NOTE: The opinions and commentary expressed in this essay are those of the author and are an exercise of free speech. They do not necessarily represent the views of Free State Project Inc., its Directors, its Officers, or its Participants.

The Free State Project

A Search for a Different Way to Govern

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On October 1, 2003 an organization called the Free State Project announced that its membership, numbering over 5,000, had voted to move to New Hampshire. The Free State Project is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to recruiting 20,000 activists to move to a single state. Its ideology can be described as "classical liberal" or "libertarian"; its only statement of policy, the Statement of Intent one signs to become a member, says simply that the maximum role of government should be to protect life, liberty, and property-the Lockean formula.

The attraction of the Free State Project for classical liberals is apparent. Classical liberals and libertarians see themselves as being outside the left-right spectrum and regard the liberal-conservative, Democratic-Republican dichotomy as sterile. In national politics, libertarian ideas command respect but little power. Policy makers and analysts often concede privately that Social Security needs radical reform, or that supply-side strategies of controlling drugs ("the War on Drugs") are futile, but libertarian solutions to these problems face massive opposition from organized special interests and bear the additional burden of persuading officials to voluntarily surrender some of their power. It is natural, then, that many classical liberals would view the Free State Project as a rational strategy for increasing the political potential of their ideas. By conservative estimates, relocating 20,000 libertarian activists to a small state would increase their saturation 100 times over, thus having an immense impact on the local visibility and prominence of libertarian ideas.

At the same time, the Free State Project offers the prospect of renewed vitality of the entire American system. In New Hampshire, the debate about the Project's goals and prospects has been vigorous, with some newspapers and politicians welcoming participants and others announcing opposition to libertarian goals. It's not surprising that the Project has both supporters and detractors, but it is interesting that even detractors have welcomed the fact that the Project is likely to shake up the political scene and invigorate political debate. Whatever else happens, the Free State Project is likely to break one-dimensional liberal-conservative competition into multi-dimensional competition truer to ideological fundamentals.

We can identify at least three dimensions in which political competition and debate will take place. The first dimension is economic freedom versus economic control. New Hampshire is a state noted for its economic freedom, one of the reasons it was chosen by Free State Project participants. It has the second-lowest state and local tax rates in the country (after Alaska, which wins because of the oil-funded Permanent Fund), and state house representatives have not raised their $100 per annum salaries since 1889. New Hampshire consistently ranks high in measures of economic freedom and small business friendliness. The second dimension is personal freedom versus personal control. This dimension cannot logically be separated from the first, but allegiances are often reversed in the contemporary political scene: those who favor regulations on abortion or drugs are not necessarily keen on regulations on business, and vice versa. New Hampshire, additionally, has a reputation for tolerance and a culture of individual responsibility; it lacks motorcycle helmet laws and requires seatbelt usage only for minors.

However, I would like to address a third dimension of politics: centralism versus localism. During the 20th century, the U.S. government became progressively more centralized, more bureaucratic and more distant from the citizens. Part of this trend was due to the extremely regrettable association between federalist rhetoric and support for state governments' persecution of their own citizens. In the 21st century, a new federalist agenda will take its strength from the failure of the national government to adequately address the challenges of globalization, education and productivity, local cultures and civil liberties. To many Americans, the federal government is dangerously removed from citizen control, making the post-9/11 erosion of constitutional freedoms all the more frightening.

The new federalism takes its agenda from the politics of human scale. Governments work best when officials are close to the citizens and accountable to them, and when a shared culture supports competitive, representative, limited institutions of government. The writers of the Federalist Papers were wrong when they argued that a large republic was better than a small one. They assumed a central government that did little more than coordinate activities among the states and interact with foreign powers. How much sense does it make today to have 435 representatives in Washington, D.C. setting education, health and welfare, housing, regulatory, taxation, pensions, and criminal policy for a vast country of 280 million? The new federalism revives the idea that while federal government should exist to represent the citizens on the world stage, to facilitate cooperation and trade among the states, and to prevent states and localities from violating the rights of their citizens, all other policies should be decided at the lowest possible level, closest to the citizen.

Will the Free State Project lead to a revival of federalism? I suspect it may; decentralization is the order of the day in Europe, Canada and elsewhere, and this trend will arrive on our shores soon. By helping to reinforce and build strong local communities and cultures in New Hampshire, the Free State Project will set the stage for a competent decentralization of powers in New Hampshire and other states are likely to seek the same benefits. The Free State Project may give that first push need to peacefully topple distant, dehumanizing structures of power and domination. ?

Jason Sorens is lecturer of Political Science at Yale. He is the founder and former President of the Free State Project. It is online at freestateproject.org.

This article was originally at www.thepolitic.org/news/2004/12/24/Opinion/The-Free.State.Project-582466.shtml. Note the strange date 12/24/04. (It should really be 12/24/03!)