THE LIBERTARIAN CLUB CONUNDRUM: Open Borders, Local Norms, and What I Learned at the Megachurch
ANTHONY GILL
Political Science University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-3530 [email protected]
INITIAL DRAFT: NOT FOR CITATION.
The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill
ABSTRACT Can a libertarian club be so open to new membership that it no longer becomes a forum for libertarianism? This question is used to explore the trade-offs in an open-borders immigration policy. While open membership has many beneficial effects for clubs, communities, and nations, there are trade-offs that need to be acknowledged that may help explain why laissez faire immigration policies are often very unpopular. Previous explanations for hostility towards (more) open borders have rested upon short-term labor dislocations, downward pressure on wage rates, contestation for public resources, a lack of understanding of the benefits of immigration by citizens, and/or outright bigotry. This essay focuses on how immigration affects local norms/values that serve informally to govern the use of resources. Informal social norms and values help to define and regulate property rights within cultural communities allowing such groups to avoid recourse to formal laws and regulations that are costly to monitor and enforce. However, when a significant number of migrants who do not share pre-existing community norms enter a local community, they increase uncertainty over property rights. This uncertainty may prompt conflict and/or calls for more formally specified regulations that reduce flexibility and limit the ability to compensate short-term “losers” under the new rules. Small numbers of individuals moving into a new community will be under greater pressure to conform to pre-existing norms than larger populations that can retain different norms in separate sub- cultures (yet which still lay claim on resources from the extant community). Drawing upon scholarship in the economics of religion, I demonstrate how some religious organizations may offer a model for balancing the benefits that result from in-migration while preserving group identity and mitigating conflict. Such a strategy echoes calls for assimilation that are often raised in immigration debates.
AUTHOR’S NOTE This paper represents my initial foray into a new area of inquiry, based tangentially on my previous research on the political economy of religion. Taking the prerogatives granted to me by full professor status, this draft is limited in references to the extensive literature on norms, immigration, assimilation and other related fields. There will be undoubtedly many “blind spots” and perhaps much redundancy with what has already been said on the topic. In large part, this is a personal exercise for me to work through the pressing issues of immigration reform on my own, applying some of what I am familiar with in my own academic bailiwick. If it brings some interesting insights to others, or prompts us to challenge some of our current understandings, all the better. It is also a response to the “100% open borders” crowd, who I believe may be overlooking some important problems that naturally (and historically) arise with rapid movements of populations across different communities. My personal sympathies lie with a laissez faire policy on immigration, tempered by my understanding of the short-term costs that specific communities may have to manage. For all of this, I ask your patience, understanding, and constructive criticism. [My open-ended questions and struggles are presented in brackets and blue text in the paper, indicating where I would like advice. Of course, there may be many other places for advice as well. Also, I include an obscene number of footnotes that include many of my off-hand comments and observations that form the subtext of my thinking, and things that I think are just downright humorous and quirky. A long time ago I decided that if I am going to do this job, I’m going to do it on my terms, which is with humor and quirkiness. This is not a good strategy for graduate students and young scholars starting out, but I am neither now.] This work is also part of a broader intellectual exercise exploring the relationship between informal norms and formal legal/regulatory codes in managing social order. It is premised on the belief that
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill individuals much prefer social order and predictability to chaos and uncertainty, and design both “soft” and “hard” institutions to mitigate the latter. A libertarian (or “liberty-based”) society will prefer to minimize the reliance on formal rules and hierarchical control. I take more-than-partial inspiration from James Buchanan’s concept of “ordered anarchy,” wherein common manners and etiquette guide social relations more so than Leviathan-centric guidance. Nonetheless, formal rules are inevitable in “large” societies, if nothing more than a basic constitution, set of by-laws, or chasse partie (i.e., a pirate constitution). To this end, I seek to explore answers to the following questions:
• How do liberty-loving societies preserve the informal norms and stave off a slide towards more hierarchical laws/regulations? • What are the consequences of changing norms for society? I wish to emphasize several key points in the paper (in particular) and my larger research project:
• Social norms (and values) are important methods of organizing and coordinating social behavior. Scholars, particularly political economists, often overlook the ubiquitous nature of these forms of “social control,” preferring instead to examine more formal (and documented) laws and regulations. • Even seemingly meaningless social norms (e.g., holding open a door for elders) play a significant role in mitigating uncertainty and smoothing out social relations. Small violations of such “irrelevant” norms can play an important role in signaling intentions in other realms of behavior. • Social norms (and values) function best locally; larger societies will move towards more formalization of standards of behavior. This has important ramifications for our notions of federalism or subsidiarity. (Megachurches adopts a federalist model via “small groups.”) • “Bigotry” or “xenophobia” may not be an inherent characteristics of humans, but rather result from the contextual uncertainty arising from conflicting norms, even small norms. To the extent that “bigotry” is an innate characteristic or a situational outcome has important ramifications for how we address issues of social conflict, and might suggest that some more hierarchical efforts to counter “bigotry” may have the exact opposite effects. Other papers in this general scholarly agenda include “The Libertarian Clown Conundrum,” asking how a liberty-based society deals with individuals wearing creepy clown costumes who stare into people’s windows from public sidewalks, and “Cultural Paternalism,” a paper exploring how elite efforts to change norms rapidly either by social pressure and/or legislation can have a deleterious effect on local governance and freedom. It would be ideal if I could keep with the “conundrum” theme and establish alliterative titles, perhaps creating a whole “conundrum series” and making me “the conundrum guy” (which, in turn, might boost my Google H-score). Suggestions to this end are welcomed.
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill
“I like to sit on things. I sat on Black Swan for 20 years. There's scientific papers I've been sitting on now for 25 years. So, I like to sit on things; and it has always paid for me.” – Nassim Taleb (EconTalk, August 14, 2017).
“Well, let’s put that to the test.” -- Anthony Gill (moments after hearing Taleb say that and thinking about this paper).
INTRODUCTION: THE LIBERTARIAN CLUB’S CONUNDRUM Can a libertarian club be so open to new membership that it no longer becomes a forum for libertarianism? This hypothetical question is designed to spur theoretical thought into the nature of local norms and values, how they establish community boundaries, how individuals organize to protect those norms and values, and what happens when cultural challenges to norms and values threaten the identity of a pre-existing group. While challenges to norms/values may come organically from within a group, my focus here is how change originates externally, primarily through the migration of individuals across group boundaries. More generally, I attempt to explore the nexus between norm-based and hierarchical forms of social order. This scholarly exercise proposes a nuanced challenge to the libertarian impulse for open borders. While acknowledging the economic benefits of free migration, I seek to point out potential trade- offs that may be overlooked. Imagine a student organization created to discuss and promote the ideals of a free society. These ideals include the principle (value) of free movement of individuals. To that end, the group maintains a policy of open membership to all-comers, irrespective of whether they agree with values and norms of the group, like a good liberty-loving group should. The club possesses a set of by-laws specifying group leadership, scope of group activities, and procedures for altering the by-laws. These rules serve as minimalist Buchanan- esque constitution so as to provide some foundational degree of certainty for members. Beyond the formal rules guiding the organization, there are a set of informal norms that govern behavior, including commonly- shared expectations about leadership transition, the activities and issues that the group pursues, and how club meetings are run.1 For instance, while there may be formal rules for a contested election of leadership, it may be a “common practice” (i.e., norm) that the incoming president and council is selected by the outgoing leadership and put before the members uncontested for unanimous approval.2 Likewise, there may be
1 I can’t help but think about APEE, which tends to attract more liberty-loving individuals who (I would guess) would be more favorable to open borders and unrestricted migration than many other gatherings of academics. (Just a hunch.) I might also surmise that members of APEE are rather “evangelical” in their beliefs and would seek a broad audience. However, a recent episode involving “agitators” who opposed certain funding sources of the organization disrupted a number of the panels via video/audio taping and using such tapes in a manner that some officials of the group found distasteful (or “against the norm” or “misrepresenting the club”). To that end, the following gathering included more forceful rules to determine who could “come in” to panels and who could not. Granted, some individual members had no problem with anybody recording their presentations during the meetings, but the group itself did try to insulate itself from “outsiders” who were deemed disruptive to the interests and norms of the organization. [I’m somewhat vague on the details of all of this, being relatively new to APEE so would be interested in whether or not this is an analogous situation.] 2 Consider how many professional organizations such as the Association for Private Enterprise Education, the American Political Science Association, the American Economic Association, or an academic department determine leadership. While there may be formal by-laws specifying eligibility for leadership and rules about elections, it is not uncommon for the previous leadership to select a slate of candidates for general approval of the membership and this slate is approved unchallenged and (relatively) unanimously. Such leadership selection is considered a “norm,” rather than a rule. During
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill commonly held expectations that everybody chips in a few bucks for the food provided, members informally agree to rotate the job of procuring the food, and informal ways that other tasks are shared across the members.3 Now imagine that a group of non-libertarian outsiders begin to attend the University Libertarian Club’s meetings. These newcomers do not share the values and normative practices of the pre-existing members. They eat the food provided, but do not chip in for its provision, nor do they volunteer to procure food or help out with other tasks (e.g., putting away folding chairs).4 They may also not share the core set of values upon which the club was established (e.g., limited government). Over time, the number of these non- libertarian members grows to the point where they can contest an election and win leadership positions according to the formal by-laws, but which undermine the informal way things are done. Indeed, the mere act of contesting an election, contrary to the informal procedures, may create conflict and hostility within the group. The winning leadership may have values at odds with the values underlying the founding principles of the group, and the libertarian club no longer is strictly “libertarian.” How can the members holding the founding ideals and norms respond? Is there a possibility that such a scenario of “invasiveness by outsiders” can be anticipated and the libertarian club places certain restrictions upon membership that are not in tune with an “open membership” policy, but which allows the founders to preserve their original group identity and practices? Such a scenario may seem far-fetched, but Why such a scenario may ever arise may seem far-fetched. After all, why would one want to join a group to which they do not share the same values or norms? Such situations may seem rare, but they do occur as when atheists lobby to join Christian clubs in public schools, or when progressive theologians gradually work their way into previously-conservative Christian denominations over time leading to rifts. And then, of course, there is the “Curious Case of the Catholic Colony Collapse” (so named for its wonderful alliteration). In 1632, the English King Charles I granted Cecil (Lord Baltimore) Calvert a charter to establish a Catholic colony in what is now Maryland under the condition that religious freedom for Protestants was protected. Within a few decades, a sufficient number of Protestants, taking advantage of such freedom (and attracted by the great crabbing), had moved into the territory and effectively ousted the Catholics and created an established Congregationalist church (Gill 2008, 92-93; Dolan 1992, 75-76)!5
the first decade of the 21st century, the “perestroika movement” challenged the leadership and other academic norms within the APSA, at one point running a competitive slate of candidates against the “selected set” of next officers. 3 At this point in time, I ask the reader to do a quick mental survey of the informal norms in their academic department and/or any other social group (e.g., pick-up basketball league). How pervasive are these norms? How much do they substitute for formally written rules? In my home department of political science, we have a norm wherein junior faculty are given a very light service load with the expectation that they will use their years running up to tenure to develop a strong research agenda and solidify their portfolio of courses. Once they are tenured, the expectation is that they will pick up more service load, including chairing different committees. Also, individuals who have chosen a lighter publication load in their career are informally expected to do more of the administrative “heavy lifting.” 4 The reader may, at this point, be thinking ahead that one of the critiques of the “open borders” approach to follow is that immigrants partake of public goods provided within a country, but do not pay taxes for their provision. While this is a common critique of liberal immigration policies, the focus here is not on the actual use or payment for the resource, but rather the normative (informal) practice for how it is provided. In the imagined club above, there is not written rule for how food will be paid for, but everybody “just kinda knows” that we all throw in a few dollars based upon what we used and what we may feel is needed to sustain the practice in the future. I will be making the case later that it may not be the use of the resource that matters as much as it is the violation of the common understanding amongst members about “how things are done.” 5 Anyone reading this paper might also have examples of academic departments that have seen significant “cultural shifts” over time, often leading to hostile rifts amongst the faculty. Likewise with various foundations experiencing “mission creep” or outright changes (cf. Ford Foundation).
