Alex Tabarrok cites Patri Friedman (son of David, son of Milton) and Wayne Gramlich, from their seasteading manifesto:
A small but passionate minority is deeply dissatisfied with current political systems. These people seek the autonomy to live under and experiment with different political, social, and economic systems than currently exist. It is this search for sovereignty, for the freedom of self-government, which is the fundamental motivation for seasteading.
Why is this coming up?
In interesting news, The Seasteading Institute has secured funding of $500,000 from PayPal founder Peter Thiel to help make the idea a reality.
Tabarrok’s thoughts:
Long-term trends are somewhat favorable for seasteading because with a cell phone and internet access more and more people could live on a seastead and make a living. Cruise ships are already floating cities with few regulations or taxes. Harold Berman argues that the rise of the West was due to competitive law. Homeowner’s organizations, hotels and condos are private governments (for more see my edited book The Voluntary City.).
Of course, seasteading is only necessary because there’s no established way to perform a leveraged buyout of a sovereign state.