Last week thenewgreen posted an article about PayPal cofounder Peter Thiel’s plan to build micro-nations on offshore platforms.
The original article is in Details.
In short, residents of these new micro-nations proposed by Peter Thiel will not be citizens of any other country.
In my opinion, the creation of a new class of citizenship for the wealthy is near.
Very wealthy people tend to own assets and places of residence in multiple countries. These people travel across national boundaries many times a year, if not each month, or each week. These affluent people often have many friends and relations that reside in multiple countries.
Consider what national identity means to these people? Is citizenship a defining factor of their identity, or is it a more a matter of paperwork?
If you are very rich, your citizenship determines the nation to which you pay the majority of your taxes. It also determines the relative difficulty that you have traveling between countries. You do not use or need other characteristics of citizenship such as social services and national defense. In fact, if you are very wealthy, political actions of your home nation (even when carried out in the interest of your nation) can be a liability that affects your interests in other countries.
For the very rich, traditional citizenship is not a valuable asset; it is a problem to be solved.
For such an individual, a type of citizenship that only included other wealthy people would be more valuable. Peter Thiel has suggested a possible route to this new form of citizenship. However, there may be other alternatives.
Unlike the current form of citizenship, this new form of citizenship would be useful to someone that possesses great wealth. Taxes would be very low, as there would be little need of social services, infrastructure, or defense. Furthermore, due to the political influence that comes with wealth, this nation of the rich would have great advantages when forming treaties with traditional nations. In a short time, travel for these citizens would be nearly unlimited. To attract the investment of these citizens, other benefits and incentives would probably follow as well.
Of course, there are hurdles that must be overcome to achieve this new form of citizenship. However, as Peter Thiel demonstrates, these are being worked on at present. Furthermore, as most developed nations currently have high GDP/debt ratios, and as a popular method for reducing this debt is increased taxation on wealthy individuals, the impetus to solve the citizenship problem is rising. As a result, I expect that such a new form of citizenship will arise in the next decade.
What will this new class of citizenship mean for society? I am not sure. However, I expect that the world will go through a period where traditional citizens and these new citizens will live increasingly divergent lifestyles.
I'm sure he is. Life imitating art. IMHO, a libertarian island like this would fail spectacularly, but I think there are probably multiple motivations at play. One might be Thiels' desire/curiosity to realize and/or test his pet philosophy, but I believe the other is to address the problems I described.
Mk, you wrote this prior to Bitcoin. Imagine how much less borders matter with a globally recognized cryptocurrency.
There is a missing history book that someone aught to write. Provisional title:
... The Modern Sovereign Model - The Outsourced State and
the Emergence of the International Finance
and Trade Private Powers
Chapter 1: From East-India to Halliburton
Chapter 2: The Glorious Revolution
Chapter 3: A Brief Review of The Feudal Model
Chapter 4: The Rothschilds, The Bank of England and IBS
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHtNFZ6K0pE [edit: note the presentation is not a critique. It is a recruitment drive ..]
Really, mk, am I my brother's keeper /question mark/ ;) ... > However, revolutions are like cutting off your foot to get out of a trap Hex 49. We are in agreement. I've actually lived it: you don't know what you get and there is every reason so suspect mass movements driven by a small hardcore ideologically driven center. [edit: it is very informative, mk, to consider the role played by the 'thin blue line' in conjunction with the degeneration of social mores (as promoted by Elite Media) in herding a certain sub-set of us towards the privileged status of Elite Lackey.]
Yes. However, we might prove increasingly harder to herd. I have this (half-baked) notion that a local production culture with a barter-based currency might be the out for the rest of us. If a currency can be created that more directly reflects effort, the rich are in trouble. That's a future essay. :)
I just saw my first 3D printer this weekend. Now I want one. This is going to change things: http://www.thingiverse.com/ Maybe we will go back to village life? :)
> Maybe we will go back to village life? :) I don't believe that would be permitted. ""A plumber or lorry-driver’s job cannot be outsourced to India. A computer programmer’s can." Stupid economist. I used to respect that rag ;P UAVs over Afghanistan are piloted from Florida ..
:) >Where have you been? :)) Once a year (for 11 years now), 3 friends and I meet somewhere, and have a 'conference'. We call it the Infinity Group as it was born out of an email exchange where we were discussing infinity. Each year, we need to present something new to the group. The rest of the time is spent just goofing off. Anyway, this year was NYC. I just got back. It's one of my favorite traditions. As luck would have it, we got this influx of traffic the night before I left. :/ >I don't believe that would be permitted. Funny, I have the same sense. But, transport/travel will become less necessary as time goes on, I think. I had a class in high school called 'Global Village'. Hm.
http://www.nationsonline.org/oneworld/History/Switzerland-hi...