First, great blog you have going here. Found this link after searching through Lew’s podcast archive. Great interview w/ Lew, by the way. Will be looking forward to more stuff here….I do wonder what you mean by "hope for a broad new political coalition"? Recently, I’ve been very sensitive to the conundrum of Freedom as the basis for Society: that is, it will never work…if too many of us still hold the paradigm that Government is a necessary evil. Such views as Ron Paul’s, that a tolerable American Government is still possible if it limits itself to the Constitution, is unfortunately the very heart of the problem."Limited government is an illusory goal. To believe it to be possible is to believe in miracles." In other words, if your ‘hope’ is reserved for the likes of Ron Paul to become President one day, please reconsider. Not only for Ron’s sake, since lesser Presidents have been knocked off before… ‘angels’ have no place in Government…But also because in order to defeat the ‘Matrix’, one must at least see it for what it really is: completely unnecessary. In which case, I invite you to swallow this red pill from Hoppe: The Impossibility of Limited Government. Audio link: http://mises.org/media/1096 Although it should never be suggested that the elimination of Government alone will bring about the desirable Freedom & Laissez-Faire Economy…It should be noted that the voices of the Paul Family, Peter Schiff, Andrew Napolitano, Stossel, & anyone else that opines for a Constitutional American Government (with sincere respect) are views that are NOT counter-intuitive. They are counter-productive to the progress of Freedom. LIMITED GOVERNMENT ≠ FREEDOM…On the other hand, if your ‘hope’ was reserved for the foundation of an anarcho-capitalistic society…then count me in.

First, great blog you have going here. Found this link after searching through Lew’s podcast archive. Great interview w/ Lew, by the way. Will be looking forward to more stuff here.

…

I do wonder what you mean by "hope for a broad new political coalition"?

Recently, I’ve been very sensitive to the conundrum of Freedom as the basis for Society: that is, it will never work…if too many of us still hold the paradigm that Government is a necessary evil. Such views as Ron Paul’s, that a tolerable American Government is still possible if it limits itself to the Constitution, is unfortunately the very heart of the problem.

"Limited government is an illusory goal. To believe it to be possible is to believe in miracles."

In other words, if your ‘hope’ is reserved for the likes of Ron Paul to become President one day, please reconsider.

Not only for Ron’s sake, since lesser Presidents have been knocked off before… ‘angels’ have no place in Government…

But also because in order to defeat the ‘Matrix’, one must at least see it for what it really is: completely unnecessary. In which case, I invite you to swallow this red pill from Hoppe: The Impossibility of Limited Government. Audio link: http://mises.org/media/1096

Although it should never be suggested that the elimination of Government alone will bring about the desirable Freedom & Laissez-Faire Economy…

It should be noted that the voices of the Paul Family, Peter Schiff, Andrew Napolitano, Stossel, & anyone else that opines for a Constitutional American Government (with sincere respect) are views that are NOT counter-intuitive. They are counter-productive to the progress of Freedom.

LIMITED GOVERNMENT ≠ FREEDOM

…

On the other hand, if your ‘hope’ was reserved for the foundation of an anarcho-capitalistic society…then count me in.

well the first commenter told us what doesn’t equal freedom – proven by four links (how can you argue with that?). What, in your equation, does equal freedom, in regards to government? I think Jefferson and a few others would’ve objected to your theory.

well the first commenter told us what doesn’t equal freedom – proven by four links (how can you argue with that?). What, in your equation, does equal freedom, in regards to government? I think Jefferson and a few others would’ve objected to your theory.

Well I mostly agree with what the first poster wrote. Hoppe has that effect on people. But even Hoppe comes up short for me when it comes to providing a road map to get to a truly free society that also stays that way. The constitution was a coup that gave us bigger government. And it has exactly zero record of restraining government. America was a relatively free country early on but not because of any founding document. Rather, we were simply a blank slate that hadn’t had time to accumulate much bureaucracy until years later. Even more important, we were a new frontier. People could easily vote with their feet by moving further and further west when the state became over indulgent. Arriving to the conclusion that Free markets work and Rothbard was right is the easy part (although sadly very few even get that far). But Rothbard and Hoppe have only described WHAT kind of society would be best and WHY. But again, that is only the first half of the riddle. Getting there is the other half.And as I’ve mentioned before, the only person I’ve seen with convincing insights into this riddle is Milton’s son Patri Friedman.In a nutshell, change intensives not minds:http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/06/patri-friedman/beyond-folk-activism/Patri’s Seasteading Institute or Paul Romer’s goal of creating Charter Cities from scratch are the 2 best strategies I’ve heard so far that actually use competitive incentives to create more liberty instead of persuasion. I think both will prove to increase personal freedom 20 years from now.But for those who still insist on using the political system, at least focus on strategies that provide competition for DC. Here I’m thinking about nullification and secession. And instead of us Ron Paul fans begging him to run for president we should instead encourage him to run for governor so he could do so. Change intensives not minds.

