Estonia is about to allow anyone to become a virtual citizen of Estonia, to be able to open bank accounts in the country, to start and operate (online and other) companies legally in Estonia, and enjoy several other privileges normally only bestowed upon citizens. If this catches on with other countries then borders as we know them may become obsolete faster than we expected and much faster than some people wanted. Large countries with cumbersome legislation in areas like medical R&D (including stem cells, cloning, and other technologies that remain controversial even in the US) may have to legalize against this kind of low-threshold escape from the existing systems in order to protect their tax revenue and (attempt to) maintain political control of things like global research. Small countries may see this as a quick way to acquire foreign investments and tax revenue and follow suit. I also expect smaller countries to be the most liberal when it comes to things like medical R&D legislation. There are many laws in place already to curtail the activities of foreign corporations on your soil but international law is much less clear-cut than national law and is full of pragmatic compromises and case-by-case negotiations. Estonia is also a member of EU. How will the EU react to a potential increase of non-present citizens into the EU community? Will they adopt this as a EU-wide policy? If this catches on, then it may enable increased speed of experimentation with political systems - something that brought us the recent idea of Seasteading. But if dozens of small countries like Estonia (and tiny countries like the Maldives) jump on this bandwagon in order to capitalize (literally) on this trend then we may have a decent set of political systems to choose from without getting seasick or even leaving the comforts of our homes. At least when it comes to the aspects relating to citizenship, passports, incorporation, work, taxes, medical insurance, retirement, income, banking, and whatever else becomes available from these virtually borderless countries. Multiple citizenship may also become *very* popular. People might want to be a citizen of one country for tax reasons, another one for medical technology reasons, and yet another one because of the goodwill of their passports when traveling. It will take a little time for this to shake down and stabilize and I foresee lots of interesting opportunities for individuals and corporations before all countries have figured out this new playing field and plugged all the loopholes that will appear (transiently, at least) because of these changes.
Posted on: Mon, 19 May 2014 17:01:45 +0000
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