From: Joseph Salerno <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 May 1996 11:12:59 -0700 (PDT)

1.  In an anarcho-capitalist regime, people indeed would own their own
neighborhoods, since the streets and all other "public" services would be
privately provided.  Of course, the precise size of the optimal
"neighborhood" would vary according to technological circumstances and
consumer preferences.  But every residential area would feature tightly
restricted immigration just as hotels, condominium and townhouse complexes,
and leisure villages do today.  Thus only individuals who were specifically
invited by the private property owners of the neighborhood to visit, shop,
rent or buy would be permitted to "immigrate" to the neighborhood--and then
only on the precise terms specified by the property owners.  For example an
immigrant may be permitted to purchase a residence in the neighborhood only
on the condition that he refrain from practicing a particular religion or
indulging a dietary custom that the resident-owners found offensive.  Or a
particular group, defined by age, religion, race, gender, etc. or a
combination thereof, may be debarred from shopping in the neighborhood
because its members are thought to be particularly prone to criminality.   

2.  Thus, as Hans Hoppe has pointed out, in a marvelously insightful
unpublished article, restricted immigration, and not "free" immigration, is
the libertarian counterpart of free trade.  Both free trade and restricted
immigration rest on mutual consent and benefit;  free immigration is on all
fours with restricted trade as an invasion of private property which
unilaterally benefits the immigrant or the protected industry.  Contrary to
Steve Horwitz's point, the immigrant's wishes in moving into a neighborhood
should count for no more for the libertarian than those of U.S. Steel's when
lobbying for a tariff.   

3.  This brings me to the question of the proper immigration policy for a
nation in which the State has appropriated ownership of streets, highways,
parks, airports, etc., and has grossly restricted the freedom of association
inherent in private property through antidiscrimination laws.  These
circumstances strengthen rather than weaken the case for restricted
immigration.  Given that streets and other publically-owned spaces are
scarce resources, they have a multitude of competing uses.  No one (except
Bryan Caplan) would deny that the government as de facto owner of these
resources should define and enforce rules for using them.  Preventing people
from defecating, copulating, bowling, erecting shooting galleries etc. in
the middle of the street is hardly a violation of libertarian principle.
These activities would most likely be prohibited on privately owned streets
also.  Indeed, as pointed out above, a libertarian neighborhood would be
even more restrictive in setting rules for the use of its streets and parks,
determining not only WHAT activities take place but WHO may perform them.
Preventing a noncitizen from walking or driving on a town's street is no
more illibertarian than preventing a bum from sleeping on a park bench or
mandating that teenagers cannot roam city streets after midnight. Admittedly
towns or cities as the outcome of a political process may not be the
optimally-sized "neighborhood" and without the aid of monetary calculation
and the competitive market process, municipal bureaucracies may not have the
ability or incentive to discern or formulate the most efficient rules for
the use of streets and other public areas.  But this is not an argument for
free immigration any more than it is an argument for permitting an open air
latte bar to operate in the middle of the street; it is, however, an
argument for privatizing streets, parks etc. by turning them over to
neighborhood homeowners' or downtown merchants' associations, which would
then be free to implement rules for the use of these resources which
increased the value of their residences and businesses.  Private covenants
and deed restrictions excluding certain groups from residing in the
neighborhood, if permitted, could then then be negotiated between members of
these neighborhood associations and might further enhance the value of their
properties.    

4.  Indeed the emphasis on de facto ownership reveals that immigration
policy should not merely or even mainly be a function of the Federal
government but of State and, especially, local governments.  The Federal
government should restrict immigration through its ports and especially onto
and through the vast areas of productive land that it has expropriated from
the States. Towns and cities, however, bear the greatest responsibility for
determining who may use its public areas and how these may be used, since
such use impacts most directly on the quality of life of local
taxpayers/homeowners.  Until such areas are privatized, local taxpayers have
a right to expect that they are used exclusively in their interests.  Like
the (basically market-created) cities of the Middle Ages, municipalities
would post welcome signs indicating who could use the public areas and for
what purposes.  They may for example indicate that all ex-felons register
with the local police on a daily basis, that all women cover their busts,
that all male teenagers riding the subway ride only in the last two cars, or
that noncitizens be sponsored by a local business or homeowner.   These are
all rules that may, in principle, be enforced by a private property owner
and are not illibertarian per se.  

5.  I would like to conclude with a sociological point.  Bryan Caplan
gleefully considers that a free immigration policy would lead to a situation
in which "public property becomes unworkable."  Surely a nihilistic position
if one ponders it.  He also refers to "Professor Rothbard of his declining
years" and charges Rothbard and other established scholars in the Austrian
tradition with upholding a "contrived and disingenuous" position on
immigration designed to "please their paleoconservative friends."  Given
that the roots of Caplan's position lie in seventies-style libertarianism, I
think it instantiates my point, made in another context, that this type of
libertarianism leads for many to a postmodernist intellectual posture,
peculiar to the Austrian school, whose name shall remain unspoken.