Husam Ramadan

The Myth of the Brain Drain

In the midst of the hustling and bustling markets of Lagos, Nigeria, there exists a young,

intelligent woman named Maryam with a capacity to contribute greatly for the betterment of

society. Maryam triumphed over lack-luster education in her hometown, studying hard all

through her collegiate years until finally graduating from medical school with big dreams of

gaining citizenship in the United States of America, thus creating stability and economic

prosperity for her and her family. However, Maryam’s home country, Nigeria, contains countless

innocent civilians in urgent and desperate need of sufficient healthcare. As critics of emigration

proclaim, Maryam’s decision to move out of the country further limits the amount of medical

care these citizens are able to retrieve. Does Maryam do anything wrong by choosing to leave

Nigeria for the United States? What kinds of duties, if any, does she have to her fellow Nigerians

and to the Nigerian government? Ultimately, Maryam has no moral obligation to continue

residing or working in the medical field for her country.

It is unequivocally ethically reprehensible to force someone to remain anywhere against

their will. The country of Nigeria, or any other nation on the planet for that matter, has no right

to declare their citizens property of the nation in any way, shape, or form. One of the many

articulated intrinsic human values every man and woman attains is the right to live in the free

exchange of people, goods, and ideas. Even if there are more positive economic and health

outcomes produced in a world in which we subjugate people to reside in certain places against

their will, none of this would allow the overthrowing of the unalienable right to freedom.

Furthermore, a question of barriers exists if we feel the need to force Maryam back to her

1
country: where do we draw the line? At which point does it become impermissible to remove

civil liberties in the name of public good? If the rationale that Maryam has more to contribute to

her own country than the United States holds true, would it not be preferable to reorganize the

structure of civilization in such a way to fit the demands of all citizens of the planet? For

instance, Japan has an abundance of doctors and healthcare professionals in its country while the

Central African Republic has a scarcity of the same resource.1, 2 If our ultimate goal is to

prioritize getting everyone a succinct level of access to basic amenities and human needs, do

those Japanese doctors and healthcare specialists not have a moral duty to travel to the CAR for

the benefit of the public good? Similarly, South Korea has a plentiful amount of technology

professionals while Turkmenistan has less than one percent of South Korea’s tech experts.3, 4

Would it not be morally impermissible for the excess South Korean professionals to move to

Turkmenistan for the sake of the public good? While it is understandable to dissect the

dichotomy of taking care of the nation one was born in, that gives no fundamental, distinctive

right for the nation to hold the individual liberties of the emigrant captive for the sake of overall

prosperity. In the theory of libertarianism, individual rights, civil liberties, and the right to self-

ownership are intrinsic, meaning that under no circumstance may they be taken away from sane,

adult individuals (Sandel, 38). This builds off of Kant’s moral philosophy of deontological ethics

which judges the innate moral value of an action based on the action itself, not on the

consequence (Sandel, 54). Maryam deciding to use her civil right to self-ownership and freedom

to move to another country is not the concern of anyone else and does not warrant any setback to

devalue her individual rights. If we presume that the consequences of Maryam’s move would be

disastrous, it would still give no right to steal one’s intrinsic individual rights, no matter the case.

2
 If we took into account no libertarian or deontological ethics, Maryam will still be

ethically permissible in her pursuit to follow the manuscript enshrined on Lady Liberty. Initially,

it may seem clear that Maryam will contribute more to the overall public welfare in a world

where she chooses to stay in a country with far less quality in the healthcare system than the

United States. This is, however, a flawed and rash assumption that must be analyzed carefully.

The fact is that there are a plethora of factors to take into consideration when attempting to place

a label on the outcomes of Maryam’s decision to move to America. Firstly, it is an objective fact

that medical professionals in the United States are paid at a much higher rate than in Nigeria or

other developing nations, about 249% more, in fact.5 Secondly, immigrants in the United States

do not hoard their wealth and rarely live in America their whole life, almost always returning

back to their home countries for retirement or later settlement.6 Thirdly, remittances sent by the

US to other nations in 2017 alone totaled to over $148 billion in cash flow.7 To disregard these

massive contributions that immigrants can provide to their family once they move to a more

prosperous land temporarily would be a grave mistake. I love to take my father as a prominent

example of this concept. My father was born and raised in an impoverished village in Egypt with

no running water, easy access to housing, or safe electricity. He worked day and night on the

fields while barely getting enough time to study endlessly for high school exams. However, it all

paid off when he not only became the first person in my family to graduate high school, but also

the first to go to college and achieve a Bachelors, Masters, and PhD, all on a full scholarship.

