This is excluding those who are scientists or high-level government officials who may have state secrets.
Its been a question I’ve pondered for a while and was brought to mind again after reading this article about a new Cold War shooting game (where players can either be an East German trying to escape the country or a border guard). Also this was prompted by numerous instances where people from, for example, North Korea, were not allowed to leave.
The first thought I had was: slavery. After all, even with a shithole of a country, somebody’s gotta be plowing those fields. But places like North Korea or Myanmar’s not exactly known for their high yield crops and their manufacturing
What’s the point of keeping a bunch of people who obviously don’t want to be there inside the country? Wouldn’t Kim Jong-Il’s job be easier if he didn’t have to run some huge propaganda campaign 24 hours a day for millions of people? If people don’t like your country, wouldn’t they just cause trouble? Not to mention the money you’ll save by not having to feed them, clothes them, or house them. If I were dictator, I’d gladly kick out all who didn’t want to be there, saves me the trouble from having to kill or imprison them
East Germany was pretty much an occupied country. I’m sure the Soviets could have been more dastardly with their commie schemes if they didn’t have to worry about millions of disloyal people living among them. Why didnt’ they just open the doors and kick out anyone who didn’t want to be there?
Because if people see that they’re allowed to leave, it won’t just be a handful of malcontents leaving; it’ll be millions of them. And the first to leave will be the smartest, most educated and most productive.
It’s almost always economic, IME. If a totalitarian state has an okay economy, they can cut loose the odd political dissident (assuming that dissident won’t become too vocal of an international critic). But if the state has a weak economy, though, it’s impossible to separate the political and economic dissidents (often because they are one in the same), and the potential pool of economic dissidents is essentially every productive member of the society.
East Germany got by with open-ish borders for over a decade before the West’s economy really took off and the flight of working-age citizens became too great. Even after the Wall went up, the economy in the East was certainly stagnant, but never disastrous, and the state did indeed boot out dissidents from time to time. A similar situation I think exists in places like Saudi Arabia and China today, where though these are certainly totalitarian states, since they’re doing okay economically, they can afford to let people leave if they’re just not happy with the political system.
Of course there’s feedback cycles in terms of more severe authoritarianism leading to worse economic conditions, and a worsening economic situation requiring more authoritarian measures. But in general, I’d say totalitarianism alone isn’t enough to require a total prison state.
Exactly. I recall what happened at the tail end of the Cold War when the Iron Curtain started going down; huge numbers of people started leaving. I recall hearing quotes from Germans joking about how soon Honecker was going to be the only East German left.
Just look at how many people try to get here from Mexico, and Mexico is hardly as bad as, say, North Korea.
Of course, that’s only an issue because the US has freedom of the press. North Korea couldn’t care less what a prominent exiled dissident has to say about it because no one is North Korea will ever hear it.
He was denied a passport, which at that time would have severely limited his travel but not prevented it. These days his travel would be even more constrained.
Passports are the property of the government (this is not an American convention, this is generally the case the world over). The government may constrain that right in some ways - require the passports of defendants be turned over to the court, for instance.
These actions can be challenged in court, which allowed Pauling to regain his passport in 1954, two years after it was refused.
Just pointing out one justifiable reason: a (for instance) doctor in East Germany had been housed, fed and educated by the state for 25 years or so, with the expectation that she or he would now put that education to work caring for the sick in East Germany. When that doctor says “Thanks for the medical degree, East Germany! I’m now going to Texas so I can enjoy a US Doctor’s salary without a typical US Doctor’s med school loans”, then I think East Germany does have some right to be a little peeved. I’m not saying it necessarily justifies minefields at the border, but it is a valid complaint on E. Germany’s side.
In an ideal world, the East German doctor would have to pay back the government for the med school if they left the country, but at that time what were the chances of any US court enforcing such a claim by E. Germany?
Edit: This is a reason that applies to communist/socialist countries, which is not the same as totalitarian countries. But it seems that right-wing totalitarian countries (Pinochet’s Chile, etc.) generally don’t care as much about residents leaving.
At the very least, certainly in cases such as the Soviet Union and North Korea, it is a form of Serfdom, where you can only live where the State allows you to live and do the job the state allows you to do.
I’m a big proponent of the freedom of movement and immigration/emigration. The reason I’m for it is the same reason a totalitarian government would be against it. People will vote with their feet. If your country sucks, pretty soon nobody will be left and that kind of screws with your plans for world domination and makes it hard for your ideology to be taken seriously. Basically, even totalitarian regimes need some amount of public support, and sealing the borders is a way of mandating that, or at least the appearance of it.
It is vaguely related, but this morning Eugene Robinson was talking about his new book disintegration and the effects of the civil rights movement.
He said that while almost all black people used to be poor, now it is more divided into a black middle class and lower class. Before integration, all black people were forced to live together in ghettos. After integration the blacks with the most education, experience and prospects left, leaving behind other blacks w/o as many skills. He said this created problems in the ghetto since you didn’t have as much of a base of talented people left to deal with problems creating a permanent underclass that can’t get a foothold.
In a shitty totalitarian country the same probably applies. The people with the most talent, education and skills will leave first.
South Korea is a wealthy democracy with good human rights. North Korea is a dirt poor shithole with terrible human rights. The most talented people would escape if they could.
East Germany had, and North Korea has, particular problems in this regard. People can leave the state without leaving the country - there are limited social and no cultural barriers which would discourage people from moving within Korea or Germany to live under a political regime that they find more congenial.
In other countries totalitarian regimes don’t face the same problem. People are, and I think always were, free to leave China, for example.
The other side of the coin is that Oppresive Regimes NEED malcontents. They need enemies, and malcontents are perfect for the role. “Saboteurs, Criminals, Wreckers”, whatever else they want to call them, Malcontents can be blamed for a very large amount of what is wrong in the country. For industrial accidents, crop failures, political excesses, bad foreign relations, poor morale, rumormongering, all sorts of things.
“It wouldn’t be so bad here if we didn’t have these enemy agents and sympathizers helping to wreck our economy and hold back the Revolution!”
Wanna know what the easiest way to get an exit visa and leave East Germany legally was? Grow old & retire. The DDR was glad to be rid of citizens too old to work that would otherwise be collecting pensions from the state and/or taking up space in state-run nursing homes. I think similiar rules were in place for the disabled and mental patients. I know Castro once used the US’s policy of welcolming Cuban exiles with open arms to empty out his prisons & mental hospitals.
Totalitarian regimes that people want to flee are better than their neighbours and the rest of the world, even if their neighbours and the rest of the world and many of their own citizens don’t realize this. Letting people leave would:
a) be a worse propaganda defeat than not letting them leave. You can fudge the stats for requests to leave, you can’t fudge people leaving and not coming back. Your neighbours and the rest of the world would laugh at you, and lots of people leaving would cause other people to wonder if they should be leaving too.
b) would, as mentioned previously in the thread, be economically unsound, which would ruin your betterness.
c) be against the basic totalitarian regime guidebook.