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Review of John Palmer on voluntary governments

In science, experiments must be made to test out hypotheses.

All around the world, business people motivated to become wealthy commit their time, money and effort to discover new and more efficient ways to serve the market. Every company is different from all others. As time passes, the ones serving society better will accumulate capital. Capitalism allows for limitless entrepreneurial experiments where merit is the name of the game. Those who serve their costumers better while minimizing their expenses win. To become wealthy is to serve society. That's the beauty of it, like Jeff Bezos has said: “Want to get rich? Solve someone’s problem”.

Politics vs Business

There’s a critical aspect to businesses that doesn’t apply to governments. In the free market, value is subjective and so several companies can coexist. Some people love Apple computers and are willing to spend more for them. Others prefer windows. It's not that some people are wrong, it's just that we all have different preferences and different wealth levels. For example: I don't spend money going to the gym because it's cheaper to go to the local swimming pool and get a good workout. Some people still prefer to go to the gym. Are they wrong? Am I? The answer is no and no. What's right for them is not necessarily right for me. Value is subjective.

Democracy doesn't respect subjectivity. It doesn't matter what’s best for you. The government will rule over you because the majority has chosen it. This is a key issue with democracies.

It's not that humanity hasn't experimented several types of government. Clearly, wealth arises when people are free. Looking at history and at the present shows this. The freer countries are the wealthiest. Capitalism works because it’s the system that rewards value. The more value is offered to others, the wealthier one becomes. However, capitalism is wrongly treated, even though it lifted billions out of poverty.

Surely the way to solve this problem is not with more democracy. One’s own freedom shouldn’t rely upon the acceptance of one’s ideals by others. Instead, freedom-loving people around the world that share a passion for capitalism must come together and create new free countries. New experiments based on consent not majority rule: Startup nations. Balaji Srinivasan has written about this.

Why government innovation is slow

Mr John Palmer writes that political parties are bound by nation states and that nation states are bound by political parties. He argues that maybe political parties in government don’t get an actual chance at trying new things because they are restricted by the other parties. This reminds me of Fidel Castro’s argument for not having elections:” 4 years is not enough to make significant changes.”

To me government innovation doesn’t sound like a positive thing given I consider the American government has been getting worse for the past decades. Government innovation sounds like a more efficient way to tax people and impose rules that hurt the free market.

If by government innovation it is to be meant government reform, then I agree. However, there’s not a motivation in government to reform itself, given the people that are in government have the biggest motivation to make sure the system perpetuates itself. I am not an anarchist. Government should exist, but it should also let the people be free. To shackle the free market is to shackle people. One way for government to concede a way to test out new political ideas would be to allow the formation of nation states inside its territory. The founding spirit of the USA relies on the idea that several states should coexist. That's why it's called USA and not just A.

Creating newly found states within the USA would bypass the problem of needing majority to elect a government and the problem of having a government that’s too restricted by the opposing parties. While I'm not aware of any movement to create new states, there is a libertarian movement that consists in emigrating to New Hampshire to gain through the democratic process meaningful representation in the local governments.

Enabling faster progress

It's truly wonderful to think that the future can be so much better than the present. While I'm not an expert on blockchain, I understand the advantages to total sovereignty over one's own money. Blockchain allows freedom from state, and it seems that the technology to progress humanity into what I believe is the future (free nation states that start in online communities) already exists.

To solve the problem of sovereignty, these new startup countries could from unions that share military resources to make sure no legacy countries try to meddle with their freedom. After all, monopolies don’t like competition, usually.

A decent case use for VR

Testing out whole cities with VR sounds like a weird way to play Grand Theft Auto. It doesn't seem realistic to me to simulate a whole city like this. VR could however be used to show to people what the infrastructure of the new city states could look like.

Software eating currency

Given money is simply a tool and assuming that the best tool is usually adopted by people, it's logical to imagine that in the maybe not so distant future the main currencies of the world will be cryptocurrencies. Whether legacy countries will fight them or welcomed them becomes almost irrelevant in the realm of a startup city laden future.

For centuries, tyranny has ruled over people. Democracy with its faults replaced the legacy systems (tyrannical monarchies and dictatorships) for the better. However, we should always strive for something better. The technology to aid those of us that want to live under a government of their one choosing that respects individual freedoms and is funded voluntarily already exists. Once startup cities become a reality and succeed, the pressure will be on legacy governments to adapt or risk having their people mass migrate to the newly founded startup cities.