Post by Michelangelo Landgrave (occasional blogger for the site, joined February 2014). See:

• all posts by Michelangelo Landgrave
• blog post introducing Michelangelo Landgrave

This post is a response to Nathan Smith’s recent post Make More Singapores! where he makes a call for the creation of more city-states like Singapore. I have two small quibbles with Smith. Firstly, I believe that we need start-up cities as well as charter cities. Secondly, I disagree with Smith when he remarks that current international relations make it unlikely that we will see the birth of new city-states.

I have discussed start-up cities previously here, but allow me to refresh readers on the topic nonetheless. City-states are some of the earliest forms of political organizations, but the concept of charter cities is much younger and can be attributed as Stanford Economist Paul Romer’s thought child. Under Romer’s charter city arrangement a host government would cede administration of a region of their land to a 3rd party. The 3rd party would administer the region under its laws this would hopefully allow for 1st world institutions to be imported abroad. One major concern about Romer’s charter city proposal would be that it could quickly become a form of colonization under a new label.

An alternative proposal to Romer’s charter city has been the start-up city. I previously described the start-up city as being different in that it remains under the administration of the host government. By avoiding using a 3rd party as an administrator a start-up city avoids the potential for neo-colonialism. As I have written previously, those nations with a significant emigrant population living in the global north have a comparative advantage in forming start up cities since they can draw on the expertise of their emigrant population. In retrospect this description undersells the start-up city concept, as a start-up city does not content itself with trying to emulate the existing institutions of 3rd parties, but also seeks to create entirely new forms of institutions.

The world needs both charter and start-up cities. The former have a comparative advantage in importing institutions that have proven useful and the latter may have the comparative advantage in experimenting with new institutions to see if improvements can be made. Most city-states today exist somewhere in between ‘charter’ and ‘start up’ city.

I propose viewing city-states as being defined by two key characteristics:

(1) The level of sovereignty they have.
(2) Whether their goal is to emulate pre-existing institutions or to experiment with new institutions altogether.

Most cities fluctuate between these categories over time. Singapore began its life as a sovereign charter city content with following British institutions, but has continually moved towards acting as a start-up city willing to experiment with everything from DRITI-esque immigration policies to managed lanes.

Hong Kong meanwhile is a former non-sovereign charter city under British administration that became a constituent charter city after the transfer of its sovereignty to the People’s Republic of China. PRC China’s ‘one country, two systems’ policy has effectively created a federal system that allows Hong Kong to act as a constituent member of a larger Chinese federation. Of relevance to us in the open borders movement, Hong Kong does not currently seem willing to act as a start-up city when it comes to its immigration policies despite it otherwise sharing many characteristics with Singapore. Both Singapore and Hong Kong are populated mainly by ethnic Chinese who lived under British administration for most of the modern era and today boast some of the most market friendly regimes in the world. Both Singapore and Hong Kong have control over their migration policies, but of the two Singapore has thus far been more welcoming of migrants.

Hong Kong’s reluctance towards open borders seems to stem chiefly from a fear that Beijing would encourage mainland Chinese to move to Hong Kong in an effort to undermine Hong Kong’s political autonomy. Taiwan shares a similar fear that opening its borders with mainland China would also endanger its own autonomy. The best keyhole solution in both cases would be to allow open borders, but not open citizenship.

An example of a non-sovereign start-up city is the greater San Francisco Bay Area. San Francisco is a region in California that enjoys both a high concentration of migrants and powerful corporations. As I touched upon in the beginning of this post, I disagree with Smith that the current international system makes it unlikely for new city-states to form as I believe that San Francisco is already a city-state and is poised to gain further autonomy in the near future.

In terms of immigration policy several cities in the greater San Francisco area have adopted ID programs that provide documentation for all of their residents, regardless of their immigration status. San Francisco was instrumental in the passage of the California TRUST Act, which limits the amount of cooperation between local governments and federal authorities in the enforcement of immigration policy. Most of the major corporations based in San Francisco in turn are leading the current immigration reform movement in the United States. It is clear as such that San Francisco has radically different views on what immigration policy should be and this difference in political opinion translates over to other public policies as well.

It is granted that due to the experimental nature of start up cities they will create bad institutions as well as good institutions. San Francisco has developed better institutions than the rest of the United States with dealing with its migrant population, but has also produced bad institutions in such areas as transit or housing. This is okay and is not an argument against start up cities. Failure is an essential part of the creative destruction process.

