David McElroy

There was a time in the distant past when I was naive (or delusional) enough to believe we could set the whole world free if we just worked hard enough. Today, I believe that the best we can do is to change little corners of the world and hope others decide to copy the successful models.

One of the more interesting “halfway” ideas I’ve heard about lately is that of establishing “free cities” inside existing nation-states. The idea is a head-scratcher at first, because you wonder why a government would see the value of real freedom, but limit it to just certain zones. For whatever reason, though, the idea is gaining strength. Zachary Caceres sent me a link to a story he wrote for the Adam Smith Institute about the development of free cities. (The Adam Smith Institute is considered the leading libertarian think tank in the UK.) He also points to an article by Michael Strong that looks at attempts to establish zones of freedom within very restrictive countries. He looks at attempts to do this in China, India and the United Arab Emirates. There are also videos of a recent conference devoted to trying these ideas in Honduras, which recently changed its constitution to allow such efforts.

Strong is working with Caceres and others on a “Free Cities Project website and a non-profit organization that will exist to promote the concept. Strong is also the author of a book that sounds like one I’d like to read, called “Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems.”

So-called “free cities” that exist at the permission of a state can’t necessarily be long-term solutions for those of us who would like to get rid of the state entirely, but they might be transitional solutions that can lead the way to something more radical. They certainly sound as though they’re worth investigating further.

What do you think? Is this a viable alternative that could lead to more freedom? Or is it too limited to make a difference?

I still get random requests from people to use my 6-year-old short satiric political film in unexpected ways, and I just got another one. A public access TV program in Hawaii that features local artists and entertainers wants to show it, and I love that. Of all the requests I can recall, my favorite so far was from a TV show somewhere in South Korea. They bought a couple DVDs of the film from me and asked permission to show it on TV. I still wonder whether satire about U.S. politics made sense to the Korean viewers.

Human beings follow economic incentives and move to places where taxes are lower and they have more opportunities, despite the fact that politicians act as though they can raise taxes perpetually without consequences. According to a new poll, 36 percent of New Yorkers younger than 30 says they’re planning to leave because of high taxes and lack of economic opportunities.

This is mildly interesting on its face, but its implications are much more potentially useful. What if those who believe in real freedom could set up an enclave where taxes are low or non-existent. Could such a place work the economic miracle that’s promised by free market economists? What if it were a place where income weren’t taxed and people simply paid for the services they used? What if that enclave were run as a profit-making enterprise? Would it still be cheaper than living in a high-tax city and would it still provide better opportunities?

The answer to these questions is complex. It depends on where it was, what it looked like, what the cost was and who else it attracted, among other things. But for years, we have only looked at a model of cities being run by majority vote. Isn’t it time to look at other models? There are many other questions to consider, but for now just consider this. What we have now is failing. We haven’t really tried other systems. Isn’t it time we started thinking about how to try some other options?

I have some other thoughts about this, but I’ll save them for another time. Do you have any thoughts about other models that might work? And do you have any thoughts about how they could conceivably be tried?