World Citizen Theory

Tag: Left and Right

  • Is World Citizen Theory Left-Wing or Right-Wing?

    Political freedom and the boundaries of belonging

    Is World Citizen Theory left-wing or right-wing?

    I expect some readers to ask this when they first encounter the idea. It challenges the political privileges that accompany nationality at birth. That may sound like a position of the left. Yet it also values decentralized government, institutional diversity, and the freedom to choose among political communities. Those ideas may sound closer to parts of the liberal or libertarian right.

    My answer is not that World Citizen Theory stands above politics. It takes a definite position. It opposes a political order in which birth can permanently determine where a person may belong as an equal member. But it does not prescribe one economic program for every community. Different communities may choose different taxes, welfare policies, or levels of public provision, so long as they respect basic rights and the conditions needed for meaningful political freedom.

    The usual dispute between left and right does not settle the question at the center of World Citizen Theory.

    Suppose an election is fought over taxes and public services. The parties may disagree sharply, and their disagreement matters. But before anyone votes, there are already rules identifying who belongs to the electorate. Some long-term residents may live under the same laws and pay the same kinds of taxes while remaining outside that decision because of nationality and electoral eligibility rules.

    Which tax program should win is one question. Who should be able to take part in deciding is another.

    Why It May Look Like a Theory of the Left

    The first reason is its criticism of inherited political privilege.

    Most people receive their initial nationality without making a choice. That status can affect where they may enter, settle, work, and become political members. These differences do not disappear merely because the countries involved hold democratic elections. Established citizens may enjoy substantial democratic rights while long-term foreign-national residents remain in a weaker political position.

    World Citizen Theory asks whether inherited nationality should continue to determine a person’s political community throughout life. It argues for meaningful opportunities to enter another community, establish secure residence, and eventually belong as an equal political member. In that respect it shares a concern with egalitarian and progressive arguments against privileges based on circumstances people did not choose.

    But the theory is not a program for equalizing economic outcomes across the world. It does not require every community to adopt the same tax system or level of redistribution. One community may choose extensive public services and progressive taxation. Another may prefer more limited public provision. The theory allows those choices, subject to basic rights, fair treatment, and responsibilities that no community should simply transfer to others.

    The distinction is not a claim of complete economic neutrality. Basic rights cost money to protect, movement can affect public finance, and cross-border obligations may require cooperation. World Citizen Theory therefore constrains some economic choices. What it does not do is choose a single left- or right-wing economic platform.

    Nor is the political left always favorable to migration. In nineteenth-century America, white labor organizations were among the forces pressing for the exclusion of Chinese workers. Arguments about protecting wages were mixed with racial hostility. Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1882. It would be misleading to attach today’s party labels neatly to that history. But an appeal to workers’ interests can be used to defend exclusion as well as inclusion.

    There is a more serious objection that a contemporary left-wing critic can raise. If residents can move among communities, will governments compete by lowering labor standards or weakening public services? Will those with wealth and portable skills gain choices that are unavailable to poorer residents? And will the people who remain be left with the bill?

    Those risks cannot be dismissed by praising mobility. Competition among communities is not the ultimate purpose of World Citizen Theory. The rights of people who stay must not be sacrificed to the preferences of those who can leave. Fiscal sustainability, protection against shifting costs, and effective rights are part of the institutional problem.

    Why Parts of the Right May Recognize Something Familiar

    World Citizen Theory does not call for a single world government. It retains territorially self-governing communities. They may differ in taxation, education, welfare, and other policies. Wider institutions have roles where rights, shared public goods, cross-border effects, and security demand coordination, but they should receive powers justified by those functions rather than unlimited authority.

    Here the theory has something in common with decentralized liberalism: people may value different political arrangements and should have meaningful alternatives.

    A particularly close parallel is the idea of “voting with one’s feet.” In Free to Move: Foot Voting, Migration, and Political Freedom, Ilya Somin argues that moving among jurisdictions can offer important advantages over ballot-box voting as a form of political choice. His argument gives movement a central place in political freedom. I share that concern.

    My emphasis is different. Foot Democracy, as I use the term, is not a claim that moving is generally better than voting. The freedom to leave does not replace the right to challenge the government where one lives. Nor is political-community choice complete when a newcomer may enter but has no credible path to equal political membership. The relation between movement and democratic standing is central to my argument.

    Political communities are not simply firms, and residents are not merely customers. Governments exercise public authority, enforce laws, and make binding decisions. Their members have responsibilities toward one another. For that reason, their right to govern themselves also matters.

    This raises an objection that defenders of collective self-government may press. Why should a community that maintains public institutions owe opportunities for entry to people outside it? Do existing members not have a legitimate say over who joins them?

    They do have claims to collective self-government. World Citizen Theory does not turn every request for entry into an unconditional right to immediate admission or instant citizenship. But neither can collective self-government justify every refusal without examination. Restrictions must be supported by legitimate reasons, and the responsibilities of different communities must be coordinated. The boundaries between the claims of present members and prospective members are political and institutional questions, not answers settled by a slogan.

