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The Case for Getting Rid of Borders Completely
- sparkzilla 11y ago>Freedom of movement is a basic human right. I wish people would stop making up fake rights. Your freedom to move stops at someone else's property.
- javajosh 11y agoSince the article is about a political issue, he is referring to political borders, not private ones. E.g. he's talking about letting Mexicans come into the US, not into your home.
- sparkzilla 11y agoBut why stop there? Let's have no property rights and let the Mexicans stay in your bedroom.
- Dylan16807 11y agoBecause that's a completely unrelated concept.
- vetinari 11y agoHow's that? It's related, just different in scope.
- aianus 11y agoBecause the Mexicans would be working and paying rent or buying your property from you, not squatting in your bedroom for free.
- vetinari 11y agoThey would be living in my country, demand voting rights, then demand things that the original residents would never vote for, but will have to pay for anyway. Why should I agree to change (from my POV: destroy) the society where I live? Btw: I'm not US citizen. I'm European. You'll be hard pressed to find many people in Europe in current situation, who would agree with disbanding the borders.
- pgeorgi 11y ago> You'll be hard pressed to find many people in Europe in current situation, who would agree with disbanding the borders. A significant part of the political arm (ie. those who aren't just helping because there are humans in need but have an agenda that transcends any concrete situation) of the "refugees welcome" movement start out from the "human right on free movement" that was mentioned here, and effectively want borders not to exist.
- vetinari 11y agoYes, I realize that. However, it is either political arm, as you wrote, or NGOs financed from abroad. Both are doing it for personal gain. But they are still minority, just very loud one and quite powerful one (not in the democratic sense, though). However, what they are doing is showing great example to the undecided, who are waking up.
- pluma 11y agoI'm European. I disagree with you. Stop generalizing.
- vetinari 11y agoStill the same thing. Group of people "owning" one jurisdiction/sovereign has right to decide, under what conditions they will allow or not allow people from other jurisdictions/sovereigns enter or not. Otherwise, you can move people as you wish and change outcome of any election or referendum by moving the "right" people. Democracy is dead then. I agree with original poster, freedom to ignore borders is a fake, purposeful invented "human right".
- notahacker 11y agoNational borders - useful as they might be - are the artificial, invented human construct here.
- quanticle 11y agoPolitical borders are an extension of private borders. If the citizens of Metropolis get together and decide that the citizens of Gotham are no longer welcome within their city limits, is that a private border they're defending, or a public one? If it's a public border, then what distinguishes the collective decision of all citizens of Metropolis from an individual decision by a single citizen of Metropolis? If it's a private border, then what distinguishes the border of Metropolis from the border of the United States of America?
- duncanawoods 11y agoWell there are no "real" rights. The pragmatic understanding is that rights are labels that groups agree to use to indicate that something is "very important, the exceptions must be spectacularly well justified". You don't have to agree with the label. For your private property example, consider UK freedom to roam and statutory right of access laws. It is sometimes called "right to roam". UN and EU have freedom of movement rights, but they do not grant crossing borders other than your own. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_movement
- dclowd9901 11y agoYour right to your property ends at your death. None of us are entitled to anything.
- idlewords 11y agoSo you believe property is a basic human right.
- eevilspock 11y agoThe problem is that too many libertarians take the precept that one's body is sacrosanct and extrapolate it to things beyond the body. I agree that one's body belongs to oneself and no one else, that it must not be violated by any one or any group, even in the name of a greater good. And I can agree that the fruits of one's labor cannot also be coerced or taken away, as long as "fruits of one's labor" is very strictly and narrowly defined. I agree that everyone has the "right" to be a selfish jerk. But this does not extend much beyond your body. Certainly not to land. Land is the fruit of no one's labor. Rather, we are the fruits of it.
- Retra 11y ago"I agree that one's body belongs to oneself and no one else, that it must not be violated by any one or any group, even in the name of a greater good." Your personal autonomy is contingent upon your intent to use that autonomy to promote the common good. Your society, in the name of the greater good, can (and will) take your body from you if you don't use it to employ a minimum amount of consideration for others. And they have every right to. There are no 'innate' rights. They all require justification, even when that justification is both vague and obvious in our current culture.
