Why does the Empire maintain such strict border/inplacement controls? Shouldn't a libertarian polity have open borders?

General FAQ
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1

Well, see here, for a start:

But a libertopia/ancapistan wouldn’t do $THING_THAT_THE_EMPIRE_DOES? - General / FAQ - The Eldraeverse

But, really, it’s not that hard to get there from here. The libertarian-proximal pathway to border/inplacement controls is observing that both rights protection and contract enforcement become much simpler if you can keep the goddamn barbarians off your lawn.

(There’s a reason noted by many cultures throughout the ages whose word for utopia, like “paradise”, means something along the lines of “walled garden”.)

Some anarchist-types think that you can deal with these issues one by one as they arise, but IMO, simple economic efficiency demands building a big goddamn wall-shaped metaphor, with the people you can trust with your person, your stuff, and to keep their promises on the inside, and everyone else on the outside, versus either ubiquitous policing or living with mass defection. It also helps - which isn’t strictly immigration policy - if you’re willing to kick out defective and defecting natives.

(This does not appeal, of course, to people who are not deeply invested in civilization and its many charming corollaries, but who gives a shit what people like that think? Besides, they’ll be outside the wall.)

2

To expand on the principles behind “keeping the goddamn barbarians off your lawn”, I refer you to a quotation I saw on Twitter way back in 2019 that sums it up in one:

Teaching people that benefits they are receiving as a result of them cooperating in a complex equilibrium are actually entitlements they should get regardless of their behavior is a great way to get them to blow up complex equilibria.

3

Yeah that gets a big yikes from me. It’s logic straight-up lifted from that reactionary pseudo-“libertarian” thinker Hoppe of deporting anyone you don’t like deemed a “degenerate” from your society.

Ancaps and libertarians always end up with the same excuse on their “consensus based” society - anyone who doesn’t agree with the community, gets the helicopter! That’s some Stalinism for you “liberty” soup!

4

Hoppe? Never much cared for Hoppe. Apart from being a Rothbardian (and I’ve had some legendary feuds with Rothbardians), he’s far too chummy with the far right and his conservative-fusionist notions have been an absolute disaster for the noble cause of liberty.

No, this is about Nazi bars.

If you’re not familiar with the Nazi bar story, despite its popularity on the Internet, it’s a trite little piece from the point of view of a bartender explaining the necessity to kick even single, reasonably polite Nazis out of your bar, otherwise they attract more of their friends and drive away other customers, until one day you discover that you’re running a Nazi bar.

On the larger scale and by the same principle, if you as a country - all bright and idealistic and determined to be a shining city on a hill, beacon of liberty and harmony and progress, etc., etc., - tolerate the immigration¹ of Nazis, or commies, or off-brand mass-murdering fuckheads, or religious fanatics, or ethnic supremacists, or misogynists, or homophobes, or criminal subcultures, or people who don’t return shopping trolleys, etc., etc., then they will attract more people like them, and drive away decent folk, and then one day you’ll wake up to discover that your tolerance has led to you becoming the Slumlord of Asshole Town.

The founders of the Empire were not terribly interested in trying out for that role, and so wrote the Charter deliberately to point out that the basis of their polity was principle, not consensus, and those whose principles were antithetical to harmony, progress, and liberty should go find somewhere to live that liked that sort of thing.

(It’s a big galaxy - and if no-one out there shares your kink, maybe you really should rethink your life choices.)

  1. Or internal development.
5

I feel like the difference here is you’re talking about instantiating the state immediately over an entire area, then deporting dissenters, but if the Empire allowed itself to grow by acquiring people that disagree with its ideology in the first place, then something somewhere has already gone horribly wrong.