Libertarian billionaire to unknowingly create Bioshock's Rapture

[Arwon]

No, that's a given.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Am I the only one that seriously suspects tax evasion?

I think we've pretty much established this won't become a real country, but just a convenient excuse to hoard wealth offshore.

It will accordingly be crushed by the political elites, who, despite pandering to wealth elites, still like to keep them partially in check. Makes for good PR/power base, etc.

 

[stuge]

So if this gets off the ground, the island will need cleaners, house servants etc. so the high value individuals can concentrate on creating wealth and maximizing their unique individual potential by moving money around.

I assume this need would be fulfilled by holding recruiting drives where handsome pay is promised and people will flock to the opportunity to actually make money with simple labour.

Once the hopefuls actually get on the island, they'll find that they will indeed be paid generously in LiberiScrip, allowing them to buy food and housing for themselves. A ticket off the island however, will cost real money like US dollars.

All hail the land of the free!

 

[GoodSarmatian]

Link to video.

Thank you ! I was looking for the first quote to post it in this thread
I really wonder how they'll find people to scrub the toilets.

Am I the only one that seriously suspects tax evasion?

Nope, that's a pretty obvious implementation. I can't imagine a more likely source of income for such a polity than professional money laundering or acessory to tax evasion like Luxemburg and Switzerland.
But there's also the possibility of tourism. With legal drugs, gambling and whoring it could make just the kind of wretched hive of scum and villainy that people will pay good money to visit (like for a rich frat boy's bachelor party). They can have opium dens, arena fights, russian roulette etc.
People will say "You haven't lived until you have been to Libertania (or whatever they'll call it), seen the brothels and arenas , bet on a fight to the death and rented an underage sex slave for the duration of your visit and experimented wit heroin and crystal meth.
Even I might want to visit such a place (though I'll pass on the heroin) for a vacation but it would probably be living hell for ~98% of the people who permanently live there.

 

[AL_DA_GREAT]

Maybe in the future there will by jpmorganistan, fordistan, appleistan, exxonistan etc. All big companies will start their own nation with their own taxlaws.

 

[Tani Coyote]

Maybe in the future there will by jpmorganistan, fordistan, appleistan, exxonistan etc. All big companies will start their own nation with their own taxlaws.

Not a problem, Al. As was mentioned by Arwon earlier in the thread, the various states, despite supposedly being puppets of the wealthy, actively crush stuff like this all the time.

So we don't need to worry about any libertarian paradise being created for a loooong time. The most we have to worry about is one being made from an already-existing nation, and even in America that's not likely to happen.

 

[IglooDame]

Nope, that's a pretty obvious implementation. I can't imagine a more likely source of income for such a polity than professional money laundering or acessory to tax evasion like Luxemburg and Switzerland.
But there's also the possibility of tourism. With legal drugs, gambling and whoring it could make just the kind of wretched hive of scum and villainy that people will pay good money to visit (like for a rich frat boy's bachelor party). They can have opium dens, arena fights, russian roulette etc.
People will say "You haven't lived until you have been to Libertania (or whatever they'll call it), seen the brothels and arenas , bet on a fight to the death and rented an underage sex slave for the duration of your visit and experimented wit heroin and crystal meth.
Even I might want to visit such a place (though I'll pass on the heroin) for a vacation but it would probably be living hell for ~98% of the people who permanently live there.

So kinda like Las Vegas, then.

 

[Arwon]

Not a problem, Al. As was mentioned by Arwon earlier in the thread, the various states, despite supposedly being puppets of the wealthy, actively crush stuff like this all the time.

So we don't need to worry about any libertarian paradise being created for a loooong time. The most we have to worry about is one being made from an already-existing nation, and even in America that's not likely to happen.

You don't need de jure statehood to have power over a state. There's plenty of places where large powerful companies pretty much have the run of an entire state, or virtual autonomy from the one in which they operate. Resource companies all over the developed world are the main examples.

 

[Truronian]

How exactly are they going to encourage workers to the island? The mention of (a lack of) minimum wage laws suggests an expectation of there being people on this island who would actually be affected by minimum wage laws. Maybe it's just going to be rich people... on an island of millionaires the billionaire is the millionaire.