Well I mostly agree with what the first poster wrote. Hoppe has that effect on people. But even Hoppe comes up short for me when it comes to providing a road map to get to a truly free society that also stays that way. The constitution was a coup that gave us bigger government. And it has exactly zero record of restraining government. America was a relatively free country early on but not because of any founding document. Rather, we were simply a blank slate that hadn’t had time to accumulate much bureaucracy until years later. Even more important, we were a new frontier. People could easily vote with their feet by moving further and further west when the state became over indulgent.

Arriving to the conclusion that Free markets work and Rothbard was right is the easy part (although sadly very few even get that far). But Rothbard and Hoppe have only described WHAT kind of society would be best and WHY. But again, that is only the first half of the riddle. Getting there is the other half.

And as I’ve mentioned before, the only person I’ve seen with convincing insights into this riddle is Milton’s son Patri Friedman.
In a nutshell, change intensives not minds:

http://www.cato-unbound.org/2009/04/06/patri-friedman/beyond-folk-activism/

Patri’s Seasteading Institute or Paul Romer’s goal of creating Charter Cities from scratch are the 2 best strategies I’ve heard so far that actually use competitive incentives to create more liberty instead of persuasion. I think both will prove to increase personal freedom 20 years from now.

But for those who still insist on using the political system, at least focus on strategies that provide competition for DC. Here I’m thinking about nullification and secession. And instead of us Ron Paul fans begging him to run for president we should instead encourage him to run for governor so he could do so.

Change intensives not minds.

@ JulesThanks for the Patri link (who is actually grandson of Milton) & the Paul Romer reference. Here is link of video that I used to familiarize myself with the "charter city" idea. Offhand, I have to say Patri’s point of view is troubling. The essence of arguments is to resolve conflicts via non-violence. To categorize it as folk activism is one thing. To downplay the importance of this activity is another. If we accept the idea that not everyone is ready to be unplugged from the Matrix of Government, the litmus test for a moral human being would be: are you okay with that?If not, then the problem becomes: how do I give it a nudge? How do we achieve Liberty in MY Lifetime? Leading to a Revolution coming from the top-down, which is how I understand “change incentives not minds.” To me this implies zombies will unwittingly follow the path of Freedom as long as someone with authority will be wise enough to change the laws & set the course towards Liberty. However, without individuals consciously choosing the course, is such a path moral? More importantly, is it sustainable? How long before someone proposes a Socialist idea that sounds appealing & convinces us to change the incentives yet again, in the opposite direction?Though, I agree there is much ground to be broken on the ‘execution’ side…I would argue (with emphasis) that theory is everything. We are nothing more than knowledge-action creatures. Our interactions with the world are completely determined by how we interpret it. Without a coherent theory, one couldn’t establish "good rules" or be "good leaders" as per Paul Romer…if there are such things.Though Romer & Hoppe seem to agree that the city seems to be the right scale for a successful Freedom experiment (such examples as Hong Kong, Singapore, Monaco, & Liechtenstein tend to prove that point), it’s interesting to note that a Freedom Society already exists. It’s called Zomia, where millions have intentionally & successfully escaped the inevitable: Government & Taxes.I have yet to read this book by James C. Scott, but I’m guessing Zomia is the epitome of Freedom. They Live within their means…probably with no refrigerators, no cars, no internet. But whatever we may think of their Economy…apparently, it’s sustainable. Zomia represents an incredible Rorshach test: Do you see people living in the Stone Age? Or are they people that learned the essence of Freedom? FREEDOM = PATIENCESure "progress" will be slow. But they’re happy with what they have. & If not…they always have the Freedom to join us down here…yearning for a better world.

@ Jules

Thanks for the Patri link (who is actually grandson of Milton) & the Paul Romer reference. Here is link of video that I used to familiarize myself with the "charter city" idea.

