Over at Open Borders, Paul Crider is puzzled why self-described cosmopolitan philosophers focus so heavily on global redistribution rather than open borders as a way to fight global poverty. I agree. It just seems to me that political philosophers tend to be about 50 years behind the curve on the economics of global development. Here’s Michael Clemens’s piece in JEP.

One thing that’s often missing from philosophical arguments about political legitimacy are questions about territorial exclusion. When discussing legitimacy, philosophers spend a lot of time trying to explain why states might have moral permission to compel people within their borders to obey certain laws. But they rarely consider the question of how states can legitimately come to acquire territory that excludes outsiders. Here’s Cara Nine’s book on the subject, which I haven’t read. Here’s Kit Wellman’s defense of the right of states to close borders. At some point, I’ll write a response to Wellman here.