Category Archives: Libertarian living

A Libertarian Atlantis: Werner’s Stiefel’s Freeport at Sea

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Thanks to a reader for bringing to my attention this piece by Spencer MacCallum  – about the work of libertarian entrepreneur, scientist, and innovator, Werner Stiefel:

“Beginning with Atlantis, Werner’s [Werner Stiefel] goal had been to develop one or a series of freeports at sea that would function much like new countries. His approach had many practical features. Atlantis would start small and grow by increments. Rather than trying to attract a residential population, it would aim at businesses, starting with one of his own plants – Stiefel Laboratories. Businesses would bring their own personnel and their families, and these would require ancillary services, which services in turn would require personnel, and the residential population would grow naturally. This would enable the Atlantis community to develop without fanfare. Promotional advertising of casinos and other recreational amenities of tourism would not follow until much later. Until then, the fledgling community would keep its profile low, almost under the political radar screen. Werner’s approach was also non-ideological, as well. He aimed at attracting effective, entrepreneurial people in business and the professions without regard for their political persuasion or lifestyle.

The most imaginative aspect of Atlantis was that the provision of governmental services would be a business in and of itself, creating value in the competitive market and subsisting on the market revenues those values induced. There would be no need to appeal to philanthropy or to practice taxation. Because the provision of public goods would be a business, specifically that of a multi-tenant income property writ large, taxation of the residents would be intolerable, anathema to the enterprise because destructive of the values on which it depended.

From Werner’s Herculean effort came an intellectual construct that survived Atlantis. His constitution for a free community was a radical departure from all political constitutions.

The need for such a construct arose because Werner was treating his “Galt’s Gulch” as far more than a literary device. He had set about to apply it in the real world. Unlike Ayn Rand, therefore, he could not ignore the question of how it would be administered. There seemed no easy answer. By 1972, he had reached a low point and almost despaired of the project, agonizing over the question of how Atlantis could be administered as a community and yet its inhabitants remain free. What form of government should he choose? Surveying all of history, he found no form of government that would not be prone to repeating the same tired round of tyranny the world had known for thousands of years.

At that point, he came upon the ideas of my grandfather, Spencer Heath, and saw their relevance. Heath had pointed out an advantage in keeping the title to the land component of a real-estate development intact and parceling the land into its various lots by land-leasing rather than subdividing. This creates a concentrated entrepreneurial interest in the success of the development, enabling it to be administered as a long-term investment property for income rather than selling it off piecemeal for a one-time capital gain. Those holding the ground title have an incentive to supply public services and amenities to the place, creating an environment the market will find attractive. To the extent they do so, they can recover not only their costs but earn a profit to themselves and their investors. Heath forecast that in time whole communities would be managed on this nonpolitical basis. He saw this becoming the future norm for human settlements, each competing in the market for its clientele. Community services, he thought, would thus become a major new growth industry.

Heath’s ideas brought into focus a vast and virtually untapped body of empirical data from the field of commercial real estate, namely, the emergence of multi-tenant income properties such as shopping centers, hotels, office buildings, business parks, marinas, and combinations of these and other forms. What all of these have in common is that title to the land underlying a development is not fractionated by subdividing but is held intact. While buildings and other improvements on the land might be separately owned or not, the sites are leased. This preserves the concentrated entrepreneurial interest in the whole development that enabled it to be planned and built initially, and this concentration of interest permits it to be operated as a long-term investment for income. The result is very different from a subdivision, such as a condominium or other common-interest development, which is likely to be governed by a homeowners’ association. A subdivision is an aggregation of consumers looking to their own purposes and not in any sense a business enterprise serving customers in the competitive market.”

My Comment:

From this account, Stiefel comes off as a remarkable man, who rose above the loss of his soap manufacturing business in Nazi Germany to  found Stiefel Laboratories in the US. In 2006, it was the largest privately-owned dermatological company in the world.