- eevilspock 11y agoI'm a socialist, but I could never agree with what you just said. You've basically said that society can, for example, force you to work on a farm if others are starving, even if you yourself are content to starve. That's ridiculous.
- Retra 11y agoI've basically described the criminal justice system in every country on the planet.
- mseebach 11y agoBut if I invite you onto my property, your freedom of movement includes your right to accept my invitation. Which you can't do if there's a noncooperative national border between you and my property.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- paulsutter 11y agoProperty ownership is pretty much just an agreement among people, it's not a natural right. In fact, you can discover the real owner of your property if you stop paying property taxes, or when a local government decides they want a road there.
- sparkzilla 11y agoI agree. I didn't say property ownership was a natural right. I think free movement is also pretty much an agreement between people.
- arethuza 11y ago"Your freedom to move stops at someone else's property." I walk and cycle over other people's land all the time - in fact I have a legal right to do that (with some pretty sensible restrictions). I can't remember ever meeting anyone who had a problem with me doing this - in fact a lot of farmers and gamekeepers seem quite happy to have you there if it's clear you are being sensible.
- ionised 11y agoHow is property not a fake right by that same logic?
- javajosh 11y agoInteresting. I don't know enough about the economics to comment, but I will say that it doesn't have to be all or nothing, and there is a path to a borderless world, which involves something like introducing a process whereby another nation can apply to become another state of the USA. Call it state-level immigration. So, the USA has serious issues, but it still does the really important things well which is a fair vote, and the total freedom of speech and religion. With these two tools in tact, all the other tools can be recreated as needed, according to the times. A member state would get a probation period and then two senate members, some house reps, and a full vote in federal elections. Meanwhile, they'd have to adopt state-level law consistent with US federal law. The devil is in the details, of course. But maybe if and when software eats the legal system, such a process might be more likely. (Of course, I have to wonder what is up with Puerto Rico and so many other odd American territories in legal limbo).
- ionised 11y ago> but it still does the really important things well which is a fair vote. I wouldn't call any political system which allows Citizens United or any form of lobbying fair. It overshadows and taints the entire electoral and representative processes.
- ddingus 11y agoThat is unfair. However, we can still remedy that through the vote. Motivating people to actually do that is a political problem. Our process is just in this way. Lazy / uninformed people getting the product of those behaviors is arguably just, given the process does provide meaningful remedies. It's an interesting dynamic. I do see it as somewhat self-correcting. When it gets ugly enough, the process does allow for meaningful reform. Right now, social progress is good. Good enough to provide motivation for preserving the status quo. Economic pressures continue to mount, but many people still have options, and what we value as people varies widely. Many don't need or want much, but they value social equality, consideration as people, etc... very highly. Can the deal be made sweet enough for the peeps to accept an entrenched oligarchy? Who knows? My point though, on fairness, is the process in the USA is allowing that question to be posed, and posed fairly. Sure, the people are being flooded with a lot of misinformation, but most of those people are completely free to talk among themselves, gather, organize, vote... too. I will recognize voting rights attacks as unfair. Alabama recently closing DMV offices in poor / black counties is unacceptable. Problems do exist, but so do remedies when people do organize and act. They have to value doing that first though. More and better advocacy is needed.
- mc32 11y agoThere is a case for open borders, in a perfect world. On the other hand, the destination country does not get any equity in the source country, as deferment. Immigrants take up resources (housing, educational, etc.) and send money out (remittances). Let's say you're running a great country with a great economy, Singapore. And, suddenly in a gesture of humanity, you open borders, and you have 5 million people stream in, maybe ten. How good is Singapore going to be as a destination with that kind of migratory assault on resources, infrastructure, culture, economy etc? Do they get dividends on the source country which squandered its opportunities (say Indonesia with vast natural resources). And what's the incentive for the people/gov't in the other countries to shape up? Remember, at the turn of the 20th century[1], lots of poor countries were on par with now developed nations and many developed and rich nations were backwaters (Norway, Sweden) and many powerhouses were very agricultural (the US, Japan, China, Russia) and kind of backward. I think one could just as well make a case for, wait for it, the great bogey-concept, imperialism. Why not have Singapore control Indonesia, bring in expertise, a culture of success, government and eradicate corruption gov't malfeasance and bring prosperity to Indonesia, for example? I mean, what's the difference between Indonesians going to Singapore to become like Singaporeans and adopt some of their culture, versus Singapore having dominion over Indonesia and instilling some of their culture, success, economic prowess, etch, thus becoming a bit Singaporean? [1]http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-prosperity/gdp-growth-over-the-last-centuries/ http://ourworldindata.org/data/growth-and-distribution-of-pr... graphs show disparity in the 2 - 3x in the early 20th cent.
