In A two-stage strategy for freedom I proposed that the best strategy to fight state power would be direct challenges on marginal constraints that would then grow into bigger and more organized challenges on more popular government powers until the government could no longer stand a challenge on its legal monopoly.
In the Impossibility of Limited Government and the Prospects for a Second American Revolution, professor Hans Hermann Hoppe proposes an alternative form of revolutionary marginalism. Instead of trying to marginally roll back government powers, either through electoral activism or the strategy of direct challenge, the revolutionaries should seek to seize total independence in very small, insignificant territories, in effect creating a micro-state. Each of these micro-secessions would pose an insignificant threat on the established states, particularly those undergoing comparatively severe crises threatening the legitimacy of established order. The strategy would then be a multiplication of these microstates, governed by full market-based constitutions, forcing the collapse of governments by a fashion similar to a death by thousands of paper cuts, or a microbial infection.
How would an enterprising revolutionary start this process? The first task is to ensure that whatever territory is going to secede be clear of any resistors to the secession. Those resistors would provide ample excuse for the local state to crush the secession. In order to successfully secede, the secessionists must own all the property in the area, and it is preferable that this property be of low value. This means that the first microstates would have to be created from empty land of no value.
The territory has to be marginally defensible as well as mostly insignificant. For example, when the secessionist naval artillery platform Sealand was approached by a Royal Navy ship it fired a warning shot. The British state, unwilling to create turmoil over such an insignificant problem, simply renounced any claim over it. New secessionists would have to invest in fortifications to the extent of the value of the land they are seceding with.
How would such a microstate survive economically? Hoppe cites as an example the port cities of Hong Kong and Monaco, whose land areas are occupied entirely with urban real estate. These cities are regional trading centers, providing low-constraint markets for much larger areas out of their jurisdiction. The latest such territory to experience a meteoric rise is the city-state of Dubai, which happens to have been built on utterly inhospitable desert and survives only as a trading hub. Any secessionist microstate would have to set itself up as a similar fashion, starting with simple trading enterprises that do not attract much attention (merchandise that is outlawed in the region, such as drugs and firearms, would have to be excluded).
As the microstates develop to become more important regional markets, their population density and economic growth rates will rise significantly. What were at first insignificant secessionist territories will suddenly become an important part of regional politics. There will be many calls to reassert the authority of the regional state on the area. To prevent this the secessionist state must entangle itself in the political structure of the regional state, through the conventional means of lobbying (aka bribery) of local politicians, or the unconventional means of supporting revolutionary activists practicing the first strategy outlined of direct challenges on political authority. This would preferably be done by businesses whose main interests are in the regional state, but who also happen to run critical operations in the unconstrained marketplace of the secessionist microstate. The best example of these would be large multinational insurance companies that insure private property in the microstate and provide arbitration and legal services.
In the latter stages of such a strategy the first microstates would become exceedingly dense urban areas surrounded by large, still government-dominated suburbs. The contrast between the two areas would resemble the face-off between West and East Berlin. As large masses of people would desire to live in the free zone, and the real estate of this zone would be extremely valuable, restrictive immigration policies would have to be practiced in order to forbid overcrowding. The merchants would desire to set up shop in a new free area by repeating the operation of land purchase and secession, an operation that they would now be sufficiently experienced in to succeed without much effort. As well the many free states of the world would be bound together by mutual insurance contracts, and their collective economic power would make them strong enough to bribe or defend against the world's most powerful hegemonic states.
This process would in effect be the creation of a new Hanseatic League, an alliance of merchant cities that leverages its wealth to grow new cities in new territories, but which does not attempt to forcibly remove the established powers in these territories. With its immense wealth would come the power to indirectly support revolutions to abolish governments in weak or failed states, creating more markets for their insurers and arbitrators.
What kind of people can start this today? Maybe you are a man looking for adventure. Maybe you are looking to invest the considerable wealth you have earned in your long career into something that will benefit humanity. Maybe you are just looking for an honest living in a dishonest world. All of you need to find each other and organize yourself into a company, pool your assets and set up a trading port in one of the world's increasingly numerous failed states. Good starting points would be the coasts of Haiti or West Africa, areas that all of the world's great powers would love to see vanish forever. Grow your business from there.
Microsecession as a strategy for revolution | Challenge to minarchist | How would a private road system work?
As with your other topic, mentioned above, this is wonderful. It's a good elaboration on strategy advocated by Professor Hoppe.
