The Free State Project: Move and Live Free?

Rountable panel at the American Enterprise Institute, 2/27/04 in Washington DC

Available as a transcript or as the following audio files.

(* Audio files are in Windows Media Audio (WMA) format)

Related news stories (See 2/27 and 2/28/04)

More media articles about the FSP

These media articles are maintained on a non-commercial basis by The Free State Project, a non-profit organization, for historical, educational, scholarship, and research purposes. (For information regarding "Fair Use", see US Code Title 17, Chapter 1, Section 107).

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 Case for Libertarian Pessimism

Delivered by Jason P. Sorens to the Manhattan Libertarian Party, May 15, 2002

I want to thank you for inviting me to speak to you tonight. It's particularly great to have the opportunity to meet some people whom I've previously met only through the electronic medium.

Tonight I am speaking on "the case for libertarian pessimism." I would not blame you for thinking it uncouth of a guest speaker to deliver a talk advocating "pessimism," but my defense is that I hope not to depress you too much, for the pessimism I am advocating is a highly qualified one.

One purpose of this talk is to put forward a corrective to the "case for libertarian optimism" that was in vogue in the previous decade. A new, realistic vision of our prospects will then allow us to proceed in the political arena in ways calculated to maximize our effectiveness. This is not to detract in any way, of course, from the wonderful work that the Manhattan LP and other chapters are doing right now. But the goal for all of us is the creation of a truly free society.

So the crucial question is, Measured against this goal, are we winning? There are several ways in which we can parse that question: Are our ideas winning? Are our candidates winning? Are our policies winning? I will deal with each of these in turn.

Are our ideas winning? In one sense, absolutely yes. The normative philosophical and social-scientific case for libertarian policy has never been stronger. To be sure, some very smart people have considered libertarianism and rejected it, just as some very smart people have accepted libertarianism. There are good arguments both for and against libertarianism, but by and large we have succeeded in arguing the statists back to first principles. There is very little else to argue, and so it is doubtful that either side will budge.

And that is the sense in which our ideas are not winning. Libertarian ideas have been on the table for twenty or thirty years or more. The "high water mark" of libertarian influence has come and passed. We made our mark; we carved our niche. But we must admit that our ideas have not taken academia or the media by storm, nor are they likely to do so in the near future. Perhaps we could take our ideas directly to "the people" and increase our influence that way. But it is likely that we will meet stolid resistance there too – and we have. There's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: without some policy successes to demonstrate our relevance, people will never take our ideas seriously; without getting people to believe in our ideas, we will never win the policy battles. The strategy of education is always a valid one, but it alone cannot bring us closer to a free society, certainly not within our lifetimes or our children's lifetimes.

If our ideas are not winning, are our candidates winning? Given that our ideas are actually more widely accepted in the "ivory tower" than they are in the general electorate, we must conclude a fortiori that our candidates will not win either. And that is essentially what we see.

1976 is the first year in which Libertarian Party votes are tabulated for the whole country. In that year the party received 0.1% of national ballots for the House of Representatives. This increased to 0.7% in 1980 and 1982, fell back, and only reached 0.7% again in 1990. Since 1994 party vote has been rising slowly but steadily, from 0.6% in 1994 to 1.6% in 2000, mostly because of a greater number of candidacies. We have seen some real progress over the last eight years in percentage terms, but in absolute terms the growth is very small. Let's say we kept pace and increased congressional vote one percentage point every six years from now on: it would be the year 2204 before we reached 35% of the national vote, possibly enough to elect a majority in the House of Representatives in a three-party system.

It's clear: a national Libertarian strategy is doomed to fail. No libertarian party will ever win the Presidency or a majority of seats in the U.S. House or U.S. Senate. We have to admit that fact before we can begin to make strategy for the future.

Maybe the Libertarian Party won't make America libertarian – but maybe politicians in other parties are moving the country in that direction. Not likely, but theoretically possible. This postulate brings me to the third question: Are we winning on policy?

Well, if our ideas aren't winning, and our candidates aren't winning, chances are that our policies aren't winning. And that's what we see.

Just a few years ago, many of us (myself included) believed that economic globalization, capital mobility, Internet sales, and encryption technology would bring about the death of the state, traditionally understood. Either we'd be able to slip the tax collector's net with ease, or governments would be competitively forced to slash taxes and regulations in order to keep what tax base they had. In my discipline, political science, they call this "the race to the bottom," which shows where their ideological biases lie.

There certainly is some fiscal competition out there – but it appears to be just as fierce among capitalists as it is among governments – governments can extract concessions from firms because firms want so badly into their markets. And what's more, governments can compete not just by cutting taxes and regulations, but by offering subsidies. We should have known better simply from decades of observing what local governments in the U.S. do to attract business. Certainly local governments are not all stalwarts of laissez-faire policy, even though they compete with each other for revenue.