- em3rgent0rdr 11y ago>> "Let's say you're running a great country with a great economy, Singapore. And, suddenly in a gesture of humanity, you open borders, and you have 5 million people stream in, maybe ten. How good is Singapore going to be as a destination with that kind of migratory assault on resources, infrastructure, culture, economy etc?" Well some of the concerns you are raising here are offset by simple economics. As more people arrive, due to fixed supply of land and limited ability to import resources, prices of everything will gradually increase, up to a point where the next potential immigrant would no longer be interested in immigrating.
- mahyarm 11y agoStrong borders came with the welfare state to avoid a tragedy of the commons. Remove various fundamental benefits such as public school, medical care, welfare, transit, subsidized X and the millions of other benefits created in the past 120 years and open borders are not as big of a deal anymore. You just need to hop on a boat and arrive at ellis island, like the ancestors of many americans today. There are also parallels with city zoning laws. Go buy a house and find out how many restrictions and regulations there are on the parcel of land that you have purchased. And also see how much resistance you will get from the local politically active populace if you dare try to change things. Such as creating density. NIMBYism almost seems like a instinctual human reflex. In other places where there isn't a welfare state and so on, it's usually straight up racism and ethnic nationalism.
- charlesism 11y ago"Strong borders came with the welfare state" I don't know what what you mean by "strong borders" but I can't think of any likely interpretation where I could agree with your statement. I'd say centralization of power, and the advancement of technology, have more relevance.
- calibraxis 11y agoWhere do I find evidence for this? I just checked, and the welfare state started in the 1880's by German conservatives, to fight bottom-up democracy and socialism. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#History_of_welfare_states https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_state#History_of_welfa...) Far before then, rulers and nation states restricted human movement. (http://newint.org/features/1991/09/05/simply/ http://newint.org/features/1991/09/05/simply/) Anyway, the welfare state (which includes government investment in fundamental tech which led to advances like computing, internet, etc) is a major driver of innovation and growth. More humans coming in, treated well, can obviously contribute. (As they already do, exploited for the most miserable societal tasks.)
- notahacker 11y agoIt's historically inaccurate, but in practice true that without slowing down immigration it's pretty much impossible to sustain a system in which people "looking for work" are entitled to higher PPP incomes and better services than labourers in virtually all the rest of the world. (But there are obvious drawbacks to taking things to the opposite extreme and banning all immigration: it might be a lot more difficult and expensive to run the NHS without immigrant healthcare professionals, for example) But of course you're right that borders have been closed by leaders believing they help enforce cultural and political stability for eons before that.
- joeclark77 11y agoDemocracy is when the people can replace the government if they don't like the way it governs. What we're seeing in Europe and the US these days is that government is trying to replace the people because it doesn't like the way they vote. The unfettered-immigration and amnesty-for-illegals movements on both continents are direct attacks on democracy by governments that think they can get more money or power with a different set of voters. I don't know if anything quite like this has happened before... did the Greeks even have a word for it?
- lwhalen 11y agoGerrymandering, but on a grander scale?
- GauntletWizard 11y agoEntryism, but reversed. How much you consider Entryism to be a problem vs a feature of democracy is up for debate. I'm of the opinion that it's a fairly serious problem, in that it can easily destroy the 'Ship of Theseus', the internal continuity of an organization has been compromised.
- vetinari 11y agoLooks like we have partisans here, downmodding the "incorrect dissent". Not only this parent, but all dissenting comments.
- pluma 11y agoLooks like we have a low tolerance for populist nationalist rhetoric. Frankly, as a German I'm disgusted by some of the "dissenting" comments. We've already been through this nationalist crap before and we're not going to let the rest of Europe repeat our own mistakes.
- vetinari 11y agoThat famous German collective guilt kicking in, plus that nice tactics, when any dissent is being labeled by extreme labels. You are on the best way to destroy Europe again, do you realize that? The rest of Europe is not repeating your mistakes, they are not looking for more Lebensraum and killing Untermenschen, they want to preserve what's theirs. And you have no right to dictate them what to do.
- korisnik 11y agoWhat do you do when a person refuses to identify themselves? Do they still have this universal right of freedom to move?
- addicted44 11y agoEven if you don't get open borders, the fact that we have all these treaties which force free flow of capital across but do nothing to allow easier flow of labor across borders is a huge problem. It allows nations with crappy social and political systems to undermine labor welfare and protection policies in better political systems without facing repercussions for it. Unsurprisingly, the asymmetric flows of capital and labor forced by trade agreements play right into the hands of benefitting capital owners across the world at the expense of ordinary workers. I don't believe completely open borders are necessary or even possible, but every trade agreement that forces free flow of capital (and prevents duties on imports, etc) needs to come with equivalent labor protections as well (massively increased flow of people across borders, and not in a "you're a second class resident who can be deported at your employer's whim" way, or alternatively, removing import duties only as long as laborer a on both sides of the border receive equal labor protections of the law. So if country A offers a minimum wage, it is allowed to impose duties as long as the wages being offered to the workers in country B is less than the cost of living adjusted equivalent salary in that country. )
- myguidingstar 11y ago> It allows nations with crappy social and political systems to undermine labor welfare and protection policies in better political systems without facing repercussions for it. what about the education and raising cost the country of arrival doesn't have to pay because the country of origin did? what about the laymen who undermine social security b/c they don't have competition from immigrants? (I'm just trying to use the same logic to show your argument is incomplete. Researches on free money experiments are showing otherwise)
- venomsnake 11y agoNo thank you. I prefer strong borders. I like the secular culture of Europe as is. Anything that even potentially threatens it is direct attack on me.
- pluma 11y agoSecular? Angela Merkel fairly recently (in the context of whether to expand the EU to Turkey) made a statement about European values being Christian values. Not that I agree with her (the "Christian" values of modern Europe are secular values that have replaced the original Christian values because we spent centuries figuring out that they're wrong so calling our modern values Christian is incredibly misleading) but I wouldn't agree with a blanket statement like "Europe's culture is a secular culture" either. If anything, Europe's culture is incredibly diverse. Saying immigration/refugees threaten our secular culture is just a nice way of saying you're afraid of the possibility of Islam affecting our liberties -- which is fine by me, as long as you're honest about it.
- venomsnake 11y agoIt is not about Islam. It is about taking religion too seriously. The guys that read Torah all days (or the bible) are worrying too. It is about the strain of Islam that uneducated young arab males bring. Secular Muslims in Istanbul are generally fine people, as are the secular elites while the middle east was ruled by stable governments - and welcome in europe. The hijab is not.
- tamebadger 11y agoI would say a lot of the discussion should rather be around the current structures and ideas we have formed, and which of them should be challenged. The idea of "countries", "states", "borders", "presidents", are all worth challenging, because not only do borders restrain our "freedom of movement", all of the above mentioned do that in some degree or another. That being said, I don't propose anarchism, just alternatives, something like Seasteading might just have some of the answers. Re-integrating successful seasteading ventures back onto landmass would be great, but certainly a more long term procedure. Change is difficult though, seasteading should not even be necessary for us to consider a different world, but leading by example will probably be what the world needs.
