Why Borders?

Why do we have borders? What purpose do they serve? Where did they come from? And why are they needed in the first place? These are important questions that many people are asking, but remarkably few are able to answer.

The word "border," in its most basic sense, simply means an edge or a boundary of something, but when used in the geopolitical sense, the term adds an aura of intention to its meaning. In this context, a border is not just an edge. It's a barrier intended to keep something or someone either in or out of a defined area. Thus, the real question we must answer to understand why we have borders is who or what is the border a barrier against?

Both sides of the debate about open borders have the same answer to this question, and they're both wrong. If you ask the average liberal, they'll tell you that borders are designed to keep people away from the resources they need to flourish and thrive. It you ask the average conservative, they'll claim that borders are designed to keep dangerous criminals from taking resources that do not belong to them. Both sides view borders as something intended to keep people out, but that's not the real purpose of borders.

Borders are not intended to keep people out. They are intended to keep governments in. We all know this intuitively. We've just allowed our politics to cloud the issue. Every conservative in America is glad that the borders of California or New York keep the governments of those states from enforcing their laws against people in other states. And every liberal in America is glad that the borders of Texas or Alabama keep the governments of those states from enforcing their laws against people in other states. All political borders are designed to keep the government in one area from interfering with the lives of people in other areas.

This understanding of borders is why all the great philosophers of Western jurisprudence welcomed the free flow of people across national borders. They realized that if the government is bound by a border that the people are free to cross, then that government must subject itself the wishes of the people or it will soon have no people to govern.

The Baron of Montesquieu once observed that "Commerce … wanders across the earth, flees from where it is oppressed, and remains where it is left to breathe," and Robert Jacques Turgot noted that "The ease with which the injured may escape from oppressive governments, will compel Princes to become just and cautious; and the rest of the world will gradually open their eyes upon the empty illusions with which they have been hitherto cheated by politicians."

This philosophy reached its greatest expression in the freedoms of America. As Thomas Jefferson once explained:

"[We wish] but to consecrate a sanctuary for those whom the misrule of Europe may compel to seek happiness in other climes. This refuge, once known, will produce reaction on the happiness even of those who remain there by warning their task-masters that when the evils of Egyptian oppression become heavier than those of the abandonment of country, another Canaan is open where their subjects will be received as brothers and secured against like oppressions by a participation in the right of self-government.

"... A single good government becomes thus a blessing to the whole earth; it’s welcome to the oppressed restraining within certain limits the measure of their oppressions. but should even this be counteracted by violence on the right of expatriation, the other branch of our example then presents itself for imitation, to rise on their rulers, & do as we have done."

Why do we need borders? We need borders to define and limit the jurisdictions of various governments. Why should we encourage the free flow of people across those borders? Because the flow of people from areas of oppression to areas of freedom will create a natural impediment to the oppression across the globe. The free immigration sought by our forefathers and established in America produces such a damping effect on the abuses of governments across the globe that the positive goals of immigration are often met without the need for travel.