So, a group of Libertarians led by Milton Friedman's grandson and the founder of PayPal is progressing on its plans to create floating, start-up countries on the high seas. They essentially claim that the political freedom possible in such a "country" will enable them to experiment and create new forms of government, which could then be applied in real countries to solve the modern political problems that those countries seem unable to solve.
However, I fail to see how the lessons learned from a self-selected group of a few hundred or thousand well educated, wealthy individuals living on a ship is going to produce solutions for the governments of the real world. Many of the problems of modern democracies center around their large scale; the overwhelming influence of special interests and citizens inability to stay knowledgeable enough and engaged in the political process to counteract such special interests. And they seem even less useful in solving policy questions on education, international relations, etc.
More likely, they will simply set up a system of regulation free medical tourism and banking, and pass any negative externalities on to real countries while reaping generous, tax free profits.
Sea Steading
2 comments:
wow. if this ever happened it would certainly just be a big, big bank.
it's interesting though..
The only thing is, isn't he forgetting that Hamilton, madison, and jefferson were just like waaaay smarter than anyone could ever be, so like obviously nothing could be better than the US constitution.
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