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Open borders. I strongly believe in open borders as a moral imperative. Human beings have been migrating for survival, resources, and exploration for over 20,000 years. The concept of nation-states imposing constraints on movement is a modern invention that doesn't align with the inherent human need for freedom of mobility. People in the southwestern states of the US with Mexican roots will tell you "We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us."
Yeah, the fact that you can want to go somewhere, and have the resources to do so… And a faceless government bureaucrat hundreds of miles away can just go “lol no you’re not allowed here.” It is mind boggling.
While this is a noble goal, in practice it'll just lead to the collapse of every modern nation. If we reach some utopian future where resources are no limit then it should work, but I very much doubt it would work right now
Good, fuck those nations. They all suck.
Do you have an example of a good nation?
If every border opened up and tons of people moved into Europe/USA and other wealthy countries they would inevitably collapse. Trust in the system would erode and it would all devolve into anarchy.
I doubt a lot of people would voluntarily move out of wealthy countries, those that want to already can, so it would be a one way transfer of people.
We already see a lot of tension in regards to migration and opening borders would make it 100 times worse
I don't see how that's could possibly be the case.
Would you mind explaining how you imagine wealthy countries would fare if we removed all borders tomorrow? How would social security and societal services work with a massive influx of people without any increase in taxes?
More people means more tax, but perhaps we should abandon the concept of money and the economy altogether. This shit does not work for the working class.
So you assume everyone will instantly get a job and contribute to society? That seems very unlikely
In the EU. You're free to move to any member country to live and work there.
Then we had brexit, and as huge part of that was the "freedom of movement" in the EU. The British didn't like "Polish plumbers" coming to the UK.
Freedom of Movement (FoM) has worked out pretty well for the EU, especially well before the enlargement. The tensions came with the inclusion of the old "eastern bloc" countries where there was a rather large disparity between them and the richer west. I'm generally in favour of FoM, but I also recognise that with a big difference in standards there will be some issues.
So yes, FoM works, but there has to be rules attached. The UK didn't apply most of the rules they could have, which eventually led to a perception that FoM is bad, and then Brexit.
If you have money, borders are basically open for you. I haven't seen many upper middle-class and higher people migrate to second or third world countries. So it's safe to assume that that also wouldn't happen when borders are actually open. This leaves less fortunate people from all over the world. If you are telling me they will migrate to a different second or third world country, you are delusional. They will migrate to first world countries. And those cou tries will collapse.
Don't get me wrong, I think open borders are a great concept and people should be free to live wherever they want. But with our current system it just doesn't work. If we have something like a world government and just earth, without individual countries, it's a different story.
Oh no not our current system that doesn't provide for everyone! What will we ever do if we lose our chains!?!?
Why would I watch Fox News, I'm not even in the US...
My proof for "basically" open borders is me. I lived in multiple countries and it was pretty easy to achieve. And I by no means have money, just education.
Not sure what you're going on about truisms and what you did or did not notice.
I stand by the fact that if you have money, education and/or a job that is in demand for the country you chose, you can easily get permanent residency and then citizenship.
I don't get why you get so worked up about this statement. If someone wants to immigrate to Germany, New Zealand, or Canada or whatever first world country, they apply for it, fill out the paperwork and if they fulfill the requirements, which you usually do if you have the education, you eventually get approved. That's literally what hundreds of thousands of people are already doing.
Is this system perfect? Of course not, it takes a while to get the paperwork and it heavily favors highly educated people from first world countries. But that's what I said in the first post.
fellow border abolitionist! i recommend people to read Borders by Thomas King. Borders are not real. It's past time for land back
This is a difficult concept for us “modern humans” to wrap our heads around so I get why some of the responses are “civilization would collapse”. But hear me out: We assume that most people in the so called “3rd world” (global south is a better term) actually want to migrate to the wealthier western nations. This is not entirely the case. In the majority of cases people do not want to uproot their families, leave everyone and everything they know behind, have to learn a foreign language and culture. Desperation is what mostly drives this decision!
