Adam Smith and The Ownership of Citizens - Zac

This blogpost was influenced by the reading and Timon's blog post and my comment/reaction (I write this presuming no context from reading either).

Excerpt from Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence.


In Lectures on Jurisprudence Smith writes on citizens born into social contracts without consenting to the terms of the social contract. This may not initially appear to be an issue, but not only is the born citizen unable to renegotiate the terms of the social contract, they are rarely able to leave either. Thus the citizen is fundamentally coerced into accepting the terms enforced upon their birth. The state then ensures this acceptance as a reinforcement of its continued legitimacy, via force and unequal bargaining power rather then true voluntary contractual agreements. 

To expand beyond Smith's point, the connection between citizenship and land ownership is rather strange when reflected upon. Functionally, you belong to the nation who owns the land upon which you were born. Why is your consent to a social contract and its ensuing obligations and rights tied to birth land whatsoever? To propose an obvious alternative: citizenship could be tied to the current area occupied, I could be a citizen of the United States on day, and a citizen of Canada the next. Obviously this would run into some issues with how policies have been built around citizenship, but state benefits such as healthcare or education could be shifted to instead be applied to other categories such as honorary citizens who are recognized for having done something for their nations. Regardless, the point of reconfiguring citizenship is not policy collapse, but to question beyond why xenophobia does birth location have any indication of one's ability to consent and fulfill the terms of a state's social contract.

If consensual fulfillment of social contracts and land ownership have no sensible connection why has citizenship been tied to land ownership? I'd argue birth citizenship is a force of western colonization. Birth citizenship remains because it is a convenient system for the states' which maintain control over the social contract's bargaining power. Particularly for conquered lands, birth citizenship allows states to claim ownership of the people in their owned lands without needing to secure those peoples' consent or agreeable terms. Moreover, those peoples' continued existence as citizens is a reinforcement of the state's borders and legitimacy of land ownership. A clear illustration of this relationship is displayed by the United States Federal Government forced citizenship programs amongst indigenous peoples to solidify its land ownership rights. Citizenship becomes a tool to use the people to own the land, and use the land to own the future born people.


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