I've always found it curious that Austrian economics emphasises the crucial role of entrepreneurship and profits in economics, yet, most of Austro - libertarians fail to include these incentives into their strategic views. The view elaborated upon here and the related strategy of offering citizens the choice of competing arbitration within an existing state is by far the most viable solution. Agorists would claim that this is what they believe too, yet there are a number of differences that I believe to be signficant. What immediatly comes to mind is alliances, the agorists and LLs tend to demonize big buisness in favour of an alliance with anarcho socialists and other leftists. Which to me seems silly. As mentioned, this would be, above all else, a very profitable enteprise. Which means that there would be a lot of interest in such a venture that has nothing to do with the NAP or anything like that. In fact, I don't really see multiarchism (anarcho capitalism) as anything to do with the NAP, the truth is that multiarchism is merely the result of competing providers of defence and arbitration. The fact that it is justified morally is obviously important, however as we can see with the existance of the state, that doesn't matter. What matters is the economic incentives.
As far as I can tell agorism is the belief that swapping tomatoes for celery without paying taxes will eventually destroy the state.
Which is even sillier than the belief that we can somehow inspire in the poor and dull the belief that the state is evil and that they then act upon this. As opposed to bringing the service to them. I don't deny the place of ideology within a revolution. The same applies for politics, nonetheless both should be lending support the provision of services that would compete with the state. As you mentioned here.
The two strategies you've advocate seem to complement each other perfectly. Destroying the state from both the inside and the outside. These micronations would allow the PDAs arising within the statist territory to operate within the micronations whilst attracting customers from inside the statist nation.
"You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows"
Bob Dylan
Stranger:Instead of trying to marginally roll back government powers, either through electoral activism or the strategy of direct challenge, the revolutionaries should seek to seize total independence in very small, insignificant territories, in effect creating a micro-state.
For an idea of just how small the seceding territory should be, Hoppe suggests in this lecture agitating for secession at the county or municipal level. Thanks for suggesting the term "microsecession".
Stranger:governed by full market-based constitutions
You mean like in Bob Murphy's Minerva?
Stranger:How would such a microstate survive economically? Hoppe cites as an example the port cities of Hong Kong and Monaco, whose land areas are occupied entirely with urban real estate. These cities are regional trading centers, providing low-constraint markets for much larger areas out of their jurisdiction.
Exactly. Because of the size of the microstate, absolute free trade is a necessity. Freed from taxation and regulation, the microstate would attract endless investment and become one of the wealthiest nations in the world (if not the wealthiest).
Stranger:(merchandise that is outlawed in the region, such as drugs and firearms, would have to be excluded).
I agree. If the U.S. is willing to invade South American countries to wage the War on Certain Plants, then strategically it would be too dangerous for a microstate to immediately engage in drug production (even if the profits are enormous).
Stranger:restrictive immigration policies would have to be practiced in order to forbid overcrowding.
Well, they wouldn't really be immigration policies if all property is private. It would just be an exercise of the right of exclusion.
Anyway, great article. I've been thinking about this for a while now, but I hadn't developed the ideas.
P.S. The case for secession can be made by appealing to free assocation. This puts the burden of proof on the statist, as they now have to justify the State's use of aggression.
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Stranger:How would such a microstate survive economically? Hoppe cites as an example the port cities of Hong Kong and Monaco, whose land areas are occupied entirely with urban real estate. These cities are regional trading centers, providing low-constraint markets for much larger areas out of their jurisdiction. The latest such territory to experience a meteoric rise is the city-state of Dubai, which happens to have been built on utterly inhospitable desert and survives only as a trading hub. Any secessionist microstate would have to set itself up as a similar fashion, starting with simple trading enterprises that do not attract much attention (merchandise that is outlawed in the region, such as drugs and firearms, would have to be excluded).
There is another way. But we have to stop looking backwards for examples, and look forward.
Internet earnings can be and usually are multi-jurisdictional. I could see the micro state being service oriented, as opposed to hard good trade based. This would allow for landlocked micro states, something which the above historical examples can't be due to the nature of their commerce.
Hmmm....
Fantastic thread idea btw. Much better than the usual fare.
If you find something evil that wobbles, push it. - Gary North
All I can say is... two thumbs up for this thread.
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liberty student:Internet earnings can be and usually are multi-jurisdictional. I could see the micro state being service oriented, as opposed to hard good trade based. This would allow for landlocked micro states, something which the above historical examples can't be due to the nature of their commerce.
Historically the first Hanseatic League cities were on the coast, but many more later appeared inland on the major rivers. This means that having access to trade routes is most important, but in our time that is not exclusively waterways. If we were to create secessionist territories along the U.S. interstate highway system, the potential for trade would be enormous.
The U.S. government is too powerful for this to be done in the short term, but with enough political chaos this could become feasible.
Sage: For an idea of just how small the seceding territory should be, Hoppe suggests in this lecture agitating for secession at the county or municipal level. Thanks for suggesting the term "microsecession".
The land area of Monaco is 2 square kilometers, or three quarters of a square mile. That is less than one block in the city of Phoenix, Az. It is the second most densely populated state in the world.
