What if countries had to compete for citizens?

magine we open the borders and you, as a citizen, can live anywhere in the world. Where would you move?

Maybe you’d pick someplace safe or affordable. Perhaps you’d move somewhere with good jobs, access to the outdoors, maybe with a vibrant culture. If you want a good education you might pick a country where that is affordable. If you have children, you might move where you can get subsidized childcare. If you’re an entrepreneur or about to retire, you might want access to a good economy or free healthcare. 

Personally, I think the best working model we have for government comes from the Nordic countries, as outlined in the book The Nordic Theory of Everything. The Nordic countries subsidize childcare, education, and healthcare so that every individual has the opportunity to thrive, and I’d love to move to a country that invests in its people the way they do. It’s no wonder the Nordic countries are often called the happiest places to live!

Well, wherever you live, that country gets your tax dollars. Now it’s in their best interest to make life in that country good, because you could just as easily pick up and move somewhere better, and then that country will get all your money, making it even better. Countries could even go bankrupt if they don’t treat citizens well and a mass exodus occurs. Suddenly, countries are competing with one another for residents. And what might countries do if they are competing to become the best place to live? 

Might they get rid of crime, find solutions for homelessness and drug abuse, make housing affordable, invest in more green space? Might they even give up prejudice? After all, Neom seems like it would be a great place to live—and the new city hopes to entice 9 million people to live there—but as a woman, would I really move to Saudi Arabia? Probably not. Suddenly, it becomes in Saudi Arabia’s best interest to treat women really well, otherwise they’ll have a city full of men! (And those men will probably move elsewhere….)

We could prevent war

This could stifle authoritarian governments, because if citizens aren’t treated well, they could just leave. 

To some extent, this already happens. As of 2025, 17.9 million people have left India, 11.2 million have left Mexico, 10.8 million have left Russia, and 10.5 million have left China. Are any of us surprised that those are the countries people leave the most?

These countries aren’t just losing people, they are losing money. Henley & Partners, which tracks the movements of 150,000 high-net-worth individuals, says China lost 15,200 multi-millionaires in 2024, more than any other country. India was third, losing 4,300, while Russia lost another 1,000.

As a result, neighboring countries are booming. According to one Reuters report, at least 112,000 Russians fled to Georgia, causing the country to become one of the fastest-growing economies this year. These aren’t impoverished immigrants; roughly half are tech professionals who have transferred more than $1 billion from Russian banks to Georgian ones, strengthening the Georgian currency. 

And this is despite the fact that immigration is extremely difficult to do right now. How many more people would migrate if the borders were open? And how much more would countries like Georgia benefit if they were able to start earning tax dollars from their new, even transient citizens? “In the war for talent, countries that offer the most hassle-free migration will get the edge,” Parag Khanna says in his book Move: Where People Are Going for a Better Future. “And make no mistake what they mean by talent: youth.”

What would happen to Russia if it lost all of its citizens? Including its high-earning ones? And it’s youth? And probably it’s military? (200,000 more citizens left when Russia announced conscription.) Well, they probably wouldn’t have an economy, and they wouldn’t be in a position to fight a war. They might have one wildly swinging person left and some elderly supporters, but without a young, professional workforce, the country would crumble, becoming impoverished and destitute even as its neighboring countries boom.

“A hypothetical world in which each person could choose only one citizenship would be deeply embarrassing for the nationalist leaders in Turkey, Russia, and Brazil, given how keen their youth are to abandon ship,” Khanna says.

Countries with a high prevalence of terrorism would quickly run out of people to terrify if those citizens fled elsewhere. NGOS could even emerge to transport people out of bad and dangerous environments to much better ones. Good countries could even fund them so they could attract more citizens, earn more income, and become even wealthier. 

We could make every country utopian

What would happen to those countries left behind? The ones that drastically depopulate?

Well, let’s look at the most interesting map I’ve ever seen. According to Gallup, this is the population countries would gain/lose if the borders were open and everyone could move wherever they wanted:

What this map shows is that there would be a huge rush for those dark green countries: New Zealand (231% population gain), Iceland (208% gain), and United Arab Emirates (204% gain), as well as Switzerland (187% gain), Singapore (185% gain), Australia (179% gain), Kuwait (169% gain), Bhutan (162% gain), Canada (147% gain), Luxembourg (131% gain), and Norway (109% gain).

