The main problem with minarchism—that is, libertarian political reforms from above—is the decline of support for these reforms as more and more moderate statistes begin to feel that the amount of freedom in the state is becoming excessive. The approach that I conditionally call secessionism is designed to seriously mitigate this very problem. Instead of imposing uniform principles on the entire historically established population of a territory, one can, conversely, ensure that the territory is settled by supporters of these principles—and then, if the principles themselves are viable, these people will simply begin to live by them.
Let us recall two of the most well-known examples of the implementation of this approach.
Iceland was settled almost from scratch by supporters of a stateless society, and its inhabitants lived for several centuries without a state according to the principles they developed for themselves.
Several North American colonies of Britain separated from it and organized their lives on different principles, which were more suitable for them than the customs of the metropolis.
Similarly, libertarians could create their own society by forming a compact settlement. Such a settlement could be located on a frontier not yet occupied by any state, or it could form a territorial autonomy within a state, which would subsequently have a chance for full secession. Either way, the point is for libertarians to be numerically and ideologically dominant in a certain society from the start, and this should allow for truly deep libertarian transformations within that society.
The most notable example of work toward settling an existing territorial autonomy is the Free State Project, a project to relocate libertarians to the sparsely populated state of New Hampshire in order to use democratic institutions for libertarian transformations.
The most notable example of frontier development is the movement to create charter cities. The idea is for a private company to agree with the government of some country to create a libertarian autonomy on an empty piece of its territory with a pre-defined legal system corresponding to libertarian principles, and with a pre-agreed regime limiting state interference in the life of this autonomy. After this, a city is built from scratch, which becomes a bastion of freedom. At the time of writing this book, the first charter cities are being created in Honduras.
The main disadvantage of secession as a method is the vulnerability of newly formed societies to the state. The state usually reacts extremely nervously to the idea of secession and is often ready to severely punish separatist ideas. Governments within states change, sometimes violently, and an agreement reached with a previous government may be completely disregarded by the current one. Thus, a libertarian territorial autonomy may not even have time to form and strengthen before it is dismantled by an external aggressor.
In the next chapter, we will discuss approaches designed to weaken the state’s ability to dismantle libertarian communities.