(In response to Jessica’s post.)

So, here’s the trolley problem:

• A runaway trolley is on course to kill five innocent people. I can switch the trolley to another track, saving the five but killing one (let’s call this guy Bob.)

Is it okay to kill Bob in order to save the other five people? Most people say yes. Bradley Gabbard argues that if you say yes, then you should be committed to having governments provide global aid to the poor.

Let’s modify the thought experiment, though. Imagine you have the following three options:

1. Do nothing. Five people die. Bob lives.
2. Pull the switch one way. Bob dies. The other five live.
3. Pull the switch a second way. Everyone lives. World GDP doubles.

In this scenario, I think it’s obvious 1 and 2 are impermissible if 3 is an option.

What’s the relevance? I think in the real world case of fighting global poverty, we have something close to option 3. It’s called open immigration. Immigration restrictions may be the single most inefficient policy governments implement. When economists estimate the welfare losses from immigration restrictions, they tend to conclude that eliminating immigration restrictions could nearly double world GDP. (E.g., See table 2 here.) Immigration has a much stronger potential to help the poor than global aid. Most people would benefit from open immigration, but the world’s poor would benefit the most.

If we really want to help the global poor, we’d be very cautious about advocating global government to government aid, or even government to NGO aid. After all, such programs have little history of success. Often, all aid does is buy the local dictator a fancy airport and some guns to shoot the locals.