A once in a lifetime chance for anarchy!
Source link: http://archive.mises.org/6112/worlds-smallest-country-for-sale/
World’s smallest country for sale
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Tu Ne Cede Malis
Advancing the Scholarship of Liberty in the Tradition of the Austrian School
{ 22 comments }
Well, just try growing pot there, or try laundering money there, and you’ll find out just how much of an independent sovereignty it is in about 5 seconds flat.
I don’t think anyone would notice if you grew pot there, and if they did I don’t think they’d do anything about it, unless you tried to sell it outside of Sealand.
Just sell it via Holland.
Anyway, don’t think agriculture would be a big industry in sealand. Maybe a drug lab.
In any case there is much more money to be made at smaller risk from offshore accounts and banking, and you don’t need much land.
Just think: Minerva!
I lost any interest in such projects after the Minerva debacle. A good number of libertarians lost their fortunes investing in such projects. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva for a short discussion of it. When the King of Tonga in his canoe came to proclaim Minerva as his, all bets were off for a libertarian enclave.
This is my view of the Free State Project as well. It is a rather foolish venture which will only end in failure. A much better project was framed by the georgists after the last century began. The georgists had money, organization, and had been successful in promoting a number of projects, such as the passage of Initiative & Referendums in numerous states and the successful single tax enclaves in southern Georgia (Fairhope), Delaware (Arden), Mississippi (Wall Hill), Maine (Halidon Village), Massachusetts (near Harvard, Tahanto, Shakerton, Trapelo), New Jersey and elsewhere. Did I mention they had money? Lots of it. They moved into a state in the east with missionary zeal with leaflets, advertisements, pamphlets, lecturers, and–lots of money. More than the LP could ever hope to collect.
The result? You know, the Single Tax State? They failed miserably. Not only that, but the state put an article in their constitution preventing passage of any law restricting taxes to the single tax. See http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wolfe-nancy_single-tax-campaign-in-delaware.html
The georgists were the political wing of the libertarian movement, much like the “Party of The Democracy” was once the political wing of the more moderate classical liberals. The political efforts of the georgists were permanently harmed in the U.S. by this foolishness, just like the LPers, if they manage to make the Free State Project an important concern for libertarians in general, will cause irreparable harm to more than just the LP.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com
Why must the land be fixed? What about the Seastead project?
If Sealand could indeed be regarded as a separate sovereign nation and had enough land to play with then I’d say a Libertarian-minded person with lots of money to throw around to: ‘go for it!’.
No taxes, no government, self-rule, etc., could all be put to practice. Offering a tax-free haven for all the wealthy of the world would be interesting to see. Shame if the big nations did crack down on it though.
The world is an unforgiving place. One thing that the Prince of Sealand had right was his attention to defending his realm, with arms. Sad, but needed; it’s either the Sealand approach or paying into the till of a(nother) government for defense services, unless relaible mercenaries can be found and brought in.
This post is ridiculous.
I lost any interest in such projects after the Minerva debacle. A good number of libertarians lost their fortunes investing in such projects. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Minerva for a short discussion of it. When the King of Tonga in his canoe came to proclaim Minerva as his, all bets were off for a libertarian enclave.
This is my view of the Free State Project as well. It is a rather foolish venture which will only end in failure. A much better project was framed by the georgists after the last century began. The georgists had money, organization, and had been successful in promoting a number of projects, such as the passage of Initiative & Referendums in numerous states and the successful single tax enclaves in southern Georgia (Fairhope), Delaware (Arden), Mississippi (Wall Hill), Maine (Halidon Village), Massachusetts (near Harvard, Tahanto, Shakerton, Trapelo), New Jersey and elsewhere. Did I mention they had money? Lots of it. They moved into a state in the east with missionary zeal with leaflets, advertisements, pamphlets, lecturers, and–lots of money. More than the LP could ever hope to collect.
The result? You know, the Single Tax State? They failed miserably. Not only that, but the state put an article in their constitution preventing passage of any law restricting taxes to the single tax. See http://www.cooperativeindividualism.org/wolfe-nancy_single-tax-campaign-in-delaware.html
The georgists were the political wing of the libertarian movement, much like the “Party of The Democracy” was once the political wing of the more moderate classical liberals. The political efforts of the georgists were permanently harmed in the U.S. by this foolishness, just like the LPers, if they manage to make the Free State Project an important concern for libertarians in general, will cause irreparable harm to more than just the LP.
Just a thought.
Just Ken
kgregglv@cox.net
http://classicalliberalism.blogspot.com
Why? Because the FSP does not organize anyone, or take their money. They only urge them to move where they can make a difference. And they have not failed by a long shot.
