Exit, Voice, and Liberty

There’s been some interesting, and heated, debate in the libertarian blogosphere about the importance of democracy to freedom. Will Wilkinson suggests that since charter cities (and presumably seasteads) are undemocratic, they might allow rulers of authoritarian regimes to reap the benefits of high economic growth without giving their subjects “real freedom.” I think Will’s point [...]

Customer-Owned Protection Agencies

I suggested yesterday that protection agencies which credibly commit to not joining any nascent cartel are likely to attract more customers than those which don’t, potentially nullifying Cowen and Sutter’s critique of market anarchism. One obvious possibility is customer ownership of protection agencies. Cowen makes this suggestion in the final paragraph of his 1992 paper:
In [...]

SpaceSteading

The Space Frontier Foundation looks like an interesting organization. Their central goal of colonizing space is obviously a long-term one (though we should not underestimate the law of accelerating returns), but I suspect they’ll have an important role to play in the short term agitating for the removal of regulatory barriers to present-day commercial spaceflight.
The [...]

419 Baiting, Altruistic Punishment, and Ideology

Al Roth at the excellent Market Design points out that 419 baiting is a form of altruistic punishment. Spending your own time and resources in order to waste the time and resources of email scam artists makes it less likely that they’ll bother the rest of us. 419 baiters are voluntarily contributing to a public [...]

Where’s the Love? Or the Indifference?

The brouhaha over libertarians having the gall to think about leaving current political structures to seek self-determination is flaring up again. Peter Thiel’s Cato Unbound essay, which innocently but unwisely pointed out that women are more likely to vote for statist policies than men, is once again to object of much ridicule and anger. Brad Reed [...]

Quote of the Day: Liberal Archipelago Edition

The metaphor offered here to supplant those already described [i.e. the 'body politic' and 'ship of state'] is one which pictures political society as an archipelago: an area of sea containing many small islands. The islands in question, here, are different communities or. better still, jurisdictions, operating in a sea of mutual toleration. Political society [...]

Libertarianism and Democracy

Will Wilkinson has a fantastic post on the anti-democratic tendencies of libertarians. Will says many things I agree with, and some I disagree with.
Which brings us to Theil’s boneheaded quip about women’s suffrage. Extending the franchise to women is, in my estimation, one of the great triumphs of the American classical liberal tradition. Like the [...]

Relatively Absolute Ideology

Patri Friedman’s rejoinder is up at Cato Unbound. The debate seems to have reached a reasonable synthesis, with Patri admitting that Folk Activism does have some value and Brian Doherty admitting that it has its limits. Most of the remaining disagreement seems to be little more than a matter of emphasis.
Patri does make [...]

Sorens on Seasteading

Jason Sorens, founder of the Free State Project, has a short response to Patri’s Folk Activism essay at Cato Unbound. He makes the point that seasteads will need to moderate their libertarianism in order to avoid interference from existing governments.
Certainly, any society that seeks to legalize the production and export of narcotics currently prohibited in [...]

Peter Thiel on Folk Activism

Peter Thiel’s response to Patri Friedman’s Folk activism essay is up at Cato Unbound. His central point is that politics is unavoidably illiberal, and the only way to be free is to escape the forces of politics.

Most importantly, I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible. By tracing out the development of my [...]