Will is an advocate of more-open immigration because of the belief that it benefits both the club members (citizens) and the applicants (immigrants), and this is a point which is not directly related to his thesis on the moral justice of the welfare state.

What it comes down to is this:

1. It's perfectly fine and moral if a club (nation) wishes to extend certain benefits to its members, in order to make club membership attractive and worthwhile.

2. So long as the club in question is excludes some people from being members, you can not make the case that what the club is doing is working towards social justice, any more than my grandmother's luxurious downtown supper club was doing anything to fight world hunger.

In other words, having the very good luck of being born in America rather than Ethiopia does not create a MORAL requirement for America to ensure your health and prosperity, beyond the contractual obligation which The America Club has established to “promote the general welfare” of its members, which most people would argue includes keeping you from starving to death. So long as The America Club lets non-members starve, you can't really call what the club is doing with its welfare state “egalitarianism” or “justice”.

The same standard does apply, but I believe Will's point was simply that you shouldn't take the benefits of membership in an exclusive club and dress them up as “social justice.”

It is politics that determines distribution and distribution determines the particular shape of a market.

Market outcomes are outcomes of market processes. The market process itself is very much subject to moral criticism. Libertarians believe that the process “passes the test” of such criticism. As part of critical analysis we consider alternative systems and we say, market systems are the best systems for reasons XYZ.

Political outcomes are outcomes of political processes. The political process itself is very much subject to moral criticism. Libertarians believe that our current political process “doesn't pass the test” of such criticism. As part of critical analysis we consider alternative systems and we say, “constitutional democracies with a heavier-than-current emphasis on fundamental rights ABC are better than what we have now, for reasons XYZ.”

So both economic and political systems are subject to moral criticism. One escapes unscathed, the other doesn't.

Will, I wonder whether there are political facts which you think can be taken as given for purposes of moral inquiry in the same way that you take economic facts as given…?

Evidently you don't attribute to them just the same status. The gap between the Canadian and the Mexican dingus-tightener is to be the object of direct moral criticism in a way that the gap between the American dingus-tightener and the American widget-polisher is not. T

I know some of the moves that could be made here, but I don't want to provide too much of a prompt. So let me start with: Do political facts about the world occupy a categorically different status from economic facts about the world for purposes of moral inquiry? If so, why? If not, then why is the fact of the border-controlling 'nation-'state up for moral criticism in a way that market outcomes aren't?

(As always, I agree with your analysis of nearly everything! But I'm pulling on a loose thread to see what unravels, partly because it seems relevant to your argument and partly because I'm independently interested in it.)

Year 1: Adam and Jeff and Bill all earn $20/hour => the mean, median, and modal US income are all $20.
Year 2: Adam and Jeff get raises to $22/hour; Bill doubles his income to $40. So Adam and Jeff and Bill are much better off by any measurement, right? But wait: there was some new immigration! New immigrants Jose, Felippe, Dino and Sasha earn $4, $5, $6, and $7 respectively per hour. The new median wage has dropped to $7.

People who live in the west *are* better off due to immigration (both in my example and in real life), but the numbers are only likely to reflect this if you don't include the new immigrants over that period in the sample.