Chapter 58, Welfare and Immigration: The Second Part of the Argument, concludes the fifth part, The Mechanics of Freedom. While in Chapter 14, Friedman argued that labor immigration benefits both the migrants and the citizens, he now focuses on the fact that migrants may pursue the simple goal of living on welfare. He asserts that free migration is precisely what gives the government an incentive to reduce benefits, whereas high immigration barriers allow the level of redistribution to remain high. Thus, for proponents of a small state, it is entirely justified to either start by reducing benefits and then open the gates, or start by easing migration, and then the demand for reducing benefits will inevitably emerge.

It seems to me that Friedman relies too heavily on economics here, failing to consider the factor of populism in democratic countries.

And so, having finished the fifth part, I dove straight into the sixth, and first translated the poetic introduction, so the poems in this book are now seemingly dealt with.