In the past few months San Francisco has been attempting to gain greater political autonomy in the form of the ‘Six Californias’ ballot proposition. If passed by Californian voters the proposition would split the current state of California into six new states, with much of San Francisco forming the state of Silicon Valley. The proposal is being carried out by businessman Tim Draper and being sold as being for the benefit of all Californians, but it is clear that it chiefly an attempt for greater autonomy for San Francisco. It is doubtful that the Six Californias initiative will pass this year, but I would not be surprised to see San Francisco to gain greater political autonomy in my lifetime.

Many of the great city-states of history achieved sovereign status by attaining sufficient military might to fend off their neighbors, and on this point I agree with Smith that the current international system discourages secession from the major powers. Then again, has secession ever been easy when one neighbors a major power?
A city-state however needs not full sovereignty; it can exist as a constituent member of a larger federation. The Italian city-states were fully sovereign, but at the same time many city-states existed in federation with the Holy Roman Empire. The United Arab Emirates and the Swiss Confederation are both modern day city-state federations. Several cities in modern PRC China enjoy a high degree of autonomy in economic and legal affairs as ‘sub-provincial divisions’.

A necessary condition for city-statehood is for it to house an economically affluent population that has substantial political differences with the rest of the current nation. San Francisco meets this condition and as such I don’t believe it wrong to classify it a city-state. It may not have the military prowess to attain full sovereign status, but I could see it becoming a constituent city-state within the United States.

Such a city-state would be extremely beneficial to the open borders movement. San Francisco already has favorable policies towards its large migrant population. If it gained the ability to set its own immigration policy it would surely move towards even more open borders. Regardless of their exact nature, city-states are of immense importance to the open borders movement for two reasons;

(1) They bring better institutions to those who are unable to migrate and,
(2) They provide laboratories in which to create better institutions than ones currently known to us.

All in all I agree with Smith that we need more Singapores, but qualify it by adding that we also need more San Franciscos.

It took two World Wars to defeat German imperialism. Now it looks like it will take two Cold Wars to defeat Russian imperialism. Unless the West chooses not to. If the West declines to resist Russian expansionism, or dilly-dallies too long, expect a crescendo of chaos. The world order subsists on a fine web of international law norms, foreign policy doctrines, tacit and explicit guarantees and threats, precedents and balances of power. That’s why “isolationism” is at bottom just a naïve failure to recognize that people respond to incentives. In the 1930s, aggression was contagious. Italian, German, Japanese, and eventually Soviet aggression encouraged and accelerated one another because they were all testing and eroding the same system of international law. If Putin’s conquest of Crimea is allowed to stand, it will not be the last.

But in a confrontation with Russia, does the West actually have the moral high ground? The democratic governments of the West are really rather wicked institutions. The deportation of millions by the US regime over the last 20 years is a crime considerably less than slavery, but on the order of Jim Crow segregation, and worse than the WWII internment of the Japanese. US fiscal policy preys ruthlessly on the young, sucking away their earnings to finance retirement programs that will be bankrupt long before they retire. Religious freedom, for the sake of which America was founded, is under unprecedented attack. Putin’s claim that Russia is standing for Christian values over against a decadent West is not wholly spurious: his regime has banned abortion advertising, and abortion has been plummeting, and Russians are surely less afraid than Americans that their churches will be harassed or closed down by the LGBT lobby. Russia is decent on immigration, too. It has the largest foreign-born population in the world after the United States, and accepts many immigrants from places like Central Asia who could hardly hope to get into the West.

As for Crimea, what exactly is wrong with Russia’s annexation? That it violated “sovereign” borders? But so did the US-led campaigns in Kosovo and Iraq. While the West obviously had far stronger humanitarian reasons to intervene in Kosovo and Iraq than Russia did in Crimea, the strength of a humanitarian case for intervention is a fuzzy variable. And while the Crimean referendum was obviously a farce, it’s surely true that many, and likely true that most, Crimeans prefer to join Russia. “Consent of the governed” as a political principle seems to imply a right of secession. Of course, that’s not a principle international law recognizes, and it would lead to chaos if it did. But democracies need noble causes to be willing to fight, and insisting on the integrity of the historically accidental borders of Ukraine against the will of the Crimean people hardly qualifies.

The trick, then, is to wage Cold War II in ways that will both be effective, and will make the West’s cause more just. Here, open borders can help. The ideas below are selective applications of the open borders ideology, which would be of great practical value in defeating Putin. I recently discussed them with a foreign policy specialist who knows a lot about Russia. Such ideas had never occurred to her before– they’re not the sort of things Washington talks about– but she agreed they’d be effective, albeit they’re politically infeasible. Well, perhaps. But sometimes geopolitical struggles can move the Overton window very far and very fast. Here’s hoping.

