Private cities

[Skybird]

https://freeprivatecities.com/

That I am anti state and anti governments, is not new. I think more in directions like the author and initiator of this initiave is aiming at. You see, there is more people out there than just Hans-Herrmann Hoppe.

People wanting to see troops parading in the streets, and nationalistic sentiments and show, and love to swing banners, people who are used to get their living paid for by others, will not like this. Which is a good sign, showing that this alternative model may be on the right tracks.

For German-tongued readers, by the same author this essay, giving a different perspective:

LINK - Staatsversagen. Schmerzhafte Erkenntnisse (https://deutscherarbeitgeberverband.de/aktuelles/2016/2016_12_19_dav_aktuelles_staatsversagen.html)

[Jimbuna]

So who would be in overall charge/enforce the rules?

[Oberon]

And what's to stop the much bigger nation next door from marching in and taking it over? :hmmm:

[Dowly]

And what's to stop the much bigger nation next door from marching in and taking it over? :hmmm:Exactly.

And why would country give bits of their land for these "Free Cities"?

There's a huge number of issues with this concept that I don't see as being possibly to solve without the "Free City" essentially becoming a city state, which sort of invalidates the whole point.

[Jimbuna]

And what's to stop the much bigger nation next door from marching in and taking it over? :hmmm:

The UN :O:

[August]

IIRC we asked all these same questions last time he promoted this theory. Don't think we ever really got clear answers to them.

[Oberon]

The UN :O:

:har: :up:

[AndyJWest]

6. What if the mother country or someone else tries to capture the Free Private City?

There is no magic formula. The operator and the residents will have to hold back the aggressor by a combination of means, such as making international public, diplomatic contacts with other states and perhaps even some armed defensive ability, which would impose a sufficiently high price on the aggressor, possibly associated with civil resistance.

In addition, in a Free Private City the residents are highly mobile and therefore, following an occupation, the city would probably no longer prosper. This can be communicated in advance, making the potential aggressor think twice about taking any action that would ruin the very city he seeks to exploit.

So basically, a hippy commune for the 21st century...

[Skybird]

The questions you asked got adressed on that site, under some of its links. These answers are not perfect, in fact I find them a bit too short as that I woudl call them anything but "naive". But they are a start.

-->> Why should I care to endlessly repeat myself if you do not even care to check a linked site carefully? even more since I replied to this question in past years under similar topics?

As I said, the answers to "external threats" may not be fully thoguht out, still, but imagine you continue with thew ways we have - do yo9u think these are better thought out? I see them leading us deeper and deeper into a terrible disaster.

Daring the new, may or may not come with risks and may end in a mess. sticking with what we have, is guaranteed to end in a mess.

Some years ago I linked a whole thread to the example of this American city, name I forgot, where they had drmataically reduced the debts and taxation and practiced something that also points at the concept of "away from polltical giovernment, towards privatization".

You guys all already trust in your business contracts you maintain duzrign your life, for car leasing to credit cards compoanies or electricity, fire protection, and so forth. Here you see no problem. But the state, where it is enforcing its monopoly on you, betraying and ripping you off day in day out - that is opkay for you, you do not want it to be replaced by another business or treaty relation by you that you can use to sue the provider of state functions if he violates his obligations or unilaterally changes existing factors of the relation between you and the state to your disadvantage?

Where is your logic in that? So afraid of leaving the stable you are being kept in, afraid the big empty sky outside could fall onto you if there is no state-maintained roof above your heads?

There is a strong correlation between man-made violent disasters as well as slavery-like social structures, and the existence of state-like structures. Think about that.

Strates run their show without needing to fear competition, thy must not show good perofrmance, and nthat is what has brought us so deep into the mess of the present. Any business compoany that would be mangaed like state smanage themselevs,a dn that woudl waste its incomes and potentials like the state uses to do, would go bancrupt and disappear from the market. Not so the state.

