**MANDOS POST**
I notice there’s been a sort of low-key, left-wing argument going on lately about open borders. I’ll lay my cards on the table and say that when it comes to the movement of people, I consider myself an open borders supporter, and by no means consider that an inherently “neoliberal” position as some people claim, depending on your definition of neoliberalism (something that is rarely fully resolved…).
There are a lot of reasons why I take the open borders position for humans — despite being less positive about the flow of goods and capital, to say the least. Some of those are arguable, such as the impact on wages and so forth. But there’s one show-stopper issue for me with the concept of enforced national borders — the enforcement part. Enforcing national borders necessarily requires a concept of deportation. Why? Because until we have a Star Trek force field and magical entry authorization detectors and a flawless, uncorrupt border control system, “unwanted” people will always get in. And then the border only means anything if you can remove those who cross it illegally.
But removing them requires not only a police force given the responsibility of exercising physical violence to control a non-violent crime, it also necessarily requires the entire apparatus of the carceral and surveillance state. For example: Due process must be given in order to deportation power prevent abuses (very common), but this requires preventing the object of deportation from “running to ground” to avoid enforcement of a negative outcome. Which requires jails, courts, and so on, and for nation-states of any size, all these things at quite a large scale. In order to catch border-violating individuals, a surveillance state of great power and detail (indeed, such as now exists and expands) must be implemented. Indeed, if it is not, then the worst wage effects of an undocumented labour class ensue quite logically.
Do I need to explain why a comprehensive carceral and surveillance state is a very bad thing, and indeed, how bad it is?
For this reason, I find it hard to take left-wing critiques of free movement and defenses of borders seriously until they engage with the topic of enforcement and particularly the mechanics of deportation. It is all well and good to say that people shouldn’t have to leave their communities of origin for employment, for important family reasons, or for their own amusement, and here we would all like to see, I hope, a world in which that is the case. It’s another thing to argue for a regime that works to stop people from moving, for whatever reason. And I suspect the overlords of the world are, as a group (if not individually), just fine with either regime, at least depending on the ascendant faction.