"500 years from now our descendants (if they survive) will regard our tolerance of our present-day

restrictions on global migration from country to country with roughly the same kind of horror that we today regard James Madison’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, and Aristotle’s tolerance of slavery."

Extraordinary Inequities of Restrictions on International Migration

Miles Kimball starts a train of thought that leads to the conclusion that our descendants 500 years in the future–if we have a good future, that is–may well likely to regard our tolerance of our present-day restrictions on global migration from country to country with roughly the same kind of horror that we today regard James Madison’s, Thomas Jefferson’s, and Aristotle’s tolerance of slavery.

The equities seem considerably analogous: a social institution that causes misery for many but gives others at and near the top of the social pyramid preferential access to the good things of life. Yes, an immediate move to global open borders would be immensely disruptive. Yes, many would find themselves much poorer as a result. But is there any doubt that globe wealth would increase? And is there any doubt that any Benthamite utilitarian calculus would conclude that–provided societies did not collapse into chaos during the transition–that the utilitarian value of each dollar wealth that was transferred to the previous losers would outweigh its value to the previous winners?

So, from today’s perspective, it was with chattel slavery. So–if the future holds a good world–we might suspect that our descendants 500 years from now to think about us.

The Hunger Games paints an eerily apt picture of the world’s reality. The Capitol is the rich nations of the world: the US, Canada, Australia, Japan, Israel, New Zealand, some oil kingdoms, most European nations. The Districts are the poor nations of the world—Haiti, Nepal, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Laos, Papua New Guinea, many countries in central Asia and Africa, all of which have per capita incomes less than $10 per day.

The author concedes that &quot t)here may be some limit to the speed at which we can take in newcomers. But there is good reason to think it is much higher than the current rate of immigration" based on historical levels of immigration.

We may never learn the answer to this as our descendants may have bigger problems dealing with the effects of climate change and may have had to come up with some form of global government to deal with that global problem.