Sage:P.S. The case for secession can be made by appealing to free assocation. This puts the burden of proof on the statist, as they now have to justify the State's use of aggression.
At some point we have to realize that most people are not interested in the burden of proof, only in material limits on their power. This has to guide our strategy. Some people don't care about arguments.
Stranger: The U.S. government is too powerful for this to be done in the short term, but with enough political chaos this could become feasible.
Certainly don't overlook other territories.
Very interesting post. Does Hoppe know that he is an agorist?
Market anarchist, Linux geek, aspiring Perl hacker, and student of the neo-Aristotelians, the classical individualist anarchists, and the Austrian school.
wombatron: Very interesting post. Does Hoppe know that he is an agorist?
It's not agorism.
He doesn't care.
So first of all the leftists claim agorism as inherently leftist, and then you claim any other strategy you like as agorism? Wonderful.
Agorism is the silly dream that swapping celery and tomatoes without the state knowing will bring about libertarianism.
I don't see any point in hijacking this thread and turning it into an agorism vs. other anarchisms clusterfuck.
liberty student:Certainly don't overlook other territories.
I was thinking earlier today about buying or homesteading an island in the Caribbean, Pacific, or Atlantic, as long as it is somewhat close to either Asia, the Americas, or Africa. The idea would be to be just far enough from powerful governments (like the US, Mexico, Venezuela, Colombia, UK, EU, etc.) to avoid any serious conflict, while being close enough to poor populations to use them for cheap labor. A major reason why Hong Kong rose to prominence was the fact that they had a very large labor pool to draw from. People were desperate to escape from the PRC into Hong Kong. We could capitalize on the wave of illegal immigration into the US and Canada by luring some potential illegal immigrants to our island. Since this island would literally have no infrastructure whatsoever, we could put that labor to great use. It would also be an easy source of converts: once you're on the island and realize that everything functions perfectly without government, you wouldn' t need to read some obscure anarchist texts to understand that society can function without government. The economy of such an island could focus on several things, one thing I thought of could be a gold/silver/copper mint and full reserve bank that would serve the needs of libertarians all over the world. Furthermore, such an island could be a good trading point for drug lords. We might be wary of such contacts, however, because we wouldn't want to get under the skin of the US and other powerful anti-drug countries.
Obviously, there are two big issues with such a project. The first would be the potential for hurricanes, floods, etc. completely destroying all of the accumulated capital. The second would be the issue of long-term global warming permanently flooding our island.
krazy kaju:The second would be the issue of long-term global warming permanently flooding our island.
Or longterm global cooling making it larger...
^ Haha, yes, that would be a possibility also. But taking an island is still a higher risk in terms of the environment than taking, say, a few acres in Montana.
GilesStratton:I've always found it curious that Austrian economics emphasises the crucial role of entrepreneurship and profits in economics, yet, most of Austro - libertarians fail to include these incentives into their strategic views. The view elaborated upon here and the related strategy of offering citizens the choice of competing arbitration within an existing state is by far the most viable solution.
Perhaps we should start listing off the businesses that are currently successful in the similar zones Stranger indicated. I'd like to keep pushing this idea forward, it's one of the best in recent times.
GilesStratton:The fact that it is justified morally is obviously important, however as we can see with the existance of the state, that doesn't matter. What matters is the economic incentives.
So very true.
I did some research, and if we were to take an island, I would suggest one close to Guyana, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago. English is the dominant language in all these countries, their governments are relatively weak, and they all have a high net emmigration rate. This would mean that we could have an island with relatively low amounts of interference but a large available labor pool.
GilesStratton:So first of all the leftists claim agorism as inherently leftist, and then you claim any other strategy you like as agorism? Wonderful.
Well, no. I believe that I said that agorism was originally left-libertarian, but that now agorists are not always leftists (link here). And it is similar to agorism; Konkin talks about a similar idea in NLM, although admittedly in much less detail.
GilesStratton:Agorism is the silly dream that swapping celery and tomatoes without the state knowing will bring about libertarianism.
Strawman, but this is neither the time nor the place.
liberty student: Perhaps we should start listing off the businesses that are currently successful in the similar zones Stranger indicated. I'd like to keep pushing this idea forward, it's one of the best in recent times.
Do not concern yourself with what kind of business would like to establish a trading operation in such a place. Your task is to create the marketplace, not to fill it. You are simply a group of strange ideologues wanting to retire from the world, and you can hardly help it if businessmen come to you with development opportunities. Of course you will guarantee the safety of such a business and provide the same equitable treatment to any other businessmen.
krazy kaju: ^ Haha, yes, that would be a possibility also. But taking an island is still a higher risk in terms of the environment than taking, say, a few acres in Montana.
The problem with a location in the U.S. is that the U.S. government is extremely mindful of its sovereignty. They make expatriate citizens pay taxes! No one else does that!
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