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One might say I'm fascinated by what I see as the earth shaking power of crowed funding. Consequently I spend a lot of time thinking about how crowed funding might be used to advance the cause of liberty. More specifically still, how it may potentially be used to facilitate the creation of new units of sovereignty, how it may further the decentralization of sovereignty. I've calmed down a bit on the idea of realizing individual sovereignty. Of course that is the ultimate goal but i don't think its a particularly realistic one, atleast not in the short term for normal folks who wish to live comfortable lives. I think perhaps a worthy interim goal may be the idea of creating publicly traded sovereign corporations. The following is, what i think is, a practical proposition for leveraging the power of crowed-funding to creating a publicly traded sovereign corporation. no altruism, activism or ideology required here. this is not a libertarian scheme. this is pure business. this is intended to be a promising investment opportunity. Purely incidentally ;) it may happen to cause some libertarian spillover however the key theme here is panarchy, not anarchy. Sorry anarchists, 1 step at a time.

Note: this is a very rough sketch of the idea, specific numbers are up for debate and just very rough estimations resulting from some preliminary calculations

My idea is to use crowed funding to raise the funds necessary to build the bare-bones structure of an oil platform. It's very important that it be built from scratch. All existing oil platforms were built as the property of registered corporations making them the sovereign territory of the state in which the corporation which built them is registered.

The target would be 2 billion dollars. 1 billion to pay for infrastructure and 1 billion to pay for insurance. It would not be a flexable funding campaign, if a single penny less than 2 billion was raised than not a single pleader would be charged. 2 billion shares would be issued. The minimum amount that could be pledged would be 1 dollar. Each dollar pledged would entitle the pledger to 1 share in the corporation.

The firm would run just like any other corporation with some minor distinctions. The shareholders would be "the government" and the executives selected by the shareholders to run the firm would comprise "the state". Revenue would be derived entirely from charging rent on real estate. Profit would be calculated as the revinue collected from rental fees minus the expenses of maintaining the infrastructure, paying the management, and paying insurance. The executives would decide how much of the profits to reinvest in the firm and how much to pay in dividends to shareholders.

We would have a small navy for defense against pirates but the purpose of the navy would not be to protect us against other sovereigns, that would be the purpose of the billion dollars in insurance mentioned earlier. We would take out a diversified portfolio of insurance policies in order to protect us from attack by a state. I think this would be a much more cost effective approach than building a navy capable of defending against a state. The insurance policy would be something alone the lines of, we agree to pay insurance company X 100million dollars per year, in exchange insurance company X agrees to pay us, or our relatives in the event that we are dead, 1billion dollars in the event that we are unjustly attacked by a state. Say we have a similar policy with 10 insurance companies spread all over the world. These insurance companies would then find it in their interest to take a portion of the funds payed to them in order to use their political connections to lobby the governments of all of the world super powers. If there is only one thing we know about governments its that they can be controlled by well funded lobbyists. The insurance companies profit would be the payments collected from our sovereign corporation minus the cost of lobbying.

Anyway depending on the level of interest I may come back here and clean this proposal up. If there is a lot of interest than perhaps i will craft it into a fully fleshed out power-point presentation/business model. We'll see and take it 1 step at a time for now.

Interesting idea. I will follow this thread. I would drop in a few bitcoins.

Why oil platform?

To avoid the cost associated with reinventing the wheel. There are already established firms that specialize in designing oil platforms. it wouldn't be an oil platform really, it would just be a generic sea platform. But yea they would have the experience and infrastructure to get the job done in a cost effective manner.

1 down 1111110.11111 to go.

Definitely an interesting idea and I might be interested. Was wondering though what you mean by the "government" being the shareholders and the executives being the "state"? I thought those were two words that mean about the same thing. I'm an anarchist myself, so maybe I'm just seeing this from a completely different perspective. Also, I'm assuming this corporation wouldn't run the same as others, in that the corporations receive person-hood status, providing a legal shield for the executives. Would that be true?

1) I have a better design than a spar platform, so don't break out the welding torches without contacting me.

2) I realize you've floated the insurance idea before, and you're pretty attached to it, but I still don't buy it.  I think you'll likely end up paying out all potential profits in insurance payments.  Even if you don't, what happens when you get sunk by an anonymous torpedo and your insurer flips you the bird?  I think you're overestimating the amount of backlash there would be from fellow customers who aren't also attempting hair-brained sovereignty schemes.

