In the United States we do not have the social welfare system that Europe does. Our political class chooses to invest in the military and imperialist wars abroad instead of providing “free” college education or healthcare for our people. It’s not right and is a big reason that Bernie Sanders, the only socialist democrat in the US congress has become so popular, because he is constantly telling us that the richest country in the world has zero excuse not to provide those basic needs to its people.

I think that is another fallacy that the ruling class elites like to tell us: don’t let all those foreigners in or our healthcare and education system will collapse! Fear mongering is what this is. For example in the United States in the last decade undocumented immigrants have contributed roughly $200 Billion into the Social Security system of which they do not get to benefit from. Also, immigrants have contributed immensely to local economies, revitalizing entire forgotten manufacturing towns in the Midwest that have been destroyed by outsourcing of jobs to Asia for cheap labor. My point is a huge influx, which I don’t believe would happen anyway, would just contribute to the tax base because regardless of immigrant status in the US you pay taxes just by being another consumer. Social programs including healthcare and education would just adjust over time.

You know who actually is about to cause the collapse of our social security and medicare systems in the US? Elon Musk, Trump and their billionaire cronies who infiltrated government and NOT migrants coming over the border working the fields for $5 per hour.

Based on your comment it seems to me like you’re a German citizen. Let me give some unsolicited advice: Fight like hell to keep your social welfare programs! The news lately seems to be showing that Germany is re-militarizing and that may come at a cost just like in the USA they will try to claw money away from social programs to redirect to military spending. Fight like hell so you don’t become the capitalist wasteland the USA has become with ruling elites trying to privatize every program.

Comment I agree with: “If you have money, borders are basically open for you” - @[email protected]

The proof of this is the Trump’s administration concept of the gold card, not to be confused with the green card. The gold card is for individuals who will invest at least $5 million in the US. They than can get a gold card with trump’s face on it and come in and out of the country whenever they please as if there are open borders for them. Link: Trumps Gold card

Comment I do not agree with: “If every border opened up and tons of people moved into Europe/USA and other wealthy countries they would inevitably collapse. Trust in the system would erode and it would all devolve into anarchy.” @[email protected]

I think this is misguided. The rule of law and enforcement of it would not simply cease to be because of opening up of borders. This is exactly what the ruling elites conditioned society to think and it is baseless Hollywood type propaganda created to keep the working class fighting among themselves and under the boot of the ruling class. They want you to think this way because most people who immigrate to another country are honest hard working people and NOT criminals. What do hard working honest people want to do? They want to provide for their families the best quality of life possible. How does one achieve that? One cannot by his or herself, one needs to join the many in the form of working class unions. What would happen if we the working class people all joined unions? We make the Capitalists elites our bitch. We dictate the working conditions and we decide what is a fair wage. Do you see where I am going with this? THERE IS STRENGTH IN NUMBERS and the ruling elite minority could no longer exploit the working class majority.

This is a difficult concept for us “modern humans” to wrap our heads around so I get why some of the responses are “civilization would collapse”. But hear me out: We assume that most people in the so called “3rd world” (global south is a better term) actually want to migrate to the wealthier western nations. This is not entirely the case. In the majority of cases people do not want to uproot their families, leave everyone and everything they know behind, have to learn a foreign language and culture. Desperation is what mostly drives this decision!

What I am saying is if we had open borders in the first place migration would actually decrease because nation states would have to compete for human capital, ultimately raising the standards of living for everyone. That is different than what we do now, where nation states exploit people for their labor, do not provide for their basic needs, creating a class driven society where the elites (the one’s who do the exploiting) continue to rule for generation after generation, in many cases with impunity.

Open borders. I strongly believe in open borders as a moral imperative. Human beings have been migrating for survival, resources, and exploration for over 20,000 years. The concept of nation-states imposing constraints on movement is a modern invention that doesn’t align with the inherent human need for freedom of mobility. People in the southwestern states of the US with Mexican roots will tell you “We didn’t cross the border, the border crossed us.”