Some thoughts that occured to me as I read through this:

1. Would the community built up around the profit-seeking competitive enterprise that is the land-owning interest be sustainable from a cultural or social perspective?

2.  I imagine that this community would look like Jamshedpur in India, where a large residential community has grown up around a productive enterprise, a state-run steel business. The city seems to provide better public services and be run better, on all counts, than comparable cities in India that are under municipal governments. In Jamshedpur, on the contrary, all attempts at imposing a municipal government, have been defeated by vigorous protests from the residents. 

3. Jamshedpur is mostly ethnically Indian. And it’s mostly made up of Biharis, Bengalis and other ethnic groups from the north. (There is also a small but important population from South India).  That leads me to wonder whether an entrepreneurial community (for want of a better term) that lacked a similar degree of cultural cohesion might fall apart..

Uruguay Cost of Living

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Is Uruguay first world living at third world prices, as some of the less accurate newsletters will tell you?
Don’t believe it.

In some cases, you’re paying less than US prices, but remember that that’s cheap only to dollar holders. People who make the average Uruguay salary- about a quarter of what they’d earn in the US – aren’t going to find it cheap at all. In other cases (supermarket processed food, for example), you’re actually paying more than in the US. In the case of electronics or clothes, you’ll be paying considerably more.

To give you an idea, here’s a link to a site (in Spanish), where you can see uptodate prices.
It’s at the Ministerio de Economía y Finanzas –Sistema de Información de Precios al Consumidor

Eggs, as you can see, are expensive – equal to or higher than in the US. In a country of farms that’s a bit of a mystery to me. Chips, crackers, cereal and orange juice are also expensive.

However, if you go to the street stalls and buy vegetables, you’ll find them cheaper.

Services in general are cheaper. Which means what? I hate to tell you. It means that labor is overpaid in the US – relative to the world market, at least.

People Leaving Florida and California..

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When bad times came in earlier days, Americans were likely to up and leave town for greener pastures.
This time, they’re hunkering down. It’s the new depression mentality.

Those that are moving seem to be moving out of the two states that had the biggest booms in housing – Florida and California.The reason is clear. With the housing market in crisis, the economies of the two sunshine states have been hit proportionately hard.

CNN Money reports:

“The Florida economy is based on growth and home construction,” said Lang. With building projects dying on the vine, unemployment soared to 7.6% for the state in 2008. It’s now up to 10.7%.

The same job problems plague many California cities, especially Central Valley towns like Stockton, Fresno and Merced. Construction-related job losses helped send state unemployment to 8.7% by December 2008 from 5.9% a year earlier. Today, some cities report breathtakingly high unemployment rates: 30.2% in El Centro; 17.6% in Merced; and 17.2% in Yuba City.

So, if people aren’t heading for the good life in California and Florida, where are they going?
D.C., Alaska and Wyoming. (Seriously……

…To be fair, however, small populations in these places convert modest in-migration increases into large percentage gains. They’re each among the smallest states (or district) in the Union. That’s just the opposite of California and Florida where each percentage point represents hundreds of thousands of people….In terms of net migration — those moving in minus those leaving — Texas was the star performer in 2008, with the population growing by 140,000.”

My Comment:

I thought of Texas – way back in 2003. Houston or San Antonio, I thought. I liked the fact that Houston had a large Asian community and was reckoned one of the best places to begin a new business and one of the best places for immigrants. Property was also reasonably priced and the place had a healthy libertarian community. It’s reputed to be a safe, family-friendly city – and greener than you’d think. And there are all those jobs in the energy business.

But there are negatives. Both places are a long way off from anywhere else. In many ways, you’d be going to a new country. To get to any other city in Texas, let alone anywhere else, is a long haul. Houston’s roads are congested. The housing is largely modern – no old architecture. The weather is extremely hot and humid, and there’s hurricane season. I told a friend of mine he’d find me on a ranch, chewing baccy, spitting, and eying down rattlesnakes. I’d fit right in, I said. I probably would have. But I would have lost something in fitting in. In Uruguay, subtly, I feel I gain by fitting in.