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill
Solutions to this conundrum may also seem rather obvious and mundane: The displaced founding members could simply exit and form a new group. But that solution isn’t all that easy. First, unpleasant conflict among membership may arise, which represents a significant cost to members. Few people genuinely like conflict and most seek to avoid it. Second, the process of exit is not costless and involves a significant amount of work to re-establish rules, become re-chartered by some higher authority, and worry about all of this happening again. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, group assets might be up for grab, not the least of which is the actual name and reputation of the initial organization. If the University Libertarian Club is taken over by a group of central planners who then run student informational campaigns about the benefits of Keynesianism, the original founders of the club may have reasonable concern that their core purpose and reputation will be tarnished, and all the work that came before it depreciated.6 All of these costs suggest a potential strategy for opponents of the organization to disrupt the group.7 It should not be surprising, then, that groups may seek to establish institutional boundaries to mitigate such potential costs and/or resort to more formal (hierarchical) methods of eliminating the problems caused by challenges to the informal rules. To the extent that unfiltered membership flows (i.e., open borders) give rise to the problem of altering informal norms/values and create uncertainty, we should expect groups to seek means to control the influx of members and that such “migration control” may be beneficial to long-term group cohesion and the provision of the group’s public goods. This is not to say that “migration control” is unequivocally a good thing, just as to note that “open borders” are unequivocally bad, but rather to point out the subtle trade-offs that do occur to social norms/values, certainty, and formal rules that occur in the process of population changes. Moreover, rapid changes in social norms/values may promote calls for more intensive formal rules to deal with the uncertainty that undermines what James Buchanan called the “ordered anarchy … of ordinary social life” (1975, 20). And herein lies the conundrum: The desire for unmitigated freedom may create the conditions that may raise calls for the liberty to be repealed. (Normatively, while I am pro- immigration at the international and sub-national levels as commonly understood, I believe the ability to make arguments in favor of human mobility relies upon an understanding of the trade-offs faced in the process and serious thought given to how the costly sides of those trade-offs to individuals or groups can be mitigated.) This paper progresses in the following manner. First, I lay out the importance of informal social norms/values in reducing uncertainty and managing the “ordered anarchy of ordinary social life.” [This is, admittedly, the most developed part of the paper.] In the next section I briefly argue that clubs also alleviate social uncertainty by creating normative boundaries. Third, I “scale up” this argument to the open borders debate acknowledging that while nations are not clubs in the technical sense (cf. Somin 2017), sub-units of a nation do resemble quasi-clubs that people may be born into but yet still employ social norms/values as boundaries for membership. It is here that I argue that rapid changes in population may undermine social norms/values, increase uncertainty, and lead to calls for greater “law and order” (cf. Buchanan 1975, 20).8 [It is the latter sections, and most notably the one on “open borders” that I tread recklessly into a literature that I am not entirely steeped. This is where I look the most for constructive criticism.] I conclude with some lessons from the world of religion, pointing out that religious denominations and megachurches face a similar problem of wanting to promote “immigration” while still preserving a core identity rooted in informal norms
6 Just ask Roger Waters of Pink Floyd about this. More specifically, I have noted a great deal of infighting within various religious denominations and the libertarian movement about who is and is not a “true adherent,” with certain groups and institutes being tagged by others as heretics and false prophets. 7 Again, this seems hypothetical and implausible, but I never understood the motivations for atheists wanting to gain membership and the right to run for office in student Christian groups for anything other than to disrupt the organization. 8 It will become quite obvious that page 20 of Buchanan’s The Limits of Liberty serves as an inspiration for this work. About three or four years ago, when revisiting this book for a public choice class, this passage hit me like an atom bomb.
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill and values. The techniques of religious groups resemble “assimilation rituals” that are (or have been) a component of much immigration policy around the world and over time. How these spiritual organizations do this provide telling lessons that are worthy of attention of those working on immigration policy, both from an open and closed borders position.
ALLEVIATING UNCERTAINTY: KNOWLEDGE, NORMS, VALUES, AND CLUBS Mitigating the Uncertainty of Life: Market, State, and Culture. Let’s face it. Life is filled with uncertainty. Each of us is born into this world not knowing too much about what is to come. We possess basic emotional and intellectual impulses that help us navigate the world, but beyond that life is a great big mystery. Uncertainty makes it difficult for rational actors to calculate expected benefits and costs, and make informed choices.9 Often, “non-action” is the default choice under uncertainty, much the way investors hold on to cash when the policy environment is turbulent or Hobbesian people in the state of nature make few long-term investments. As such, alleviating uncertainty is a major task of individuals. We watch others and learn from their behavior. We consult mentors and teachers, friends and colleagues to learn what, when, where, why, and how to do things. Societies, writ large, also care about alleviating uncertainty. A person who lacks information about the intentions or capabilities of others often defers to caution, avoidance, or limited engagement with those other individuals. To the extent that societies flourish when trade is promoted, and larger trade networks necessarily involve exchanges between “relatively anonymous” actors, high levels of uncertainty will have a limiting effect on the expansion of trade. Building trust amongst large networks of anonymous individuals is key to economic prosperity and peaceful political bargaining (Fukuyama 1996; Braithwaite & Levi 1998; Tyler 1990).10 There are a number of ways to alleviate uncertainty that individuals and societies resort to, including the gathering of specific knowledge, the appeal to state-enforced laws, and reliance on a set of cultural signals to simplify knowledge acquisition. [These three roughly correspond to the categories of market, state, and culture, though overlap exists. Think about how to present this better.] The first is simply to acquire specific information about the intentions and capabilities of others by investigating past actions or current attributes (e.g., administering a test). Such effort is costly, though, particularly with respect to time. Moreover, the quality of the information gathered can vary greatly. Market mechanisms often simplify search costs. Private organizations such as Consumer Reports or TripAdvisor are market-institutional means of mitigating such search costs, but often apply to a narrow range of activities. Consumer Reports can help you evaluate cars and refrigerators, but are not as good at evaluating a new business partner that you are thinking of bringing on board an entrepreneurial project. Nor is CR the best means of obtaining a spouse.11
9 The rational choice assumption of expected utility calculation rests upon a further assumption that risk probabilities for different outcomes are reasonably well-known. Individuals can make well-informed choices when probable outcomes are known (e.g., a casino game). For purposes of an operational definition, uncertainty arises when the probability of different outcomes (and associated costs and benefits) are not well known. How “not well known” is somewhat vague and thus risk and uncertainty can be viewed on a continuum. 10 Fukuyama’s own publishing history, and the experience of book publishing overall, is an illustration of this point. Initially an unknown scholar, Fukuyama scored big with The End of History and the Last Man, selling numerous copies of this book based upon a previous article in the relatively obscure journal National Interest. After demonstrating to publishers that he could attract large audiences and sell books, it was easy for him to secure contracts with mass market publishers such as Free Press. 11 Having been off the marriage market for more than a couple decades now, long before the Internet was a “thing,” I am unsure if there exists a “consumer reports”-like rating system for online dating. We rate Uber drivers and Uber drivers rate their customers, but one could imagine the potential biases that would result from a similar process for dating apps. Perhaps a paper or short think piece is worth writing here.
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill
Laws and regulations are alternative institutional mechanisms that societies rely upon to mitigate the downside of uncertainty and asymmetric information. Here we have the power of the state to provide coercive mechanisms to solve information problems, or to disincentivize deception and fraud. Civil law courts, “lemon laws,” licensing regulations, and safety inspection agencies all fall under this category. These institutional solutions, while helpful, can also be relatively costly in terms of the time and financial costs of monitoring and enforcement, not to mention the decline in individual freedom and discretion. Large agencies designed to do what the market (or culture) does may come with substantial deadweight loss. Public choice theory further reminds us that the legislative bodies and executive agencies that create and enforce these governmental institutions are subject to capture, rent-seeking, and institutional mission creep, expanding beyond their initial purpose merely to fulfil the interests of bureaucrats for expanded budgets and job security (cf. Krueger 1973; Niskanen 1970).12 Both market and state methods of alleviating uncertainty have their limitations. Fortunately, societies have for a long time – perhaps longer than the state – have had recourse to a third method or coordinating socio-economic behavior more effectively – cultural norms and values.
The Role of Norms and Values in Alleviating Uncertainty.13 Culture is frequently overlooked by political economists or merely examined at the macro-level using proxy variables for some generalized sense that ideational outlooks matter (cf. Huntington 1996, Barro & McCleary 2003, Denzau and North 1994). As Guiso, Sapienza, and Zingales note, culture “is so broad and the channels through which it can enter economic discourse so ubiquitous (and vague) that it is difficult to design testable, refutable hypotheses” (2006, 23). Not surprisingly, definitional vagueness has made it difficult to theorize about the causal role of culture at the microeconomic level.14 To that end, I offer us the following definitions and set of axioms so as to extend some of the previous works of others who have tried to bring culture into the microeconomic level (cf. Greif 1994; McCloskey 2007). 15 Culture is the collection of norms, social values, and knowledge that is held commonly by most members of a community. Norms, in turn, are the informal (often unwritten) rules that are widely known and shared within a population. One can think of them as “rules of thumb,” “manners” (Buchanan 1975, 20), or “etiquette” (Alchian 2006 [1961], 12). Such “manners” are inculcated into individuals, usually early in their lives, by parents, peers, teachers, and other groups of people that these individuals come into regular contact. Social values are the set of preferences shared by a group of individuals ranging from highly abstract concepts such as “liberty” or “equality,” to more mundane group preferences such as a community’s love of football. The social aspect of social values should be emphasized so as to differentiate it from individual preferences. Social values are shared widely (though not necessarily unanimously) and help to coordinate uses
12 We tend to think of governments as providing most of the things on these lists, and that is where we most commonly find them today, but this isn’t a firm requirement. A number of private entities exist that provide similar services, including PADI which certified scuba diving centers and divers. Private entities providing such services are less subject to capture as they have less coercive force behind them. 13 This section is borrowed directly from a paper entitled “Cultural Paternalism” presented at Texas Tech’s Free Market Institute and the inaugural annual conference of the Politics, Philosophy, and Economics Society in New Orleans. 14 Since writing this sentence, I’ve run across a few books that push in the opposite direction, subdividing norms into all sorts of precise categories applying to increasingly narrow portions of behavior (cf. Bicchieri 2006; Brennan, Eriksson, Goodin, and Southwood 2013). While the fine-grained definitions of various norms are useful for certain purposes, a more coarse-grained definition I use here suffices to make my points about shifting cultural patterns. 15 See also the book series on trust published by the Russell Sage Foundation, of which the edited volume by Braithwaite & Levi (1998) was the first in the sequence. Other scholars within the “philosophy, politics, economics” (PPE) subfield more broadly have also tackled the issue of culture with an eye towards solving some basic economic problems such as collective action and principal-agent problems. This list would include the likes of Jon Elster, Michael Hechter, Dennis Chong, and Geoffrey Brennan. [add more here].
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill of resources and relationships. For instance, a town that has a large number of families who highly value tackle football may influence the Parent Teacher Association to devote more school resources to grandiose football stadiums football as compared to chemistry labs. I understand that some moral philosophers would argue I am conflating “values” with “preferences,” but my response would be that values and preferences are similar in that they represent comparable likes/dislikes that can be ranked and guide social choices. Finally, knowledge represents our shared understanding of how the world works, from theories of climate change to explanations for why crime occurs. A dominant knowledge consensus that exists on any given topic will also serve to shape values and preferences, and coordinate behaviors and policy. Consider how a consensus view on the health effects of dietary fat led to voluntary changes in eating habits as well as government policies aimed at “nudging” and taxing food consumption behavior. For immediate purposes of this paper, knowledge will be set aside to focus on norms and values. Rapid shifts in intellectual understanding can have turbulent social consequences, as much as changing norms and values, but that is for another time and place. [I could see the value of discussing ideology here, but will also leave that aside.] In terms of (political) economic theory, both norms and values serve to alleviate uncertainty via coordination of behaviors in ways that can be anticipated by others. Uncertainty is a major concern to economics by way of the expected utility maximization assumption underlying rationality, and plays into a long list of economic problems related to cooperation, coordination, transaction costs, defining property rights, drafting contracts, and trade (cf. Heiner 1983; Denzau & North 1994; Greif 1994; Allen 2011). Investors or merchants who are uncertain if a given trading partner can be will hold good to their word are less likely to engage in a partnership with that person. Given that we live in a world of uncertainty wherein it is difficult to know the intentions of others and how they may react to our given signal or choice, having a set of generally agreed upon rules minimizes the transaction costs associated with decision-making; an individual who knows more about others can save time investigating their trustworthiness. Shared norms fulfill this role as they provide simplified decision rules about how others are expected to behave in various situations. As Greif argues, “rational cultural beliefs that capture individuals' expectations with respect to actions that others will take in various contingencies. Since cultural beliefs are identical and commonly known, when each player plays his best response to these cultural beliefs, the set of permissible cultural beliefs is restricted to those that are self-enforcing. Hence this specific subset of cultural beliefs can be formalized as a set of probability distributions over an equilibrium strategy combination. Each probability distribution reflects the expectation of a player with respect to the actions that would be taken on and off the path of play” (1994, 915). Commonly held norms that reduce uncertainty can also reduce the likelihood of conflict (Taylor 1982, 48-49). If avoidance of someone who does not share the same norms is not possible, the likelihood of confrontation increases, particularly if there is a valuable resource at stake. [Need more backing on this seemingly obvious statement.] A (perhaps the) specific way in which norms help reduce uncertainty, deflect conflict, and allow for self-enforcing exchange is that they enable us to define property rights. Normally, when examining public policy, we think of property rights as being formally defined by legislation (e.g., laws, ordinances). However, given the immense amount of things that we have property claims over (including our own time and the use of communal resources) it is essentially impossible to formally specify every contingency. This is particularly true when one considers new and novel forms of property that emerge via entrepreneurial activity (consider the controversy of how to define and regulate Uber, AirBnB, or parking space/time with the advent of MonkeyParking). Norms mitigate the transaction cost of trying to define property rights formally (legally) for each novel situation. They do this by providing broad categories of situations and expected behaviors. [This seems unclear. How to write it better?] Perhaps the most universal “unwritten” norm relating to property rights is that of “first come, first served” (a.k.a. right of first possession). When the rents on previously worthless property turn positive, it is not uncommon to see the right of first possession be the defining
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill method in which land is allocated along with a few other “rules of thumb” concerning size of claim and usage (cf. Anderson & Hill 2004). This norm is not only invoked for farmland and mining claims, but it applies to how we get on a bus, find seats in a classroom,16 or allocate overhead space on an airplane. Of course, there may be other complementary norms at work, such as allowing an elderly person to board a bus first on a rainy day, or giving up a desk to a left-handed individual or student using crutches.17 Norms over relationships, and not just tangible property, also help to reduce uncertainty and minimize conflict to the extent that a relationship between two individuals can be seen asserting property rights and exchange over time. [This will become important later when I talk about issues of inclusivity and exclusivity. Not fully sure how to work this in here.] Social values, on the other hand, would not seem to provide such decision rules as they are merely statements of ranked preferences. However, common values (preferences) can help convey additional knowledge about individuals and serve to signal information about unobserved behavioral traits and norms, thereby promoting social order (Taylor 1982, 76-77). It is important to recognize that we frequently signal our values and preferences in numerous ways, from the clothing we wear (e.g., Seahawks jerseys) to the vehicles we drive (e.g., Teslas or pickup trucks). If I see somebody driving a pickup truck, I can make a probabilistic assumption that they have a number of other values and norms that I share, such as loving outdoor activities and being open to sharing beer at a tailgate party. Of course, such signals about values are not perfect as the pickup truck driver could be an antisocial urbanite. The strength of the signal, along with other signals (e.g., bumper stickers), can help to reduce uncertainty. Knowing that I have commonality with an individual on at least one margin opens up the possibility that there may be other commonalities and could help facilitate exchange (trade) and mitigate conflict. [Hint of things to come: This is what successful megachurches do to attract people to church and gradually ween them into the core norms and values of the congregation.] Consider a few examples where commonly held social norms help to define property rights, lower transaction costs, and mitigate conflict, and when conflicting norms have the opposite effect. Within our neighborhood, it is “generally acknowledged” that dog walkers should stay to the left side of the road with their four-legged friend on their left side. This is a plausible rule of thumb since one cannot know if an oncoming dog is friendly or not, thus having dogs separated by the road and their owners minimizes the possibility that two dogs will initiate a fight (or if one dog gets aggressive, the owner has sufficient time to remove the dog from the situation). Owners further are expected to ask if the other dog is friendly and can be approached (another norm that is taught in dog training classes). The “left side rule” also provides extra certainty and safety for drivers as both the walker and driver will be able to see each other approaching and adjust behaviors accordingly (e.g., moving dog onto grass so he won’t lunge at car, or driver to move more center lane so as to give dog and human wider berth). When individuals violate this norm (and walk their dog on the right side of the road), it increases the probability that two dogs will come into aggressive contact with one another and create problems, including the desire not to affiliate with those other individuals at other neighborhood gatherings (even sans dogs). In this instance (dog walking), we have a situation of an open
16 Pedagogical note. The first exercise my political economy students partake in is to derive a set of rules about how to assign seats in a classroom. Most students don’t think there are any rules, so they come up with very formal methods such as the instructor assigning seats by alphabetized names, etc. When it is revealed to them that “right of first possession” is the rule that is often used, it becomes an eye-opening experience to discover that they are negotiating property rights all the time, and that this isn’t just something done by bureaucracies. 17 Further pedagogical note: In small seminars I am able to do the “seat assignment” exercise with a student who comes in late to class on crutches, after first making sure that there is a shortage of desks available. I observe if and who gives up a seat for the obviously handicapped student. To my amazement doing this a half dozen times now, only once was a seat graciously vacated for the injured student!
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill access resource – roadway – with multiple uses that are not clearly defined by formal rules, yet which social norms help to reduce uncertainty and mitigate conflict. One could think of multiple other norms that serve to regulate property usage that are not clearly and formally defined. Consider the way we stand in an elevator, line up to purchase coffee, tip bartenders (Gill 2018), cross streets when no traffic is oncoming, defer to sub-field committees when making departmental hiring decisions, recline seats on an airplane, or allow children seated in first class to scream on long-distance flights. Norms governing relationships can also be seen as property rights over personal time. Examples may include whether you talk to someone on a bus, ask somebody out for a date, stare at somebody on a sidewalk, invite somebody to a party, or work with someone on an academic paper. Norms dictate how classroom behavior is conducted and what type of contact faculty have with students, when audience members can ask questions of lecturers, whether somebody can invite themselves to a university to give a talk so as to get added airline miles,18 and whose judgement people defer to in meetings. (Norms probably also dictate how many footnotes one can use, and how annoyingly extensive they are, but that’s not a norm I share.) [Probably a superfluous paragraph, but one that is fun nonetheless.] Far from being trivial in nature, these daily norms and shared values may play a larger role in signaling and determining more salient issues of property rights and trade. A favorite example is the “cowboy code” from the “Wild West” (circa 1865-1900). Small practices such as tipping your hat, filling whiskey glasses to the brim equally amongst guests, removing your guns at the dinner table, and not touching someone else’s horse were important in determining who might be a trustworthy individual in areas with transient population. For Texas ranchers wanting to hire drovers to get their livestock to the cattle towns in the Midwest, it was important to hire individuals who were not prone to theft and would expend significant effort to save strays or wrangle in stampedes (both dangerous tasks). Adhering to a basic set of norms provided signals as to which cowboys were the most trustworthy. While deception was always possible, a normative framework minimized uncertainty and allowed for trade to occur (cf. Greif 1994). The principal-agent problem underlying cattle drives was eventually solved via that transfer of property rights in the cattle to cowboys, but nonetheless the “cowboy code” still factored into decisions about who to do business with on more than just that front. Haight (2007) and Koyoma (2011) also provide arguments that the “outsider norms” of Jews in various historical epochs served as a means of enhancing trade and finance; “community outsiders” (Jews) had few exit options and were less likely to run-off with resources and thus became, ironically, the safer bet in trusting them with wealth. As with norms, one might also be more willing to engage in trade with someone who had similar values than one who disagreed in such preference rankings. Shared norms and values also provide an intermediate ground between markets and states in creating wealth and order in society. Markets operate effectively in harnessing self-interest to such ends, as Adam Smith famously reminded us in The Wealth of Nations. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest” (Smith 1976 [1776], 27). If individuals can achieve gains-from-trade in finding ways to improve the welfare of others, trade will generate a strong incentive to interact harmoniously with others. Of course, since there is always some uncertainty in markets and the possibility of fraud, states exist to provide a basic level of enforcement of property rights and private contracts, albeit with all the contingent problems that come with central authority wielded by self-interested rulers with their hands on the levers of power (cf. Buchanan 1975). Norms (and to a lesser extent socially-conforming values) give an individual a specific property right in their own reputation as a trustworthy member of a community (a very market-oriented feature), yet allows for the
