An organic part of society… I make sudden associations with late romanticism. Because you said that “laws, money and borders are…social constructs, not somehow genetically predestined necessities…” and that “they cannot be "taken away" without a proper recompense“, I know that you didn’t mean it like that. Still you make it sound as an inherent necessity to human society (or very close to impossible to change) when you say that they “take an organic part of the society”. Stranger things than the abolition of national borders have happened in human history. Yes the term of what is within and what is outside isn’t something new, it's probably as old as humanity. The idea of what is “inside” and what is “outside” has always been different though. The process of building borders (as we know them today) began slowly with the Peace of Westphalia and the early process of nation building (of course there are several other types of borders, but in the discussion of “illegal” immigrants I concentrate on national borders). Giving the once inside certain rights that the rest don’t have isn’t new either. The Greek polis, for example, already gave certain citizens (the term of citizen was profoundly narrow) several rights while it kept others (the majority) outside of this system of rights. So yes this isn’t anything new, I think we all can agree on that. The system/construction of maintaining this order (of rights/no rights and of inside/outside), reproducing it and (most importantly) strengthening it is what I call the politics of today. Laws, norms and ideas do change over time though. During the middle ages no lords were discussing weather we should have democracy or not (well even though we talk about it today I still don’t think we have any real democracy today, but that’s a totally different discussion), 100 years ago women had no right to vote and 50 years ago segregation in schools, public places, and employment was common practice in the US (I know I’m totally focused on western liberal democracies here). Even though people (and especially a majority of the ruling elite) were against these changes things changed over time. So I think ideas, norms, institutions and laws do change over time, and these changes take a specific direction if we want them to. I’m not saying that it’s simple; I don’t think anyone thinks that. The few examples above weren’t realized just over night, they took time and enormous effort from the people before they changed. Of course the eradication of national borders will produce a new system with new problems arising from it, but should the fear of new obstacles and problems make us stop from wanting to change things? My own answer is simply no. We must never stop trying because of fear of what might come from change.