And the prison system – not that I was planning on ending up in it – has serious problems. I am not sure it would have been the ideal place for a political blogger.

I still wonder about Texas and if I made a mistake coming here. My reasoning was that if I was going to uproot that much, I might as well go abroad, where I’d also have the advantage of being out of the country. But I admit to being conflicted about it all…still.

What made up my mind for me ultimately was the privacy issue. You can move to Texas, but you can’t move out of the way of the snoop state. And you can’t get away from litigators and stalkers…from enemies with their malevolence and the government with its benevolence….

Dollar Dilemma…

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At Lew Rockwell, David Calderwood writes:

“If one believes that the failure of the Federal Debt system is imminent, then one should be preparing for TEOTWAWKI (Lila: The End of The World As We Know It). In this event, prudent preparation includes quitting the job, selling the house, moving the family to a temperate rural area and converting all assets to guns, food, ammo, farmland, livestock, barter goods, and books on how to live an 18th century lifestyle.

The trouble is that preparing for TEOTWAWKI renders one in a very poor position should things not be quite so catastrophic. People are incredibly resourceful and the history of communism shows us that even unsustainable systems don’t necessarily collapse all at once.

If the federal government system survives for a period of time after the Federal Reserve banking cartel crashes (or more likely, is seized by an Act of Congress), instead of an immediate dollar collapse, surviving dollars would soar in value. Ironically, the closer any dollar credit exists to the U.S. Treasury, the longer it may survive. The idea in this case would be to hold the last surviving dollar credits, stepping off that boat to the dry land of hard assets when all vulnerable credits have disappeared and asset values have declined about as far as they’re going to. Then will be the time to flee dollars in fear of the appearance of ever-larger denominations of currency, the hallmark of currency hyperinflation.”

My Comment:

I’m playing both sides. I’ve left for a temperate clime, started scouting out my rural retreat, am on my way to learning how to skin squirrels, drive a buggy, and forage for roots (in a manner of speaking)….AND I cling to my dollars.

I’ve been a dollar contrarian…all through the ups and downs of the last three years. (It’s been a sickening ride) Why? Because someone who knows a lot about the world told me this a few years ago: “Don’t bet against the United States of America.”

[Note: That’s not a vote for the dollar, which I think has terrible fundamentals. It’s a contrarian approach to moving out of the dollar. And as always, if things change fast, I’ll change my mind with them. I’d modify that: don’t bet too confidently against the United States.

Spring In the South

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Spring is here. I walked the four miles or so to the Old Town (Ciudad Vieja) and renewed my visa. The office is at Misiones 1513, a few blocks from the sea. In Plaza Libertad there were people strolling around sight-seeing and buying food, though street food isn’t the way of life it is in India or Malaysia or Morocco.

Actually, you don’t need a visa with a US passport. But I was told I’d have to leave the country and reenter after 90 days, so I’d been planning on making the boat trip back to Buenos Aires. That would have been about $70. Fortunately, I googled and found that all you need to do is show up at Immigration and ask to extend your stay. That cost was roughly $15.

Moral of the story: Sometimes the information on the web is wrong and you need to talk to people to find out the real deal, Other times, people are repeating misinformation and you need to verify from the web.

The whole thing took about an hour, mainly because I had to go out and change money. The Uruguayan peso has strengthened a bit recently, trading at 21 and 22 (compra and venta). So I didn’t want to change any more than I absolutely had to. The man at the cambio seemed to understand my cheese-paring mentality. No problem, he said in good English, as I handed him a hundred. I’ll change twenty for you.

It’s what I like about people here. They seem to understand the notion of “making do.” It’s not a shame. In the US, at least until the market-crash wised people up, a lot of my friends would consider this unseemly haggling.