 

[Flying Pig]

How exactly are they going to encourage workers to the island? The mention of (a lack of) minimum wage laws suggests an expectation of there being people on this island who would actually be affected by minimum wage laws. Maybe it's just going to be rich people... on an island of millionaires the billionaire is the millionaire.

Sounds a bit like Jersey to me!

 

[Cutlass]

How exactly are they going to encourage workers to the island? The mention of (a lack of) minimum wage laws suggests an expectation of there being people on this island who would actually be affected by minimum wage laws. Maybe it's just going to be rich people... on an island of millionaires the billionaire is the millionaire.

They'd have to offer high pay. But would they follow through? Would it turn into a company town where the workers were all but enslaved?

The problem with perfect economic liberty for the rich is that it always assumes perfect economic slavery for the rest.

 

[Tahuti]

The problem with perfect economic liberty for the rich is that it always assumes perfect economic slavery for the rest.

In theory, economic liberty also allows the non-rich to enter the economy without any legal limitations. But of course, I started with "in theory" for a reason, because those legal limitations can mean nothing if the majority of wealth is in the hands, leading to extremely high price levels, making such endeavours nearly impossible.

 

[Winston Hughes]

Emigrants to such places should be stripped of all assets that they cannot physically transport to their new homes, as well as all rights to property (inc. intellectual) under national and international laws. They should be allowed re-entry to civilisation only if they meet the criteria to be considered genuine asylum seekers, with visits for business or pleasure banned outright. Otherwise, these island havens would merely be libertarian parasites on the state-regulated world outside. (And, yes, I hold fairly similar views about some existing tax havens).

 

[brennan]

So i'm thinking my own floating principality will be in the form of a large ring around one of these places called 'TollBoothia'. TollBoothia will of course be heavily armed to prevent other sovereign states from violating it's territory without paying any due taxes for import/export of goods or valuables.

 

[Bestbank Tiger]

So kinda like Las Vegas, then.

That might be a good analogy. A lot of people get trapped in Vegas because the cost of living is too high so they can't save enough money to leave and seek greener pastures. Plus if you own a home there you're upside down, badly, and can't get out from under it.

 

[GoodGame]

Maybe in the future there will by jpmorganistan, fordistan, appleistan, exxonistan etc. All big companies will start their own nation with their own taxlaws.

Local laws would still apply wherever they operated. E.g. if they drill in American coastal sea, then they will be regulated by American law.

 

[Traitorfish]

It will be interesting to have at least one free country on Earth though - however, the example it would set would be too dangerous for that large majority who hate individualism and progress.

If the "large majority" hate progress, then why would it be a "dangerous example" to them?

 

[Lord of Elves]

If the "large majority" hate progress, then why would it be a "dangerous example" to them?

I, for one, genuinely enjoy toiling under the tyranny of our evil statist masters. All hail Emperor Ohbuhma.

 

[Ajidica]

I can see a bonus out of this: flags of conveniance for ships. Now we could prove without a doubt how good Libertarianism for worker safety ship safety.

 

[Neonanocyborgasm]

That would be the biggest problem in making something like this work. You have to be able to produce tangible goods and services, and in order to get farm workers or factory workers to leave their current home you'd need to pay them more than they make now. So your basic goods are expensive.

And they'd have to pay them in foreign currency, as their own would be worth nothing at first.

If they function as a transactor of money, it's too easy for the rest of the world to gang up on them (make it illegal to send money there, manipulate currency, etc.)

Unless it was done under the radar.

The only way a Galtland could work is if they could build a very large island with sufficient room for farms and factories.

This isn't a game of civ. The expense of building farms and factories on an off-shore platform is greater than simply importing food and goods from the mainland. The only native industry possible would be fishing and oil drilling, but it seems doubtful that this would be self-sufficient. In BioShock, if you notice, they generated geothermal power and collected food from fishing. So they were supposedly self-sufficient. How wealth was generated otherwise is not mentioned, but certainly not through trade, since contact with the outside world was supposedly forbidden.