David McElroy

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?

Some anarcho-capitalists have asked me why I shy away from using the word “anarchist” to describe anti-state views. In this excellent takedown of the Washington Post, David Boaz provides the evidence. Because most of the people who call themselves anarchists are simply trying to tear down society — and because the media almost universally believe this is all the term means — it’s come to be representative of people who simply want chaos and to destroy property. I don’t want chaos and I don’t want to destroy anyone’s property. I want order, but I want voluntary co-operative order. But since the word “anarchist” has come to mean the kinds of people who loot and destroy, it’s become pretty useless to those who believe in property and freedom, regardless of what it really means. What do you think?

“Anarchist” Idiocy | Cato @ Liberty.

In one of my favorite science fiction novels, author F. Paul Wilson calls the guiding philosophy of the heroes Kyfho. In reading the book, you just accept the label without thinking about it, only later learning that the word had originally been an acronym in an old Earth language for “Keep your freaking hands off.” (I’m cleaning up the meaning of the F from the book.) Since the people in the book — “An Enemy of the State” — didn’t understand English, they had no idea what the words had originally meant, but their actions made it clear that they believed something very much like what we do. They just wanted to be left alone.

Over time, I’ve used a number of words to describe my political/social beliefs, but I’m not really happy with any of them now. I’ve called myself a libertarian, but that word carries the implication of being someone who wants to use the existing political system to elect people who will (hopefully) be more inclined toward individual freedom. Since I want to avoid the system entirely, the connotation doesn’t seem right. Then there’s anarcho-capitalist, which has seemed the most technically correct, but is loaded with misunderstandings, to put it mildly. The word “capitalist” itself has come to refer to the kind of corporatism that is practiced in the United States today, rather than the laissez-faire that it originally meant. Anything with the word “anarchy” in it implies chaos to most people. Even if we see it as meaning a lack of rulers rather than a lack of rules, I’m afraid the word has been ruined by people who’ve used it for too many other purposes — including the nutcases who attack businesses during protests.

Others have suggested “voluntaryist,” but that seems really forced to me. Another label is “agorist,” but that one sounds even stranger to me. Do you have a better label that I’m overlooking? I think it’s important to have a quick way to tell people what I believe, but I don’t have one. Any ideas?