The recent worldwide lockdowns and mass migrations from country to country, or even state to state have pushed the idea of mobility to the forefront of many freedom lovers’ minds. Even those who live in areas without draconian restrictions on freedom of travel may be experiencing an influx of people who have very different values, customs and beliefs. I’m sure the reader has heard or seen comments from lifelong residents of Austin, Texas about the effects of mass migration from California. Having lived in both states, I can say that Texas and California are 2 different countries including dialects of English. So, even for the reader who has no plans to relocate, considering the cultural, economic and personal impacts of migration is essential for limiting the amount of state coercion they experience.

The Legal Free Dictionary defines Expatriation as: The Voluntary Act of abandoning or renouncing one’s country and becoming the citizen or subject of another.(1) My objective will be to look at ways to think about expatriation that will limit the subjugation of either (or any) state. Even if you’re the disgruntled resident of Austin, Texas understanding the implications and process of expatriation can help you understand the zeitgeist of your new neighbors, co-workers or customers.

Physical relocation is only the first step in a series of experiences, opportunities, and changes that occur to a person when they relocate to a new geographic location. The old saws about traveling to discover oneself hold true when one breaks from a familiar place to an undiscovered country. The most immediate are language, culture and economics.

 Many potential expatriates immediately dismiss moving because of the language barrier. However learning a new language is an incredibly enriching experience and can be done by anyone with internal motivation. Since this article is written in English, it’s a safe assumption that most of the readers will not have gained a functional command of a second language even if they were fortunate enough not to attend public school. The good news is that English is a more complex language than most, and most English speakers have access to native speakers of another language. Moreover, interacting with native speakers of your new language before your move can give you an edge once you’re immersed in that new language. For Americans and British, Spanish and Portuguese speakers are easy to meet and share enough cultural similarities that getting to a basic level with a few phrases and customs is an easy hurdle to overcome. In my personal experience Mexicans and Brazilians are very willing to teach you their language, and honest enough to tell you what you need to improve. So, how hard is it really to learn a language?

The Common European Reference for Languages (CEFR) is the international standard for language learners. Most language learners are able to carry out their daily lives in 4-6 months of study and practice. That is considered level ‘A2’. Within a year the vast majority of people will be able to function at level ‘B2’ and be an independent speaker. The ‘C’ level has a flatter learning curve and requires academic skills like writing and spoken rhetoric. Most of the foreigners who ‘have good English’ are B2 or C1 level.

Developing you language skills is a process, and everyone has a predisposition to certain language skills, however learning a second language is not as hard as many people have been lead to believe and opens up a huge number of new economic opportunities, even if you never leave home.

 Assimilating a new language & culture has a long history of being a marketable skill from the Silk Road to those ‘Se habla Español’ signs you may have seen, and are an instant way to grow one’s customer base, independent mobility or social circle. Unlike language navigating a new culture can be more fraught and delicate. There are some hidden aspects of culture that the non-native may never fully grasp, or if they do, they may not choose to or be able to adapt to. While some parts of culture may be easily observable, others are hidden and deep, this is called the Cultural Iceberg.

 The cultural iceberg refers to the parts of culture that are tacit, complex and vary from place to place. A good example is the legal weight of a handshake and a verbal promise in the English speaking word. Most English speakers consider this a legal contract and under Common Law, it is. That is not the case in the Spanish speaking world which follows the legal tradition of the Roman Empire where ‘no document means no contract’.

The process of learning these hidden aspects of culture, and choosing whether or not, and how much one wants to assimilate the differences is a process called acculturation. For the expatriate this is the inward journey of adaptation. I had a Mexican friend in the US called Raymundo. While Raymundo had lived in the US for 25 years, he refused to admit he knew any English and forbade his children from speaking English at home. Needless to say this was not always advantageous for Raymundo. I personally had a very hard time greeting every Peruvian woman with a kiss on the cheek. That might get you slapped in the US, but not kissing a woman on the cheek in greeting might get you slapped in Latin America. Both are disrespectful behaviors. The acculturation experience is one of cognitive dissonance. It can take a long time and at times be much, much harder than learning a language. Acculturation in this sense has 5 stages and is often called Culture Shock.

Culture shock can take different amounts of time for different people and not everyone is successful. Some people like Raymundo get stuck at the anxiety stage and become overly negative about their new culture. An essential acculturation skill is the ability to see the humor in both one’s new culture, and the old. Much like philosophy, understanding an idea or cultural aspect is not the same as accepting it. By now, you’re probably wondering what the tangible advantages of expatriation are, which brings us to the Agorist aspects of expatriation. Here I’d first like to hearken back to Samuel Edward Konkin, an undocumented Canadian who was once deported from the US, but for many of us, lived free and created a huge amount of value. Another example is Rayo, a contemporary, friend, and perhaps influence on SEK3’s thinking, who in search of VONU(2) ‘expatriated’ himself and his partner to the wilderness. In a more immediate sense, you may not need to look much farther than the person driving your taxi, or selling you snacks at the corner shop to see the link between mobility and Agorism. There are people just like you doing that in other countries right now. The difference is that for most of the countries you might choose to expatriate to, you’re already ‘rich’ and can probably come up with more operating capital in a month than most natives. By crossing state borders one is able to exploit the trade barriers affected by the state. Here examples abound in the grey market. It is common practice for Peruvians and Bolivians to buy a laptop or two, unbox them and re-sell them to recoup part of their air ticket by selling on arrival. The import tax is 20% and sales tax is 16% for a laptop in Peru, and as long as you claim it as your property at customs that 36% markup is yours to keep as you undermine the local corruption mill. Going the other way, Peruvian Chullos (chew-yoz) sell at $7 to $20 per 1 kilo bundle on the shores of lake Titicaca and command up to $38 a piece on US Amazon. While more involved to buy and transport, gold, silver, and emeralds sell below spot in the Andes and upper Amazon.

 Figure 1: A peruvian man wearing a chullo

Such example abound for products everywhere I’ve been. Offering services also offer a long term, sustainable income streams from consulting, to setting up a call center or code farm to the classic – teaching English which will put you in the local middle class immediately. Setting up a white market business in most of Latin America is cheap and fast. In most countries you need an ID, a few hours, and about $200. If you use a local lawyer, it will cost more, but you won’t have to deal with driver’s license trauma flashbacks. You might be liable for US tax, but your Panamanian Business isn’t.

In short, the mobility and economic advantages of expatriation even as a seasonal or occasional activity offers the Agorist abundant opportunities for self improvement while increasing opportunities to avoid state coercion and expropriation. I think we could all do with a lot less of that in our lives.