The Free State Project has chosen New Hampshire

The Free State Project has chosen New Hampshire

Unnoticed by the wider public, a group comprising some 5000-ish libertarians has voted New Hampshire as their "Free State". Now they plan to recruit another 15,000 members, and relocate there en masse. Once there, they'll use democratic and cultural means to turn NH into a haven of free markets and individual liberty.

So, why care? Libertarians are alway proposing "pirate utopias", and then seeing them collapse from lack of support. Libertarians tend to be both self-interested, and dogmatic on their principles. Each previous scheme has foundered because folks considered it impractical, implausible, too dangerous, too self-sacrificing, too collectivist, or too half-hearted.

This time, it's different.

Quoting the FSP's "Statement of Intent", which members sign:

I hereby state my solemn intent to move to a state of the United States designated by vote of Free State Project (FSP) participants {which is now NH} as specified in the Participation Guidelines of the FSP {as soon as FSP membership reaches 20,000}. Once this move occurs, I will exert the fullest practical effort toward the creation of a society in which the maximum role of civil government is the protection of individuals' rights to life, liberty, and property.

Note the careful phrasing. Members aren't required to support a detailed official FSP "platform", to vote as a bloc, or even to vote at all. The only political platform is as described above, reduction of the scope of government. What sufficiently fulfils the requirement of "protection of individuals' rights to life, liberty, and property"? Deliberately unspecified. The FSP is very wary of turning off any potential supporters by taking an official stand on any "issue".

So, what's up? 20k people is too few to force the hand of democracy, in any state. On the surface this seems both futile, and wishy-washy. But that's a mistaken impression. The cunning thing about the FSP is that it's not a political movement: it's a culture hack.

Libertarians herd like cats do. You might even say this was the defining characteristic of a natural libertarian. So approaches that require mass lock-step action on any issue are guaranteed to fail. Lots of abortive "utopias" have been of such a nature, and IMO good riddance to them. By contrast, the way to entice a libertarian into action is to appeal to his personal self interest. This is where the FSP excels. They've voted to choose New Hampshire. But this vote wasn't a "horse race" like most electoral votes, a mere gamble and possibly a rigged race. This was a meaningful choice.

"All states under 1.5 million population at the time of the membership vote will be included on the ballot for the vote, excepting Hawaii and Rhode Island, which have been eliminated outright for their big-government tendencies". That resulted in ten possibilities: Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine, and Delaware. The population limit was there so that 20k people wouldn't be lost in the statistical noise.

Each state had one or more "state reports", detailing its virtues and drawbacks. Local members campaigned to promote the merits of their own state. The FSP gathered and published ratings for states in terms of various economic and social "indicators". The vote method (Simple Condorcet) was carefully chosen to be fair and to avoid "strategic" voting that would distort the result. The members themselves had and have a personal stake in the result: they have to go live there! Naturally they studied carefully before choosing. So, when the poll results were announced on the 1st of October, and New Hampshire won by a significant margin, an impartial observer could validly conclude that NH is genuinely the best place to go, if you're a libertarian.

Libertarians won't sign up to move to, say, Somalia, merely because it lacks a government. They won't go anywhere just because someone says so. But they'll keep their pledges and move with the FSP. Why wouldn't they? As far as anyone can tell, they're going to the best possible place.

In fact, expect more than just FSP members moving. Many people — such as myself — have been watching from the sidelines. Perhaps, unable to guarantee a move. Perhaps, too involved in their own workaday life to devote effort to politics. If any were considering moving, NH just jumped a few places up their preference ranking. The aggregate statistical effect will, I predict, be that several non-members move for every official member.

Okay, so, lots of libertarians in one place. What use is that?

1. They are politically active. In electoral politics, that 20k weighs in against the actual number of voters — not the raw population figure.
2. It's not just the 20k who will be voting, they'll be campaigning for votes and support amongst local non-members. In combination with locals, it's possible a truly libertarian state government may be elected.
3. They'll change the cultural tone — even the anarchists who refuse to vote on ethical grounds. This is probably the biggest change, though the least immediate. NH is a very liberty-friendly place already (or it wouldn't have been chosen) but it it is destined to become gradually more so.
4. The changes and the good company will attract in yet more libertarians, in an additive feedback process.

Libertarians have often said they need just one good chance to demonstrate in practise that freedom works. It's my prediction that they shall now get that chance!

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