pass ye not, proletarian

Starting with the publication of the Communist Manifesto in the middle of the 19th century, workers began to unionize, demanding a greater share of the capital they had labored so hard to produce. Governments around the world went to great lengths to hinder the actions of these previously impoverished masses toward self-betterment, sending in armed forces and passing legislation to put them down and thereby, at least for a short time, protecting the vast holdings and wealth of the aristocratic upper classes.
The efforts to stamp out the workingman's desire for a livable wage faltered largely due to the zeal of the revolutionary movement and the sheer number of participating laborers. One of the effects this struggle had on societies at the time was to allow people, who theretofore had not had the means to move beyond their village or district, to travel to places remote and foreign in order to find work. Such migrations were possible in a time of relatively open borders and, compared to today, nearly non-existent passport and border controls.
Following the calamity of the First World War, a war fought for increases in liberty, passport and border restrictions were greatly increased, to the point where nowadays it is impossible to travel anywhere within a country and especially beyond its sovereign borders without some form of picture identification. Previously, travel had been so expensive and the costs involved in obtaining traveling papers so great as to restrict travel-ability to all but the most well-to-do.
Positively, this widespread attempt at restricting the movement of workers and thereby the expansion of the socialist paradigm was unsuccessful in hindering the spread of the ideal of egalitarian earning potential.
Negatively, this worldwide traveling restriction has greatly reduced the liberty of the citizenry as a whole. It has put at risk of incarceration not one man but many. It has led to the militarization of society at large (think armed troopers in airports) and has given the federated governments of the world the ability to browbeat and otherwise strike great fear in the hearts of honest and patriotic people.
There is no going back. We will never again, at least not in our current world society, be allowed to follow the winds of shifting fortune freely. We will always be kept nicely under control, with fear in our hearts, and with a passport clutched in our sweating hands.
Let liberty once again reign free - unbind her. There are certainly risks involved, to person and to property. The greatest risk, however, is to the notion that the American government has assured us of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness. Once Liberty is fully taken from us, and the promise of the Declaration of Independence has been broken, our lives and our happiness are forfeit.
Ultima Ratio Regum.
JP