For those individuals and families who would like to move to a place with complete freedom, it is not so easy. For those who would like to live in a Socialist state it is just as difficult. Most habitable land has already been occupied, and is under the jurisdiction of an established government. It’s feasibly impossible to start a new country in the era we live in. The question begs, are political dissidents best served trying to reform the system from within or figuring out some sort of radical alternative?
Patri Friedman (son of David, grandson of Milton) has a potential alternative solution on his hands. His idea is to extend competition to government and living communities. Extreme mobility and freedom from a current state would enable consumers to choose what political, social, and economic system to live under. For this purpose, Patri co-founded the Seasteading Institute, whose mission is to:
“Establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems.”
Dwellings on the Ocean would be free to organize themselves however the people decided to. If you were living on a particular Seastead and you didn’t like some aspect about it, you could move to another Seastead that better satisfied your preferences. Imagine thousands of these off the Coast experimenting with different ways of social organization. The complete logistics are quite interesting and are addressed on his website, his book (available online), and an episode of Econtalk.
An artist's rendition of a Seastead
Is it economically feasible? According to Patri, as long as the Ocean Tax is less than the Government Tax then yes. To get the ball rolling, the Institute received $500,000 in seed money from libertarian entrepreneur and activist Peter Thiel.
Patri left his job at Google last year to devote his full attention to the project. Engineers are currently working on conceptual designs for the necessary structures. The timeline on their website forecasts Seasteads in as little as 5 years, with significant growth by 10 years.
A part of America has been potentially revived; the frontier spirit. But if the Ocean is only the penultimate frontier, what’s next?
2 Comments
Josh! Your blog is beautifully designed and the content is wonderful, of course.
I think you’d be excited to learn that Students for Liberty is in talks with Patri Friedman to have him come and speak next semester, probably about seasteading. Possibly we’ll get to hear from the man himself about this exciting new frontier.
That’s awesome that Patri is (probably) coming to speak to SFL. I already have some questions for him. And thanks for the kind words about the blog.