Offhand, I have to say Patri’s point of view is troubling. The essence of arguments is to resolve conflicts via non-violence. To categorize it as folk activism is one thing. To downplay the importance of this activity is another.

If we accept the idea that not everyone is ready to be unplugged from the Matrix of Government, the litmus test for a moral human being would be: are you okay with that?

If not, then the problem becomes: how do I give it a nudge? How do we achieve Liberty in MY Lifetime? Leading to a Revolution coming from the top-down, which is how I understand “change incentives not minds.” To me this implies zombies will unwittingly follow the path of Freedom as long as someone with authority will be wise enough to change the laws & set the course towards Liberty. However, without individuals consciously choosing the course, is such a path moral? More importantly, is it sustainable? How long before someone proposes a Socialist idea that sounds appealing & convinces us to change the incentives yet again, in the opposite direction?

Though, I agree there is much ground to be broken on the ‘execution’ side…I would argue (with emphasis) that theory is everything. We are nothing more than knowledge-action creatures. Our interactions with the world are completely determined by how we interpret it. Without a coherent theory, one couldn’t establish "good rules" or be "good leaders" as per Paul Romer…if there are such things.

Though Romer & Hoppe seem to agree that the city seems to be the right scale for a successful Freedom experiment (such examples as Hong Kong, Singapore, Monaco, & Liechtenstein tend to prove that point), it’s interesting to note that a Freedom Society already exists. It’s called Zomia, where millions have intentionally & successfully escaped the inevitable: Government & Taxes.

I have yet to read this book by James C. Scott, but I’m guessing Zomia is the epitome of Freedom. They Live within their means…probably with no refrigerators, no cars, no internet. But whatever we may think of their Economy…apparently, it’s sustainable.

Zomia represents an incredible Rorshach test: Do you see people living in the Stone Age? Or are they people that learned the essence of Freedom?

FREEDOM = PATIENCE

Sure "progress" will be slow. But they’re happy with what they have. & If not…they always have the Freedom to join us down here…yearning for a better world.

My problem with being an advocate for anarcho-capitalism is that it’s ineffective for most people at the margin and is pretty deaf to the information embedded in history. To the second point first, the evolution of human society has produced states in some form virtually everywhere. That is pretty valuable information that should be dismissed lightly. On the first point, I don’t see much progress in changing minds toward a freer society by going all the way to statelessness. People are naturally resistant to change. That’s a fact and our politics reflects that. Now, there are plenty of people, especially young people, who are very attracted to ideological purity. I am as well. So in a perfect world, I agree with statelessness. But the world isn’t perfect and the brutish state persists and eliminating it while retaining a civil society is an unproven approach.Radical moderation with empathy for your audience. That’s what I advocate.

My problem with being an advocate for anarcho-capitalism is that it’s ineffective for most people at the margin and is pretty deaf to the information embedded in history.

To the second point first, the evolution of human society has produced states in some form virtually everywhere. That is pretty valuable information that should be dismissed lightly.

On the first point, I don’t see much progress in changing minds toward a freer society by going all the way to statelessness. People are naturally resistant to change. That’s a fact and our politics reflects that.

Now, there are plenty of people, especially young people, who are very attracted to ideological purity. I am as well. So in a perfect world, I agree with statelessness. But the world isn’t perfect and the brutish state persists and eliminating it while retaining a civil society is an unproven approach.

Radical moderation with empathy for your audience. That’s what I advocate.

Hi Cbsure, You wrote:
“To me this implies zombies will unwittingly follow the path of Freedom as long as someone with authority will be wise enough to change the laws & set the course towards Liberty. However, without individuals consciously choosing the course, is such a path moral? More importantly, is it sustainable? How long before someone proposes a Socialist idea that sounds appealing & convinces us to change the incentives yet again, in the opposite direction?”

The idea behind ‘changing incentives not minds’ is particularly directed at changing the incentives in which governments operate. Right now, governments have overwhelming anti-free-market incentives because they have very little competition. And even if we could get Ron Paul elected as president and he spent 8 years reducing the size of government by 90% there is nothing keeping the state from growing back once someone else is in charge. Simply educating everyone is a proven inneffective strategy.

