Mikhail Svetov released a new video in which he briefly formulated thoughts he has repeated many times in his lectures: open borders violate freedom of association, a world without borders is a world where there is nowhere to run, and his other well-known set of paradoxical conclusions. But before I could formulate what exactly is wrong with his concept, it was done by Vera Kichanova — a girl who herself was the media face of LPR for quite a long time, then emigrated, and after some time, Mikhail Svetov, returning from abroad, took the vacant spot.

Thus, we have an ideological confrontation between two media heavyweights, and it is certainly worth our attention.

Vera notes two logical contradictions in Mikhail’s video: first, the state creates closed borders, not open ones, while open borders exist by default, without any state; second, freedom of association is primarily the right to associate, not to fence oneself off, and closed borders violate this right.

In essence, several understandings of the word “borders” are participating in the discussion. First, a border as a line across which people, goods, and money move. Second, a border as a line demarcating territories with different orders. Mikhail warns that uniform orders will be established everywhere (a world where there is nowhere to run) and for this reason calls for closing borders to the movement of people (and mercantilists echo him, suggesting to simultaneously limit the movement of goods and money). Vera, on the other hand, proposes to completely eliminate borders of the first type, but has nothing against the second, because that is precisely the manifestation of freedom of association.

Forgive me if I expressed this quite complexly, but the topic is not the most trivial.