Xenophon’s answer to a budget crisis – more non-doms!

Nearly half of Britain’s billionaires are foreigners, and government hopes many more will now come in on the government ‘start business — get passport’ scheme. Someone has obviously been reading Xenophon.

In the 350s BC Athens was in serious financial trouble. In his Poroi (‘Revenues’), Xenophon, a soldier and essayist, sketched out a plan to restore Athens’ fortunes. The big target was foreign businessmen, or ‘metics’ as the Greeks called them.

‘Metic’ derives from metoikos, literally someone who had ‘changed residence’, i.e. a Greek or non-Greek who was not Athenian. To live in Athens they had to have a citizen sponsor, be registered and pay a monthly tax. They were liable for military service, and could not own land or take any political role. They were there to work. Since Athens was a flourishing international city, there was money to be made from being part of it. It was trading that Xenophon had in mind.

Xenophon advocated doing away with sponsors and military obligations, opening up abandoned houses and sites in the city for ‘those worthy of it’ to live in and renovate, and establishing a Minister for Metics, with rewards for those who introduced the most. There should be special processes for speeding up trade disputes, and front seats at theatres and state banquets for top traders. A state capital fund should be set up to construct hostels for shipowners and visitors, trading stations, and houses and shops in Piraeus harbour. Foreign contributors to the fund (‘kings, tyrants, Persian satraps’) should be encouraged, their names registered as state benefactors. All this would see ‘imports, exports, transactions, sales, rents and excise duties’ soaring. And how about a state-owned merchant fleet for hire, as with war-ships? The result would be a wealth-producing meticocracy.