To the argument:
"If a socialist society is going to work as intended, then mathematically you need more makers than takers to sustain society.
If you have open borders and allow unfettered immigration. Then you invite more takers than makers.
Point is you might be able to pull off a socialist society, but you have to have tightly controlled closed borders. So which is it that you want?"
I replied:
The problem with this argument is that it starts with something that sounds mathematical but actually isn't.
You do not need more "makers" than "takers." You need enough total economic output to support total consumption. One farmer can feed hundreds of people. One engineer can create software used by millions. One worker with modern machinery can produce what dozens once did. Productivity matters, not some simplistic head count.
By this logic, every child, retiree, student, disabled person, stay at home parent, and temporarily unemployed worker is a "taker." Yet societies somehow stagger onward despite the shocking burden of kindergarteners.
The second flaw is assuming immigrants automatically belong in the taker category. That's not mathematics. That's an assumption. An immigrant doctor, nurse, electrician, carpenter, entrepreneur, or software developer is obviously a producer. Whether immigration is a net benefit or cost depends on employment, skills, age, and integration, not on the fact that someone crossed a border.
Also, social democracies do not live or die based on whether borders are open or closed. They succeed or fail based on productivity, employment, demographics, tax revenue, and economic growth. Immigration can create challenges, but it can also help address worker shortages and aging populations.
So the question isn't "Do you want a welfare state or immigration?" The question is "Are the people entering the country contributing more than they consume?" Some do. Some don't. Just like the people already here.
The whole "makers versus takers" framework is less economics and more comic book writing. Real economies are full of people moving back and forth between those categories throughout their lives. We start out as takers, spend decades as makers, and hopefully retire before some guy on Facebook decides Grandma is a parasite because she stopped coding software at 78.