My dissertation advisor, Geoffrey Garrett, is one of the leading scholars in international political economy. He does a great deal of work on globalization. What he has found is that countries more exposed to foreign trade have larger governments, while countries more exposed to capital flows have neither systematically larger nor smaller governments: it depends on other factors such as whether the right or the left is in power. These findings are reason for optimism for him; to me they're a little depressing.

Here in the U.S. we have not seen any decline in government power despite all the rhetoric of the Reagan Revolution and the Contract with America. The best single measure of total government control of the economy is total government expenditure as a percentage of national income. That number hit 40% in 1975, nearly half of the economy. In 2001, the number was 40%. Over the last twenty-odd years we have managed to stop the growth in government, but we have not rolled it back one iota.

The welfare state may depress economic growth, but the welfare state remains very stable. The welfare state will not fall of its own weight in the same way communist states did. The welfare state allows just enough economic growth so that the government continues to see an increase in revenues, allowing it to increase expenditures year after year.

So we can't expect "natural economic forces" to bring about the death of the welfare state, in the same way Marxists believed that capitalism would inevitably destroy itself by bringing about a proletarian revolution.

Restoring liberty is a supremely political act. It requires political will and courage. What we have seen is that the national scene in America is totally lost to political action. If we libertarians continue doing just what we're doing, the deadening, bureaucratic, stultifying welfare-warfare state will live forever.

That's a pretty dire thought. But we do have one very good option, and in my view, of course, that is the Free State Project, the plan whereby 20,000 libertarians and classical liberals will move to a single state of the U.S. I like to think of the Free State Project as a "meta-strategy," rather than a strategy in itself. Tonight I've basically canvassed three different strategic approaches with the three different questions: the "educational approach," the "electoral" approach, and the "beat the system" approach, respectively. The Free State Project can help with all of these.

Our ideas will only become relevant once a significant proportion of the population is talking about them constantly. If we can establish a significant presence in local media outlets, colleges, and schools, our message will be heard and will be taken seriously for the first time. Electorally, we can only win majorities by concentrating our activists in a single state. And as far as "dodging the state" goes, imagine what would happen when 5% of the population of a state is actively engaged in creating alternatives to state institutions. And that number will grow over time as we demonstrate what libertarianism in action is like.

The Free State Project gives us that critical mass that is essential for the success of any strategy. For that reason, anyone who truly values liberty should consider participating in the Free State Project. This may just be the last, best hope for liberty in our lifetimes.

The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily represent those of Free State Project, Inc., its Directors, or its Officers.

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 as a Strategy of Strategies

Delivered by Jason P. Sorens to the Greenville County (S.C.) Libertarian Party, October 3, 2002 and in modified form to the South Carolina League of the South annual convention, October 12, 2002

Good evening, and thank you for having me.

Tonight I will be speaking on ?the Free State Project as a strategy of strategies.? I will make the case that no matter what political strategy you personally favor for achieving a free society, the success of the Free State Project will make that strategy much more powerful than it would be otherwise.

First let me explain what the Free State Project is in a nutshell. According to the website, ?The Free State Project is a plan in which 20,000 or more liberty-oriented people will move to a single state of the U.S. to secure there a free society. We will accomplish this by first reforming state law, opting out of federal mandates, and finally negotiating directly with the federal government for appropriate political autonomy. We will be a community of freedom-loving individuals and families, and create a shining example of liberty for the rest of the nation and the world.?

The way it works is that we are circulating a Statement of Intent - I have some with me tonight - among libertarians, classical liberals, and other advocates of strictly limited government. Once we obtain 20,000 signatures, everyone who has signed up begins to move. We have a five-year ?grace period? in which to move after we reach 20,000. We decide on the state to move to once we reach 5,000 signatures, and we currently have over 1,200 signatures. We are considering ten states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, and Alaska. These were chosen as the candidate states because they are all under 1.5 million population and are relatively pro-freedom. Our research indicates that 20,000 activists would be able to win statewide majorities in these states.

So why the Free State Project, and why now? Because the federal government continues to usurp powers from the states, and because more and more decisions are being made by supranational entities like the UN, the OECD, and the EU, we feel that the window of opportunity for effecting real change through the political system is gradually closing. If we do not do something now, our children and grand-children may be locked into a system that they can do nothing to change. States still have significant legislative powers and are the fundamental units of our American polity; therefore, we should make use of the federal system to achieve liberty in at least one place. If we continue to be spread out all over the country, and to aim our efforts at bringing Washington, D.C. to the light, then we will surely fail.