1. Insist on freedom of movement within Ukraine, including Crimea.

Never mind who rules Crimea. Insist that all Ukrainian citizens should have free access to it. Russia has hitherto been pretty accessible for Ukrainians, so Russia might concede this, but to the extent that there’s any interference with Ukrainians’ freedom of movement “within their own country,” make that a cause celebre. This will help to prevent the legitimacy of the annexation of Crimea from congealing. International non-recognition of Crimea will keep getting talked about. There will be no normalcy for Crimea until it is under Ukrainian rule.

2. Insist that Russians traveling to Crimea need Ukrainian visas, but make them available easily.

On a related point: let Ukraine offer Russians visas to visit Crimea, but insist that they need them. When ordinary Russians want to travel to Europe, ask them whether they have been in Crimea since April 2014. If so, charge a fine, which will be forwarded to the Ukrainian government as compensation for trespassing on their territory without permission. (I consider it legitimate for a properly constituted and internationally recognized government to demand that foreigners visiting their territory have visas, provided that the visas are freely available and can only be denied on very limited grounds related to public health or safety.)

3. Let Russians visit Ukraine and the West freely to live and work; but tax them to compensate Ukraine; and require them to take civics classes, so as to bring them up to the standard of decent, civilized conduct which their homeland lacks.

This is a variation of the DRITI policy. Let Russians come to the West to work. But impose a special tax, and use the proceeds of the tax to finance Ukrainian resistance to Russian aggression. Say: “Yes, Russians, you can live and work in the West. We even exhort you to do so, so as to avoid supporting Putin by paying taxes to him and listening to his propaganda. But you have to show penitence for your homeland’s aggression by paying taxes to help its victims fight back against it.”

Also, set up classes in the West, and require Russians to attend them occasionally– don’t make it too burdensome, once per three months is enough– to instruct them in the values that peaceful, civilized, democratic nations live by. Some will scoff at them, no doubt, but I think they could be fairly effective. And the fact that the courses would be mildly humiliating is useful. It would make it clear to Russians that their country’s behavior puts them a step below citizens of other nations on the moral scale.

4. Welcome young Russian men of conscription age to enter the West, and even bribe them.

Russian conscription is rife with human rights abuses, with draftees sometimes being treated little better than slaves. So there is a human rights case for treating all young Russian men of conscription age as refugees. But there is also a ruthless realpolitik logic to welcoming young Russian men to the West: it directly depletes Russia’s military resources. I would go further than just letting them in, without the usual taxes and civics classes. I would pay them to come, e.g., $1,000/month. If we end up hosting, say, 3 million young Russian men, that’s $30 billion a year. A small price to pay to defuse the greatest military threat the West faces today. And it would drive Putin crazy.

5. Make this offer to China: if China joins in sanctions against Russia, the West will demand that Taiwan gradually open up to immigration from the Chinese mainland; but if China ever recognizes Russia’s annexation of Crimea, the West will immediately recognize Taiwan’s independence.

The contribution of open borders ideology here is that, while China’s claim to territorial sovereignty over Taiwan seems hard to justify, open borders principles would support recognizing the right of Chinese from the mainland to travel to or settle in Taiwan. And that might certainly be a step towards the reintegration of Taiwan with China, so China would welcome it.

I could write a lot more about how the West should deal with Russia (but just this one: turnabout is fair play, so the West should say that by violating the territorial integrity of its neighbors, Russia has forfeited its own, and declare that Chechnya and Kaliningrad can expect the West’s support for their independence whenever they want to seek it). But I think the strategic use of key open borders tenets would be very effective, far more so than anything the West is doing now, maybe more effective than anything else the West could do. The beauty of it is that while these policies would be extremely damaging to the Russian state, they would on balance be beneficial to the Russian people. And for that reason, they would make it much harder for Putin to promote Russian solidarity against the West. They would also make it more difficult for Putin to claim the moral high ground. Russians are obsessed with moral equivalence and claiming that whatever their government is doing, the West does it, too. So you might really see Russia competing with the West to use open borders as a geopolitical weapon, e.g., trying to deplete Western military resources by welcoming Western young men to Russia. That would be good for freedom of migration, but it would also show that Russians are far more willing to “vote with their feet” in favor of the West, than vice versa.