Abstract

According to Robert Goodin, “the requirement of symmetry” demands that political thinkers should respond to the movement of capital, in the form of cross-border financial flows, and the movement of labor, in the same way: the failure of many political theorists to do this cries out for explanation and justification. In this paper, I extend Goodin’s argument to suggest that there is a case to be made for symmetry in relation to our attitudes towards the movement of cultural goods across national borders and the movement of people. What is ultimately at stake in arguments about the movement of both people and cultural goods is the appropriate response to the prospect of cultural transformation. Symmetry requires, I suggest, that differences in our response to the “threat” of cultural change depending on its source require justification. Moreover, I argue that both the free movement of cultural goods and the free movement of people across borders can be understood as a consequence of commitment to important individual rights that liberals defend within the context of liberal state: freedom of speech and freedom of association. We should therefore respond to the different sorts of cross-border flows that fall under each of these rights in the same way. “If people were movies,” restrictions on the movement of people around the world might be challenged more often and more powerfully.