the fine line between essay and meta-analysis, but I felt kind of bludgeoned by studies after a while and skimmed the last half of the book. He's thorough, though.

I still have a hard time accepting that the twin studies are as definitive as presented.

I have never heard or read anything about the Open Borders topic or going beyond the popular opinions on immigration policies. This book is an excellent introduction and a compelling argument on why they should be more immigrants. I really feel I have gotten a high level picture with more nuances about this. I love the medium of graphic novel, as it can reach a lot many more people.

Economist Bryan Caplan and cartoonist Zachary Weinersmith. What a bizarro-world combo, yet oddly super compelling. This is a personal favorite for me because it combines two passions of mine: advocacy for robust immigration reform (specifically pro-open borders) and the wit and art of the Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal webcomic. I couldn't wait to get my hands on this book when it was first announced, and was thrilled to attend their book launch event at the Cato Institute. What they accomplished in this book is exactly what I think has been needed in the immigration debate: an argument for the extreme that doesn't come across as condescending or irrational.

Caplan lays out the economic and philosophical/moral principals that back a case for open borders in a way that gets to the crux of it all, while being easy to digest. Caplan's referencing real world examples and hypotheticals to explain each point and break down the minutiae really made it easy to follow each concept. Caplan systematically dismantles each argument against open borders, whether it be economic arguments, national security/law and order, or just purely moral arguments. I thought one of the book's strongest sections is where Caplan takes on the main different ethical frameworks and shows how each one makes the case for open borders. It really demonstrated how arguing against immigration really relies on fear rather than logic, undermining many of the arguments against it.

This is the kind of book needed in a time when immigration has become such a prominent issue in global, national, and local politics. While personally I am pro-open borders myself, I understand that the political realities make this a near impossibility, at least in my lifetime. But as Caplan explains, while he too is pro-open borders, his goal is to shift the Overton Window to make immigration liberalization a more viable political position. By making open borders a mainstream position, but still the extreme position, it makes other immigration liberalization measures more reasonable to the general public. By removing the stigma of "only radicals believe in open borders," we can make the case for immigration liberalization more readily accepted.

I truly believe that everyone needs to read this book. Not just people who might be on the fence about open borders, but people fully opposed to it, and people fully in favor of it too. There's much to be gained by reading Bryan and Zach's work, whether its a changing of your opposition to immigration, or a better understanding of the arguments to be made in favor of it to make you a better advocate for it.

I support much more legal immigration than now exists, and I thought the book had a lot of good points, but it seemed kind of tone deaf as well. Caplan tried to respond to many arguments against immigration but didn’t really address the feelings behind those arguments. The comic book format was certainly fun and easy to read, but the illustrations weren’t especially endearing to me.

"Altrusim and morality have a consumption cost like any other..."

There are two ways to look at Kaplan's work:
1. That this is a cynical work on political game theory that predicts the rise of Trump like figures.
2. That politcal economy, however unseemly, is a fascinating result of the electorate, politicians, media and so on attempting to navigate the fundamental irrational forces at work in democracy.

Ultimately, Kaplan's point is often that markets, both economic and behavioural, trump idealogy in terms of what motivates policies.

Bryan Caplan is an economist (at George Mason University no less) who lays out an argument for lifting restrictions on immigration. And he does so in graphic novel form, illustrated by Zach Weinersmith of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal fame. I'm naturally receptive to the idea of open borders as someone whose politics are informed by compassion for others and welcoming diversity. But Caplan uses the economic consensus to make the case for how immigration benefits all people, even the natives of prosperous nations, in ways designed to appeal to the logic of conservative and libertarian mindsets. Will it work? Who knows, but I'm glad that someone is making the case and in such a fun, colorful medium!½

Caplan's main thesis here is that nature matters more than nurture. He has twin and adoption studies to back him up. So therefore, all things being equal, (i.e. we aren't talking about abusive parents, drug addicts, etc) parenting STYLE really doesn't matter. Your kid is going to grow up and be whoever they are whether you're a big hippie like me or more of a super-nanny type. So driving ourselves crazy trying to be perfect so that we can ensure a bright future for them is silly and we should all just relax. He claims it is good for society and yourself to have more kids than you are planning on--so for people who plan on none, have one. For those planning two, have three, etc.