So far, things have turned out much as I expected, except for rent (higher than expected) and food (much higher than expected). The weather really is temperate. The environment really is pristine. The people really are easy-going. The roads really are safe and good. And it’s not crowded or scruffy or polluted or noisy, as parts of Buenos Aires are. (It’s also not as much of a party scene).
Electronics are expensive – but I expected that. Few places in the world are as cheap as the US for electronics.

My one gripe is keeping in touch with everyone. Skype is relatively inexpensive but the sound isn’t great. I keep calling landlines in the US and in India and getting all sorts of background noise and distractions. The connection disappears. And sometimes it takes ages to get through. If this is the replacement for telephones, I’m not impressed.

The Indian government and a number of private companies have got around to Latin America and are investing in land here. The idea is to produce food more cheaply than can be done in India, even after adding shipping costs.

So maybe Indian pensioners and retirees won’t have to spend their entire savings on food and water in the future, as I’ve been afraid they might.

Maybe also, India won’t be destabilized by the bombing in Afghanistan…

Maybe China and India will be able to see eye to eye on their riparian disagreements…maybe…
Maybe…

But I’m not holding my breath.

Libertarian Living: A Country Boy Can Survive

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A Country Boy Can Survive
– Hank Williams Jr.

The preacher man says it’s the end of time
And the Mississippi River she’s a goin’ dry
The interest is up and the Stock Market’s down
And you only get mugged
If you go down town

I live back in the woods, you see
A woman and the kids, and the dogs and me
I got a shotgun rifle and a 4-wheel drive
And a country boy can survive
Country folks can survive

I can plow a field all day long
I can catch catfish from dusk till dawn
We make our own whiskey and our own smoke too
Ain’t too many things these ole boys can’t do
We grow good ole tomatoes and homemade wine

And a country boy can survive

Country girl know how to fry..etc.

Theodore Roethke On Learning Where to Go

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One of my favorite poems, and certainly my favorite American poet.

The Waking
– Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go….

etc.

Independence Day: Alfredo Zitarossa Sings Adagio en Mi Pais

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Adagio en Mi Pais (Adagio in My Country), written and sung by Alfredo Zitarossa.

Zitarossa was a beloved and important Uruguayan composer, poet, singer, and journalist, who was ostracized for his involvement with the Frente Amplio of the left, during the 1970s, at the time when the military junta (with its torturous secret police) came to power in Uruguay. Zitarossa’s songs were banned in the Southern Cone countries and he himself was forced to live in exile in Argentina, Spain, and Mexico. He died young in 1989 at the age of 52. The most characteristic voice of resistance in Uruguay’s second “independence,” he makes a good subject for a post on Independence Day (Dia de la Independencia) , which happens to be today.

Behind every door
my people are alert,
and no one can silence their song,
and tomorrow they will sing again.
In my country we are tough,
the future will show that.

[Here is a complete translation by Yoshi Furuhashi, Monthly Review Press]

A bit of history: Uruguay won its independence from a triangular war between Spain, Argentina, and Brazil between 1825 and 1828. As the second smallest country in South America (after Surinam) it’s still somewhat overshadowed by its giant neighbors, Argentina and Brazil, with whom it shares it western and northern borders respectively.

Uruguay has many things to recommend it to a libertarian temperament. It’s a small country. The culture is unpretentious and laid back. It’s the home of the gaucho, the ferociously independent vagabond cowboy of South America. And the national motto, Libertad o Muerte (Liberty or Death) echoes Patrick Henry’s famous words (“Give me liberty or give me death”) before the Virginia Convention in 1775.

It’s traditional to go out on the night before Dia de la Independencia and I made it to a neighbor’s asado (barbecue). According to the Uruguayans, the asado, mate (the ubiquitous herbal tea that is sipped through a straw), and tango all come from Uruguay, not Argentina. Of course, in Argentina, you hear another story.

