What would it cost to build a floating platform, like a square mile large, to build factories and houses on? Or put it on piles like Venice. If it’s cheaper to rent a plot on such a platform than to pay taxes on land, they will become feasible.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Habakkuk
With some ingenuity and modern methods, I bet you could build one of these very large and with a long life-expectancy.
Clayton -
As everyone else has said, the big problem would be actually making a living on the platform.
One possible solution: Use the seasteading platform as an oil rig in deep water and use oil revenues as an export and to pay for things to expand other sectors.
Seasteads could conceivably mate to oil platforms… or oil platforms could be retrofitted to mate with whatever emerges as the “industry standard” in sea steads. Oil riggers would benefit by improved accomodations and higher effective pay (money isn’t worth much if you can’t spend it on anything). Oil rig operators would benefit by being able to attract better crews for the same $. The seastead would benefit as you already mentioned.
Clayton -
I thought the whole point is to move your business off-shore to escape taxation.So you just have a platform with factories on it and export the products.
People have claimed sovereignty within a countries borders and formed their own government.
There was also the petition of right in the UK. Where you can become a sovereign on your land and from what I understand your land becomes your own country, not subject to the jurisdiction of the state.
Other countries that have formed within the countries.
Lesotho and Swaziland within South Africa.
The Vatican and the Republic of San Marino within Italy.
I think the American Indians in the USA also have been given an area of land where they are not technically subject to the jurisdiction of the state.
Don’t know if you have ever heard of Freeman arguments?
Basically the argument that common law is above the statute laws and that the current legal system is invalid.
If that is indeed so, there is no such thing as a British state and I’ll petition for Her Majesty’s forces to invade here tomorrow.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6019992706449012651#
People are realy doing this. Trying to detach from the legal entity of their name or corporate entity of their name.
*sigh…
Don’t try this at home, folks. These guys:
http://www.specialunits.eu/images/USA/ATF%20SRT%20operators%20(4).jpg
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… work for these guys:
http://www.davidstuff.com/usa/scotus.jpg
… and none of them give a shit about your word games
Clayton -
Yeah. States don’t just allow you to opt out. And they would probably also find some reason to invade a successful seasted or boycott it’s exports (global warming, untested products), otherwise the competition would force them to become liberal. Socialist countries would not allow a successful free market capitalist country to exist… wait, I heard this before somewhere… imperialism… oh no, now I’m getting paranoid like the Marxist-Leninists.
I would not call it word games. It is questioning the authenticity of the state on their terms, with their legalese, with their language. The freeman argument or movement, examine the legal history of the state and then they use the states own language against them in order to prove the illegitimacy of the state and its power over people.
It takes a lot of time and effort to take the state on through its own legal system, stop paying taxes and try to take them on in their own court system and you will know what i mean. There is an inherent conflict of interest within the current legal system, so it is definitely best avoided. But it is definitely one way to try and show a form of resistance that i know of. Lawful rebellion as it is called, is far more effective than getting your ass kicked by a bunch of storm troopers on the street with active denial weapons and big batons.
I agree, they are doing something about the situation. I may not agree with their ideas, but I see that they do need to solve some issues before undertaking any such project that at this very moment is likely to fail.
The IRS has a long and successful case record. Most of the freeman arguments are answered in this PDF. They will collect taxes and their legitimacy will not be challenged. The Treasury signs the judges’ paychecks so reason, history and facts are beside the point. The Freeman movement is a short route to a long sentence in a Federal prison.
Clayton -
haha, A IRS pdf. Oh right.
Well people have challenged the court system and won in the UK and i believe people are doing it in Canada as well and there are people in the US that have tried it, the more people that do it, the less chance they can send them all to prison.
One issue i have with the lawful rebellion movement in the UK is that most of the people are anti-capitalist but at the same time they are anti-state, but i think they are anti-capitalist for the same reasons that I was once. The education and lack of information to the contrary.
I would not recommend getting yourself in trouble on purpose to try out the arguments.
@Roberts: The point is that there is no need to air out the moral debate in the State’s monopoly courts in order to receive a stamp of legitimacy from them. First of all, the exercise is futile since the State’s monopoly courts will never acknowledge the moral (and legal) truth - that they are themselves a perversion of morality and just law and their tax collectors are, as well. Second, we don’t need rubber stamps from government courts or anybody else to know we’re right. We are right. The law has nothing to do with the dictates of the State. Obedience to the State’s dictates (what it misleadingly calls “laws”) is therefore entirely a matter of prudence. And prudence is the key word. It is not prudent to go before the mob lord to argue that he is unjust and, therefore, he ought to return your protection money back to you. It might be prudent to run your business in such a way that you do not appear to have as much money from which to pay protection fees as you in fact have. But you have to go in knowing that if the mob lord finds out, he will not show mercy and you will pay in blood. A government is no different than any mob lord in this regard. Dodge their revenuers if you can… but don’t pretend you will not pay in blood if they catch you.
Clayton -
Hopefully later this week, we’ll be putting Patri’s Helsinki speach on the web. It was extremely illuminating and entertaining event, and should be mandatory viewing for every libertarian out there.