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Why do companies employ people who could switch to another company? Why do they sometimes compete with that other company by making better offers? Because good employees (or citizens in this case) bring value to the company/nation.
If I am a citizen of France currently, I still have to bear the responsibilities (paying taxes, following laws etc) even if I have the option to easily become a German citizen next week. Then I have to keep up my German responsibilities.
I'm not entirely onboard with it as I think national pride and the like does have a function. But it isn't entirely crazy. It's basically an extension of the Archipelago Scott wrote about. Freedom of movement as a way to pressure governments to be the best government. Democracy of the feet so to speak.
Just to be clear, Non-compete clauses do exist. Companies frequently take a stance on how a person can sell their labor after leaving, precisely to avoid that person jumping ship and directly helping a competitor. Of course, there is a larger body of law (the government's legal system) that enforces those clauses, so I suppose in the case of nations, the global legal system would allow nations to require that citizens not go and help another country which is economically competing with that nation.
Most workers aren't under no compete clauses though, that is reserved mostly for white collar knowledge jobs. It's not worth it for Forever 21 to have a no compete clause for their retail workers. And even if they did how would they ever know? And no competes are also often not legal depending on location. Right now if I had a no-compete clause for a job in PA, I could move to California and mostly ignore it entirely as California generally does not recognize no-compete clauses.
Sure. I'm just pointing out that it's not at all unheard of or uncommon for a company to try and get some exclusivity out of a worker.
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Whereas what the nation offers is all responsibility and privileges, if any, revokable upon the whim of the state. "Ask not what your country can do for you...."
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Why should a Nation confer identity?
Think of it from an analogy of the corporate world. Some companies attract talent by paying them a lot of money. Some do it by fostering an identity; "We are all a family here". I think to very many people it's evident that the former is a more 'honest' portrayal of the transaction/relation than the latter. If anything it's a meme that companies that tout a "family environment" are to be avoided because they are probably shortchanging you in what you want mostly from them, money.
In the same vein, why shouldn't a nation be just a place you live in? If you look at immigration trends (revealed preferences), its not that people want to move to the countries that give them the strongest national identity, but the countries that give them the best place to live in. I'm pretty sure more people want to move to America than China.
Buying into any form of national loyalty means the nation can effectively have an easier time short changing you, they can send you to the trenches, they can loot you of your earnings and yada yada.
In short; Why shouldn't a market system apply when choosing a place to live? Why not have competition in this domain? I think putting national identity above how good it is to live in a nation is putting the cart before the horse. Is voting with your feet/money not that much more powerful than just voting?
This is your position disguised as your opponents' position.
"Companies are not really like families" doesn't mean that families aren't real. It means that families that are as easy to change as changing your company, aren't real. And you're the one in favor of easy changes.
I don't see how its in contradiction to what I said. I am stating quite precisely that your nation should be easy to change. Because under that system Nations have an impetus to not shortchange their citizens (residents) too much.
Loyalty to a Nation is well and good if you actually like you Country. The founding fathers were loyal to America for the same reasons they were disloyal to England.
As an individual who wants to live a good life "fuck you I'm leaving" is much more appealing to me than "I'll stay here and fight with everything I have to make it better".
I can go fight and make somewhere else better. Respect should be bidirectional after all. Why be loyal to that who wrongs you? Would you be singing the same tune were you a part of a nation that hated you and your values?
But your company is easy to change. And as you point out, when a company claims to be loyal like a family, it's trying to shortchange you.
This is directly contradictory to your point. You think that when it's easy to change, the citizens are not shortchanged, but your own company example is one where it's easy to change and the citizen-equivalents are shortchanged after all.
Sure its not a given that ease of leaving/entering is 100% correlated to how much X can get away with extracting B from Y. Or "shortchaging" B.
But I brought up that example to convey that when something that when A implicitly wants more from you than what you agreed to, A is probably giving you less of what you agreed to get from A.
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What do we define as "shortchanging"? Restrictions under the law? Or just feeling like you aren't respected?
Someone could make the cheap counterargument that any corporate actor could just leave a country that has strict and well-enforced laws around dumping and pollution.
In addition, one could also argue that we have seen what happens when countries are sorted across values (India/Pakistan, the Balkan nations). Who is to say that nations becoming Red-Tribe-istan and Blue-Tribe-istan is possible, or even good?
I'm aware of Scott's Archipelago, but I also suspect it might only work in a world that doesn't have any historical context/baggage associated with our real-life one.
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Why should then the family system apply to families? Mothers only taking of their children, if someone pays them to. Likewise, children abandoning their parents in old age feeling no loyalty towards them or siblings treating eachother purely as fellow market participants.
If market is the provides superior outcomes, merely abolition of nation is insufficient to achieve the greatest good for the greatest number, any non-market system must end.
Because you are already in a transactional relationship with a modern state where you pay taxes. You pay taxes for legal system/infrastructure/protection/etc.
If the country wants something more from you, your loyalty, then they should give something equivalent to that in return, which they are incapable of giving. Unlike in a family where children are capable of returning what their parents gave them.
I genuinely can't think a country ever returning that favor minus maybe hostage situations in a foreign land where the hostages went voluntarily.
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In abstract-ideal-istan, the privileges are protection and institutions necessary to establish some independent private industry. The associated responsibilities are the taxes levied on profits made while doing so. It's not a prisoner's dilemma because the individual doesn't have the option to defect in any meaningful way.
Why would a country be willing to offer this deal? Because if they don't, someone else will, and everyone will go there.
Of course, in reality you can't reduce a country to merely a legal framework and a tax rate. There are durable illegible consequences to setting up a small business, such that emigration costs more than just lost tax dollars. And cultural dilution means there is a cost associated with immigration. If utopian progressives are ignoring something, I think it is these costs. "Dissolve all borders" passes game-theoretic and economic muster, but only if you can't see past the spreadsheet.
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Why, for the same reason people give me all other kinds of deals; doing that brings them value.
I mentioned that I see my relationship with a country as a business transaction — I pay the taxes and follow the regulations — and in return the state allows me to operate on the territory it controls and provides a range of useful services. As an honorable businessman, I uphold my part of such a deal.
It’s also not true that I’d ditch them in a heartbeat. First, there is value in a good long-term relationship, and second, moving assets and processes is not without cost.
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