By contrast, if we focus our efforts on a single state, we dramatically increase our chances of winning significant victories for freedom. Typically, people advocate three different strategies for obtaining freedom: education, political action, and privacy protection. These strategies are by no means exclusive, but many people tend to emphasise one over the others. I believe that the Free State Project will dramatically increase the impact of all three.

First I will deal with privacy protection. Many libertarians are interested in dropping beneath the government?s radar and simply living their lives as if they were already free. They tend to use cash in their transactions whenever possible, to homeschool their children, and to practice self-sufficiency techniques by relying on their own resources, rather than government or corporations, for water, electricity, food, and sanitation. They don?t do these things because they?re involved in illegal activities; they simply believe it is their right to ignore the state if they want to. The Amish and Hutterites are examples of people following this strategy: they don?t want to overthrow the government, but they want to be able to live their lives undisturbed by the government.

This strategy has significant costs - there is no doubt about that. Not many people are willing to give up most modern conveniences in order to live a life of anonymity. However, there are quite a few people who are willing to do this, and their lifestyle becomes a great deal easier in a Free State. First of all, they would not have quite as many government restrictions and requirements hedging them in and making their lives difficult. Perhaps more importantly, they could call on over 20,000 other sympathetic people in their state to assist them in whatever they need: buying their products, investing in their businesses, selling to them at discounts, and even providing legal services if need be.

Others are indeed interested in changing the society around them, and they believe that a prerequisite for making changes is educating people about the benefits and justice of liberty. Some even go so far as to say that we should not even attempt political action unless we have already completed the task of education. I believe that we need to have the political vehicles there, ready to carry our ideas into practice as we accomplish the task of education. Whatever you believe, it is clear that the Free State Project would dramatically improve the outlook for the educational strategy.

When it comes to politics, most people simply believe whatever they were told growing up. The modern welfare-warfare state did not develop because people all over America were clamouring for it; rather, the politicians took every opportunity to expand their power and appease special interests, while Americans were apathetic and eventually became real believers in the big-government ideas crammed into their heads by the media and government schools. But among our 20,000 will be teachers, professors, writers, journalists, and ?idea people? of all kinds. Once we are concentrating our educational efforts in a single state, especially a state that already feels it is somewhat ?different? and alienated from Washington, DC, ordinary people will view our ideas as a relevant alternative. They will take them seriously and over time will question what they grew up believing. Their children will be energised by the new ideas being disseminated in our communities, and they will grow up believing that they can and should make significant changes, bringing decisions back home where they belong, and out of the hands of a distant, bureaucratic federal government.

Once we have established significant political reforms, the educational benefits for defenders of freedom around the globe will be immense. We will finally have our ?city on a hill,? a case study in what mere freedom can do for a people - and for an economy.

The most apparent benefits of the Free State Project come in the realm of political action. Can you imagine what 20,000 people financing political campaigns and thinktanks, volunteering their time for everything from putting up posters to participating in street demonstrations, writing letters to newspapers and to legislators, and - yes - running for office would do for a political movement? I can. We?ve crunched the numbers, and we?ve found that 20,000 political activists could elect a governor, a state legislative majority, and even a couple of U.S. Senators and a U.S. Representative in the states we?re considering. Of course there may be accusations of carpet-bagging, of ?outsiders trying to take over.? For that reason we have to start humbly, by supporting the local freedom activists already there. After a few years many of us will start running local candidacies, and then we can work up from there. We also have to make it clear that we love the state we?ve chosen, that we don?t want to change its lifestyle or traditions, and that our goal is not to ?take over? but to make politicians more accountable and put more decisions back in the hands of the citizens of our state.

Currently libertarian activists are spread out all over the country. As a result, the only races we can regularly win are for local, non-partisan offices. I?ve calculated that if Libertarian Party election results in federal races increase at the same rate as they have for the last few years, it will take over a century for us to have a shot at winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives. With the Free State Project we can virtually guarantee ourselves a Representative or two and a Senator or two within a couple of decades. They will not necessarily be Libertarian Party candidates, but they will espouse libertarian ideas, as Ron Paul does now. Imagine if we had several Ron Pauls in both the House and Senate. We might well hold the balance of power on a lot of key votes, and our ideas about drastically cutting government and restoring constitutional limits on spending and taxation will take center stage.

In closing, I would like to note what our ancestors did for freedom over 200 years ago, giving up their homes, their fortunes, and even their lives. Today, Americans are more oppressed than they ever were under King George, but the sacrifices we need to make for freedom are so much less than what our forefathers had to endure. For that reason I believe the Free State Project is something every lover of liberty should seriously consider joining or supporting. As a strategy of strategies, the Free State Project should yield immense benefits, but the costs of participation are low. Thank you.

The views expressed in this essay do not necessarily represent those of Free State Project, Inc., its Directors, or its Officers.