Arguments put forward to support a political position often do not stand up to the slightest scrutiny. Rather, they are meant to impress the impressionable—those who lack the context necessary to make an evaluation—and draw large numbers of the uninformed to one side of a political debate. Such is the case with libertarian economist Bryan Caplans latest article in favor of unlimited immigration, in which he uses the United Arab Emirates as a supposed template for the policy of open borders.

As an Arabic speaker and former resident of the United Arab Emirates – I lived and worked there for five years and managed a large portfolio of hotel investments owned by Dubai’s sovereign wealth fund – I have a special context that Caplan does not have, having only passed through on his way to India.

With that context, I do not intend to evaluate the respective merits of either side of the broader libertarian debates about limited vs. unlimited immigration, nor do I intend to dissect Caplan’s entire position in this debate. My purpose is to point out the factual inaccuracies in Caplan’s latest article and suggest that irrational fixation on one side of an argument often comes with desperate leaps of judgment, leading to sloppy analysis.

Misinterprets the situation

Caplan begins by praising the UAEand for good reason. The UAE has made good use of its current or past wealth of natural resources (depending on the emirate), recognizing its limitations – mainly in terms of human resources – while striving to mitigate them. It is generally clean and safe and has many of the qualities desirable in a destination country.

So Caplan identifies what he believes is the “key ingredient in Emirati success”, namely that 88 percent of the population is foreign-born. He says this is the case because “the UAE is closer to open borders than any country on earth.” Here I must digress to give Caplan the benefit of defining, in his own words, the terms he uses. “Open Borders” as he explained in a recent interviewee, “(customs agents in a particular country) means to only let anyone whose passport is not on a crime watch list.”

Back to Caplan’s point about the UAE. He begins with a claim that the UAE is essentially an open-border country. But does the UAE meet his own definition of the same? Absolutely not.

The United Arab Emirates is very restrictive in its immigration policy. No one may enter the country for more than a limited time on a tourist visa without being specifically invited by an employer. And since the biggest employers in the UAE are the royal families through their many companies, invitations to live and work in the UAE are at their pleasure. Once inside the UAE, employees who lose their jobs are not eligible to stay unless they find a new position with a sponsoring company within a short period of time. Either they work and produce, benefiting the UAE directly, or they are deported home.

Having dismissed Caplan’s assumption that the UAE has open borders, the conclusion that its success is due to a high foreign-born population is clearly invalid. Imagine the United Arab Emirates with the same proportion of foreign-born residents, but without the pre-existing wealth from natural resources. Or imagine the UAE being 88 percent Haitian instead of its current mix of Third World workers and mostly Western expat executives. Would it be the same UAE? Obviously not.

The UAE’s high foreign-born population goes hand in hand with its rapid expansion, but the connection to Caplan’s idea of ​​open borders is non-existent. The native population of the UAE has never had the human resources that can be developed in this way. Being able to acquire such resources has undoubtedly proven helpful, but Caplan confuses this transactional policy with open borders.

Rather, the UAE’s success is more credibly attributed to a combination of natural resource wealth and a private property mindset on the part of its ruling families – a recognition that, as absolute and hereditary rulers, the country is essentially their property, long and short. – long-term investments must be made to maintain or improve that property.

Caplans next point is that the rulers of the United Arab Emirates were not nativist and therefore chose to abdicate the interests of native Emiratis by allowing high levels of immigration into their country. This is a gross misinterpretation of the prevailing psychology in the UAE.

It is naive to suggest – as Caplan does – that the interests of UAE citizens, including the royal families themselves, were not foremost in the minds of the Emirati rulers when they embarked on their various plans for economic diversification. Recognizing the scarcity of human resources and diminishing natural resource wealth over time – rapidly diminishing in Dubai’s case – importing labor to achieve the broader plan of economic diversification was, and is, essential. Emiratis have benefited enormously from this state of affairs, and that is by design. Immigrants facilitate various goals for the UAE’s rulers and citizens, but they do not participate in the political process – as it is an absolute monarchy – and their rights are significantly limited compared to those of Emirati citizens. It is also designed.

Nextin an apparent attempt to undermine a natural argument against open borders – that they are incompatible with a welfare state – Caplan points to the UAE’s “flooding welfare state”. But at the end of this paragraph, almost as a paragraph, Caplan admits that the “overwhelming welfare state” does not exist for immigrants, only for Emirati nationals, who make up a small minority of the population. He then contradicts his earlier description by suggesting that no one would describe this state as a “generous welfare state”. Okay then.

Caplans next point is both confusing and incorrect. He seems to pre-empt the “assimilation” argument against open borders – that cultures will clash – by suggesting that rather than immigrants adopting Emirati values, the opposite has happened, namely that native Emirati Muslims and Third World migrants have been “Westernized” by the small but influential Western expat -community in the United Arab Emirates.

Unfortunately, he provides no evidence for this claim. It is hard to imagine what he is referring to, but anyone visiting a labor housing facility in the United Arab Emirates would be hard-pressed to find any signs of “Westernization” among the Third World migrants trapped there.

Reality Check

Caplan’s admiration for the UAE is understandable. It is undeniable that most of the immigrants who choose to work and stay temporarily in the UAE – especially the manual workers from the Indian subcontinent – ​​live better than they would in their home country. But the numerous factual errors – reflecting an ignorance of life and law in the UAE – and leaps of logic that make up his article fall far short of illustrating a proof of concept for open borders, by Caplan’s own definition. As such, it comes across as a desperate and intellectually lazy attempt to defend its flagship position rather than thoughtful analysis.