On Migration and Freedom of Movement

The world is divided by artificial boundaries, made by humans in violation of their own freedom.

The right to move around the world freely is a fundamental liberty of human beings. Indeed, it is a natural liberty, since in the state of nature no constraints exist on this freedom. This means that any restrictions on movement are artificial, whether they are justified or not.

Freedom of movement can be both a self-regarding and an other-regarding right. When no harm is caused to anyone else, then it cannot be restricted justifiably. Only when there is a violation of someone else’s rights, which are higher in the hierarchy, can there be limitations on this freedom.

And yet nations have erected boundaries and barriers in violation of the above principle—necessitating permission from them to travel around the world, and enforcing limitations on the ‘outsiders’ coming into ‘their own’ claimed territory.

Who are nations to stop an individual from going anywhere? It is not as if their group self-regarding rights were being violated. No, it is that belief of nations that they are the sovereign masters of the earth and that they own the territory they claim. The earth and its land belong to no subset of humanity; how can nations make boundaries on land they never owned?

When an individual moves around the world seeking a gainful opportunity, a better life, or any utility, they should not and must not be restrained or hampered by nationalistic excuses. Nor should they let their rights be violated in this manner, unless they are willingly forfeiting this right to their national group through a social contract.

Unfortunately, there exists no such defined agreement between individuals and nations. On one hand, it means that nations do not have the right to restrict movement because no one actually forfeited their freedom to them. On the other hand, nations would say that they are the ones to grant people this freedom, and that citizens are subject to the law of the nation.

And under this second assumption, nations have spun a web of complicated procedures, a maze of restrictions, for individuals who want to venture beyond the confines of the area their nation claims. Passports, visas, travel documentation, immigration checks, citizenship are all just unnecessary complications of life.

The concepts of immigration and emigration only have meaning and context regarding the artificial, national divisions of humanity. Nations worry about the loss of population and workforce through emigration, or the dilution of society from immigration. But humanity as a whole is facing no such problems. The world can but gain if people move to improve their conditions.

Nationalists, of course, accept nothing of the sort, and are concerned only with their own nation. The term ‘brain drain’ specifically conveys their disdain for migration. When a person migrates for better opportunities, it is brain gain, the full utilization of potential. And when a person is stuck in a nation with limited options, prevented from improving their situation, that is the true brain drain, a waste of capability.

Sometimes migration is even associated with a betrayal of the nation. It is often believed that the nation contributed and invested so much in the development of the individual but the person, rather than fulfilling their duty to that nation, goes abroad and benefits some other country. Indeed, it is considered that an individual has an obligation to the nation in view of all that the latter provides the former.

On this it is worth distinguishing the actual contribution of the nation from that of people or entities belonging to that nation. The former only includes what the national group or its government directly gives that person—for example, free state-provided education. But it does not include anything with just the same nationality—for example, being educated from an institution in a particular nation. Only when the national group directly contributes to the individual in return for a future guarantee of working for the nation, when there is a defined agreement, can there be an obligation and its enforcement as a contract.

If nations are allowed to have a claim over an individual’s labour, and hence restrict their freedom to migrate across the world, why wouldn't other groups have similar claims? A person’s family could insist that he or she work for it in view of the family having brought up that person. A city could claim that an individual is obliged to live and contribute there since he or she availed of its facilities. A religious group could argue that its contribution in building the individual merits some contribution in return. Few such claims are entertained by society; why these double standards of allowing nations to do what for other groups is unacceptable?

But indeed, society has these double standards; nations can restrict mobility with impunity like no other group can. It is inconceivable, for example, for an ethnic group to cordon off areas which its people inhabit, for religious denominations to issue passports, for racial groups to have immigration checks and visas. Just as society rejects such divisive acts by other groups, it must also put a stop to these actions of nations.

Even as each nation restricts its people to move and live only in the region it claims, all the land of the world is under some or the other nation. A person must have a national identity to have even limited mobility; without a nationality there is no refuge and no liberty for an individual. One who does not belong to any subset of humanity can be detained and punished just for that. It is ironic that nations limit the freedom of their people, but they make conditions so miserable for those who refuse to be constrained. People would rather have limited rights as part of a nation rather than a life of indignity and no right outside nations. It is a matter of ‘lesser of the two evils’ that makes people surrender their rights to the nation.

Groups do not protect individuals in a free world; in this world their actions bring individuals into them rather than face the horrors of grouplessness. Refugees forced to flee their homes have to come begging to nations for their humanity. No one should be forced to seek asylum or to be a refugee in this world; they are equal humans and have equal rights despite national identity.

Humanity should strive for a world where everyone can move, travel, live, and work anywhere in the world, where everyone is free to migrate without being held back by a nation, where no one is forced to be a refugee. There is so much to be gained by breaking these walls; let not the boundary but the sky be the limit.