- rob-anderson 11y agoI have been arguing this for years - in a 10% tongue-in-cheek kind of way - and it's strange to see it written down in an article. The stock response tends to be that in an ideal world it would be great, but it's not practical. Of course, perfectly decent, well-meaning and good-hearted white people sat around dinner tables during apartheid and slavery and said exactly the same thing. History has proven them wrong, and in fact if we imagine popular support for uncontrolled global immigration, it's rather easy to conceive a practical implementation - quotas gradually increased, borders lowered - it could be achieved in a controlled way. I also hear the 'why should we?' response. Indonesia has squandered its natural resources - aka it's their own fault they're poor. But none of us would stand in front of a classful of Indonesian schoolchildren and say this. Being born in a rich western country is a colossal slice of luck, not a personal achievement. The fact is that thinking of people in terms of nations tends to dehumanise them, and that's one of the reasons why greater migration and a blurring of borders would be a good thing. The economic arguments around immigration have raged in the press here in the UK for the last few years. Here at least the general academic consensus has been that it's a net plus, and that the additional burden on state benefits is outweighed by the economic benefits of a well-motivated and grateful migrant workforce. The risk to any benefits system is not more people per se, but that it will be abused - ie the development of a benefits culture, where people choose not to work because the safety net will support them. It's up to us to decide whether this attitude is more likely in the indigenous population or with recent economic migrants. The real barrier to adoption is lack of popular support, and I accept that few people are going to agree with me on this issue. But then again, there's this: http://goo.gl/95g5kQ http://goo.gl/95g5kQ
- s73v3r 11y agoSlavery and open borders are completely different things, so your jab at "well-meaning and good-hearted white people" is invalid.
- bmh_ca 11y agoMost folks do not know the history of the sovereign state, but the version that we have today is a descendent of the Westphalian State (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westphalian_sovereignty). Even fewer people know why it came about in this form, yet the reason it came about may be quite important in this discussion. After the Thirty Years and Eighty Years Wars came the Westphalian Peace of 1648 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia). A primary objective of the Peace was to recognize sovereignty because during the war and in the time leading up to it integrated economies were wracked by shocks and corruption. Some argue, and I am mindful that, the only proven bulwark against such shocks and corruption may be sovereignty of the sort that the Westphalian Peace created. The notion of sovereignty has stood the test of time – it seems reasonably compatible with how collectives of humans perceive and react with their world – but through the modern globalization of capital we may be re-learning a 360 year old lesson. So while the globalization of human labour has yet to catch up to freedom of international capital flows – a failure that creates tremendous unfairness, and this analysis is admittedly brief and glossy, it is worth keeping in mind that we may be unlocking the same doors that created unfathomable multi-generational wars now long forgotten.
- ddingus 11y agoI'm opposed to this on very basic grounds: freedom of expression, and the derived artifact of that, freedom of and from religion. The economic case is somewhat compelling, but I'll set it aside for now, as that is an open and running political dialog playing out with trade agreements, treaties, etc... Religion, in the US, is entirely optional. We don't have the concept of a "higher authority" codified in the law. We also permit nearly all expression, and in particular, that expression hostile to powerful interests and the government itself. I often see and hear about things I find completely unacceptable in nations that have not gone there. Religious law, of various kinds, can justify nearly anything. Secular law is similar, but the debate can be meaningful and at least composed of things we can put into a courtroom and reason about. "God says..." is irrational. We have absolutely nothing on record at all. Thomas Paine details this, and derives the basis for natural rights for us as peer beings in the world, as well as the concept of self-governance in "Rights of Man", and "Age of Reason" --The latter, saw him jailed for a number of years due to how angry Catholics got over that work. On a basic level, we are all just beings here. If one takes that concept of fundamental equality, and mutual ignorance (no higher authority, no real definitive record or understanding of our origins), a lot of the social progress we've seen are obvious conclusions. These things are very important to me. I want that basic realization and consideration just as much as I understand my peers here want it, and arguably we all need it too. Borders do actually compartmentalize the world in ways that compare and contrast these ideas with other, older ideas, and it's very important that the increasingly connected people of the world see all of that play out, so that we may continue to see the social and human benefits expand. Economics is another discussion, and it has just as much potential to do harm, oppress, etc... as the social issues do, but we are on the upside of social issues, and trading that for improved economics isn't something I feel good about.