Free Delaware

Brian Doherty | February 4, 2003

The Free State Project (FSP)-- the latest in a string of plans for ideologically sympatico people to move en masse to one location so they can more or less run the show there, which Jesse Walker wrote about for Reason in our January issue -- has attracted some attention from the media in Delaware, one of the states on the FSP's short list. The lead in the story from the Delaware News-Journal:
A bloodless coup to take control of the Delaware state government is being planned.

If successful, by 2010 an army of 20,000 will move in, ascend to power and eliminate virtually all taxes - along with nearly all government programs and regulations. No public schools, no health, welfare or social services, no liquor laws, no gun control or land use laws. Smoking would be allowed nearly everywhere, as would almost all forms of gambling and prostitution.

The free market would run riot.

The story goes on to quote a local Libertarian Party head who admits he is "not putting much effort into it." For an interesting bit of historical perspective, the story says that in 1895 a bunch of Henry Georgist single-taxers tried a similar scheme that failed to change state laws to their preference. "The effort failed, but the invaders remained, founding the village of Arden, where that principle lives on."

Even if the FSP's legacy is just a libertarian village with a quaint, half-remembered history a century down the line, that would be something.