18 I’m not saying that I’ve done this, but I’m not not saying I’ve done this either. We will let the readers judge.
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill community to sanction (via shaming) violators (a more hierarchy-oriented feature).19 Public shaming, as compared to “bright-line” laws and regulations, however, allow for greater flexibility in enforcement by giving community members a method of adjusting punishment to the context, and allows the transgressor to make their own evaluation on how much conformity is worth to them.20 Individuals who do not want to conform to the dominant culture because they prefer some aberrant behavior, simply pay the cost of that behavior in terms of reduced social interactions with a broader range of others. Within an “ordered anarchy” where social norms provide informal governance, the freedom of the individual is preserved whilst social order and coordination is maintained. Changes to that “ordered anarchy” come about in market-evolutionary fashion as individuals negotiate the value of their socially-conforming reputation against the benefits of violating community norms. The more “inefficient” social norms become with respect to the value of community interaction they promote amongst a widening population, the more they are likely to change peacefully.21 [Looking for examples of this. Attitudes on recycling? The pervasiveness of tattoos and piercings?] [Hint of things to come: If you introduce a new and relatively large population with different norms/values into a pre- existing community, uncertainty about what norms are to be in operation will result in greater uncertainty between the newcomers and old-timers, generate possible conflict, and yield calls for “bright line” rules or “calls for law and order” that undermine a libertarian ethos in society (Buchanan 1975, 20).] The major point here is that seemingly mundane cultural patterns – norms and values – that political economists often overlook in favor of formal regulations can serve to facilitate human interaction by reducing uncertainty. “If the limits to individual behavior are well-defined, voluntary social interaction can proceed in an orderly fashion under any structure” (Buchanan 1975, 21). The defining may come from hierarchically- enforced rules that have the potential [likely] effect of growing Leviathan and being more rigid in enforcement, or via norms/values that exhibit flexibility and are open to gradual evolution based upon the interests of those who have most at stake. To this end, our everyday behavior may be more important than scholars acknowledge in creating a broader milieu of trust and liberty that starts in small communities and expands towards larger populations. Violations of norms as simple as “cutting in line” for coffee or not leaving tips at restaurants can have broader social effects if people begin to question the motivations and integrity of others who are “not like them” (as defined by the common culture) and result in calls for stronger laws enforced by coercive hierarchies. Culture Clubs and the Creation and Maintenance of Borders.
19 For a probing inquiry into whether people can have a property right in their reputation, see the addendum at the end of this paper. 20 Notice how sentencing guidelines that give wide latitude to judges in determining sentences often become very controversial, particularly when somebody committing a heinous crime is given a lighter sentence than somebody who has a minor transgression. Not surprisingly, in hierarchical government, humans prefer to have “bright line” regulations with little wiggle room. 21 In the “cultural paternalism” component of this broader research agenda, I argue that when elites external to a community try to enforce a rapid shift in norms or values, distrust and conflict will arise between groups, particularly if the elites have little at stake in the communities in which they seek to alter the culture. For example, norms about same- sex marriage were gradually changing in the United States with some progressive municipalities taking the lead. Ballot initiatives and referenda on the issue showed a gradual declining majority opposing same-sex marriage. One might have projected that the norms would have eventually shifted towards majority approval, but before that could be determined via public opinion or the ballot box, the Supreme Court forced the issue and declared the “new norm” the “new law.” Combine this with the Obama Administration’s executive order on transgender bathrooms in public schools and one can understand how a “cultural rift” between “progressive” and “conservative” norms has come to the fore in American political rhetoric and may have had broader manifestations in the culture. The casual observation that “Middle America” no longer trusts the cultural coastal elites may be this manifestation, and may be occurring on such seemingly- irrelevant dimensions as whether one likes NASCAR or World Cup Soccer.
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill
[I think this is a critical section linking my thoughts, but I am having trouble making it work.] In addition to cultivating a general milieu of norms and values to reduce uncertainty, humans also organize themselves into clubs, creating excludable barriers of varying degrees to emphasize similarities amongst individuals within “the club.” James Buchanan (1965) was central in helping to promote a theory of clubs that identified a middle ground of social organization between individuals (in markets) and states. Clubs alleviate uncertainty by creating boundaries around people with shared preferences, values, and (most likely) norms.22 Those who are within the boundary have access to a set of public and private goods that are not available to those excluded from the group. Such club goods could include insurance pools (cf. Beito 1990) and fellowship that are enhanced by team production,23 or selective access to private goods such as swimming pools or tennis courts. Even with the latter, rivaled goods, team productions can improve the overall quality if people contribute to maintenance costs. As such, clubs find themselves subject to collective action problems wherein some members may free ride on the efforts of others. One of the primary goods that clubs can provide to their members is an identity or reputation surrounding a set of ideas and/or values. Belonging to a club gives one the ability to say that “I belong to a group of believers who profess this,” which in turn may signal something to outsiders about the quality of the individual. Members of a religious congregation might benefit externally from the reputational qualities of trust that they develop from being associated with that particular spiritual club. Business owners often signal their credibility to potential customers by use of the Ichthys symbol (i.e., Christian fish). Of course, this symbol can be counterfeited fairly easily by individuals who do not share Christian values and to the extent that counterfeiters damage the overall reputation of the club, members have a strong incentive to police and protect that identity and reputation, drawing borders around who are legitimate members of the community and those who are not. [I just added this after I wondered below whether or not identity is a public good provided by clubs. I am inspired by Leeson’s (2009) discussion of pirate flags.] Unlike pure public goods, though, clubs are defined by their ability to exclude individuals from consumption and thus have some leverage in terms of preventing free riding; individuals who do not contribute some designated amount can be denied membership or excommunicated. Clubs have boundaries, or “borders” if you will. However, as the group grows larger, detecting free-riding becomes more and more difficult thus clubs will often rely upon a number of other mechanisms to identify and weed out potential free-riders. Buchanan notes that the “force of moral-ethical principle in influencing behavior is directly dependent on the size of community within which action takes place” (1999 [1978], 363; see also Buchanan 1965b). Keeping the size of the group small, then, enhances social order. This insight is consistent with the work of Dunbar (1992; 1998) in that after a certain group size – usually about 200 – individuals lose both physical contact and social knowledge of one another that raises the degree of uncertainty within that community. Small groups, then, are capable of relying more on governance via market transactions and social norms than larger societies (cf. Taylor 1982).24 However, small groups lose the benefits of increased interactions and trade, not to mention the benefits that come with team production (or joint supply). The question arises as how to limit free riding among groups that desire to be more expansive. Herein lies the libertarian club conundrum. If a libertarian club is serious about its ideas of the freedom of movement across boundaries, and it seeks to promote these ideas and welcome individuals into the fold, how does it prevent free-riding on both its resources and reputation by individuals who may not be fully dedicated to the club’s
22 My guess is that clubs form around shared preferences/values first, and that norms eventually emerge or “coagulate” based upon repeated interactions with club members. However, I also allow that such clubs may immediately (or quickly) delineate membership based upon a certain etiquette. [Think about this more.] 23 Olson (1965) and other theorists of public goods often refer to this as “jointness of supply.” Larry Iannaccone used the term “team production” in a conversation with me once and I thought that was a much better term. 24 Smith also noted that the “impartial observer” works best in smaller communities, or at least among populations that are closer to us (get exact page citation).
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill identity. [Need to work out the difference (?) between free-riding on the resources of a club and its identity. There may be active “spoilers” who try to enter the group to undermine its mission, much the way atheists seek admission to a Christian student group. Is the maintenance of a group identity and/or reputation a public good here?] Iannaccone (1992) observes that many costly rituals or behaviors that stigmatize individuals (thereby limiting their outside opportunities) are used by religious groups to control free-riding. By sacrificing some “burnt offerings” up front, individuals signal they are committed to the group effort. In many respects, these sacrificial and/or stigmatizing behaviors represent very visible and costly norms that club members must adhere to. Only a truly dedicated person who shares the values of the group and would be willing to give fully towards team production would be willing to abide by such etiquette. Religious groups are the quintessential example of this, and perhaps the most successful general category of clubs that have solved collective action problems throughout history. The ability of Latter Day Saints, Catholics Franciscans, and orthodox Jews to maintain relatively cohesive and robust communities over the course of centuries and millennia is based upon their ability to test their members’ commitment with certain behaviors that become norms associated with those communities. Other examples of such sacrificing and stigmatized norms include terrorist cells (Berman 2009), prison gangs (Skarbek 2011), and college fraternities (Lecoq and Gill, forthcoming hopefully). [Am I conflating the sacrificial rituals and stigmatizing behaviors with “norms” here? It would seem to me that wearing a distinct hat, getting a visible tattoo, or spending two years on a mission is a “norm” within any of these societies.] While sacrificial rituals and stigmatizing behavior or appearances are useful in weeding out free- riders, adherence to a common set of norms or etiquette also provides signals about the motivations of others within the club. Clubs, in essence, develop their own culture as a means of reducing the costs associated with uncertainty. “That is just how we do things,” is a common refrain to outsiders who view club manners as odd, unusual, or possibly even inefficient.25 Individuals who do not exhibit common behavioral traits will be looked upon with suspicion as to whether they can be trusted to contribute to the club’s public goods, including the maintenance of its identity, when monitoring of effort is difficult. (The same can be said for public expression of certain values or preferences as it indicates everybody in the group is like everybody else. The individual at the golf club who shows increased interest in cycling on weekends might raise eyebrows amongst members who will be looking for volunteers for the next tournament or help with fundraising.26 The person who doesn’t like Ayn Rand is looked upon warily in the Libertarian Club.) An increase in the proportion of new members who exhibit non-conforming behaviors, violate norms, or share different values will raise concern among pre-existing members and the latter may turn to the formal regulation of rules as a means of reducing growing uncertainty; the Libertarian Club may lose its libertarian vibe. The historical experience of many religious denominations suggests that such outcomes are not improbable. The trajectory of theologically conservative denominations towards more liberal beliefs and practices is commonly known among historians of religions. Rifts and schisms within Methodism, Lutheranism, Presbyterianism, and the Anglican Union are witness to this trend. [At this point, I want to say something about “very large societies” and the role of social norms in cultivating social trust, but I may save that for next section.]
25 There is the odd problem of whether inefficient norms are kept as a means of deterring free riding, or the marginal costs of changing them are just too high to be changed. 26 Such problems are common within political parties and groups. There are often “litmus tests” on certain issue platforms wherein if some of the group do not adhere to a certain set of policy positions, they will be viewed with suspicion and potentially ostracized. Internal arguing amongst the party often leads to wasted energy that would otherwise be devoted towards getting candidates elected.
