Citizenships should be tradeable

by Axel Boldt

Two people from different countries who agree to exchange their citizenships should be allowed to do so. If such an exchange is accompanied by a payment, then that's fine too. Like in every business transaction, both parties win.

Allowing citizenship exchanges would substantially enlarge personal freedoms around the world. Obviously, no one is forced to exchange their citizenship -- in a free country, no one should be prevented from doing so either. Existing avenues of immigration/emigration remain in place, so no one loses.

"Globalization" is normally defined as the opening of economies to foreign sellers and producers. There is an obvious imbalance here: capital may freely move across international borders, but labor is supposed to stay put. My proposal would fix this to a degree: the resulting market in citizenships, like any market, would increase global efficiency.

Who in their right mind would want to exchange a first world citizenship with another one? Some examples:

• Many people will want to exchange with another first-world citizen, for personal or job-related reasons.
• People who don't fare well in a rich country may opt to auction off their citizenship to the highest bidder, with the intent of beginning a new life elsewhere with a nice start capital.
• Retirees may want to live out their life in a nice warm and cheap country like Costa Rica or Thailand. Some of these people may not be interested in money and instead select an especially talented and promising replacement to exchange citizenships with.
• Some idealists may want to exchange citizenships for fairness reasons, feeling bad about the undeserved perks received courtesy of a lucky birth. Others might be motivated by a disagreement with their government's policies.

Some people are born into a life of opportunity, freedom and security; others are born into a life of poverty, hard work and misery. The difference is the passport, easily the most valuable thing you own as a citizen of the first world. This unjust distribution of resources may be somewhat alleviated by my proposal:

• Retirees from rich countries who decide to sell their citizenship and acquire one from a sunny but poor country will spend their retirement money there, will bring along their know-how, and will demand a state-of-the-art health care system; some may enter the political arena.
• People from poor countries who manage to acquire a citizenship from a rich country will be young and extremely motivated to succeed which helps the rich country's economy; they will most likely go on to transfer funds to relatives in their country of origin.

One might argue that a citizenship should not be a tradeable good since it is a political rather than an economic concept; thus governments should decide who deserves the consequent benefits. I have two counter arguments:

• Citizenships are fundamentally an economic concept, since the vast majority of their benefits are of an economic nature. This includes obviously the ability to work in a developed region, but also benefits such as: if you have an accident and become a paraplegic, you'll get social security for the rest of your life; if someone murders your daughter, the police will track down and punish the killer, at no charge to you.
• Already under current law, there are several situations where private citizens and not governments decide whom to make a citizen, such as adoptions and marriages of foreigners.

• A person who acquires their passport by exchange waives the right (that ordinary citizens have) to bring over their family; somebody who wants to bring a family of four needs to arrange for four citizenship exchanges.
• Citizenship exchanges could not be used to escape subsequent prosecution by the country of origin.
• To discourage non-serious deals and speculation, one could require that a person may only exchange a citizenship if they have lived in the country for five years; this would also take care of the problem of dual citizenships.
• The system can be formalized rather easily: a country that wants to participate in the citizenship exchange program simply makes a law that recognizes citizenship exchanges from all countries that have a reciprocal law.