Like, I don’t think passports exist, right? Could a person travel to another Empire/Kingdom?
In some form, yes. However, a lot of it centered around import fees instead of restricting immigration. It would also usually center around cities, bridges, toll roads, and ports rather than open fields.
If you were the wrong ethnic type in a city, they’d just kill you.
History matters Video
For example:
I was surprised while reading German 20th century history that people were required to check in even in new towns. Explain their reasons for being there and how long they were going to stay. This was even if you were German. I would love to know more but it seemed like a less formal system - lile you had ID but it helped if you knew people there and or had good reason to be there and plans for when you were leaving.
Passports for everyone are a relatively new invention, but passports as sign of being the emissary of somebody important are much older. Paiza is one such example in the Mongols empire. Wikipedia has examples reaching into antiquity.
500+ years ago there very much was border control, at least in certain parts of the world, because every regional lord wants to control what goes into his kingdom and what leaves. I can only speak for Europe, but probably every feudal lord over the world did the same. They levied taxes on merchants transporting goods through their kingdom. That happened on border checkpoints where the big merchant routes where passing through. This is how a lot of regions got rich: by being between a source and a big buyer region and taxing the shit out of merchants.
That’s why smuggling was so attractive. Go through the official road and pay 10% of your profits or pay this nice man with the donkey 5% and he leads you through the woods on a path the lord’s soldiers don’t patrol…
Secondly, in feudal Europe 500 years ago, peasants were still often the property of their lords, they weren’t allowed to leave the country. Another reason why border control existed. So no, most normal people could not just leave and travel to another kingdom.
peasants were still often the property of their lords, they weren’t allowed to leave the country
As someone who have move away from my place of birth, now I appreciate the modern world even more after reading this comment. So much freedom nowadays (well… except for certain countries).
Well, a modern form of that still sort of exists today, except the leash is longer.
You cannot for example just get rid of your US citizenship - you have to pay to get rid of it, and as long as you have it, you’re susceptible to paying taxes to the USA. Even if you have dual citizenship.
You cannot for example just get rid of your US citizenship - you have to pay to get rid of it…
I wanted this to be false but I see that there is currently a minimum renunciation fee of $2,350. I assume there are likely other consulate fees that may bring it closer to $2,500 at the very least. What a scam.
Edit: typo
US is one of like 2 or 3 countries that does that.
There are usually other costs, and if you have any outstanding debts you have to pay those first too.
Some may need a lawyer to figure out how to just do the paperwork.
I mean, you can kinda just sell all your assets in the US and move permanently abroad. As long as you never go back to the US, how are they gonna make you pay?
They can issue a bogus charge on interpol and get u home and then they can deal with u. Also debtors prison can come back any time the way things are going
Interpol is not a “world police” but merely request the local police to make the arrest on the requesting country’s behalf, and you can fight extradition in court, just make sure the country you plan to move to has a functional judicial system and then you’re probably safe, especially if you manage to obtain Citizenship there. Most democratic countries are not gonna extradite their own citizens on charges with flimsy evidence.
They have treaties with some countries so that if you don’t pay you can have your wages garnished. This is assuming you have citizenship and not residency etc with the other country.
So it’s on a per country basis. In some, nothing happens. In some there’s also treaties so you don’t have to pay double tax anyway, or it’s percentage based.
However, this also assumes you have no family you care about anymore in the USA or that they’re able to travel to see you instead. Otherwise you face prison for tax evasion if you ever go back.
Oh hell yes. There is still a lot to improve, but we shouldn’t forget what has already been gained!
They levied taxes on merchants transporting goods through their kingdom. That happened on border checkpoints where the big merchant routes where passing through. This is how a lot of regions got rich: by being between a source and a big buyer region and taxing the shit out of merchants.
There are places that are still named after having been such tax/tariff points. Or buildings, inns etc. And the New Testament of course.
Borders have existed as long as humans have claimed territory. Borders are only meaningful to the extent they are enforced, so border control has existed in some form or another for all that time.
Borders have been a bit fuzzy at many times and places. The farther one travels from a seat of power, the harder it is for that power to patrol and control the area. Thus we get borderlands, places at the fringes of a government’s authority.
In addition to borders, documents analogous to passports have existed for millennia. If you wanted to travel from your kingdom to another kingdom, your monarch might send you off with an official letter requesting your safe passage through whatever kingdoms you need to cross. Without papers you might be deemed a vagrant or worse, and wind up in a cell.
alls that really mattered before a certain point was taxation. I would not be surprised if some contested areas had tax collectors from two different countries collecting from the peasants. The fuedal system was essentally a way to organize tax collection. Local lords collected form the territory they were given dominion over and they had to kick it up the chain.
At some point wasn’t it actual stone walls around cities, with guards at the gates checking people?
Those guards used to be an adventurer like you. But then they took an arrow to the knee.
Skyrim belongs to the Nords!
I mean… one of the great wonders of the world is literally a border wall with its own border patrol that was placed on it. Albeit a lot more complex than that, but that’s sort of the gist of it. It helped to keep “invaders” out and operated as an early warning system, but effectively was a border patrol.
Border patrol has existed since the first person thought some land was theirs. Our ancestors clubbed other tribes to death to protect and expand borders.
Border control was practically impossible until the very modern era (last 100 years or so). The infrastructure for controlling borders only became possible due to technology.
May I introduce to you the wall? There’s a whole wonder of the world that’s a wall: a Great one in China.
Also, there used to be people on those walls with pokey things that hurt. People outside the empire/nation/whatever they called it back then didn’t want to go near it when they weren’t supposed to, since they didn’t want to be poked by the pokey things.
With the invention of firearms, you can shoot a tiny pokey thing really fast! Pokey things have really advanced over the years, for the better or worse.