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FROM CLUBS TO NATIONS AND BACK AGAIN: THE IMPACT OF MIGRATION ON NORMATIVE COMMUNITIES [By all admissions, this is really where I step out of my wheelhouse, having not been immersed in the immigration literature to any significant extent, and thus can use some direction. I do think I have something to contribute at the micro-behavioral level and then bring in some insights from the religious economies school.] While an examination of how clubs preserve their identity and provide other public and club goods is interesting in-and-of-itself, can the dynamics within such clubs be instructive for how we understand issues of large-scale immigration, borders, and the trade-offs and social tensions such movement might create? If we understand the United States as a “quasi-club” that is (was) dedicated to the principle of liberty (via the US Constitution), can we understand efforts to restrict immigration as a (paradoxical) means of trying to preserve that identity? Additionally, might there be other lower-level clubs within the United States (or any other nation) that consider in-migration27 to be disrupting of local norms and values, creating uncertainty within social relations, and prompting calls for restrictions on movement or other forms of regulated behavior? And can lessons from how other clubs – most notably successful religious organizations – be instructive in balancing the trade-offs that our hypothetical Libertarian Club might face in its desire to welcome members freely while still preserving the norms and values that make it unique? Can the promotion of unrestricted migration or a “world without borders” (cf. Carens 1987; Caplan and Naik 2014) actually lead to a counter- reaction that, in the long-run, makes it difficult to preserve the underlying principles of liberty that such calls are based upon? It is here that I begin with an acknowledgement of the numerous economic and social advantages that immigration can bring to a nation (cf. Powell 2015).28 Without doubt, social science research has demonstrated there are significant upsides to the free migration of labor and capital across national borders, so much so that the elimination of borders has become a rallying cry amongst some sectors of the libertarian movement. It has even been argued that racial and ethnic heterogeneity tamps down support for large welfare states (and by implication is liberty preserving) (Alesina, Glaeser, and Sacerdote 2001), and to the extent that immigration increases such racial and ethnic diversity, the promotion of migration would be
27 I use the term “in-migration” here rather than immigration, as the latter generally refers to cross-national migration. However, the dynamics that I discuss below can apply to internal migration within large countries where there are distinct cultural differences. These differences need not be large to inspire policy counter-reactions. Within the United States, there are complaints about “Hollywood types” buying up land in Montana, New Englanders becoming snowbirds in Florida and Arizona, or even urban techies moving into small rural towns. Personal note to this effect: Within a month of moving to Washington State from California, we were surprised to see an individual swearing at our car in the apartment complex parking lot. He was convinced, quite loudly I might add, that Californians were ruining his state. We quickly applied for new license plates. In my small town of Duvall, there is a significant and growing divide between the old rural town folk and an increasing number of high-tech workers moving out from Redmond and Bellevue. This movement is manifesting itself in efforts to empower the city council to be more restrictive on land use policies so as to maintain the town’s culture. 28 Normatively, I am pro-immigration and understand that the following logic could be taken as being anti-immigration. Admittedly, the logic that follows leads me down the path of “managed immigration” and a respect for cultural boundaries and how groups of people maintain their identities. My goal here is to basically identify the potential trade- offs associated with unrestricted immigration and gain an understanding for why many individuals are against an “open borders” policy, which seems to be a not uncommon sentiment throughout history and across nations. My primary concern is that we approach immigration policy with a Utopian ideal in mind, posit ourselves as the keepers of this Utopia, and declare anybody in opposition to be “xenophobic” without a full understanding that individuals who do have reservations about immigration may be seeing some things us abstract theorists are missing.
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill liberty-enhancing. [Could do a lot of lit review here, but saving that for potentially later or advice on how much should be included.] While there are strong cases to be made for unrestricted immigration in terms of the macro- economic benefits it conveys (Powell 2015), appeals to the principle of liberty (Caplan and Naik 2014) and even upon humanitarian and egalitarian grounds (Carens 1987), the fact remains that an open borders policy has not been embraced widely among ruling elites and common citizens across time and space. [Going on my stylized knowledge of world history here. Need more documentation.] As Caplan and Naik note, the world is very far from the ideal of purely open borders (2014, 1-2). The relatively liberal standards at various points in US history, and currently within the European Union, are rare and still remain restrictive. And while the ideal is held up by some political elites, populist electoral uprisings in the US and EU indicate that a majority, or significant pluralities, of citizens have concerns over liberal immigration regimes. Most other governments around the world and throughout time have tried to control entry into their countries. And the acceptance of large flows of refugees has even been a more contentious issue; neighboring countries often contain individuals fleeing war or other catastrophes in isolated camps rather than integrating them into their societies. Caplan (2012) details (and responds to) a number of reasons why citizens may oppose immigration include increased competition for resources including jobs and welfare services, and a decay of a country’s cultural traditions. Another common explanation includes an innate fear of foreigners in the guise of “unthinking xenophobia” (Caplan and Naik 2012, 22). Political rulers, on the other hand, may prefer restrictive immigration regimes as they fear backlash from voters, rebellious uprisings from people with pitchforks, or simply the uncertainty with which new constituents bring with them.29 While agreeing with Caplan (2012) on several of his critiques of arguments for restricting immigration, I believe he misses a key micro-mechanism that may be at work in generating opposition to open borders among the general citizenry. Specifically, his critiques of the “protecting American culture” and “protecting American liberty” arguments only address these issues at the macro-level. Caplan notes that the capitals of “high culture of popular culture” in the US are in areas with high levels of immigration (California and New York), and that immigrants rarely vote away liberty because they don’t vote much (Caplan 2012, 11- 15).30
29 Here I am thinking of Cox, North, and Weingast’s paper on “the violence trap.” While not explicitly dealing with immigration, their argument is that rulers fear a shift in the status quo in that it creates new centers of power that could challenge their own tenuous hold on power. They argue that rulers view technological change and economic growth with suspicion and try to limit it given that changes in societal wealth also lead to changes in power and coercive capacity of groups. Immigration could have a similar effect. 30 One of my concerns here is that social scientists might have a blind spot with respect to immigration issues based upon how we encounter people from “different lands,” which could mean from a different country or a different region of our own country. With respect to our academic profession, we frequently meet scholars in our field from different lands via graduate school, conferences, or invited talks. In terms of culture, these “foreigners” have a similar set of professional norms and values that were inculcated by way of a similar educational and socio-economic background, which is especially true if our contact comes within our particular academic specialty. Let’s face it, we are drawn from a narrow sub-strata of the population and tend to be more “cosmopolitan” in outlook. Indeed, a political economy professor raised in central Pennsylvania may have more in common with a graduate student from India than she does with the bartender from the biker bar down the boulevard who grew up in the same general geography. As such, I do think we need to take a moment of personal reflection to understand our own a priori biases when trying to wrestle with the puzzle of why others do not so readily embrace immigration. Also, I should note how different the norms are between academic disciplines. My first talk in an economics department (Chicago) was quite the experience when after only about 5 minutes into my formal presentation I was interrupted by a series of questions, and never really returned to the talk I had planned. This is much different in political science where the speaker is largely allowed to finish the talk before being peppered by questions. This was repeated at Harvard a few years later, a story which I would be happy to convey to any person plying me with several rounds of bourbon.
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My argument here is more subtle and micro-economic, resting upon the logic of norms and values reducing uncertainty outlined above, and the following passage from James Buchanan in Limits of Liberty. “…some of the behavioral changes of the 1960s raise fundamental and disturbing issues for social stability. As noted, individuals have lived, one with another, under implicit behavioral rules that were respected by all, or nearly all, persons in community. But one of the instruments employed by the participants in the counterculture involved the explicitly flaunting of traditional codes of conduct, the direct and open disregard for what had previously been considered to be acceptable standards for elementary ‘good manners.’ This placed stresses on the ordered anarchy that still describes much of ordinary social life in our society, stresses which were evidenced by calls for ‘law and order,’ for formalization and enforcement of rules that were previously nonexistent” (Buchanan 1975, 20). While this passage is in specific reference to the “hippies” of that era, most who were native Americans, the ideas here can be generalized to any outside challenge to local norms and values, a situation that is likely to arise with in-migration of a distinct community into a pre-existing one.31 The key underlying logic here is that when common codes of conduct and societal understandings – i.e., norms and values – are challenged, it disrupts the libertarian “ordered anarchy” of everyday life and prompts people to search for certainty by imposing more hierarchical rule. Simply put: less norms, more government; contested values, more government. And Buchanan himself, throughout the rest of the text of Limits of Liberty, was concerned that once Leviathan was given this power, it would continually grow and further trod upon liberty. It is not, as Caplan (2012) argued, that immigrants would enter a country and vote away the pre-existing citizens’ freedom; it is that the uncertainty introduced by challenged norms and values would prompt those native citizens to demand fewer freedoms to ensure greater certainty. In our everyday lives, we rely extensively upon a multitude of mundane norms that govern our “ordered anarchy.”32 Similarly, shared values – from high-minded concerns about “social justice” to something as simple as “our town is a football town” – also help to bind a community together in a shared understanding as to how resources will be allocated and relationships managed. As noted above, this helps to instill certainty where it might not exist. When norms and values become contested, it becomes less clear how resources will be used in a society and relationships managed. If someone, or more specifically a new migrant group, continually violates pre-existing norms regarding driving, holding open doors for the elderly, allocating seats on a subway, or using classroom time, those holding the pre-existing norms are likely grow suspicious of those new individuals in other areas such as commerce or politics. Likewise with social values. If a new migrant community prefers soccer over football, the pre-existing community may begin to worry about the future of the things they value and seek out ways protect their preference, some of which might include a reliance on greater governmental coercion (e.g., blocking the construction of a soccer field).
31 In the next page following this passage, Buchanan extends his thoughts to the “range wars in the American West in the late 1880” that “arose because of such uncertainties [changing norms] as these” (Buchanan 1975, 21). I can see a direct application of this to the so-called Sagebrush Revolt ongoing since the mid-1970s in the American West where land is largely owned by the federal government and where a switch to administrative law under the Environmental Protection Agency in the early 1970s trod upon the “customary law” of dealing with resource management (cf. PERC REPORT). The increasing number of claims on land use by (usually urban) outsiders based upon “environmentalist claims” has only made the problem worse. 32 To illustrate the mundane, Buchanan himself uses the example of when to operate one’s lawnmower on a Sunday morning. One could only imagine that he had a rather cantankerous run-in with a neighbor doing yardwork at some point.
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None of this is to place a value judgement on what set of norms or values are better, but merely point out that under situations where norms and values are being contested, social distrust is likely to arise, conflict may ensue, and individuals may resort less to “manners and etiquette” to coordinate behavior and rely more upon coercive regulatory methods. This situation resembles a simple assurance game wherein social harmony results when two (or more) groups of individuals agree upon one set of social standards (norms and values), irrespective of the actual content of those standards (see Figure 1).33 When significant portions of the community are in disagreement about a set of norms and values, confusion about what informal rules are in use ensues, the off-equilibrium cells of the assurance game. Uncertainty about intentions and future expectations is likely to arise between individuals in the pre-existing and in-migrant communities,34 social trust is likely to diminish, and diminished interactions (exchange) and conflict may result. If a pre-existing community operates on a single set of norms and values (Culture Set A) and a new in-migrant population appears with a different set of norms and values (Culture Set B), it doesn’t matter if the new and larger population coordinates around Set A or Set B in terms of social certainty and trust, just so long as one of the equilibrium cells is chosen (see Fig. 1).35 However, as common with assurance games, the trick is to determine what equilibrium to settle upon. The related question is who bears the adjustment costs. Assuming the pre-existing community has tangible assets at stake (e.g., real estate, jobs) and may be less mobile (at least relative to the mobile in-migrant community), that community will likely be resistant to cultural change, playing a “defensive” role, which may include – as Buchanan noted – calls for greater “law and order” to specify formally what the expected etiquette in society is.