What seasteading does is it makes secession infinitely easier. Therefore, nation states will have to work to satisfy it’s citizens wants or they will move. So if Michael Moore thinks he knows how a country should work then great! He is welcome to start a socialist seastead and try to convince people to reside there. And if his socialist country proves to be a bad place to live people can then look around at other seasteads and see which ones ARE working well. That would put very real and very immediate pressure on Mr. Moore to either change the way his country is ruled or else loose all his citizens. Currently, there is very little government experimentation or real efforts to address fundamental problems because changing a country is so hard. Seasteading changes all that.

Let’s get everyone out there putting up or shutting up so we can see which of our theories hold up in the real world and so people can copy them to try to steal each other’s citizens.

“Folk activism” is important for education and growing our numbers. But it has a terrible track record of influencing policy. The people that moved to Hong-Kong a few decades ago from mainland China weren’t all libertarians. But they also were not “zombies”. They simply were perusing their own self interest and choose to move there because there was security and jobs there.

We need to be smarter with how we direct our efforts. I want to live in an anarcho-capitalist society. I think it would be ideal. But I might be wrong. Others may want to live in minarchist, mixed economies, socialist, etc. societies. Currently, for one of us to get our ideal society it means that our political rivals must forgo theirs. It’s a win- loose game. Which is why conventional politics breeds hackery, resentment, and corruption. But if we could more easily choose our countries then suddenly we wouldn’t mind it that others choose to live in different economic systems from ours.

Libertarian economists are great at understanding that incentives matter. But up until now they haven’t followed through and applied those incites to the macro environment in which governments themselves operate. Seasteading and Charter cities are just 2 new strategies that show promise. Like most startups, they may fail. But even in failure we will at least learn from the exercise. And maybe someone else will tweak the idea and some variation of the concepts and succeed.

Great site. A lot of useful information here. I’m sending it to some friends!

@ John

If I’m not mistaken, that is the Hayekian Defense: history should make us leery of solutions founded purely on logic. Such caution supposedly drove Hayek to be quite adamant about keeping certain state interventions. If this is correct, the Hayekian solution is to search for state equilibrium: keeping the levels of interventions at just the right temperature.

Such reasoning is suspiciously like opium for the masses. I fail to appreciate the abetment of the state after becoming aware of its incentive to grow & indeed to abuse? All the caveats in the world does not change the fact that Government is a monopoly at the end of the day.

@ John

If I’m not mistaken, that is the Hayekian Defense: history should make us leery of solutions founded purely on logic. Such caution supposedly drove Hayek to be quite adamant about keeping certain state interventions. If this is correct, the Hayekian solution is to search for state equilibrium: keeping the levels of interventions at just the right temperature.

Such reasoning is suspiciously like opium for the masses. I fail to appreciate the abetment of the state after becoming aware of its incentive to grow & indeed to abuse? All the caveats in the world does not change the fact that Government is a monopoly at the end of the day.

Hi Cbsure, Yeah I’m eager to read James C. Scott’s important new book as well. But the places he describe are hardly examples of bastions of free market capitalism. Rather, they represent markets successfully avoiding the state. But to do so they are relegated to the margins with their progress retarded as a result.

You wrote:
“To me this implies zombies will unwittingly follow the path of Freedom as long as someone with authority will be wise enough to change the laws & set the course towards Liberty. However, without individuals consciously choosing the course, is such a path moral? More importantly, is it sustainable? How long before someone proposes a Socialist idea that sounds appealing & convinces us to change the incentives yet again, in the opposite direction?”

No you’ve got it exactly backwards.

The idea behind ‘changing incentives not minds’ is particularly directed at changing the incentives in which governments operate so that the structural tendency of nation-states is biased toward more freedom. But more importantly, not by way of simply convincing voters that our ideas are correct. Right now, governments have overwhelming anti-free-market incentives because they have very little competition. And even if we could get Ron Paul elected as president and he spent 8 years reducing the size of government by 90% there is nothing keeping the state from growing back once someone else is in charge. Simply educating everyone is a proven ineffective strategy. Particularly with representative democracies on this scale.

What seasteading does is it makes secession infinitely easier. Therefore, nation states will have to work to satisfy it’s citizens wants or they will move. So if Michael Moore thinks he knows how a country should work then great! He is welcome to start a socialist seastead and try to convince people to reside there. And if his socialist country proves to be a bad place to live people can then look around at other seasteads and see which ones ARE working well. That would put very real and very immediate pressure on Mr. Moore to either change the way his country is ruled or else loose all his citizens to neighboring seasteads. Currently, there is very little government experimentation or real efforts to address fundamental problems because changing a country is so hard. Seasteading (and to a much lesser degree charter cities) changes all that.

