Thanks to the Mises Institute, I ran across this fascinating website and wanted to share it. The “Seasteading Institute” is working to build communities on the ocean outside the realm of any government or country. Their logic is, since governments have claimed all the land, we must turn to the sea for freedom. It is really interesting. I’d love to try it someday. In fact, I’m tempted to sign up to be one of those 150 individuals in 5 years to try it out. I can’t express how exciting this is to me. Who would have dreamed 100 years ago that anyone would try something like this? And so what other opportunities and ways to realize liberty will there be in 100 years from now?
On a similar subject, a friend just gave me a copy of Eugene Richter’s book, “Pictures of the Socialist Future.” I gather from what I’ve read that during this time (late 1800’s, early 1900’s) everyone was writing these novels imagining what life would be like under the glorious Socialism. Perhaps this is where the story of roasted flying chickens came from? I’m not sure. At any rate, this Richter was far more honest in his socialist dreams. His story follows the fate of one family from the beginning of the Socialist revolution. I’m only a few chapters into it, but am greatly enjoying it. The translation (by Henry Wright) seems to be quite well done. I’m no expert at translations, but I have encountered some translations from Russian and Greek that seem to read the wrong way. They come off as being too awkward and contrived. But this translation is nice. I highly recommend it, and I suspect that the more I read, the more I’ll like it.
I took advantage of Mises’ birthday and ordered some books from the Mises Store…thank you for the sale, Mises Institute!
Hmmm… you say outside of ANY government? Isn’t that anarchy?
Yes, outside of any government, and yes, that would technically be anarchy. 🙂 But the exciting thing is that they would be free to develop a private and voluntary system of law and order unlike the corrupt system forced on us right now. Think of it as a free market, free to choose your judge, etc…I think it would be very fascinating to see. A lot of people have written about scenarios like this and how it would work out, but to observe (or participate in!) a purely free community and see how they handle problems, how they enforce right and wrong…it would be very, very interesting.
I know I may be getting myself into trouble by arguing with you (LOL) but hey… friendly debate, right? So, wouldn’t it make more sense to start these sea-communities with a law system already in place that safeguards liberty from the outset, rather than just say, “Ok, there’s this totally free community without any government” and some Marxist moves in and takes over…? I didn’t actually visit the website, so maybe this is how it is already. Just my two cents. 🙂
Um, yes, actually I think they are building (or hoping to build) these sea communities with the intention of being a place of liberty and refuge. So most of the people who would even do it would be libertarians or people with similar ideas. It is really complicated for me to explain in this comment, there’s a lot that I could say…so, ask me about it sometime. I’d say there’s a sort of tacit law (common law) but as far as how it is worked out (what if someone breaks the law…? What do we do?) is not established, it will “evolve” (in a good way…not like monkeys to humans, lol!) as people interact in the community. Does that make sense? 🙂