In fact, I think that would be a useful experiment.  Float a small structure into international waters, and see how much it costs to maintain insurance on it.  You could do that for 30 BTC or so.  I give it two years before it's been scuttled and you're back to square one.

interesting.
Like a game ,we need navy to defend pirate....
I will follow this interesting thread to invest some Nxt.
 ;)

Interesting thoughts here. Are you referring to making a business out of something like this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micronation

Do you think an oil platform can be substituted with a boat, or even an island?
Also, two years of navy experience, skipper, mountain guide & first aid technician.

I would like to apply for residency!

Many people draw a distinction between the government and the state. Government makes decisions about how a sovereign is administrated, the state does the administration. The senate, the house of representatives, the supreme court, and the executive branch are examples of "the government". The state department, the fbi, the justice department, the department of education, the nsa, these are examples of "the state".

in this project residents would not get to vote on who is in the government or on any functions of the state. the shareholders would fill the role of voting and instead of it being 1 person 1 vote it would be 1 share 1 vote. it sounds tyrannical but, unlike existing democracies, it actually puts the economic incentives in the right place to do the right things. You see the shareholders would expect the management to maximize their dividend payouts or to increase in the value of their shares. the dividend yields/change in value of shares gives the voters a price by which to measure the effectiveness of the management/the state in satisfying the preferences of its residents. The more people were willing to bid for real estate the more the dividends could increase or the more the firm could invest and the more the stocks would be worth. The only way that the price of real estate would be bid up is if the firm were providing value to the residents. The more people valued the management the more the price would be bid up for real estate and the more secure the management would find its self in its employment and the bigger its bonus. Unlike with domcraticy, here the state actually has real economic incentives to do its job well and care about the preferences of its residents rather than its own personal agendas.


This corporation would be sovereign so it would have the same level of authority as the sorts of organizations that usually grant limited liability to corporations. Meaning that in a legal sense it wouldn't have limited liability, it would have 0 liability. However it would have strong market discipline. Lets say it started polluting the ocean. This would piss off other governments. Pissing off other governments would make them more likely to attack. This would cause the price of insurance to rise. This would add extra expenses to the administration thus reducing profits. Reduction in profits would cause dividend yields to reduce, thus shareholders would take action and replace the existing administration with an administration that polluted less.


Very good criticisms. These are something i have been wrestling with myself. But i dont think you should just dismiss the whole idea because the answer isn't immediately apparent. these problems may be soluble.


International law does not allow for floating structures to be considered sovereign. You have to build "new land".


sovereignty would be expensive. there is no avoiding that reality.


no i wish it could, a boat would be better, however international law forbids it.

Im in.  Plus I can handle the armory.  and the network and voip systems

Haven't you heard of the principality of Sealand? ( yes that's a real thing ) It's an abandoned oil rig that got bought by some rich guy and the problem with oil platforms is they get very decrepit and have all sorts of structural problems after awhile from having to deal with the kind of weather you get at sea, then there's of course the salt which will rust away anything made of metal and the waves are going to break anything more brittle. You'd be better off designing something that could actually be lived on like these floating cities and stuff people keep coming up with, oil platforms just aren't designed for people to live on long term.

Then there's the fact that you'd have to deal with any pissed off super powers, if you can't bargain with them, they're just going to come and kick you off the land, because that's how real international politics works.

LOL! Yeah, that could work, if you don't mind the heights and the fact anyone who has a problem with someone else is going to just shove them off the edge >_< :P

sure but that thing is tiny. you are lucky to fit a couple of families on there. im talking about building a legitimate city state here.

floating structures can not be recognized as sovereign under international law.

sure i know there is a risk.

Sovereignty is only gained unfortunately through war and defending your territory, political leaders don't give a fuck about anything else.

no it can be done through homesteading. that is the original source of all claims. say you conquer a territory through conquest. where did the people you are taking it from get it? maybe they conquered it from someone else but if you follow that chain back far enough you find homesteaders. of course after you get it than you do have to defend it. that's the point of the insurance.

How about creating publicly traded sovereign corporations which thrive off of digital/internet business?

It's possible however it would require some technological advancements first and it wouldn't allow for the further decentralization of legal jurisdiction.

International waters are pretty deep.  And it's not exactly clear that a spar platform fits this definition.

If you just want sovereignty, there are much better methods.  But I don't see this as a goal capable of raising $1 million, let alone $1 billion.

we would look for the top of an under sea mountain range.

When a corporation builds an oil platform that platform extends its jurisdiction around that platform in a 300 meter circle. One might consider this precedent. though they do refer to it as an "artificial structure" so perhaps that doesn't count as new land. It gets pretty murky at that point.

here check it out yourself http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/texts/unclos/part5.htm

pray tell what are these methods?

probably not. just talking. i think the dialogue helps.