Should the United States government open its border wider, close them tighter, or continue its current policies? You might be surprised that many anarchists have very strong opinions on the matter. This argument is especially decisive amongst libertarian anarchists. And that is the problem.
Anarchists debating what border policy a government should pursue is akin to Christians debating which of Satan’s proposals are better. In the end it doesn’t matter because Satan wins. Likewise, it doesn’t matter what border policies a government pursues because the State will win.
Instead of debating what the government should do, anarchists should be pointing out why the government shouldn’t be involved in borders or anything else.
It’s the difference between anarchists, libertarians, minarchists, and autarchists.
Anarchy is a temporary condition between a failed State and a new State. It is a lawless condition, and borders are a function of the law.
Libertarians and minarchists think that some minimal government of selected elites should set and enforce law, including borders.
Autarchists believe that law, and borders, should be set by a nation’s people, but that enforcement is the duty of the people. In this case, the border defines an area where the laws apply, with everything outside that border being the domain of other nations and other people, and therefore, other laws.
Anarchy is the absence of rulers, not the absence of law. Every stateless society throughout history has had laws. The Irish, for example, had the Brehon law system. In Iceland godi were generally used for dispute resolution and based their decisions on laws that emerged from spontaneous order.
The primary difference between anarchists and statists when it comes to law is that anarchists advocate polycentric law instead of monopolized law.