Slashdot Mirror
The Free State Project, One Decade Later
Okian Warrior writes "About a decade ago Slashdot ran an article about the Free State Project: an attempt to get 20,000 liberty-minded activists to move to one state (they chose NH) and change the political landscape. Eleven years on, the project is still growing and having an effect on statewide politics. NPR recently ran a program discussing the movement, its list of successes, and plans for the future. The FSP has a noticeable effect on politics right now — still 6,000 short of their 20,000 goal, and long before the members are scheduled to move to NH."
AS there are no JOBS in NH... From the beginning this "project" screamed, "for rich people only" because those are the only ones that can just uproot their lives and move without having to have a job.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
The state is not the enemy of liberty (or more accurately, it does not have to be, and should not be).
Your liberty can be infringed by the action of any powerful entity, be it the state, a large corporation, a wealthy person or a simple thug.
The role of the state should be to protect your liberties, not just in theory but in practice. And that means regulating markets, providing a social safety net and providing a framework of laws that protect workers from abuse.
I agree with basic libertarian principals. Where you fail is economics. Despite popular belief, Adam Smith was not an advocate of the unregulated market. He wrote it as an overly simplified and imperfect model, nothing more. He also wrote extensively on its risks and limitations, which libertarians completely ignore in an irrational quest for dogmatic purity.
The first time the FSP was on /. I was tempted. The second time the FSP was on /. I signed up.
Now I've lived here for five years. This is the real deal, NH has the perfect state and local government for this experiment. Politics is the unofficial state sport of NH with 400 state reps for only 1.3 million constituents that are about equally divided between the two major parties. Republican and democratic parties engage our ideas, sometimes in battle, other times in courtship. You don't have to explain first principles over and over again, everyone here knows government like fire can be a dangerous master, you get to have debate and make an impact on people and policy with all that stuff as accepted framework of the discussion.
Before I part with'em: two pennies weigh ~4.996+/-0.014g, have a zinc core, and the face of Lincoln. You can keep 'em.
No, Hayek was an individualist, who thought a functioning state was necessary specifically to oppose collectivism. In the absence of a functioning state, the only feasible option is tribalism: people must band together for protection against roving bands of thieves, and to have any hope of contracts being enforced or anything else you expect in a functioning society.
Hayek, as an individualist, thought the basics of a functioning society should be available to any individual without a tribalist system of providing them. Hence, he believed a state should exist that can do some basic things: 1) defend the nation against outside threats; 2) provide police that make sure there are not roving bands of thieves, rapists, and murderers; 3) operate hospitals; 4) enforce commercial contracts; and 5) provide a minimum level of subsistence income as a safety net.
Those are all functions that are required for a society, and in the absence of a state guaranteeing them to all individuals, the void will be filled by collectivist, tribalist groupings such as extended-family clans, ethnic groups, churches, cults, and the like.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10