What I am saying is if we had open borders in the first place migration would actually decrease because nation states would have to compete for human capital, ultimately raising the standards of living for everyone. That is different than what we do now, where nation states exploit people for their labor, do not provide for their basic needs, creating a class driven society where the elites (the one’s who do the exploiting) continue to rule for generation after generation, in many cases with impunity.
Comment I agree with: “If you have money, borders are basically open for you” - @tantalizer@lemmy.world
The proof of this is the Trump’s administration concept of the gold card, not to be confused with the green card. The gold card is for individuals who will invest at least $5 million in the US. They than can get a gold card with trump’s face on it and come in and out of the country whenever they please as if there are open borders for them. Link: Trumps Gold card
Comment I do not agree with: “If every border opened up and tons of people moved into Europe/USA and other wealthy countries they would inevitably collapse. Trust in the system would erode and it would all devolve into anarchy.” @LandedGentry@lemmy.zip
I think this is misguided. The rule of law and enforcement of it would not simply cease to be because of opening up of borders. This is exactly what the ruling elites conditioned society to think and it is baseless Hollywood type propaganda created to keep the working class fighting among themselves and under the boot of the ruling class. They want you to think this way because most people who immigrate to another country are honest hard working people and NOT criminals. What do hard working honest people want to do? They want to provide for their families the best quality of life possible. How does one achieve that? One cannot by his or herself, one needs to join the many in the form of working class unions. What would happen if we the working class people all joined unions? We make the Capitalists elites our bitch. We dictate the working conditions and we decide what is a fair wage. Do you see where I am going with this? THERE IS STRENGTH IN NUMBERS and the ruling elite minority could no longer exploit the working class majority.
Regarding the collapse of wealthy countries I was more thinking of the social securities like free healthcare, education, retirement, welfare etc. I don't think the justice system will collapse and agree that that is right-wing propaganda. But I can see the first things I mentioned happening when there is an influx in people that do not immediately pay I to the system to finance it for others. This might not apply to the US where education and healthcare isn't free to begin with, but in countries like Germany where it's the case it might be more severe. On the other hand, the retirement system is already very strained in Germany as there are less and less young people to pay for the old ones that retired...
In the United States we do not have the social welfare system that Europe does. Our political class chooses to invest in the military and imperialist wars abroad instead of providing "free" college education or healthcare for our people. It's not right and is a big reason that Bernie Sanders, the only socialist democrat in the US congress has become so popular, because he is constantly telling us that the richest country in the world has zero excuse not to provide those basic needs to its people.
I think that is another fallacy that the ruling class elites like to tell us: don't let all those foreigners in or our healthcare and education system will collapse! Fear mongering is what this is. For example in the United States in the last decade undocumented immigrants have contributed roughly $200 Billion into the Social Security system of which they do not get to benefit from. Also, immigrants have contributed immensely to local economies, revitalizing entire forgotten manufacturing towns in the Midwest that have been destroyed by outsourcing of jobs to Asia for cheap labor. My point is a huge influx, which I don't believe would happen anyway, would just contribute to the tax base because regardless of immigrant status in the US you pay taxes just by being another consumer. Social programs including healthcare and education would just adjust over time.
You know who actually is about to cause the collapse of our social security and medicare systems in the US? Elon Musk, Trump and their billionaire cronies who infiltrated government and NOT migrants coming over the border working the fields for $5 per hour.
Based on your comment it seems to me like you're a German citizen. Let me give some unsolicited advice: Fight like hell to keep your social welfare programs! The news lately seems to be showing that Germany is re-militarizing and that may come at a cost just like in the USA they will try to claw money away from social programs to redirect to military spending. Fight like hell so you don't become the capitalist wasteland the USA has become with ruling elites trying to privatize every program.
Then groups clash directly. People were simply killed for being in the wrong territory. How should resources be managed? You can open borders but then roads won't be free.
I still agree though that borders are wrong.
Wouldn't it turn the whole world upside down if nation states had to compete for their population?