There would also be modest increases in those lighter green areas: In North & South America, the United States would see an influx (46% gain), as would Panama (34% gain), Costa Rica (25% gain), and Uruguay (5% gain). Most of western Europe would see an influx, especially Sweden (98% gain), Greenland, (91% gain), Ireland (48% gain), and Germany (45% gain). Elsewhere, Saudi Arabia would see a 90% gain, Botswana a 35% gain, and Gabon a 23% gain.

But the rest of the world, all those countries in orange and red, would drastically lose people. We’re talking most of Latin America, almost all of South America and Africa, and almost all of Eastern Europe and Asia. 

And would would happen to those countries as people moved in and out? In this world, countries can either compete—as in they can fix the problems and make their country a really great place to live and work in an effort to attract people to stay)—or they can crumble. And if they crumble, like those red countries probably will, what if the green countries could merge with them?

This is what happens in the corporate world. Successful companies often merge with or acquire failing companies, and then apply their working model to the less successful company that doesn’t, elevating both brands. Instead of letting one company die, with all those people losing their jobs, the more successful company salvages the brand and helps them succeed, by applying all the resources they have that will help.

In our country model, let’s just assume some of the Eastern European countries—which have been drastically depopulating since the 1990s—decide to merge with the Nordic countries. They keep their culture, their way of life, but suddenly they have access to free childcare, free education, free healthcare, just like the Nordic countries do. Well now instead of losing millions of people, they start gaining millions of people. Companies move in, residents now have jobs. They become dark green countries and start enjoying all the benefits of their parent countries. And the Nordic countries, who gain so many citizens in the process, become more affluent and more able to provide those services to all the people in their purview. 

This kind of consolidation could get interesting. Nearly a third of Latin America would immigrate to the United States if they could—largely because of their corrupt governments. Might some of those countries prefer to just become part of the United States? If the US and Mexico merged, the US could export its government and police force, eliminating corruption, and eradicating crime. Some of its biggest companies and factories might relocate to Mexico where they have access to more workers, and those cities suddenly have access to jobs and wealth and security. Through mergers, countries could keep everything about their culture and their way of life, but they could install a better government—the kind they’d normally move for—without leaving their homes or cities.

Now, I’m not saying that Finland should buy Estonia. Or that the United States should buy Mexico. I’m saying that in a world where countries have to compete for citizens, they’ll be incentivized to become better places for people to live, to become green countries in their own right, and if they can’t, well they can always merge with better governments from a neighboring country and still be a green place to live—it’s their choice. Either way, no country would be left to flounder with bad or authoritarian governments, no access to resources, uninhabitable land, or a lack of economy. Just like companies do, countries could learn from each other, compete with one another, and even merge with one another if it’s beneficial. And all of the land on earth would become a really great place to live. 

We could give power to communities

In the far future, countries might have consolidated to the point that there are only five left—they are basically continents. You might think that would be a bad thing—that, if there were only five governments in the world, those governments would have way too much amassed power, and way too much control—and if governments behaved the way they do today, that would totally be true.

But what if we actually give those big governments less power? Less control?

There are a lot of beneficial things governments provide their citizens—all those dark green countries provide citizens with military protection, education systems, healthcare systems, and infrastructure systems. But governments also struggle to make decisions that will affect a wide and differing population group, and they probably shouldn’t be the deciding party when it comes to the day-to-day details of how we live our lives.

Why should the United States government make a decision that applies to California the same way it applies to Texas? For that matter, why should Texas make a decision that applies to Austin the same way it applies to Houston? Those places have entirely different needs—and wants—from one another. That’s why, in a world where governments are allowed to expand and care for larger groups of people, I also want to take the bulk of government powers away from countries, and even states, and give them to cities. To communities.

In this case, the only role of government is to provide the basic resources citizens need to thrive—we’re talking military protection, education, childcare, healthcare, and infrastructure—and maybe a universal basic income. But we take the rest of government power away from countries and give them to cities.

That’s how Greenland works. Greenland is owned by Denmark, and Denmark provides the island with all the benefits of a well-established country: foreign security, publicly-funded education, publicly-funded healthcare, and pensions. Denmark also provides Greenland with a substantial annual block grant. But Greenland self-governs—they have their own legislature, autonomy over their own people, and can make the decisions that best benefit them. They have their own culture that is unique to them, and they get to decide what makes the best sense for their community.

Why shouldn’t all communities function like that?