On Liberalism and Open Borders, Parts III and IV
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The third and fourth parts of this four part essay on open borders and liberalism.
Part III
Having showed where I think Carens is incorrect in his interpretation of liberalism, I will now show where liberal political thought directly and explicitly requires a commitment to discretionary border controls. I shall refer to Michael Walzer, David Miller and Christopher Wellman.
In Spheres of Justice, Walzer argues that citizenship is akin to being a member of any institution. States are entitled to discretionary powers over the admission of non-citizens as are institutions when recruiting new members who wish to share in the social goods. Walzer shifts the locus from Rawls’ socio-economic justice and Nozick’s process of exchange arguments to the process by which goods receive meaning and the distribution of these meanings.[i] This process, he argues, is communal as the meanings attributed to certain goods derive from community interactions.
For Walzer, the distribution of social meanings constitutes ‘complex equality’.[ii] Meanings matter because they are expressions of social relationships and are umbilically linked to people. An injustice occurs when an individual or group can transform the meaning of a social good into something that serves their purpose, for example converting money into political power.[iii]
He holds that membership of the group is a social good and ought to be distributed by society as material goods are. This raises questions around the nature of the political boundary. He concludes that discretionary border controls are wholly necessary to maintain a just society where complex equality can be attained.[iv]
To illustrate this point, he argues that neighbourhoods rely on being encompassed within a larger unit that is relatively closed to the wider world. The closure of the wider community (the state) provides the requisite security and insurance for the peaceful existence of the neighbourhood in the sense that it guarantees those entering into the neighbourhood have the pre-requisite shared understanding of the meanings of social goods.[v]
Integral to a modern liberal state are social goods such as trust, welfare support and security. They cannot exist in a state of unrestrained movement of people where any individual is able to become part of the local community; they are contingent on a closed community.[vi] Non-residents who wish to participate must be permitted entry by those who create and exchange social goods and their meanings.[vii] If due diligence is not exercised, the meanings of social goods may become lost or destroyed, compromising the stability of the community. Therefore, liberalism requires discretionary border controls.
David Miller points to the threat posed by free movement of people to the core liberal commitment to self-determination. The desire to preserve national identities, as the communal belief in a “common public culture, values and ways of living,” [viii] leads citizens to demand self-determination. Miller cites three reasons to support this claim.
First, national identity establishes obligations, including distributive justice and the protection of the “basic interests of other members.”[ix] The most effective way of fulfilling such obligations is within a state. If a nation finds itself separated by state borders or having to share a state with other nations its ability to fulfil its obligations is circumscribed.[x]
The second reason concerns a person’s ability to form an identity. Miller argues that national identity provides the individual with a kind of schema from which identity is developed. To deny the right to self-determination is to strip the nationality of its very existence as its people cannot form a common identity.[xi]
Finally, Miller argues that in accordance with the key tenet of liberalism that people are free to shape their relations with their associates, groups also have this right.[xii] The right to self-determination is, therefore, to be exercised as an entitlement to discretionary border controls.
This is bolstered by Christopher Wellman who holds that the core liberal concept of a person’s right of freedom of association is tethered to their right of disassociation. An open border policy is fundamentally illiberal as people and groups are entitled to exercise discretion regarding with whom they associate.[xiii]
Part IV
Having argued that liberalism does not require a commitment to open borders, I will now argue that the contrary is true when the liberal is faced with extraordinary circumstances. This is the most salient aspect of the debate as there are real people, in real trouble, wanting to cross real borders. Recent events involving the exodus of civilians to Europe from war-torn countries in the Middle East and North Africa typify these extraordinary circumstances. I will argue that these circumstances place concomitant burdens on liberals.
Adapting Singer’s moral principle to the context of migration, it seems plain that people living in affluent countries are obliged to relieve the plight of poorer people to the extent that they do not sacrifice something of comparative moral value.[i] Refugees are fleeing for fear of their life, if not, their livelihood. Accordingly, liberal countries are obliged to accommodate refugees up to the point at which residents lose their lives or livelihoods. It does not take much to adapt Singer’s principle, one just has to accept that rather than sending aid to the suffering we bring the suffering to the aid.
Moreover, for this to work under extraordinary circumstances, borders must be as open as they are for citizens of the European Union under ordinarycircumstances. Fears regarding, Nozick’s ‘border crossings’; Rawls’ limited institutional capacity; Walzer’s and Miller’s meanings and identities; and Wellman’s right of association, even when taken as an aggregate, are not comparable to a life. And any issues that arise are likely to be able to be rectified through existing channels. For instance, problems relating to exchange can be remedied in the legal system and the problem of institutional capacity through public spending.
Open borders are necessary in these circumstances because discretionary border controls are insufficient. By design such a system does not work. A refugee at the German border is there because their state and other actors have been unsuccessful in defending their fundamental rights to life and liberty. Whilst the UK is the second largest bi-lateral aid donor to the areas affected by the Syrian conflict, there remain over one million people who require a more robust defence of their liberties and who are seeking it at source. To not defend these people would be to value the citizen’s life more highly than the refugee’s and there is no question that this is incompatible with the liberal belief in the moral equality of all people.
This series of articles has finished by showing how the commitments of liberalism change in extraordinary circumstances. Nevertheless, the main comparative within this debate features on the one side an assertion that borders must be open to satisfy liberal commitments and on the other the view that communities have the right to put in place discretionary border controls. Having shown that liberal thinkers portrayed as advocates for free movement justify the contrary, and that there are liberal thinkers who explicitly call for closed borders or discretionary border controls, I have tried to satisfy the burdens placed upon me by demonstrating that the comparative is deceptive: in the end, both sides settle on the view that discretionary border controls are compatible with liberalism.
