Free Private Cities

By jer979!! | www.publish0x.com/jer979 | 14 Mar 2022

Going all the way back to mid-2016 (an eternity in crypto time), I’ve been pondering the implications of the arrival of supra-national currencies on the modern concept of the nation-state.

Some of the better posts on this topic include:

It recently came up for me again as I was reading Jameson Lopp’s Satoshi Roundtable VIII Recap where he highlighted the idea of “free private cities.” There’s a website, freeeprivatecities.com, that gives a more in-depth overview of what they are, but at a high level:

“The concept is modeled after Singapore and Monaco. Some examples of free private cities are Prospera, Honduras and Mount Athos, Greece. Countries with weak economies may be more amenable to hosting free private cities.”

Basically, once you take the sole power (or maybe sole legitimacy is better) to create trusted money out of the hands of the government and give it back to the people, which is what crypto does, the scope of government will invariably get reduced.

In a free private city (FPC), as I understand it, there’s a “special economic zone” (if you will) in which the inhabitants agree to the rules of the “host country” and pay for basic services (like common defense) in the form of an agreed upon tax rate as well as agreeing to basic rules, such as “adherence to the constitution of the country.”

From there, the FPC can set up and maintain the structure of the city as it wants, as determined by its citizens.

You want government to provide more services and pay higher taxes for it? Great. Go and live in an FPC where that’s the deal.

You want government to pay for only a police force and everything else is paid for as a service by you? Great. Go live in an FPC where that’s the deal.

Once money is separated from state as a means of control of populations, different areas/regions can evolve in a way that makes the most sense for them, allowing for far more urban innovation and government experimentation than was previously possible/allowed (since purse strings were controlled by someone else).

Whether it’s a country like Liberland or a city like those mentioned above (as well as those to be invented), the movement is here and it’s going to grow.

Shares in FPVs could one day be more valuable than shares in many companies. After all, to live in these FPVs, you’re going to need to pay for the right* (which will be different for each) and some will be more desirable than others.