Remember the “Oceania Project“? The loopy Libertarians who wanted to start a floating colony somewhere? Basically the idea was to make a completely tax-free state… if you wanted to live there you would buy your own hexagonal “SeaCell,” which was a giant 1-acre cement float, and bolt it to the existing colony.
Anyway, after years of collecting money and printing their own passports, at some point an officer embezzled all their money and the project crashed. And that was that. But wait! Now the same people who brought you Oceania are making a space ark: The Lifeboat Foundation. LEWIS: “I’d be willing to donate money to shooting libertarians into space!” Oceania’s appeal is universal- what if you could not only rule but OWN your own country in a Carribean paradise? (Check out their vacation photos). You wouldn’t have to pay taxes. Are you tired of civil rights abuses? If you owned your own country you could make up any laws you wanted! Why bother fixing the existing system when you can make an entirely new one? The idea of making your own nation is not particularly new. The Micronation Movement focusses on defining tiny new nations, often with a population of only one or two people. Usually the new nation doesn’t have any actual geography associated with it, being a “virtual nation” defined only on the internet, and sometimes the nation’s “founding fathers” decide that their bedroom is its own country (The Kingdom of Talossa started in 1981 this way). For a brief introduction on MicroNations read Peter Ravn Rasmussen’s essay “What Is Micronationalism?” Some of the issues I could see with the Oceania Project, I mean apart from the issue of having all the money looted from the treasury, stem from the problem of the lack of government-sponsored services we take for granted. I mean, sure, taxes suck, but they pay for a lot of the safety on which our society is predicated. Law enforcement is one that everyone immediately thinks of- no problem, we’ll just hire a security force! Fire department? We’ll use local residents… then again there is the Libertarian-compatible precedent of fire departments which are owned by fire insurance companies- In early 1900s London if you didn’t have fire insurance, they wouldn’t put out your fire! No… once you start to think of the scope of the anarchy inherent in Oceania, the real problems start to become apparent. How do you keep hexagon owners from dumping carcinogenic factory byproducts into the water when there is no central government? How do you keep the thousands of boatpeople from attaching their floating shantytowns to your hexagon, as they did in Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash? How do you prevent pirates from taking over the entire country? A good real-life example of this possibility is The Principality of Sealand, which is based on an abandoned platform off the coast of the United Kingdom. Established in 1967, Sealand has a colorful history, and is essentially run by pirates. Its royal family has repelled heavily armed mercenaries with their own “militia” and currently runs their own premium web hosting service, running off of servers which they stole from the original owners! They play for keeps in Sealand! Besides printing passports, micronations have claimed parts of the United States, adopted synthetic languages, minted their own money, and have even federated into their own League of Micronations. If you want to start your own micronation you could get started by reading “How To Start Your Own Micronation“.Freedom Ship
Although project founder Norman Nixon is very careful to distance himself from these notions, the similarities between the MicroNation Movement and his “Freedom Ship” are hard to ignore. The Freedom Ship is a ship under development which is essentially a floating island- capable of carrying 100,000 passengers on 25 decks, with 40,000 residents actually living in apartments on board the ship. These would be the ultimate in resort properties: The Freedom Ship would circle the globe every 3 years and so would always be in a different exotic locale. The Freedom Ship also has it’s own airport and docks for smaller vessels.
Now- although living on Freedom Ship seems like a safe lfestyle relatively free of legal hassles, MicroNations theorists have noted that it is the opposite of a “Freedom” ship: Since it is a private enterprise, the corporation owning the ship would have complete control over its citizens. There are schools on board the Freedom Ship whose curriculum would be approved by the corporation. The health care system serving those on board the Freedom Ship would be run by the corporation. And finally the law enforcement on board would protect the interests of the corporation. A bit like living as a student at the University of California! (As a student, my checks to pay for tuition, lab fees, my dorm rental fees, meals, telephone service, medical insurance, and textbooks all went to the “UC Regents”)Other notable micronations:
- Empire of Atlantium
- Brief history of the Republic of Minerva, another libertarian project which was annexed by Tonga… note this page is from the coin and stamp collection of the Emperor of Atlantium
I’ll miss you when I’m gone!