We Need More Borders And More States
By Tyler Durden
Submitted by Ryan McMaken via The Mises Institute,
In the context of trade and immigration, borders are often discussed as a means of excluding foreign workers and foreign goods. In one way of thinking, borders provide an opportunity for states to exclude private actors such as workers, merchants, and entrepreneurs. On the other hand, borders can also serve a far more endearing function, and this is found in the fact that borders represent the limits of a state's power. That is, while borders may exclude goods and people, a state's borders also often exclude other states.
For example, East Germany's border with West Germany represented the limits of the East German police state, beyond which the power of the Stasi to kidnap, torture, and imprison peaceful people was far more limited than it was within its native jurisdiction. The West German border acted to contain the East German state.
Similarly, the borders of Saudi Arabia delineate a limit to the Saudi regime's ability to behead people for sorcery or for making critical remarks about the blood-soaked dictators known as the House of Saud.
Even within a single nation-state, borders can illustrate the benefits of decentralization, as in the case of the Colorado-Nebraska border. On one side of the border (i.e., Nebraska) state police will arrest you and imprison you for possessing marijuana. They may kill you if you resist. On the other side of the border, the state's constitution prohibits police from prosecuting marijuana users. The Colorado border contains Nebraska's war on drugs.
Certainly, there are ways for regimes to extend their power even beyond their borders. This can be done by cozying up with the regimes of neighboring countries (or intimidating them), or through the organs of international quasi-state organizations. Or, as in the case of the US and EU, imposing broader policies upon a number of supposedly sovereign states.
Nevertheless, thanks to the competitive nature of states, many states will often find it difficult to project their power into neighboring states, and thus borders represent a very-real impediment to a state's power. This can then open the door to greater freedom, and even save lives as certain states impoverish or make war on their own citizens.
The Case of Venezuela
This principle was illustrated yet again this week as the Venezuelan regime opened its border with Colombia to allow Venezuelans the opportunity to purchase food and other supplies on the Colombian side of the border. The Colombian regime is by no means perfect, for all its problems, the Colombian regime has not reduced the country's population to desperate poverty amidst collapsing economic and social institutions.
Thus, it is rather easy to buy food and provisions in Colombia while store shelves sit empty in Venezuela.
Fortunately for Venezuelans, Venezuela is contained by the borders of the surrounding nation states, and the ability of the Venezuelan regime to arrest small-time entrepreneurs and and shopkeepers for being “class traitors” ends where Colombian territory begins.
Perhaps not …read more
Source: We Need More Borders And More States