The asador did a fine job with the wood fire that cooks the meat. I took a shot at it too. The idea is to spread out the embers as they fall through the grate of the parrilla (grill)* from the log fire. Too many in one place and the meat gets burned. Too few and it doesn’t cook. Most of our guests wanted their meat – the world-famous Uruguayan organic beef – well done, so the asador and I were quite busy. The beef cut is called tira de asado (a cut from the ribs) and is mixed with other kinds of meat, like chorizo (sausage). We served the asado with chimichurri – a relish from oil, oregano, garlic, and chopped belly peppers – and with baguettes and clerico (made by mixing fruit drinks and wine).

*The term parrilla is also used, by analogy, to refer to torture and to the torture-rack, which were wide-spread in the 1970s and 1980s in Argentina, Chile, Uruguay, and Brazil…..

For the role of the US in fostering the routine use of torture in Uruguay, read this piece by Bill Blum.

Libertarian Living: Before You Sign a Contract

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I was answering a letter from a reader earlier this morning. He’d had some problems with health insurance. Then, to compound that, he got cheated by a contractor when he was redoing his house….

It got me thinking. Besides medical bills, legal bills are probably the ordinary person’s worst nightmare.

In the US, you’re never too far from a lawsuit.  Even the slightest disagreement tends to erupt into a full-scale legal battle. We’re a litigious country, no two ways about that.

Earlier, I wrote down a few tips about doing without health insurance (it’s in my archives at Lew Rockwell). They seem to have helped a number of people.

But this evening I’m mulling over what I’ve learned about staying clear of the legal system, without being taken to the cleaners. And I’m wondering how I can help ordinary people protect themselves without lawyers. After all, it’s tough times, and most of us can barely get by, let alone factor in huge chunks of money for legal bills.

This is only a preliminary blog post, but here are my random thoughts:

1. Never sign a contract in a language you don’t know well.

(Does this sound obvious? There are, amazingly, people who actually sign off on documents that they’ve never read). People will often present you with a document in English and then follow that up with a document in another language, which they’ll tell you is the translation. Most of the time, it probably is a translation. But just occasionally, you’re going to get scammed.

If you’re not absolutely fluent in the language (and no – “donde esta buquebus” doesn’t count as fluent), or if you don’t have a trustworthy translator who can verify for you, you should hold off on signing.

2. Never sign a document that you “think” you read through before.

This is a common trick. Someone shows you one document and you read it from cover to cover.  An hour later, they ask you to sign what looks like the same document.  Take the time to go through it all over again. One missing phrase or line is all it takes to make the whole thing mean something radically different. Don’t fall for it.

3. Never sign anything so long you can’t read it carefully.

Doctors are especially good at waving 200-page binders crammed with abstruse medical terminology under your nose a day before surgery. They’ll wink and tell you “it’s just for the lawyers, ” as though that means you needn’t pay attention. But read that thing like a Talmudic scholar. Call up any lawyer or doctor you know and read out the passages you don’t understand to them.  If you can’t afford to pay a lawyer to read it for you, go online and study the subject so you at least have some inkling what it is you’re signing off on.

4. Cross-examine anyone who asks you to sign something.

It’s not very polite, but you’re not training for Ms. Manners. You’re trying to protect yourself. Write down every question you have and get your opposite number to write down his answer. Get him to sign it. He will probably try to brush the whole thing off, or say something like, “we always do business with a handshake.” Thank him for the biographical information, but tell him, “I always do business with a written contract.”

5. Don’t assume “is” means “is.”

Legalese is a language dense with man-traps and land-mines for the innocent. The whole object is to be as opaque and misleading as possible. Remember these things are written by 400 buck-an-hour suits, not Renaissance wits. If something can ramble, be incomprehensible, ambiguous, senseless, contradictory…or all of the above…it will be. While you’re reading it, keep a dictionary next to you, a handbook of contract law, and the phone number of a lawyer.


Libertarian Living: A Home-Made Generator

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A student project at the Maharishi University: a wind generator:

My Comment:

I have no affiliation with this university, or any particular reason to promote their programs. But any school that addresses human “consciousness”  – that is, sees people as wholes, not just brains to be drilled –  fits in with my interest in alternative,  libertarian approaches to education.