[aluren]

I think it makes an excellent point for borders not really making sense in the first place and having little reason to exist beyond adding leverage for dictators in poor countries and assuaging people's fear of foreigners. Both are probably linked.

[refurb]

Borders make perfect sense. Why shouldn't groups of individuals have self-determination including the power to limit who can enter their country?

Different groups make different decisions about how they want to run their government (which is a good thing). Some of those decisions work and some fail horribly, thus borders are needed to keep a functioning system. For example, if you didn't control who can live in your country, you'd never be able to have a generous social safety net.

[aluren]

>Why shouldn't groups of individuals have self-determination including the power to limit who can enter their country?

Why shouldn't groups of individuals have self-determination including the power to marginalize any subgroup or wage wars to others? Because it is immoral no matter how many people agree with it. Not letting people fleeing other countries' misery, war or repressive regimes is immoral no matter how many ways one wants to spin it. There are all sorts of questions on the implementation of it but the basic question (should we abandon people to misery, war or political persecution) is pretty much answered from a moral point of view.

>Different groups make different decisions about how they want to run their government (which is a good thing).

Most 'groups' are run by a single dictator imposing theie view on the rest, and even modern democracies are subject to interferences such as disenfranchising, lobbying etc. There's little legitimizing to be had on 'self-determination' there.

>For example, if you didn't control who can live in your country, you'd never be able to have a generous social safety net.

Is there any evidence for this? I mean most rich countries have both open borders within the EU and their social safety nets seem to be doing pretty fine.

[refurb]

I mean most rich countries have both open borders within the EU and their social safety nets seem to be doing pretty fine.

This is clearly untrue. Open borders for other citizens of EU countries, yes, but hardly "open borders".

[mc32]

So, who should rule people in those places, the UN, Russia, China, the US, someone else, anarchy?

Just try to get India and Pakistan to "erase their border" see the reaction you get.

[aluren]

India and Pakistan have very hostile relationships and a tumultuous past so it is one of the more understandable cases. (Still not an excuse seeing how the EU came to be half a century after one of the bloodiest wars of history ravaged the continent.) For other countries that are at peace and don't have any inclination to go to war with one another though, why enforce borders at all, if not as a vested interest for both parties to control their population on one side and appease xenophobic fear on the other?

[mc32]

People are probably ok with trade and flow of people, but probably a lot less so if you propose reassigning Alsace-Lorraine to Germany or Provence-Alpes to the control of Italy. In other words the “land” which is what borders are about and protect.

Let’s say there are two countries, Denmark and Sweden. If one day Denmark is going downhill and 50% of the pop would want to move to Sweden because life is much better there and Denmark is going nowhere but down, why shouldn’t it be in Sweden’s interest to one, either stop the flow or alternatively take control and annex Denmark in order to bring it into the fold?

In any case, I see it eventually resulting in a new colonialism where elites and businesses are the main ones deriving advantage and wealth from this new arrangement. Localities lose power to distant and disconnected power.

[aluren]

>why shouldn’t it be in Sweden’s interest to one, either stop the flow or alternatively take control and annex Denmark in order to bring it into the fold?

Because Sweden is not ruled by a dictator? The moral thing to do would be for the government to ask "jeez, what are we doing so badly that half our population is telling us to fuck off?" and implement policies that give incentives for the population to stay there. The immoral thing to do is to go full iron curtain.

>In any case, I see it eventually resulting in a new colonialism where elites and businesses are the main ones deriving advantage and wealth from this new arrangement. Localities lose power to distant and disconnected power.

So would you advocate for the borders between US states to close down and all citizens to require a visa to change states within the US?

[mc32]

The states of the US (or Brazil or Mexico or China, etc.) have all developed with a common body of law language and customs, so I don’t think it would make sense for them to devolve (a federal system devolves a lot, compared to centralized systems).

Nation states still make sense (one day when we become a monoculture perhaps it’ll bd different). We have our peculiar takes on economics, government, culture, norms, etc. I’m not ready for a one world government.

>The immoral thing to do is to go full iron curtain.

What happened to the cry for “self-determination of nations” that was the rallying cry of people on the left? It’s a complete 180 on this.