Better weather or lower taxes: both of these are legitimate reasons for deciding to turn your back on your home country. In recent years, the increasing restrictions on economic and political freedom in many Western countries have become a central motivation for moving abroad. However, emigrants are often met with a lack of understanding from friends and relatives, both on the left and right of the political spectrum. “You are responsible for your community” or “If you don’t become politically engaged yourself, nobody will” are common assertions. After all, many hold that it is the moral duty of every citizen to get into politics and actively contribute to change if he is dissatisfied with the government. Anyone who moves abroad is accused of running away and abandoning his nation. But is this actually true? Why should patriotism lead you to be a prisoner in your state? Why shouldn’t you live wherever is the best fit for your values and goals?

Politics is not the solution; self-responsibility is

When people are dissatisfied with the ruling political elite, a typical reaction is: “We need other, more competent politicians.” If only their candidate or their party wins the next election, then all the problems will finally be solved, and the country will be led into a golden age. At least that’s what they think until the change of government actually occurs and it becomes clear after a few months that “the new guy” is by no means an angel either but is just as interested in preserving and increasing his own power as the previous officeholder. The great misconception that repeatedly leads to disappointment is that politics as such is the solution. Whether your concern is obesity, bad education, or an aging population, the government is called to intervene and fix the problem. But if you want to lead a happy life, you should not wait for a far-sighted leader to appear on the political stage and magically change everything for the better.

Instead, you should take responsibility for your life and make the most of your opportunities. This means that if you can find better conditions in a neighboring country or another part of the world, you should stop complaining about the bad policies in your home country. Rather, you should gather the courage to pack your bags and move to a place where you can increase your personal freedom. That you happen to belong to a group (be it a family, a neighborhood, a nation, a race, or even a culture) does not mean that you share responsibility for the positive or negative actions of other group members, nor that you are subject to some kind of moral duty to constantly help others.

A positive side effect of moving abroad is that, as a productive worker or entrepreneur, you support more liberal countries. At the same time, you take tax revenue away from domestic politicians, which limits their scope for intervention and creates pressure for reform. Voting with your feet can therefore be at least as effective as voting with your ballot paper. Millions of highly qualified workers left the Eastern Bloc at the beginning of the Cold War, whereas the United States has gained countless hard-working and ambitious immigrants over the course of two centuries. These immigrants are an incredibly important basis for its continued economic success.

The world has more to offer than ever before

Even in 2024, many Westerners believe that “there is nowhere to run” and so you have to “stay and fight” if you are facing a government that continues to extend its overreach. But the days when the globe could be divided into a free West, a socialist East, and the even poorer “third world” are long gone. The tallest skyscrapers are no longer in the United States but in the Emirates, Malaysia, and China. Of course, it’s understandable if you don’t want to move to the latter, an authoritarian surveillance state. But in recent decades, new prosperity has been created in many parts of the planet, and more and more countries have opened up to market-based ideas and free trade. Thanks to modern means of transportation, they are easier and cheaper to reach than ever before, and thanks to the role of English as a global language, communication is now easier than at any time in the past.

The fact that economic freedom in particular has fallen in the established Western countries but has risen in many other parts of the world can be proven with hard figures. In the Index of Economic Freedom, which ranks countries according to data indicating rule of law, government size, regulatory efficiency, and open markets, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom are ranked 18th, 25th, and 30th, respectively. Ahead of them are Taiwan, Estonia, and Cyprus, relative newcomers to prosperity that only hardcore optimists would have had on their radar at the turn of the millennium. Right at the top: Singapore, Switzerland, and Ireland, countries whose economic success is already reflected in the high cost of living but which are likely to remain attractive, particularly for highly qualified emigrants. Interesting options for remote workers are those countries that do not tax income earned abroad at all, such as Georgia, Costa Rica, and Guatemala.

What patriotism means and what it does not

It’s great when you can identify positively with the country you grew up in and when you can be enthusiastic about the language, the literature, the music, and the culture in general. But patriotism in this sense does not mean that you are a prisoner of the nation-state in which you were born by chance. You can keep fond memories of your homeland while building a new life somewhere else. And you can even combine the old with the new. After all, that is the heart of cultural exchange. If this were not the case, would not the political and religious persecutees of human history have always had to stay where they were born out of solidarity with their homelands? English Puritans 400 years ago, Irish Catholics 170 years ago, or even Soviet dissidents and Jewish Germans 90 years ago. Are they cowards or traitors because they left instead of fighting against the state apparatus of power? No, because every person is first and foremost responsible for himself. It’s far more rational to pursue one’s own happiness instead of pleasing a fabricated national community.

You have the right to go where you feel most welcome and where politicians do not see your private property primarily as “to be plundered.” There is no moral obligation to surround yourself with whining pessimists who want to hand over responsibility for their lives to the state just because they were born in the same country. Instead, you can surround yourself with positive people from all over the world in a new place. Many emigrants are particularly hard-working, open-minded, and freedom-loving. People from all over the world have wanted to pursue the American dream for decades, if not centuries. This dream of freedom and personal success is still alive today but can be pursued in a variety of locations.

This article was written by Tobias Zander. Tobias is a financial and cultural writer who previously studied at the CEVRO Institute in Prague.