Last night we went out for dinner in Palma.

For months now, Mallorca has seen growing protests against mass tourism. To be honest, I don’t really feel they’re directed at me. I live here almost half the year, pay the taxes I’m required to pay as a non-resident, and actively participate in village life.

The protests are mainly aimed at tourism that has grown out of control. Here they even call it sandwich tourism. Because vacations are so cheap and hotels offer almost everything all-inclusive, tourists make themselves a few sandwiches at breakfast to eat for lunch. Why spend twenty euros on a meal when you can take one with you for free?

But yesterday I literally stumbled over something else.

Blankets covered with fake Gucci bags, Louis Vuitton handbags, and other counterfeit goods that African street vendors hurriedly gathered up the moment the police appeared.

I had been watching images from Ceuta all day.

I had been watching images from Ceuta all day. Tens of thousands of young men from Senegal, Morocco, and other African countries were trying to enter the Spanish enclave. Politicians argued over court rulings, border controls, smugglers, and European policy. But those are only the triggers. The real story runs much deeper than that.But of course, the story runs much deeper than that.

Three events that, at first sight, seem to have nothing to do with one another. But perhaps they are telling exactly the same story.

We want cheaper vacations. Cheaper clothes. Cheaper products.

Our economy depends on global competition in which labor must become ever cheaper, while much of the profit ends up somewhere else. On the other side of the Mediterranean, millions of young people are growing up with no realistic prospect of work, income, or a future.

When journalists asked the boys why they were risking their lives at sea, the answer was remarkably simple. “No food. No job. No future.”

Many people see these images as proof that Europe is being overrun. Perhaps they are actually more proof that our economic system is failing.

Looking back from the future, we know that borders did not disappear because they were opened. They disappeared because the reasons for crossing them gradually disappeared.

Once people everywhere have access to good education, a decent income, healthcare, and fair economic opportunities, fewer and fewer people had to travel thousands of miles simply to survive. Leaving behind their homes, families, friends, and their own culture.

A hundred years from now, migration may not have disappeared. Desperation will have.

And perhaps that is the only border that has ever really mattered.

Back From The Future #44 is part of a series exploring how the world of 2125 may have solved the greatest challenges of our time.