Today’s libertarians are metaphysically mad, argued conservative
guru Russell Kirk nearly two decades ago. Libertarians so disgusted
Kirk he would have gladly herded them onto an ice flow and set them
adrift in the middle of the Pacific.
Sounds like a great idea, says libertarian
billionaire Peter
Thiel.
Like Kirk, Thiel is also disgusted. Not
with libertarians, but with Americans in general. In fact, he’s so
disenchanted he wants to build a floating island 200 miles off
California’s coast. (Though, technically, if it’s floating it’s not
really an island. More like a raft.) Thiel’s new start-up country
(naming rights available) would have a minimal
form of government as befits a colony of libertarians. In fact, the
government’s only function would be the defense of the maritime
city-state from those roving
pirates from Waterworld, and breaking up shrill
disputes between minarchists and
anarcho-capitalists.
Libertarians call this form of government a Night Watchman
State, which is reminiscent of old guys walking around town making
sure the barber shops are locked up at night. Libertarians believe
this is all the government a society needs, because without
government everyone will behave like the Brady Bunch. Somalia is a
case in point. The main thing is, nobody will be able to force you
to wear a seatbelt when you drive your car. Assuming you need a car
on a raft.
These fantasy islanders, or “seasteaders,” who include
Milton Friedman’s grandson Patri Friedman, strike some as
nursing a bad case of sour grapes. They seem resentful that
libertarian ideas and candidates haven’t caught on. In fact,
they’re so bitter what they’d really like to do is start a
colony on the moon or Mars, maybe. However, even with all their
billions in Facebook shares, that’s not likely to happen
soon.
Thiel says he would like to build his aquatic
utopia’s government from scratch, much like America’s founding
fathers. According to Friedman, the ultimate goal “is to open
a frontier for experimenting with new ideas for government.” The
problem is they don’t really have any new ideas. The Harm
Principle was formulated by J.S. Mill circa
1859. Even the idea of founding a country on a deserted island was
taken up by Sir Francis Bacon in New Atlantis
back in 1624. Besides, anyone not educated in
our public schools knows the U.S. wasn’t invented out of whole
cloth; the founders were influenced by thousands of years of
Western civilization going back to the Ancient Greeks. No matter,
Thiel has something Madison, Adams, et al. didn’t
have: billions of dollars earned doing business in the country he
can’t wait to leave.
I CAN FORESEE several problems with this utopian
scheme:
First, it’s a utopian scheme, so it’s bound to fail like
all utopian schemes.
Second, giant squid.
Third, there’s the issue of a moral order. American
society at least has a few vestiges of morality remaining, which
keeps people like me from stealing my neighbor’s wife. But
MacTopia, or whatever the new island nation is called, will have no
moral order, because traditional morals are considered intolerable
curbs on one’s liberty. In fact, you’ll be able to stop by the
store, buy an assault rifle, a rock of crack and a hooker, and then
walk next door and pickup your child from his private elementary
school, since there will be no pesky vice laws or zoning
ordinances. Convenient as hell. Literally.
Fourth, one good tsunami could wipe out the whole
venture.
Most important, Thiel and Friedman are
forgetting about human nature. At least a few of the islanders will
bear children, and those children will inevitably rebel and become
Marxist-Leninists, or at least liberals, if only out of boredom. By
the time Thiel is packed off to the Alzheimer’s unit,
MacTopia (now renamed Che Guevara Island) will be no different from
Berkeley, California, with super high taxes, abortion
on demand, generous welfare benefits, and homeless people blocking
every street corner begging for handouts. Then come the
riots.
Despite this certain doom, the idea of seasteading is
catching fire (also a distinct possibility), and not just with rich
libertarians. Some of these floating island nations will be
socialist in nature. No doubt there will be fundamentalist
Christian, fundamentalist Islamic, even anarcho-transhumanism
colonies too. Consumers will be able to island hop till they find a
form of government that suits them just right. Though, in the end,
they will all suffer the same ill fate as every other utopian
colony.
If the giant squid doesn’t get them
first.