With your blind loyalty to the idea of statehood, you help to keep alive and dominant the most dysfunctional, expensive and uncompetitive model of big social structures there is. And if you have still have not noticed it by now: we have entered the era when the bills for our follies started to get handed out.

We do not need states. Politicians need states.

[AndyJWest]

You don't eliminates states by emulating them for profit.

[ikalugin]

There is a very simple problem here.

If the residents of said city do not own the managing company then there is a conflict between the managing company and the residents.

If the managing company has full soverenity over the city then nothing precludes them from doing anything to the local residents, including enslaving them. And, as Soviet experience with "sharashka" organisations shows, people in activity can still productively participate in intelectual labour.

[ikalugin]

But the state, where it is enforcing its monopoly on youAnd that is a good thing, as far as the political system is democratic. In such private city the political system (assuming that the managing entity is privetely owned by a set of people that does not include all residents of the city) is not democratic and you would get all kinds of cyberpunk style opression in it.

[ikalugin]

So basically, a hippy commune for the 21st century...
6. What if the mother country or someone else tries to capture the Free Private City?

There is no magic formula. The operator and the residents will have to hold back the aggressor by a combination of means, such as making international public, diplomatic contacts with other states and perhaps even some armed defensive ability, which would impose a sufficiently high price on the aggressor, possibly associated with civil resistance.

In addition, in a Free Private City the residents are highly mobile and therefore, following an occupation, the city would probably no longer prosper. This can be communicated in advance, making the potential aggressor think twice about taking any action that would ruin the very city he seeks to exploit. And I look at the late 20th and early 21st century wars. Such a setting never detered any adversary, the only thing that can deter an adversary is the use of deadly force that is existentially theatening. Now this means that such a city would get into a political orbit around some greater entity (and thus loose it's soverenity) or rational people would not go to live there, as they would know that their safety is not ensured.

[Rockin Robbins]

Seems like feudalism has been tried before. It failed. Since the citizens have no voice in how the joint is run, they will end up serfs sooner or later, feeding the pig.

[Oberon]

Seems like feudalism has been tried before. It failed.

It evolved.

[Rockin Robbins]

Into kingdoms, which also failed. Most Western countries have some form of democracy, which replaced the kingdoms, as the chief hobby of kings was war, which was very unhealthy to the nobility especially, but also the general citizens.

Socialism developed as a side project of a man interested in starving his family and convincing the world that he had an original idea: someone else owes you a living and you can demand that they provide it. Corollary: rules are for other people. Violence and strongarm state tactics may be necessary to produce socialist utopia. That failed too, every time it was tried.

[Rockin Robbins]

The first obligation of any government is to protect the lives and property of its citizens. Everything after that can only be accomplished after the first duty is fulfilled. These city-states could not do that. Therefore they will never be.

[Oberon]

Into kingdoms, which also failed. Most Western countries have some form of democracy, which replaced the kingdoms, as the chief hobby of kings was war, which was very unhealthy to the nobility especially, but also the general citizens.

Socialism developed as a side project of a man interested in starving his family and convincing the world that he had an original idea: someone else owes you a living and you can demand that they provide it. Corollary: rules are for other people. Violence and strongarm state tactics may be necessary to produce socialist utopia. That failed too, every time it was tried.

One could make the arguement that it evolved into the current financial state and system we live in today.

As a gebur in Anglo-Saxon England you'd be expected to pay a set amount of food rent to your thegn or ealdorman who served the king. They in turn would provide services to the king either through membership of his welrod or later fyrd or through other means, economic or otherwise.
Now, when you pay your taxes...who do they go to? Local government, and then through various financial levies all the way up to national government. From the gebur (you) to the king (US government).

Politically the system changed, but financially, it stayed fairly similar. The primary difference is in how much is levied by the thegns, and now we use money instead of food rent.

[Oberon]

The first obligation of any government is to protect the lives and property of its citizens.

I would also add to prevent their oppression as well, be it through enemies foreign or domestic.