This is, precisely, how polities have always worked. Personal freedom of movement is circumscribed to lawfully prescribed means. It wasn't until after WW2 and airplanes when ordinary people gained the technical capability to move around. Before then, you had to have lots of money and time to travel. Serfs were considered part of the land, they needed permission to leave.

With the Renaissance came the loosening of identification from commoners being a part of the land, to being a part of the city / political region. The concept of people as property never really changed and is intrinsic to the idea of governance, which imposes rules that people must live by, and specifies what kinds of commerce can go on. Citizenship is just the loosening of who owns you from your city to your nation.

Things are changing, quite rapidly, but don't expect the idea of people as belonging to a polity to ever really go away. Governments require tax revenue to operate, and governments that don't have to rely on their citizens for those taxes are governments that don't have to be held accountable to those citizens. (See Russia) Your government is always going to treat you like a belonging, and demand the right to use your efforts for the good of the nation however it sees fit.