Comments on: A Candid World http://bradspangler.com/blog/archives/972 the bottom of the rabbit hole Fri, 19 Mar 2010 17:14:02 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Soviet Onion http://bradspangler.com/blog/archives/972/comment-page-1#comment-27287 Soviet Onion Wed, 14 May 2008 06:59:23 +0000 http://www.bradspangler.com/?p=972#comment-27287 It seems apparent to me that despite the Free State Project's reformist origins, it has inadvertantly created a pretty strong foundation for counter-economic subversion. Having that many libertarians and libertarian-lites together in one area makes it easy to find trading partners, and fosters a cultural environment in which people are more sympathetic, allowing some things to be done more openly than they otherwise could (kind of like the attitude toward pot in San Francisco or British Columbia). On the hand, New Hampshire may have fewer entrepreneurial incentives in the first place because of it's repuation as a "restrained government". There's no general state sales tax, and no personal income tax. Property taxes are high, but I imagine it's harder evade those than the former two; can't make your house invisible. Taxes are of, course, only one part of the picture. There's other regulations than ban activities outright or make them more capital intensive through licensing hoops and whatnot. The activist giving the manicure illustrates that well enough. I imagine their dairy farmers and rachers could benefit from shirking FDA madates. I'm not sure what steps would be the right ones in their situation. Maybe some activists could focus their talents on creating enterprizes or orient their agitprop around practical counter-economics. Perhaps they can hammer out some common dispute-resolution mechanisms that others can borrow and use. We could really do with some hard near-future science fiction depicting Italy, Somalia and New Hampshire as the the first nascent agoras, helping to undermine the world order. It seems apparent to me that despite the Free State Project’s reformist origins, it has inadvertantly created a pretty strong foundation for counter-economic subversion. Having that many libertarians and libertarian-lites together in one area makes it easy to find trading partners, and fosters a cultural environment in which people are more sympathetic, allowing some things to be done more openly than they otherwise could (kind of like the attitude toward pot in San Francisco or British Columbia).

On the hand, New Hampshire may have fewer entrepreneurial incentives in the first place because of it’s repuation as a “restrained government”. There’s no general state sales tax, and no personal income tax. Property taxes are high, but I imagine it’s harder evade those than the former two; can’t make your house invisible.

Taxes are of, course, only one part of the picture. There’s other regulations than ban activities outright or make them more capital intensive through licensing hoops and whatnot. The activist giving the manicure illustrates that well enough. I imagine their dairy farmers and rachers could benefit from shirking FDA madates.

I’m not sure what steps would be the right ones in their situation. Maybe some activists could focus their talents on creating enterprizes or orient their agitprop around practical counter-economics. Perhaps they can hammer out some common dispute-resolution mechanisms that others can borrow and use.

We could really do with some hard near-future science fiction depicting Italy, Somalia and New Hampshire as the the first nascent agoras, helping to undermine the world order.

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