After his collegiate level, he was presented with two options: move to a richer country or stay in

Egypt. Proponents of the ladder would also likely support Maryam staying in Nigeria, but they

would be wrong on both fronts. My father decided to move to America and after five years filled

with hardship and economic turmoil, he finally kept a steady job with good pay and put his PhD

3
to use, teaching at a local university. As a result of his immense work here in the states, he now

attains high enough finances to not only take care and provide for immediate family and all of

their needs, but also for everyone of his distant relatives and poor friends in Egypt, along with

taking care of the poor village he came from to the best of his ability. The sum of wealth he

gained out of moving to the United States is incomparable to anything he would have received

had he chosen to stay in Egypt. Likewise, Maryam has the capability to produce an incredibly

large income here in the United States, which will give her the chance to give back to her

country, which could use the funds on investments in their healthcare system. If we analyze all

constituent elements pertaining to the case at hand, it should become evident that the

consequences of Maryam moving out of her country may prove prosperous, which would tip the

moral philosophy of consequentialism into the favor of Maryam and her voyage to America.

Furthermore, through a utilitarian lens, Maryam will produce more utility, or public good, by

contributing so much more to her society than any negatives that may follow suit, thus making

her action ethically permissible (Sandel, 23).

A philosopher may argue that wealthy countries are inherently abusing their bargaining

power by draining poorer nations of their only capacity of becoming more prosperous,

intelligent, well-educated civilians. However, this argument presupposes that poorer countries

would be better off in a world where the intelligent civilians stayed and contributed to their

society. This is an incredibly fallacious presumption for a multitude of reasons. For one, these

poorer nations such as Nigeria, Libya, Yemen, and the Congo do not typically provide their most

valuable workers the ability to truly make a difference in the world.8 It is not the fault of these

nations that this is the natural outcome of work in these nations, it is simply a lack of financial

resources allocated to crucial sects that have the potential to make ground-breaking discoveries.

4
For example, the research and development sector of the poorest economies on the globe tend to

be the least funded departments of these governments.8 Again, these developing nations have

more important, fundamental worries to concern themselves with, such as food, shelter, water,

education access, etc. So, it would naturally be logically coherent for a high-value worker to

move to a richer country that supplements its workers greater so that their research and

development that comes as a result produces greater discoveries that can actually greatly help

those suffering in poorer nations as much as it can the rich ones. As a byproduct of this

innovation, these migrant workers typically return back home with their greatly increased

financial status or at least send remittances back to their family and charity back to their country.

In every lens, from consequentialist to utilitarian to libertarian to Kantian, the argument that rich

nations are exploiting what little poor countries produce is abhorrently incorrect.

In any capacity, Maryam has no moral obligation to stay in the country she was born in,

Nigeria, or to work in a medical clinic in this country at any point during her lifetime. Not only

has this been proven true because of the inherent moral considerations we must take into account

regarding the recognition of individual liberty, but also because of the consequentialist support of

the ethicality of this particular decision (Sandel, 37). Maryam has done nothing morally wrong or

unjust by choosing to leave Nigeria since she acted on her own right to self-ownership. She does

not hold any duty to the Nigerian government or people any more than she might hold a duty to

help anyone else, though she ought to produce as much good as she can in her life through

charity and philanthropic services. The free movement of people across the globe makes us all

richer, healthier, happier, more developed, and free; this case is the first step to ensure this.

5
 Bibliography

1. "CAR on World Health Organization's Global Health Workforce Statistics, OECD,

supplemented by country data." World Bank. Last modified July 26, 2022. Accessed July
26, 2022. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?locations=JP.

2. "Japan on World Health Organization's Global Health Workforce Statistics, OECD,

supplemented by country data." World Bank. Last modified July 26, 2022. Accessed July
26, 2022. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SH.MED.PHYS.ZS?locations=JP.

3. Goldsberry, Denise. "Internet In Turkmenistan, Already The World's Slowest, Faces

Further Restrictions." RadioFreeEurope. Last modified January 13, 2022. Accessed July
26, 2022. https://www.rferl.org/a/turkmenistan-internet-slowest-restrictions/
31652467.html.

4. Dayton, Leigh. "How South Korea made itself a global innovation leader." Nature. Last
modified June 2, 2020. Accessed July 26, 2022. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-
020-01466-7.

5. Condon, Alan. "How physician pay in the US compares to other countries: 11 findings."
Becker's ASC Review. Last modified August 25, 2021. Accessed July 26, 2022.
https://www.beckersasc.com/benchmarking/how-physician-pay-in-the-us-compares-to-
other-countries-11-findings.html.

6. Campoy, Ana. "A third of migrants moving around the world are going back home."
QUARTZ. Last modified December 18, 2020. Accessed July 26, 2022.
https://qz.com/1508145/a-new-study-shows-a-third-of-immigrants-are-going-back-
home/.
7. "Record High Remittances Sent Globally in 2017." World Bank. Last modified April 8,
2019. Accessed July 26, 2022.
https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/press-release/2019/04/08/record-high-remittances-
sent-globally-in-2018.

8. "Poor countries denied $5.7 trillion in aid because of rich countries' 50-year failure to
deliver on aid promises." OXFAM International. Last modified October 23, 2020.
Accessed July 26, 2022. https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/poor-countries-denied-
57-trillion-aid-because-rich-countries-50-year-failure-deliver.