    The Political Axis That Left and Right Do Not Fully Capture

    Political scientists have long questioned whether one left–right scale can describe every political disagreement. In research on European parties, Liesbet Hooghe, Gary Marks, and Carole J. Wilson distinguished the conventional left–right dimension from a dimension they described as Green/alternative/libertarian versus Traditional/authoritarian/nationalist, often shortened to GAL–TAN. Questions of national identity and international integration do not always follow the same divisions as taxation and redistribution.

    The finding concerns European party competition, not World Citizen Theory. Still, it helps explain why the question “left or right?” can produce an incomplete answer.

    On the economic question of how much a community should tax, spend, or redistribute, the theory allows substantial democratic variation, within its basic rights and shared-responsibility requirements. On the question of political membership, it takes a clear position: birth-based nationality should not permanently prevent someone from becoming an equal political member of another community.

    “Openness” here does not mean that any person may enter any community immediately on whatever terms the person chooses. It means that people must work to establish real, institutionally protected paths to entry, residence, and political membership, with restrictions justified and subject to review. Some of these protections exist in particular places, but the full range of freedoms proposed here is not yet secured. They must be won, institutionalized, and defended against reversal. The ability to remain and participate where one has built a life matters as well.

    The old left–right divide does not disappear. Economic conservatives can favor freer migration, while people committed to expansive welfare provision can argue for stronger entry restrictions. Views about migration, welfare, sovereignty, and cultural membership do not always move together.

    Much electoral disagreement starts after another decision has already been made: the definition of the electorate. Parties argue over how their community should be governed, while the rules of nationality and political membership help determine who can join that argument. Those rules, too, are open to democratic criticism. World Citizen Theory brings them to the center.

    Two Freedoms Within Democracy

    I call the freedom to participate in governing a political community from within Hand Democracy. Voting, public argument, organizing, protest, and legal challenges are among its forms. A government may hold elections and still leave some long-term residents without equal political standing.

    I call the freedom of individual political-community choice Foot Democracy. It requires more than legal permission to leave. Departure offers little political choice if no alternative community provides a realistic path to entry, residence, and eventual membership. It also includes the freedom to stay.

    Neither freedom is a substitute for the other. A government cannot justify an unjust rule by telling a resident to move. Basic rights must not become optional merely because leaving is possible. And elections in one community do not, by themselves, provide a meaningful choice of political community.

    The difficult task is to protect both freedoms when their demands conflict. The present members of a community have a claim to collective self-government. People seeking to enter or establish a permanent home have claims that cannot be ignored simply because they were born elsewhere. No formula removes the need for judgment, democratic contestation, enforceable rights, and cooperation among communities.

    Foot Democracy is therefore an ongoing political project. Legal rules and institutions can protect the gains people make, but they cannot replace the political work of extending and defending those freedoms.

    Objections That Cross the Political Divide

    Consider first a resident who cannot afford to move. If others leave for communities with lower taxes, can the remaining community continue to maintain essential services? A response that celebrates the choices of mobile people but ignores the people who remain would be inadequate. Meaningful choice must be compatible with protection for residents who do not move. It does not require everyone to become equally mobile, but it cannot treat mobility as an excuse to abandon basic rights.

    Now consider a community facing a genuine security threat or serious pressure on public capacity. It may have legitimate reasons to regulate entry. But words such as “security” and “capacity” cannot end the discussion. The community should explain what danger it is addressing, what evidence supports its decision, and why a less restrictive response would not be sufficient. There must be a way to examine and challenge restrictions.

    What about someone who has already made a permanent home? Entry and full political membership need not occur on the same day. But a person should not be kept indefinitely under a community’s ordinary authority with no credible route to equal membership solely because of inherited foreign nationality. That is not merely an issue of immigration numbers. It is a question about the status of people who live together under common laws.

    Neither side of the political divide owns these objections. World Citizen Theory has to face them as problems of institutional design, without treating either individual choice or majority rule as absolute.

    A Question Before the Party Choice

    Return to an election over public spending. One party wants to expand services; another wants to reduce taxes. World Citizen Theory does not decide the winner. Both views remain open to democratic argument within the limits set by fundamental rights and shared obligations.

    But we must also ask who can take part in that argument. A person may live for years under the laws of a community and still lack a secure route to equal political standing. Another may wish to make a life in a different political community but find no realistic path to do so.

    If the theory is called left-wing because it challenges inherited privilege, I understand the comparison. If a reader recognizes the liberal concern with decentralized authority and individual choice, that comparison also has merit. But neither captures the full argument.

    World Citizen Theory leaves room for different economic choices. It does not leave the inherited closure of political membership unquestioned. That is a political commitment, not a claim to neutrality.

    People should be able to argue about how their political community is governed. They should also have a meaningful freedom to reconsider which political community they belong to. The first is a familiar democratic freedom. The second remains less secure. I believe democracy should take both seriously.

    References

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