33 Another interesting casual observation: I am somewhat surprised to see how waiters, bartenders, and other service- sector employees who work in “high end” establishments have norms and values that correspond to the upper-income individuals that they serve even though they do not belong to that particular socio-economic class. The house servant of the cosmopolitan corporate executive is more likely to share the etiquette and values of their employer than they are of individuals who make a similar income in another sector of the economy (e.g., longshoremen). (I use the longshoremen example here intentionally.) This, I argue, is where many class-analytic theories of society go wrong; it is not income or one’s relation to the means of production that determines one’s ideological outlook, but one’s immediate cultural surroundings and the desire or need to interact with those who one has regular contact with. Pygmalion, anyone? This also reminds me of some research I recall wherein the “upper crust” British (Oxbridge) accent was a reaction to the breakdown of feudal positions in urban areas. As a way of distinguishing oneself from “the inferior ranks of people” (to use Adam Smith’s term), a different, more “intellectual,” accent evolved as a means of creating a new “club boundary.” Those who wanted entry into that club, or who worked in that club (e.g., butlers), needed to master that diction and all the other normative accoutrements that came along with high-society. Again, this reminds me of my own grad school experience at the University of Pygmalion. 34 I will use the term “in-migrant” (or “in-migration”) here to refer to any new population that enters a pre-existing community (or the process). Such movement does not have to be across international boundaries, but may be between counties, cities, or even different group boundaries (such as a non-religious person seeking entrance into a religious congregation). The term “immigrant” will be reserved specifically for migration across national boundaries. I prefer this distinction because I want to the reader to think beyond the narrow confines of international migration to see how the dynamics of movements between any type of groups has some logical similarities. 35 These are not just populations in a spatial (geographic) sense. It could be temporal, and I think this may explain tension between generations. The norms and values of those new kids are just so disorienting for the old folks, an experience that James Buchanan may have been having at UCLA.
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If, as illustrated in Fig. 2, the in-migrant community is comparatively small, though, and assuming they desire interactions with the pre-existing population, the newcomers are likely to see greater benefits in coordinating on Culture Set A relative to the costs of not assimilating.36 The norms of the pre-existing community will not be significantly challenged and there is less of a chance that calls for formal laws to regulate behavior will be made.
36 There are exceptions and I often think of “cults” or “gnostic sects” that intentionally set themselves apart from the local community. Not surprisingly, such situations create a great deal of distrust and hostility (cf. Jonestown or the Branch Davidians). It is possible that these culturally-distinct communities might also be ignored or, in some cases, be engaged with on limited dimensions of commerce (cf. the Amish in Pennsylvania). The level of accommodation will be determined by the value that the culturally-distinct community brings to the dominant-culture community and the degree of “threat” the distinct community poses to members of the dominant community. To the extent that the distinct community completely isolates themselves, there is not likely going to be much conflict.
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If, on the other hand, the in-migrant community is comparatively large and/or enters the pre-existing community quickly, there is little incentive for the new community to adapt, particularly if adopting a new set of norms and values is costly (see Fig. 3). If the in-migrant community is sufficiently large to provide a basic, beneficial level of commercial and personal interactions amongst themselves relative to the costs of adopting new norms, they will be satisfied remaining in the off-equilibrium cell. This doesn’t mean that they would not want to assimilate at some point, but the costs associated with not assimilating would be lower as they have others who share their norms to interact and trade with. To the extent that this large in-migrant population makes claims on social resources (e.g., bilingual educational programs that put resource strains on other school programs), creates negative externalities (e.g., traffic accidents) borne by the pre-existing community, or affects the social identity of a club, there are likely to be calls for formal regulations to solve the problems created by mismatched norms and values. For Buchanan, the problem was that the “in-migrant” community was a younger generation rewriting the norms and values on college campuses in the late 1960s, making his job of education more difficult (Buchanan and Devletoglou 1971).
We may further unpack this cultural assurance game by noting that there may be more than two dichotomous cultural sets to choose from. The term “cultural set” was used intentionally to represent a broad set of “everyday norms and values” that could take on a number of permutations. To the extent that an in-migrant community shares some of the norms and values of the pre-existing community, uncertainty and conflict will be minimized, assimilation made easier, and the creation of a new equilibrium made possible. This also raises the possibility of predicting which patterns of migration will cause more resistance than others. For instance, a Syrian refugee community comprised of all Christians is likely to gain a warmer welcome in a predominately Christian area of the United States (e.g., Omaha, Nebraska) than a Syrian refugee community composed of all Muslims, for the simple fact that there is at least one dimension – Christianity – in which the refugee and pre-existing community share, ceteris paribus. Being able to identify shared norms and values between communities can help smooth out any potential conflict occurring between in-migrant and pre-existing communities (see below for an example of how megachurches do this). Moreover, the ability of in-migrants to signal their commitment to conform to pre-existing norms/values via some costly ritual or sacrifice also provides a means of minimizing uncertainty and potential conflict. This is why many
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill nations require some sort of civic education test, an oath of allegiance, or similar process to gain access to the country.37 The importance of this more micro-level perspective is that opposition to immigration may not be due to seemingly-inherent characteristics such as “unthinking xenophobia,” but rather may be conditional on how different normative communities come into contact with one another and to extent these communities differ in terms of their norms and values. This is important for resolving the “Libertarian Club Conundrum” as it suggests possible institutional mechanisms that allow for in-migration while still reducing the uncertainty and potential conflict that comes with a new group bringing in unfamiliar norms and values. While the Libertarian Club may want to welcome members, it can require some costly signal to indicate that one already shares the norms and values of the club, or that a potential in-migrant will be willing to “assimilate” to the goals and methods of the club. [I think this is a point in the paper where I could generate a number of empirical hypotheses.] There are two potential objections to this norm-based, club perspective advanced above that pertain to cross-national immigration debates: 1) nations are not clubs; and 2) empirically, the individuals who are most likely to be resistant to “open borders” are ones that have relatively less contact with newcomers. As for the first potential objection, Ilya Somin (2017) makes a case that nations are not houses or clubs, as is often the counter-argument made by opponents of open borders. He first notes, based on the reasoning of Jason Brennan, that if there is less than unanimity with a society about restricting immigration, you deny some members of the community the right of exchange – i.e., the ability to buy and sell property with potential in- migrants. True. With respect to the club analogy, Somin argues that a nation is not a club because “[m]ost people do not choose to accept the domination of the government they live under; they are instead born into it. Even in a relatively free society that allows emigration, it id difficult for citizens to fully escape the rule of their government. Emigration is costly, and does not enable the migrant to take all of their property (especially land) with them. …Unlike genuine private clubs, every real-world democratic state was initially established in large part by coercion” (Somin 2017). Also true, and the “born on the ship” problem is one that is central to Buchanan’s view of constitutional government (Buchanan 1975); writing an ongoing contract for governance in a large society is just not possible.
37 Another casual observation: Public opinion polls seem to indicate that a significant number of people, including former immigrants themselves, are opposed to “open borders,” which they may see as cost-free, but still are warm to immigration so long as the newcomers “go through the costly process” of gaining citizenship, which includes a period of time wherein they do not have the full rights of citizenship (e.g., voting or subsidized college tuition in various US states – the latter is true for in-migrants to California coming from Washington State). The “open borders” position may not be talking about citizenship, per se, and may even take that option off the table, but I’m not sure how that would work. If you allow for “open borders” but deny the migrants certain citizenship rights, you do create a costly barrier to entry. To use Caplan and Naik’s example of moving from Oklahoma to California (2014, 1), it is not technically a “full open border” (even holding transportation costs aside). An Okie in-migrant to California is not eligible for reduced college tuition or certain other welfare benefits until they can prove some period of residency in the state. This may not be a 20- foot cement wall keeping Okie’s out, but it does represent a barrier that needs to be considered when considering a move. The California Club provides members (determined by residency over time) to access a pool of resources that were contributed by other club members, and an outside Okie who comes just to get the generous tuition credits to UCLA and then leave would be perceived as a free-rider. Likewise, the Canadian Club, while celebrated among liberalized immigration advocates, recently imposed restrictions on immigrants when it comes to the purchase of real estate (first in Vancouver, BC and now, I believe, expanding to Toronto and other areas). The Canadian Club also has a ranking system for immigrants that is closely related to the idea of matching certain norms and values that Canadian Club members have with potential immigrants. And finally, there is the curious case of the Burning Man festival that is organized around the principle of “radical inclusion,” yet maintains and patrols a fence around the desert event, and also charges a monetary price for entry (averaging roughly $450 in 2017).
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I would counter that both Somin and Brenan are setting their argument up against a Utopian world that cannot possibly exist, and proposing a policy – open borders – that ignores the trade-offs of the world “as is.” Moreover, while a nation writ large may not be a club as individuals don’t really have an opportunity to “opt in,” sub-units of the nation – namely neighborhoods – do resemble clubs and allow for some mobility of opting in or out. But more importantly, we evolve in our local neighborhoods as if they were clubs, adopting the local norms and values of those around us so as to “fit in” the community. Those who are “misfits” in the neighborhood can either bear the costs of not adhering to the dominant etiquette, or might choose a different neighborhood nearby that fits their behaviors and beliefs.38 Common sense does tell us that we do tend to be products of the neighborhoods we were raised in. Those neighborhoods, and not the nation writ large, are the important “clubs” that “born-in” (or self-selected) members seek to protect. And it is not merely the violation of some individuals’ property rights that are in contention (i.e., the ability to sell your property to an in-migrant), but also the “public good” of the neighborhood’s identity as delineated by their norms and values that are at stake. So Brennan is correct that restrictive immigration favored by 80% of the population does infringe upon the property rights of the other 20%, but (conversely) the “open borders” policy preferred by the 20% could possibly harm the desire of the 80% to maintain a high level of certainty and trust within a community by adherence to a certain set of norms and values. Negative externalities are always reciprocal. And with respect to Buchanan’s warning about the decay of norms, those individuals who perceive their norms/values under attack may resort more coercive forms of social control to preserve them, and ones that injure the long-term freedom of a community that does rely upon flexible norms to govern their “ordered anarchy.” There is a paradox or conundrum here, and one that may simply be irresolvable. [I honestly don’t know what to do with the next four sentences, but I think they fit here somewhere.] At the macro-level, and in macro-economic models showing the benefits of immigration, the “lumpiness” of migratory populations is often assumed away. It is as if there is an assumption that in-migrants randomly scatter throughout a large population. In reality, we know this is not the case. Immigrants often settle in clusters, and refugees are often relocated into “camps.” The second objection relates to the observation that within public polling respondents who have the least exposure to in-migrants (or immigrants) are often the most hostile towards liberalized immigration policy (or, at the extreme, open borders).39 In other words, people in Wyoming or North Dakota tend to be less supportive of liberalized immigration policies than individuals in New York City or Los Angeles. This result seems contrary to the idea that when two culturally-distinct groups come into contact with one another, the level of uncertainty and conflict is increased and people then become opposed to in-migration to their community. In other words, the logic above seems to rest upon direct contact with different cultures.40 In
38 Crazy footnote: I think this might be why we see such distinct sorting of political ideologies in voting precincts. Precincts in the US tend to tilt predominately “blue” (Democrat) or “red” (Republican). Much of this can be explained by simple economic interests as people with such interests tend to live in similar conditions, and there may also be some self-selection with Democrats seeking out Democrats, etc. But I suspect that some of the explanation for “uniform” precincts is due to one individual moving into a new neighborhood and, in order to fit in, adjusting their preferences to their dominant values in the community. Gerrymandering would not explain this result at the precinct level as districts are combinations of precincts. 39 This observation was mentioned on a recent episode of EconTalk with Philip Auerswald (September 25, 2017). See roughly around the 29:00 minute mark. 40 I have a wee bit of healthy skepticism of this survey research in that responses to questions on immigration might be “cheap talk” and/or informed by pressure to provide a “socially acceptable answer.” Individuals in a multicultural environment might be “conditioned” to give culturally acceptable answers, much as Seattle residents are conditioned to respond that composting is the solution to all life’s problems. While a seemingly flippant dismissal, there is some research showing that this is plausible – well-educated respondents to surveys on whether they voted or not are more prone to lie about voting given that they feel normatively guilty about violating a norm of civic participation as compared to those with lower levels of education who never paid attention to those lessons in high school and don’t care if anybody thinks they voted or not. [GET CITATION]
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill part, the survey results may be an effect of many of the respondents having benefitted from liberalized immigration policy. [This is a testable assertion but I’m just spit-balling now. Who is interested in testing this with me?] But beyond that, I do admit this is a conundrum to my own explanation of a conundrum. It may be that with significantly lower informational costs due to the telecommunications revolution, individuals within relatively homogenous communities can anticipate potential uncertainty and conflict arising with increased migration and want to head it off at the pass, as it were. Or, alternatively, they may have had previous experience with non-foreign in-migration (e.g., Californians moving to North Dakota) and do understand the problems caused by competing norms. Finally, one other possibility is that those areas with significant in-migration or immigration have developed institutional mechanisms that allow themselves to ameliorate the conflict and allow for either greater assimilation or tolerance of competing norms/values.41
LESSONS FROM THE LOCAL MEGACHURCH: PROSELYTIZING WHILE PRESERVING IDENTITY If there has been one major blind spot of social science over the last century, and particularly amongst political economists, it has been the neglect of studying the role of religion and religious organizations play in organizing society. (“Thank you secularization theory!” he says sarcastically.) Religious institutions such as the Catholic Church, after all, have been nearly two millennia and have outlasted every other formal secular form of hierarchical rule. Expanding the definition to “religious movements,” you could say that Buddhism, Judaism, and Hinduism have been around even longer, and Islam is just shy of 1,400 years and going strong. It would seem that “new social movement” theory could learn a lot from ye olde social movements (cf. Gill and Pfaff 2011). And to that end, religious organizations, particularly the proselytizing ones, could instruct us about how to manage a liberal policy of immigration while alleviating the conundrum of watering down a community’s norms, values, and core identity.
