Borders and Libertarianism

"In a fully libertarian country everything would be privately owned, and entry to all areas would be by agreement with the owners."

borders, political  It seems likely that the idea of ^*political, ^*national, or other ^*state borders must originally and mainly have been to settle which state has the ^*right to ^*rule generally, not least to ^*extort ^*taxation, within some territory. Such borders have also often been used to ^*privilege certain vested interests by preventing the ^*competition of ^*free trade, thereby preventing the higher productivity that this would otherwise make possible.

Since travel has become easier and ^*passports have been demanded (from about 1914), such borders have also been used to stop uncontrolled and unlimited ^*immigration. Borders sometimes keep out people who mainly wish to seek asylum from an even worse ^*political ^*regime. And under the very worst regimes their own state’s borders sometimes stop people from leaving in the first place.

While states exist, it is now probably necessary for them to limit immigration. If sufficiently large numbers of people (tens of millions?) were to arrive in a sufficiently short time (a few years?), then that could cause all manner of social problems for the existing population who have a prior ^*libertarian claim to all “public” (state) property. With the abolition, or at least reduction, of the ^*welfare state there would be less reason for people to be attracted to a ^*country by the various state handouts or for them to be excluded as a potential drain on such a system. In a fully libertarian country everything would be privately owned, and entry to all areas would be by agreement with the owners. Some businesses might be happy to take a lot of immigrant labour. Some residential areas might prefer to exclude all uninvited non-residents (see ^*gated communities).

See ^*freedom of movement or travel.

(This is an entry from A LIBERTARIAN DICTIONARY: Explaining a Philosophical Theory [draft currently being revised]. Asterisks indicate other entries.)