Let’s get everyone out there starting a wide variety of seasteads (minarchist, anarcho-capitalist, mixed economies, socialist, and everything else in between. so we can see which of our theories hold up in the real world and so people can copy them to try to steal each other’s citizens. Examples are way more effective at convincing people than words are.

“Folk activism” is important for education and growing our numbers. But it has a terrible track record of influencing policy. The people that moved to Hong-Kong a few decades ago from mainland China weren’t all libertarians. But they also were not “zombies”. They simply were perusing their own self interest and choose to move there because there was security and jobs there. They saw with their own eyes (like the immigrants that built this county) that it was a better place to live even if they didn’t give much thought as to why that was.

We need to be smarter with how we direct our efforts. I want to live in an anarcho-capitalist society. I think it would be ideal. But I might be wrong. Others may want to live in minarchist, mixed economies, socialist, etc. societies. Currently, for one of us to get our ideal society it means that our political rivals would have to forgo theirs. This “conventional politics” is a win-loose game that breeds hackery, resentment, and corruption. Not to mention a collosal waste of human capital. But if we could more easily opt-in and/or opt-out of our countries then suddenly we wouldn’t mind it that others choose to live in different economic systems from ours.

Libertarian economists are great at understanding that incentives matter. But up until now they haven’t followed through and applied those insights to the macro environment in which governments themselves operate. Seasteading and Charter cities are just 2 new strategies that show promise. But we need even more proposals. Like most start ups, some will fail. But even in failure we will at least learn from the exercise. And maybe someone else will tweak the idea and some variation of the concept will succeed.

This was from Jules but got lost in the switch to DISQUS:
—————–
Hi Cbsure, Yeah I’m eager to read James C. Scott’s important new book as well. But the places he describe are hardly examples of bastions of free market capitalism. Rather, they represent markets successfully avoiding the state. But to do so they are relegated to the margins with their progress retarded as a result.

You wrote:
“To me this implies zombies will unwittingly follow the path of Freedom as long as someone with authority will be wise enough to change the laws & set the course towards Liberty. However, without individuals consciously choosing the course, is such a path moral? More importantly, is it sustainable? How long before someone proposes a Socialist idea that sounds appealing & convinces us to change the incentives yet again, in the opposite direction?”

No you’ve got it exactly backwards.

The idea behind ‘changing incentives not minds’ is particularly directed at changing the incentives in which governments operate so that the structural tendency of nation-states is biased toward more freedom. But more importantly, not by way of simply convincing voters that our ideas are correct. Right now, governments have overwhelming anti-free-market incentives because they have very little competition. And even if we could get Ron Paul elected as president and he spent 8 years reducing the size of government by 90% there is nothing keeping the state from growing back once someone else is in charge. Simply educating everyone is a proven ineffective strategy. Particularly with representative democracies on this scale.

What seasteading does is it makes secession infinitely easier. Therefore, nation states will have to work to satisfy it’s citizens wants or they will move. So if Michael Moore thinks he knows how a country should work then great! He is welcome to start a socialist seastead and try to convince people to reside there. And if his socialist country proves to be a bad place to live people can then look around at other seasteads and see which ones ARE working well. That would put very real and very immediate pressure on Mr. Moore to either change the way his country is ruled or else loose all his citizens to neighboring seasteads. Currently, there is very little government experimentation or real efforts to address fundamental problems because changing a country is so hard. Seasteading (and to a much lesser degree charter cities) changes all that.

Let’s get everyone out there starting a wide variety of seasteads (minarchist, anarcho-capitalist, mixed economies, socialist, and everything else in between. so we can see which of our theories hold up in the real world and so people can copy them to try to steal each other’s citizens. Examples are way more effective at convincing people than words are.

“Folk activism” is important for education and growing our numbers. But it has a terrible track record of influencing policy. The people that moved to Hong-Kong a few decades ago from mainland China weren’t all libertarians. But they also were not “zombies”. They simply were perusing their own self interest and choose to move there because there was security and jobs there. They saw with their own eyes (like the immigrants that built this county) that it was a better place to live even if they didn’t give much thought as to why that was.