A proselyting church faces the same conundrum as our Libertarian Club above.42 While it seeks to expand membership, it faces the possibility of accepting those who have different theological goals or practices into the congregation. Such a tendency is a recipe for decline and schism, as witnessed by the atrophy of mainline Protestant denominations; churches that delineate clear boundaries and limit free-riding tend to be stronger over time (Iannaccone 1994; Stark 2003). Of course, to revisit Buchanan (1965b), one of the problems with proselytizing is that as the membership grows, the norms and values of the community are harder to maintain. The more one expands outside of one’s core community, the more likely you will encounter a diversity of beliefs, norms, and values. To the extent that these in-migrants can take over leadership of the church, or incentivize the existing leadership to reshape their culture, such organizations face a the conundrum of balancing growth and purity of identity. The problem seems particularly salient for the recent spate of “megachurches” that open their doors to any-and-all comers, and who have often been accused of providing watered-down theology. Nonetheless, many of these new megachurches do remain organizationally vibrant and theologically conservative (cf. Thumma and Travis 2007).43
41 This seems plausible to me as well. As per the previous footnote, there do seem to be reports of conflict between cultural groups in cities. I have been regaled to stories from my grandparents about how Germans would beat up the Irish in Milwaukee, and probably vice versa, in the first half of the 20th century, and how the migration of African- Americans to Northern cities in the late 19th century also was the cause of social conflict and attempts to stifle such movement. Maybe we are just more enlightened now in the 21st century, particularly when the pollster comes calling, or perhaps we have figured out how to manage this problem institutionally, much like the Dutch did back in the 17th century (Gill and Owens 2017). 42 I am using the term “church” here for convenience, but it could be any religious organization (club), including a synagogue, mosque, temple, etc. 43 The conundrum of remaining theologically distinct, organizationally vibrant, and large is a question for all religious groups, not just megachurches.
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Several lessons come from successful megachurches. First, newcomers are not immediately granted the full benefits of club membership, which mitigates the problem that in-migrants will free-ride on valuable resources. For instance, many large churches maintain a “benevolence fund” to help members of their community in times of distress – an insurance fund, essentially. Attendees who are not members do not have access to these resources, nor are “mere attendees” granted the right to vote on leadership or church policies. This brings up the second lesson for churches. Attendance at a church does not automatically make one a member. Membership comes after a series of costly investments of time and other resources. Those who wish to become members, and have greater access to club resources, often need to take a series of classes that detail the church’s theology (value system) and norms, commit to a specific tithing target (often based upon ability to pay or volunteer labor), and/or make a public declaration of one’s faith commitment (often a baptism). The stricter these requirements, the more free-riders will be weeded out (Iannaccone 1992), but the more expensive the costs become, the less likely one will grow. As such, there is a “sweet spot” where strictness and openness is balanced, and may take time to cultivate (see below). If all of this sounds like the typical process of naturalization in the United States or elsewhere, it is because similar mechanisms are used to allow migrants access to a country and, eventually, confer full citizenship. While the “open borders” crowd may agree that physical access to a territory may be different than citizenship, the two should not be viewed as distinct as those who occupy a territory without citizenship can alter the cultural tenor of the community (national or local) in ways that natives consider depleting the public good of common norms, societal trust, and community identity. Third, and perhaps the least recognized but the most important aspect to learn from megachurches, is the use of small groups. While megachurches audiences may look like an undifferentiated mass of similar people on any given Sunday, outside of those weekly services these organizations try to expand their outreach and deepen the commitment of individuals by connecting them to “small groups” that are built around particular interests. There may be basketball leagues, horseback riding groups, Bible study circles organized around a particular interest, or various youth, parent, and elderly programs (Thumma and Travis 2007, 109- 15). The use of “small groups” is akin to the idea of federalism championed by Buchanan (1995) and also promoted as a solution to collective action problems by Olson (1965). The importance of these small groups is twofold. First, they allow new in-migrants (potential converts) to have very interpersonal contact with existing members of the church (i.e., those who have met membership requirements and have access to the full range of club goods). This not only allows them to better learn the norms and values of the broader organization via repeated acculturation, but it also allows the leadership to monitor and evaluate the newbie’s progress towards conforming with the church’s identity. (The latter sounds somewhat menacing, but we do this in many other social settings including our own academic departments.) Second, and perhaps more importantly, small groups provide an important bridge between the diverse interests of the potential in-migrant population and the insider norms and values of the club’s membership. In essence, megachurches realize the diversity of preferences, values, norms, and identities and try to narrow in on several areas where potential converts and existing members can agree, use those dimensions as a basis for building social capital (i.e., trust and friendships), and then lead those latent in-migrants into deeper congruence with the culture of the church, and hopefully towards full membership. In terms of encouraging a more liberal immigration policy, this strategy of identifying and matching common interests of in-migrants and natives is a crucial aspect of minimizing the levels of uncertainty that arise when norms and values are not perfectly matched between individuals. While preserving the core values and dominant norms is of greatest concern to a community, information provided on other, seemingly irrelevant, dimensions can help signals about the ability of in-migrants to conform to those norms and values. This is why “mundane” behavioral patterns and beliefs may be more important that many social scientists lend credit to. A person who never says hello and shakes hands with others indicates that they are willing to
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The Libertarian Club Conundrum Anthony Gill engage with others and is open to meeting new people. Someone who is a big fan of the local sports team reveals a dimension on which others may begin a conversation to determine if other similar values or interests exist.44 Allowing the freedom of certain “sub-cultural” groups to identify and welcome such potential immigrants, and help assimilate them into the broader community, is where efforts towards encouraging immigration should be directed, not merely to opening the floodgates to any and all. Such sub-groups, including churches themselves, provide bridges to assimilation.45 As such, the focus should not necessarily be on the “open borders” per se, but upon the strength of the civil society that exists to ameliorate cross-cultural tensions. The extant norms and values within a community also need to be given greater attention in designing policies that liberalize (or restrict) immigration. I probably could say more about this, but with a deadline fast approaching and my exhaustion level high, I think I will end it here. Yes, there is no formal conclusion, but are we ever really concluded with our intellectual journey? This all seems rather abrupt, but I bet my reader is grateful and I feel I’ve put enough on the table to chew on. I appreciate what other appetizers, entrees, or desserts could be suggested.
44 This is why I think local sporting events are so critical to society. The provide a focal point wherein people with seemingly different outward appearances that may not otherwise interact can engage with one another. By recognizing we are all Seahawks fans, allows us to talk and discover other potential similarities and to possibly learn about new norms and values that would otherwise be undiscovered. Such conversations, of course, may also reveal that we have little else in common, but at least on that one dimension we have a territory where we can interact peacefully and in congruence. This is why I think recent attempts to inject political symbolism and various social justice causes (including cancer awareness) into football games can have a corrosive effect on community cohesion as it takes away one important commonality. 45 I do think religious organizations can play a crucial role in managing immigration and refugee resettlement and in ways that would prevent a reliance on formal governmental rules. The need to stay well-connected within a community provides strong private incentives for churches to be flexible in their approach. Of course, the possibility exists that an esoteric sect that wants to shift norms and values will welcome in immigrants to upset community order. Alas, there are no solutions, only trade-offs.