They are already well entrenched.
This is not about money or a commune, but then again I see the word liberal by your name…………..
The Free State Project is working.
Check out http://freestateblogs.net/ on things that are going on NOW in NH.
Locals and movers together.
libertarianism is NOT just the LP.
Wow, interesting link dreepa! I’d concur with the notion that showing what’s right with Libertarian through pro-active behaviour is going to turn heads far more than simply compaining about what’s wrong with Statism.
Indeed didn’t Rothbard warn about visual accomplishments? ‘At least the State is doing something’ would be the standard response against Libertarians theorists. Whereas communities living up to Libertarian ideals and showing that the free market outperforms half-hearted Socialist economies are going to make a bigger difference?
I don’t see the Free State Project succeeding, but not for the reasons Ken describes.
The problem with the FSP, is that they want 20,000 people to move to NH. That won’t work because they didn’t account for NH’s “Mas**ole” problem. 10,000 Mas**oles move to NH from MA each year. In 2 years the Free Staters will be outnumbered by the MA people.
NH will eventually become another MA.
Nat, actually, in the last 3 years, we’ve learned that 20K isn’t needed… with a few thousand true activists, we’d be the most powerful political force. Heck, with a scant hundred or two, we’re already doing a lot… Give us 2K, not 20K, and you will see lots happening.
and also, contrary to your belief:
1) MA people who move for the right reasons (economic ones) tend to be on the right (pro-liberty) side, likely making the net liberty-neutral.
2) almost none of those folks who move are ‘activists’, and it’s activists who make the difference.
Nat, actually, in the last 3 years, we’ve learned that 20K isn’t needed…
No, I think what you learned is that 20K isn’t feasible, and then you scaled down your expectations accordingly.
There are no shortcuts toward liberty. It cannot be purchased outright. Only an advance in ideology is an advance in civilization.
Advance libertarianism, advance liberty. It’s a long slow slog – probably centuries long – but it’s the only permanant, effective way.
Seth said:
and also, contrary to your belief:
1) MA people who move for the right reasons (economic ones) tend to be on the right (pro-liberty) side, likely making the net liberty-neutral.
2) almost none of those folks who move are ‘activists’, and it’s activists who make the difference.
Point (1): That hasn’t historically been the case. People from CA are turning AZ into another CA. Phoenix is called “Little LA”. People from NY & PA have turned NJ into a people’s republic. I remenber when NJ also had no income or sales tax. It wasn’t all that long ago.
The question is why people are moving from one state to another. In the case of NJ, I suspect housing prices may be a primary factor. Housing prices in southern NH are higher than in northern MA. People who move to NH from MA but remain employed in MA are paying MA income tax of 5.3%, plus a NH property tax of several thousand dollars a year. These people are the least likely to want to embrace a new tax, and voting records show the strongest support for what used to be considered the party of fiscal discipline, the Republicans, in the southern towns in NH.
People moving from other parts of the country to more central and northern areas in NH are the ones voting for more spending. The ones who fled Massachusetts tend not to require too much convincing on the fiscal side of the equation.
Name a few places in America getting better for liberty lovers right now. The Free State Project is simply an idea that if all the people who desire greater liberty move to a single state, they have a shot at actually getting something positive done.
Nat (and others), I’m not going to continue to argue with you, as the facts speak for themselves. We don’t need 20K. 20K was a theoretical number Jason extrapolated, and real world results, as with any experiment trump the theory. Having 5K activists would mean more libertarian activists than all of the other parties put together, including those brought in from outside (as the Democrats often do now, in big union buses)
If you want to see NH’s liberty for yourself, make a trip here. LibertyForum in Feb or
PorcFest in June are great times… but anytime is good.
If Sealand began growing pot or whatever then Bush would declare it a terrorist nation and blast it into the sea.
Come on, billwald, you can get all the pot you want in Amsterdam and the Bush administration doesn’t give a damn. They’ve practically decriminalized pot in England last I heard, so I doubt they’d care much about Sealand either.
Update: The Swedish file-sharing website The Pirate Bay is holding a fundraiser to buy Sealand.
http://www.thelocal.se/6076/20070112.
The Website through which the campaign is being undertaken is here. The organization is offering citizenship to any donor.
Someone said grow pot and launder money there and youll find out just how soverign it is. What you have to understand is that as a soverign national selfdefence or national defence is your own responsibility. No country will help you if the US bombs you, you must defend yourself. No one will help you if your held hostage there if you revoke your other citzenships in exchange for Sealand.
offshore banking is no exception to this rule. The truth is that the majority of citizens have no experience whatsoever with offshore banking, but they still tend to think with it.
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