We need to be smarter with how we direct our efforts. I want to live in an anarcho-capitalist society. I think it would be ideal. But I might be wrong. Others may want to live in minarchist, mixed economies, socialist, etc. societies. Currently, for one of us to get our ideal society it means that our political rivals would have to forgo theirs. This “conventional politics” is a win-loose game that breeds hackery, resentment, and corruption. Not to mention a collosal waste of human capital. But if we could more easily opt-in and/or opt-out of our countries then suddenly we wouldn’t mind it that others choose to live in different economic systems from ours.

Libertarian economists are great at understanding that incentives matter. But up until now they haven’t followed through and applied those insights to the macro environment in which governments themselves operate. Seasteading and Charter cities are just 2 new strategies that show promise. But we need even more proposals. Like most start ups, some will fail. But even in failure we will at least learn from the exercise. And maybe someone else will tweak the idea and some variation of the concept will succeed.

Thanks John. Plus good Kelo post. Always nice to hear good news from the frontlines of Liberty.
…

Jules,

Thanks for making the effort to twirl it around my head a second time. I have to agree with everything you just said. Admittedly, my head currently is tied up with Hoppe, making me very critical of government-involved solutions towards a Free-er Market. But I guess there is no practical way to get around it. As long as the State holds the power to decree anything to be their responsibility, there is no place in the Universe that is beyond the reach of the State. The Seasteading Institute, having their eyes set on international waters, has to deal with pre-existing State laws one way or another. Hell, there are already treaties for the Moon & beyond, albeit not ratified by many nations.

I'll be following those ideas (Seasteading & Charter Cities) closer to learn more about it. They definitely have apparent potential.

Incidently, I share your ounce of skepticism about anarcho-capitalism. Far from a perfect world, such a system could make the unfortunate feel lucky & the powerful feel humble, since Free Markets does not necessarily reward brains, sweat, talent, virtue or truth…it specifically seeks to reward the quixotic formulas that quench the human desires, be they noble or perverse. So I hold my own doubts whether I can survive in such a world.

But I must say I will always defend its existence, theoretical or otherwise, as I would to defend the Freedom of Speech for those I disagree with. An Economy based on voluntary exchanges & Property rights (derived from the analogy of how we treat our own bodies) can only be described as a moral system…even if others may disagree.

Seasteading Institute link: http://seasteading.org/

Charter Cities link: http://www.chartercities.org/

Moon Treaty link: http://www.unoosa.org/oosa/SpaceLaw/moon.html

There’s a real value in having the ideal. It’s a baseline against which to judge your direction. A star for guidance.

One should also consider the power of specialization and the extent of the market and the limits on it. One could argue that an anarcho-capitalist regime would result in much smaller units of governance and complexities that could limit the extent of trade and specialization. That would be a big hit against prosperity. Consider the free flow of trade that only fully came to Europe with the Eurozone.

Differences in justice, property rights and currency could pose a real challenge to this anarcho vision.

I think it’s got value as an ideal but for little else. It’s definitely not useful when engaging people whose thinking is on the margin between libertarian and statist/leftism.

cbsure,
The only thing I'll add is that it's easy to dismiss something like Seasteading as yet another unrealistic libertarian utopian scheme. History is littered with such naive efforts. But, actually the opposite is true. It is the only proposal I've seen that addresses not the WHAT but the HOW. That is, we already know (putting aside the minarchist vs. anarcho-capitalist debate) free markets are WHAT work best. But up until now, I never heard a good strategy about HOW to get there AND more importantly, stay there. The staying there is the real riddle that has never been solved. Yes we can all sit around speculating about how great a libertarian society would be. But simply trying to convince the entire population to vote (or not vote) that way is no strategy to getting to a free society or ensuring it's longevity.

You correctly point out there is no place on the planet where you can completely escape international laws and treaties. Again, Seasteading isn't about taking our ball and going home. It's about restructuring the incentives in which governments operate so that the natural tenancy is for governments to drift toward more liberty or loose their customers (citizens). It's strategy isn't to naively just retreat away from governments to escape big government. We already can do that by retreating to the backwoods of Appalachia. But that just means you've escaped government oppression by voluntarily limiting your own freedom.

I highly recommend bookmarking this blog in particular and reading it regularly. It's Patri and crew's competitive government blog (not just about seasteading) :
http://athousandnations.com/
And for a fantastic consise interview with Patri see this CATO daily podcast:
http://ne.edgecastcdn.net/000873/dailypodcast/p...

As well as Russ Roberts for a much longer interview podcast:
http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/10/patri_...