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(WOEFULLY INCOMPLETE) REFERENCES Alesina, Alberto, Edward Glaeser, and Bruce Sacerdote. 2001. “Why Doesn’t the U.S. Have a European-Style Welfare State?” Harvard Institute of Economic Research Discussion Paper No. 1933. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=290047 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.290047 Allen, Douglass W. 2011. The Institutional Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Barro, Robert J. and Rachel M. McCleary. 2003. “Religion and Economic Growth across Countries.” American Sociological Review 68 (5): 760-81. Beito, David. 1990. “Mutual Aid for Social Welfare: The Case of American Fraternal Societies.” Critical Review 4 (4): 709-38. Bicchieri, Cristina. 2017. Norms in the Wild: How to Diagnose, Measure, and Change Social Norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ______. 2006. The Grammar of Society: The Nature and Diagnosis of Social Norms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Braithwaite, Valerie, and Margaret Levi, eds. 1998. Trust & Governance. New York: Russell Sage Foundation. Brennan, Geoffrey, Lina Eriksson, Robert E Goodin, & Nicholas Southwood. 2013. Explaining Norms. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [Rarely does one run into a situation where the authors’ names are longer than the book title, but here ya go!] Buchanan, James M. 1999 [1978]. “Markets, States, and the Extent of Morals,” in The Collected Works of James M. Buchanan, Volume 1: Logical Foundations of Constitutional Liberty. Indianapolis: Liberty Fund. Pp. 360-67. [Yes, I know I should go to the direct source, but the book was laying right there on my desk for our Constitutional Liberty Reading Group. Marginal costs versus reputational benefits, baby!] ______. 1995. “Federalism as an ideal political order and an objective for constitutional reform.” Publius 25 (1): 19–27. ______. 1975. The Limits of Liberty: Between Anarchy and Leviathan. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ______. 1965a. “An Economic Theory of Clubs.” Economica 32 (125): 1-14. ______. 1965b. “Ethical Rules, Expected Values, and Large Numbers.” Ethics 76 (1): 1-13. Buchanan, James and Nicos E. Devletoglou. 1971. Academia in Anarchy: An Economic Diagnosis. New York: Basic Books. Caplan, Bryan. 2012. “Why Should We Restrict Immigration?” Cato Journal 32 (1): 5-24. Caplan, Bryan and Vipul Naik. 2014. “A Radical Case for Open Borders.” Working paper. George Mason University. Carens, Joseph H. 1987. “Aliens and Citizens: The Case for Open Borders.” Review of Politics 49 (2): 251-73. Cox, Gary; Douglass C. North; and Barry Weingast. 2015. “The Violence Trap: A Political Economic Approach to the Problems of Development.” SSRN Working Paper. https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2370622
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Denzau, Arthur T. and Douglass C. North. 1994. “Shared Mental Models: Ideologies and Institutions.” Kyklos 47 (1): 3-31. Dolan, Jay P. 1992. The American Catholic Experience: A History from Colonial Times to the Present. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press. Dunbar, Robin. 1998. Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. ______. 1992. "Neocortex Size as a Constraint on Group Size in Primates." Journal of Human Evolution 22 (6): 469–493. Fukuyama, Francis. 1996. Trust: The Social Virtues and the Creation of Prosperity. New York: Free Press. Gill, Anthony. 2018. “Teaching ‘Tips’: An Economic and Pedagogical Defense of Gratuities.” Forthcoming in the Journal for Private Enterprise. ______. 2008. The Political Origins of Religious Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gill, Anthony, and John Owens IV. 2017. “Religious Liberty and Economic Prosperity: Four Lessons from the Past.” Cato Journal 37( 1): 115-34. Gill, Anthony, and Steven Pfaff. 2011. “Acting in Good Faith: An Economic Approach to Religious Organizations as Advocacy Groups.” In Rethinking Advocacy Organizations edited by Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Greif, Avner and Guido Tabellini. 2010. “Cultural and Institutional Bifurcation: China and Europe Compared.” American Economic Review: Papers and Proceedings 100(2): 135-40. Greif, Avner. 1994. “Cultural Beliefs and the Organization of Society: A Historical and Theoretical Reflection on Collectivist and Individualist Societies.” Journal of Political Economy 102(5): 912-50. Guiso, L., P. Sapienza, and L. Zingales. 2006. “Does Culture Affect Economic Outcomes.” Journal of Economic Perspectives 29 (2): 23-48. Haight, Colleen. 2007. “Hostile Territory: High Tension Religion and the Jewish Peddler.” American Journal of Economics and Sociology 66 (5): 1005-28. Hayek, F.A. 2011 [1960]. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Heiner, Robert. 1983. “The Origins of Predictable Behavior.” American Economic Review 73 (4): 560-95. Huntington, Samuel. 1996. The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order. New York: Simon & Schuster. Iannaccone, Laurence R. 1994. “Why Strict Churches Are Strong.” American Journal of Sociology 99 (5): 1180- 211. ______. 1992. “Sacrifice and Stigma: Reducing Free-Riding in Cults, Communes, and Other Collectives.” Journal of Political Economy 100 (2): 271-92. Koyama, Mark. 2011. “The Political Economy of Expulsion: The Regulation of Jewish Moneylending in Medieval England.” Constitutional Political Economy 21(4): 374-406. Lecoq, Brandon, and Anthony Gill. Forthcoming (hopefully). Greekonomics: How Political Economy Explains the Behavior of College Fraternities and Sororities.
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Leeson, Peter. 2009. The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates. Princeton: Princeton University Press. McCloskey, Deidre. 2007. The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Niskanen, William. 2007 [1971]. Bureaucracy and Representative Government. New York: Routledge. Olson, Mancur. 1965. The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. Powell, Benjamin, ed. 2015. The Economics of Immigration: Market-Based Approaches, Social Science, and Public Policy. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Skarbek, David. 2011. “Governance and Prison Gangs.” American Political Science Review 105 (4): 702-16. Somin, Ilya. 2017. “Why a nation is not like a house or a club – and why the difference matters for debates over immigration.” Washington Post (Volokh Conspiracy blog). 6 August. (URL link in text). [I have no idea how to cite electronic stuff anymore.] Stark, Rodney. 2003. For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-Hunts, and the End of Slavery. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Taylor, Michael. 1982. Community, Anarchy, and Liberty. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Thumma, Scott and Dave Travis. 2007. Beyond Megachurch Myths: What We Can Learn from America’s Largest Churches. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Tyler, Tom R. 1990. Why People Obey the Law. New Haven: Yale University Press.
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ADDENDA The following short thoughts represent a few tangential ideas to this project and potential avenues to pursue. I welcome comments, empirical research suggestions, or offers for co-authors. These thoughts also are an attempt to provide other things to discuss with my colleagues so as to not be a lunch tax.
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ADDENDUM 1: THE LIBERTARIAN CLOWN CONUNDRUM
Libertarians, by and large, value limitations on formal government and the associated laws, regulations, and ordinances such state-based hierarches force upon individuals. Market-based methods of allocating resources and managing social behaviors are much preferred. Where informational and other transaction costs are too high to support market-based forms of social order, the use of social norms often are seen as better than hierarchical rules backed by hard coercion (e.g., fines, imprisonment). Such social norms help to coordinate behavior under uncertainty and allow “soft coercive” ways to direct and coordinate behavior via the shaming of individuals who violate accepted etiquette. The meting out of “punishment” for norms can also be more flexibly adjusted to the context than “bright line” laws. But how do libertarians deal with “ab-normal” behavior – i.e., individuals who engage in behaviors that are not managed by self-interested market exchange and/or violate social norms and who are beyond shaming? Consider an individual dressed as a clown who stands on a public thoroughfare or easement (e.g., sidewalk) and stares into the window of a person on private property?46 While a libertarian may want to avoid crafting formal laws prohibiting such behaviors (as they may open the door to regulation other forms of “distasteful” behavior), it is a problem that reliance on community norms would not alleviate the overall “creepiness” of this situation as a person who stands in public with a clown costume is probably beyond shaming. Nor do there seem to be any adequate market solutions to this “social ill” that would not incentivize “hold up” or extortionary behaviors. One possible solution is simply to disregard “clowning” as a social ill to be regulated by informal norms or formal regulation; it would be incumbent on the person who is “clowned” to simply adjust to the scenario. But common sense over time seems to dictate that stalking and loitering are real social problems that the bulk of society want to mitigate. Individuals who are stalked (or “clowned”) do experience the costs of anxiety imposed upon them by not having a clear idea of the potentially-harmful intentions of the stalker. And businesses that have certain individuals lingering outside of their establishment fear that this will dissuade other potential customers from trading with them (e.g., the menacing teenagers outside the convenience store or the biker gang using Chuck-E-Cheese as a hangout). So, short of formal laws that punish loitering and stalking, how do liberty-minded individuals mitigate the creepy uncertainties of clowns standing on the sidewalk? Are such laws inevitable in larger societies? And if so, how can these regulations be contained to minimize the chance they would be applied to an ever-expanding range of behaviors?
46 This exercise is not merely hypothetical or academic as there has been a “rash” of “clown sightings” in the United States, Britain, and Israel in recent years. Even if this is merely the media “blowing things out of proportion,” it has exacted some responses to “do something” about such “ab-normal” behavior.
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ADDENDUM 2: CAN YOU HAVE A PROPERTY RIGHT IN YOUR OWN REPUTATION? Clearly-specified property rights are often a good cure for what “ails ya.” As Coase (1960) nobly pointed out, a proper specification in property rights can help to mitigate negative externalities and mitigate conflict (cf Anderson & Hill 2004). While the typical undergraduate thinks of property rights merely in terms of real estate or other tangible things (e.g., laptop computers, sock puppets), the range of items that we can delineate rights over has been expansive, ranging from ideas, musical jingles (e.g., “Master of Puppets”), and even to sunshine (Winter 2013, 105-08) and panoramic views.47 But can one have a property right in their own reputation? I raise this issue after having stated in in an off-hand way in a piece of popular writing, only to have a few folks go off on that point in the comments section. To me, it seemed obvious that having a property right in your own reputation is plausible. An individual’s reputation represents a collection of the thoughts and opinions that others hold of that individual (Klein 1997).48 This makes reputation a complicated piece of property in that its shape and form is created and held (owned?) by others. And yet, we talk about how we make “investments” in our own reputation through a variety of actions. Surely an individual has some control over his own reputation based upon the conscious actions he undertakes, thus is part of the “creative” process.49 Of course, our reputation may be due to circumstances beyond our control (luck, bad or good) and/or subconscious actions.50 And we also speak of doing “damage” to somebody’s reputation, much as we would think of smashing someone’s truck window. That damage comes at a cost to the individual whose reputation is in question, which in turn seems to imply that the individual has some property claim upon the image that is projected into society about him. Indeed, this seems to be the basis of laws pertaining to slander and libel; a person who has been slandered in public, and who bears a loss of business, can be compensated financially as if a “thing” had been stolen. In both California and Canada, new laws punish individuals who refuse to call another individual by their preferred pronoun – he, she, or something else. To the extent that a person can earn a certain reputation for being of a certain gender, and others must abide by that distinction, it would seem to imply that a property right over a reputation could be defined (and the Californian/Canadian rules may be a step in that direction). And yet, one’s reputation flitters around among society, determined by information – true or false – spread by gossip and shaped by others, often without the knowledge of others. And who among us truly knows what our reputation is? If we cannot know fully what our reputation is, how can we exercise a property right over it? Are we dealing here with a unique good that is conjointly owned by many individuals, ever changing, and impossible to specify a right over? Are slander and libel laws quixotic attempts to define and allocate property to someone who cannot fully own that property? And does this mean such laws are merely rent-seeking mechanisms to allocate resources in a potentially arbitrary manner? I truly do not know the answer to these questions and would invite anyone interested in such issues to consider a joint project with me.
47 My students who do not believe that somebody can have a property right in sunshine are often shocked to find out that the University of Washington owns the view of Mt. Rainier from the Drumheller Fountain, which is often the postcard picture used to depict how gorgeous the campus is. 48 At some point I thought I had seen this definition verbatim in Klein’s work, but on a second look, I could not find that quotation, thus I attribute it to Klein in a manner of paraphrasing until I can actually nail the quote down. 49 I just don’t wear a cowboy hat because I look good, though I do look good in a cowboy hat by all objective measures. 50 The moving Being There seems to be relevant here as Chance (Chauncey) earns a reputation not of his own choosing.
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ADDENDA REFERENCES
Anderson, T.L. & P.J. Hill. 2004. The Not So Wild, Wild West: Property Rights on the Frontier. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Coase, R.H. 1960. “The Problem of Social Cost” Journal of Law and Economics 3(1):1-44. Klein, D.B. 1997. Reputation: Studies in the Voluntary Elicitation of Good Conduct. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Winter, H. 2013. Trade-Offs: An Introduction to Economic Reasoning and Social Issues. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
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