Who has the right to forbid and who to trade? Making sense of illegality on the Polish-Ukrainian border

Abstract

Limits to human action and interaction are detectable everywhere in a state (and not only). The state does not necessarily have a direct role in setting them, but they exist nonetheless. A local trader, from a village or another city, wishing to sell some products in another place must face a number of obstacles: finding the right place, entering a new zone, facing new competitors, finding new connections, affording travel costs etc. Likewise, somebody wishing to move from one city to another, temporarily or definitively, has to face a number of issues such as finding a place to sleep, earning the necessary amount of money, finding and trusting the right people. Even somebody simply wishing to visit a relative has to face issues like finding the way to the other town, affording the ticket and in general moving away from a comfortable environment to enter the unknown.