Politics

Libertarian Possibilities: Completely At Sea?

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The debate I'm participating in over at Cato Unbound on libertarian possibilities–asking the question, roughly, must libertarians actively create fresh polities of some sort or can they move this old world in a more libertarian direction through talk and education?–continues with many more entries.

Peter Thiel, PayPal co-founder and Seasteading supporter, thinks the worlds of the sea and space (outer and cyber) are where the libertarian action will be; Jason Sorens of the Free State Project wonders if a nonlibertarian world will accept these sorts of libertarian outposts, and muses on the sorts of outlier personalities such projects attract; Patri Friedman has a nuanced view of the importance, and also the limitations, of such pure intellectualism; and I wonder if everyone who says that some particular path toward successful libertarian activism can't possibly work might, alas, all be right.

Previous blogging on the start of this debate. I'll be writing at greater length on seasteading in a forthcoming issue of Reason magazine.