Q & A

Q: What are your views on the Free State Project?

A: I'm not really for or against the FSP. Clearly, the FSP has made some impact in New Hampshire in the direction of liberty. On the other hand, New Hampshire ended up voting for Mitt Romney in the GOP primaries instead of Ron Paul.

The reality is that every libertarian in the country could move to New Hampshire, and it wouldn't be enough to make a difference. It is very hard to get numbers on how many libertarians there are since there are loose definitions of who is a libertarian. So, I will use a proxy. According to Wikipedia, there are 225,000 voters registered with the Libertarian Party. This is clearly not all the libertarians in the country or all the people who belong to the LP. But it is a hard fast number I can use. So, assuming it is undercounted, let's double the number. Let's say there are 450,000 libertarians in the USA. There are 1,318,194 people living in NH according to the US Census Bureau. If all these libertarians moved to NH, this would swell the population to 1,768,194 people. This would make NH only 25% libertarian.

Can 25% of the population make a difference? Not likely. If 51% of the population can thwart the other 49%, it is really no problem rolling over 25%. The goal of the Free State Project is to get 20,000 libertarians to NH. I don't see how that number can make a difference.

Where libertarians have made progress is on single issues. For instance, libertarians were able to get support for repealing the draft and for deregulating the airlines. Progress is now seen on issues such as marijuana legalization, opposition to internet regulation and censorship, and public mistrust of the Federal Reserve. This progress is marginal, but it represents what libertarians have been able to achieve.

If the majority of the population were libertarian, we would have less government and more freedom. The reality is that the majority is not libertarian. They don't want freedom. I suspect they never will. Freedom has always been a minority position in the history of the world and even in the history of the US.

Where the FSP makes the biggest impact is in creating a community of libertarian people. What the FSP lacks in political clout, it makes up for in providing a clear example of what freedom is all about. Other projects such as seasteading and agorism will have the same effect. Nothing converts people more than a great idea, and great ideas are seen not heard.

The bottom line is that I think the FSP is doomed in terms of exercising power at the ballot box, but I think it is promising in terms of being a living demonstration of how libertarians live and interact. The only way this country embraces freedom will be through mass conversion, and this will happen only when people see that liberty is the way to go. The FSP is a candle in the darkness.

Posted in: