Obviously, borders don't matter when it comes to capital. Capitalism is fully gloablized now, and bourgeois governments have adapted to that new order. Capitalists have little difficulty moving their stuff around the world. Don't like your country's minimum wage laws? Just go to China! In fact, many countries even make citizenship available for sale — you can actually become a Canadian for $800,000.
On the other hand, borders do matter when it comes to people — or at the very least most of them, those who simply aren't wealthy and don't own anything. If you're one of them, you can't expect to be allowed into any country (let alone one in the first world) without first entering a long, complicated application process that has not guaranteed outcome. If you don't fit the state-sanctioned profile, you're kindly asked to fuck off.
It's abundantly clear what function borders have: they're a system enforcing segregation on a global scale. The impact of immigration on native wages is actually minimal, especially when compared to union decline or financial deregulation — so you can't even claim borders protect workers. It's solely designed to keep the poorest proles in the poorest regions, by denying them the right to move away fro misery and towards better prospects.
Absolutely right. It's a way to keep a reserve army of labour without having to pay first world welfare. They are kept in poverty so that just having a job is a privilege.
Liam Reed
Not to mention the Immigration office is a good threat employers can use to keep submissive the people who passed the frontier illegally.
Borders? What borders lmao my city looks like a hellish combo of Lagos and Juarez and Karachi what more do you want? Fuck off, ape.
Christian Reed
...
Blake Walker
Nationalism and strong borders are an impediment to capital, the bourgeoisie have been post national before you were even born, kiddo.
James Bailey
The German bourgeoisie and its support for Hitler or quite simply captains of industry in dire need of protectionist policies can't really be described as "post-national". That being said, even the bourgeoisie of our era isn't really opposed to borders or nation-states. They know they need them to ensure profit maximization.
— Ellen M. Wood, The Origin of Capitalism
Hunter Taylor
Borders are one of the biggest contradictions of neoliberal capitalism, and their erosion is simply natural. It's nonsensical to keep the labor market and borders closed and regulated while capital and commodities can reach every corner of the earth, and "traditionalist" movements that try to put the genie back in the bottle are futile: Society doesn't go back in modes of production.
Brody Price
Yes.
Well, you're still alive, so that would be a nice change.
