Aperture Book of the Month - June 2025

'Move: How Mass Migration Will Reshape the World', Parag Khanna, Wiedenfeld & Nicholson, 2021

Given the scrutiny and focus afforded to immigration by most if not all of the world’s leading economies, it is a little surprising that it’s already four years since the publication of our book of the month selection for June.

Published in 2021, Parag Khanna’s ‘Move’ is in turn illuminating, provocative, startling, and overwhelming. It provides a broad and deep context for exploring the reality of human migration, within which the challenges of immigration are but symptoms of a much wider phenomenon.

Khanna sits beside Robert Kaplan at the top table of insight and commentary about the human race and the planet it inhabits. ‘Move’ is an expansive blend of anthropology, politics, economics, geography, and history from a writer who has clearly been immersed in society in all corners of the globe. In it, Khanna offers a compelling and urgent vision of a past, present, and future fundamentally shaped by human mobility. He sees that the world is an ever-evolving canvas where issues of climate, politics, technology, and demographics collide. Given their relationship today, amidst increasing ‘radical uncertainty’, Khanna argues that notions of fixed borders and controlled, static populations are outdated, impractical, and unrealistic. He is clear that mobility – migration – will only increase in future, and governments need to acknowledge that reality, rather than fight against it. Khanna paraphrases Lenin in proclaiming, “You may not be interested in migration, but migration is interested in you!”

"The fact is that there has never been a status quo where mankind stood still, comfortably confined to predetermined national boundaries – and there never will be."

‘Move’ demonstrates that despite migration being a fundamental feature of humanity for millennia, never before have the feedback loops among the layers of human interaction been so intense and complex. We’ve ‘pushed the system’, Khanna says, and so the system pushes us, also quoting Peter Drucker the management guru, who observed, “The greatest danger in a time of turbulence is not the turbulence itself but to act with yesterday‘s logic.”

As Khanna sweeps across each continent in turn, he highlights those governments which are preparing for what he calls a ‘quantum’ future – with astonishing, if seldom reported, innovation and creativity – where human mobility and interconnections transcend arbitrary political borders. And those which are not.

In what some may perhaps find a simplistic approach, Khanna asserts that migration is the key factor in economic growth, and will become more so in the era of declining populations in the most ‘advanced’ economies. GDP is a therefore baseless indicator of the future. He argues for a shift from ‘sovereignty to stewardship’, and laments the lack of a global migration policy despite the economic arguments in its favour.

"At least 1 billion people live in an almost citizenship world where nationality matters less than their bank balance or skills. They think of citizenship as a service and a passport as a membership card that can be upgraded for greater freedom, protections, mobility, and other privileges."

Although some critics have dismissed ‘Move’ as dystopian opinion, it surfaces the magnitude of the challenges facing the future organisation of society, and how ill prepared we are – both as national governments and as individuals – in navigating them. Such challenges dwarf the angst currently evident in seemingly endless and polarised arguments over immigration. Those arguments continue to be focused on symptoms rather than the web of casual factors that drive them. ‘Move’ is a thought-provoking illustration of the complex interconnections that govern human development, and that our focus on specific issues, however provocative they may be, is dangerous diversion.