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Great issue, and certainly the most straightforward one in awhile. I love the Libertania episode. The name itself is a foreshadowing, combining the legendary doomed pirate utopia of Libertatia and the American cruise ship Lusitania, torpedoed by a German U-boat in WW1 for carrying munitions to the UK. The drawing is taken from the Freedom Ship website.
There's something sour about libertarian utopias--modern ones anyway--that dooms them from the start. I blame Ayn Rand, whose 1957 "Atlas Shrugged" has industrialists, bankers, engineers and even some workers and artists secede from an ungrateful America run by strawman socialists. They return after society collapses (as it so obviously must) and the survivors beg them to take over. The theme flatters engineers and technicians, who control powerful technologies generally for the benefit of their less technically clueful but much better paid managers. Hard SF writers, like Larry Niven in the 1970s, made fortunes playing to this market.
Freedom Ship, like Oceania and the L5 Society before it (I used to know a guy involved in both), are the dreams of moderately successful businessmen and techies. They're not the most social of people, and their Libertarian philosophies and politics make it difficult for them to organize a bake sale, let alone attract fellow travelers. As Freedom Ship's "Update" reflects, their lack of social awareness also makes them easy prey for scam artists, whose social instincts are finely honed. It's too bad, since the best of these dreams have appeal for libertarians on the left and the right. Unfortunately, it's mostly right-wingers who've tried to realize them.
If the utopias see daylight, as with Minerva (see Oceania link), they're pretty much on their own. The U.S. government effectively ransomed them from Tonga, which, per Libertarian dogma, is more than they deserved. Sealand was able to defend itself, though it was touch and go for awhile. It's a family operation and a principality at that so it's really an extremely enlightened despotism, and it doesn't step on too many toes. It's also really small. It seems the best you can hope for is to found one under the aegis of a country tolerant enough to admit a gaggle of odd people but strong enough to stand up to the U.S., as well as to pirates, Mafia and businessmen. The state of Montana seems about right, but it's pretty conservative and gets really cold in the winter.
The Libertania, as a self-contained nation, has another problem built in. You've got those moderately successful businessmen again, and they want to enjoy those well-deserved Mai-Tais, so that implies servants. Servants live aboard the utopia, but, as non-citizens, they don't share its benefits. Oops. I don't think even High Rise had live-in servants. On land, such a place is subject to the Aspen Effect, after the Colorado ski resort that has become so expensive that servants's commute becomes longer each year. At sea, commuting is not an option. At least Sealand's few residents do their own dishes.
I could go on all day about this stuff, and, er, I suppose I have. |
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