Now, this book is obviously geared toward a certain type of person--a person who is debating whether or not to have more kids is someone who likely has the means to do so. Caplan doesn't really address the financial aspect of increasing family size, other than to say that kids aren't as expensive as we make them and that in the 50s people had way more kids on way less money.

It was an interesting argument, and I was especially intrigued by the adoption studies that showed children were more like their bio parents than their adoptive parents regardless of how they were raised. I don't know if I'm completely on board with this author's argument, but it did make me think about how it's myopic to look at parenting in the short term and to ask myself how many kids I want when I'm sixty. (The answer? At least the one I already have. Still not sure about more.)

I cannot take a book seriously that does not take a good, hard look at global capitalism and neocolonialism. While I'm sympathetic to the idea of open borders, nothing is going to fundamentally change about our planet if humans just move around without changing how wealth is distributed or how most countries systems are set up to reward the rich at the expense of the poor.

I think there's good case against Education. But I think the author did not quite make his case.

When he said, Philosophy as useless -- I think, I had to chuck his thoughts on it.

I've spent enough time in reading, understanding Philosophy. It's complicated, requires intense effort and understanding to finish a simple Kantian Book.

What do we gain after it?

- We engage with best minds in Human Civilization
- Our thoughts are raised to a higher level
- Our thoughts are shaped by best thinkers
- They become systematic
- We can learn abstract, conceptual thought by reading Philosophy.
- We can expand and understand new fields of Human Knowledge as Philosophy is the foundation

Overall, I would recommend this to someone who want to rant against Modern Education. There's a lot we can work on improving Modern Education.

But I wouldn't throw a blanket statement on calling it useless.

Deus Vult,
Gottfried

It's amusing that this book has been denounced as product of economic fundamentalism. Caplan is denouncing the very assumption of rationality that underpins so much of economic theory - which is pretty heterodox of him. And he's making the discussion accessible to general public, which is what one would expect political scientists to have done long ago. But political scientists have generally endorsed the idea of "one person, one vote" because they see it as more conducive to redistributive/welfare policies. Hence for the most part political scientists have confined their discussions of voter behavior to academic papers that journalists (or median voters; or entrepreneurial politicians) are unlikely to read. It took a Bryan Caplan to familiarize the general public with the notion of rational ignorance and to fully explore its most important implication, i.e., that perhaps we should consider restricting the franchise. That probably sounded like lunacy when the book first came out, back in 2007, but my guess is that now, after Trump's election, even political scientists might be a bit more open to the idea.

Readers expecting a “contrarian for contrarianism’s sake” stance will be disappointed to find plenty of systematic evidence and well-reasoned arguments. Caplan is utterly convincing; I’m ashamed of the flowery beliefs I had before reading this book.

Caplan’s ideas are amusingly consistent with some traditionally lefty agendas - like “make education more relevant to students’ lives” - and the policy reforms Caplan proposes would disproportionately benefit the poor. Yet it’s hard to imagine many lefties reading the book, let alone publicly endorsing it or even suggesting it should be discussed. Too bad for the students and for everyone else.

Every now and then, I pick up a book and absolutely disagree with it from the start. Sometimes I decide to read those books. This is one of them.

Caplan does make good points when stating that the initial investment of time and resources into childrearing is not greatly increased when having multiple children in succession. He also examines a number of happiness studies to determine that “customer satisfaction” when having children is greater than the regret of non-parents.

Perhaps my main issue with this book is not the economic arguments (which, coming from an economist, are fairly sound) but the emphasis that he places on family studies and genetics, without having a background in either field. Reading a few excerpts regarding the heredity of criminal traits to my aforementioned boyfriend (who happens to be studying genetics) resulted in a baffled “What?!?” and though I myself have no expertise in science, I know contradicting statements when I read them.

An excellent economics/politics/psychology book. Author presents a coherent model for why people can (rationally) vote stupidly — basically, because it makes them feel good. Also extensively analyzes why people in their role as the electorate can have objectively irrational beliefs without hurting themselves too much, and why policies end up less bad than the electorate would otherwise demand.

Caplan makes an excellent case against the Education-Government Complex on multiple grounds — that the value of education is primarily (80%?) signaling vs skill, that the skills taught are largely irrelevant to most students, that students don’t get much skill or viewpoint change from their time in education, and more. In general I agree with him, although I do think he undervalues a class of quantitative, mathematical, scientific, and analytics skills to a large number of workers — things which one learns incidentally to STEM education but which could easily be taught in a more vocational or even primary school to high school context.

Making any kind of argument against education is extreme wrongthink; I’m amazed even a tenured professor is able to do this in modern America. In addition to touching on issues of inherent intelligence and social class, the “education makes sense for women as a place to find mates, even if they don’t intend to remain in the labor market” is probably difficult to admit.

He does seem to think employers wouldn’t use IQ tests if they were allowed; while the Supreme Court ruling prohibits tests with “disparate impact”, there are enough state and other concerns that firms seem to shy away from tests.

Overall, a great book and interesting argument.

This is a pretty good argument that within a limited set of circumstances (middle class first world families) there isn’t much to be gained from the absurdly over intensive parenting of the past ~40 years, and that by relaxing expectations, it becomes reasonable to have marginally more children. He presents arguments that future-you would prefer to have had more children (probably valid for many people), but some of his arguments about the net utility of “left side of bell curve” people to society seem pretty weak — Japan is doing quite well. One thing I found interesting was how even small ($500-4000) cash payments to prospective parents increased the number of children they had.

The format of this book (graphic novel) is probably second only to catchy short videos with personal stories as a way to push an arbitrary agenda to people.

Unfortunately, while it makes some arguments, it also commits one big statistical/logical fallacy repeatedly: if 1 x A is good, then 100 x A will be 100x better than 1 x A. A lot of things are non-linear. Making an argument that the entire population of earth migrating to the US will produce effects which are just linearly estimated from current trends is insane. Aside from the changing marginal quality of immigrants as you go from the best to the average to the last (even within a given "educational level"), there are non-linear effects on society due to different proportions of immigrants.

Another area which is largely glossed over is the political consequence of immigration. "Low-education voluntary immigrants are only slightly left, and they don't vote very much anyway" isn't a convincing argument.

The assumption that the government will do X and Y together is also usually wrong -- often they just do X and then forget about the corresponding Y, so it's reasonable to oppose X even if you think X Y is better than no-X no-Y.

Due to statistics recording children of immigrants as citizens (due to birthright citizenship in the US), it's harder to identify total costs of immigrant offspring.

I respect the book for putting forth an argument (and in a particularly persuasive format), but it's not complete or convincing.

This is without a doubt the best book I've read this year, if not ever.

Caplan delivers spectacularly on the title. Not only is it a rebuttal of the common view of economists that everyone always acts rationally, but it also strongly argues that humans are _particularly bad_ in the political arena. The book persuasively challenges many common criticisms of democracy: that most voters are stupid and only vote in self-interest, that bureaucratic inefficiencies are a bad thing, that politicians are mostly crooked, that low-voter turnout is a bad thing, and that democracies aren't very good at giving the people what they ask for.

MY GOOD IS THIS BOOK GOOD.

If you accept Caplan's premise, and evidently I do, the consequences he points out are staggering. "Get out and vote" campaigns are actively harmful to society. If you're running for office, you should in fact not keep your campaign promises. It's a delightfully different lens for looking at the world, and one which puts a lot more into perspective than I realized beforehand.

Good breakdown of a complex topic. More politicians need to read this and realize how beneficial open boarders would be in so many respects.

I can't really judge the content, not being an economist. But the presentation was very well done: The arguments were clear, with good rhethoric lines and arc, and the illustrations were pretty good, too. There was a fair bit of stereotyping going on, but I think that's more than fair on this topic: People's fears and concerns are based on stereotypes, so they are part of the discussion already, and need to be addressed.

Caplan makes a compelling argument for open borders. I have a few minor qualms here and there but overall I think it provides some very interesting evidence in an accessible way

An economics professor at a prestigious university arguing that our current educational system is a waste of time and money is automatically interesting. Add to that the way it is presented is both interesting and backed by data. Loads of data. Ultimately he may not want to agree with the author but you can't say the position isn't backed by data. He even gives a link to a spreadsheet where you can change things and see the ultimate effects.

The other remarkable thing about this book is that the author is very upfront about his biases and offers space where he lets others disagree with him. Two things that just aren't usually done, but should be done all the time.

Highly recommended.