In his writings, Karl Marx sought to show that the process of capitalist development involved the expropriation of the “means of production” from workers by capitalists. The result of this process was that workers were deprived of the capacity to produce on their own and became dependent upon wages from the owners of the means of production for their survival. Borrowing this rhetoric, Marx's greatest heir and critic, Max Weber, argued that a central feature of the modern experience was the successful expropriation by the state of the “means of violence” from individuals. In the modern world, in contrast to the medieval period in Europe and much historical experience elsewhere, only states could “legitimately” use violence; all other would-be wielders of violence must be licensed by states to do so. Those not so licensed were thus deprived of the freedom to employ violence against others. Following the rhetoric used by Marx and Weber, this book seeks to demonstrate the proposition that modern states, and the international state system of which they are a part, have expropriated from individuals and private entities the legitimate “means of movement,” particularly though by no means exclusively across international boundaries.

The result of this process has been to deprive people of the freedom to move across certain spaces and to render them dependent on states and the state system for the authorization to do so – an authority widely held in private hands theretofore.