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In reply to the discussion: Libertarian Floating Island Will Have Own Govt, Cryptocurrency, 300 Houses [View all]FSogol
(45,468 posts)31. LOL, last time: Atlas Mugged: How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart
Two years after Galt's Gulch Chile was founded, the utopian project is mired in personal and legal conflicts and investors now claim that the guy in charge is a sociopath and a con man.
t was a good idea, in theory anyway. The plan was to form a sustainable community made up of people who believed in capitalism, limited government, and self-reliance. The site was already picked out: 11,000 acres of fertile land nestled in the valleys of the Chilean Andes, just an hour's drive away from the capital of Santiago, to the east, and the Pacific Ocean, to the west. Residents could make money growing and exporting organic produce while enjoying Chile's low taxes and temperate climate. This was no crackpot scheme to establish a micronation on a platform floating in the middle of the ocean (a common libertarian dream)this was a serious attempt to build a refuge where free marketers and anarcho-capitalists could hole up and wait for the world's fiat currencies to collapse. They called it "Galt's Gulch Chile" (GGC), naming it for the fictional place where the world's competent capitalists flee to in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
The project was conceived in 2012 by four men: John Cobin, an American expat living in Chile who once ran unsuccessfully for Congress in South Carolina; Jeff Berwick, the globe-trotting founder of the Dollar Vigilante, a financial newsletter that preaches the coming end of the current monetary system; Cobin's Chilean partner; and Ken Johnson, a roving entrepreneur whose previous investment projects included real estate, wind turbines, and "water ionizers," pseudoscientific gizmos that are advertised as being able to slow aging.
That initial group quickly fell apart, though today the principals disagree on why. Now, two years after its founding, the would-be paradise is ensnared in a set of personal conflicts, mainly centered on Johnson. Instead of living in a picturesque valley selling Galt's Gulchbranded juice, the libertarian founders are accusing one another of being drunks, liars, and sociopaths. GGC's would-be inhabitants have called Johnson a "weirdo," a "pathological liar," "insane," a "scammer," and other, similar things. Some shareholders are pursuing legal action in an effort to remove him from the project, a drastic measure for antigovernment types to take. Johnson, who remains the manager of the trust that controls the land, claims all the allegations against him are false. So what happened?
t was a good idea, in theory anyway. The plan was to form a sustainable community made up of people who believed in capitalism, limited government, and self-reliance. The site was already picked out: 11,000 acres of fertile land nestled in the valleys of the Chilean Andes, just an hour's drive away from the capital of Santiago, to the east, and the Pacific Ocean, to the west. Residents could make money growing and exporting organic produce while enjoying Chile's low taxes and temperate climate. This was no crackpot scheme to establish a micronation on a platform floating in the middle of the ocean (a common libertarian dream)this was a serious attempt to build a refuge where free marketers and anarcho-capitalists could hole up and wait for the world's fiat currencies to collapse. They called it "Galt's Gulch Chile" (GGC), naming it for the fictional place where the world's competent capitalists flee to in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.
The project was conceived in 2012 by four men: John Cobin, an American expat living in Chile who once ran unsuccessfully for Congress in South Carolina; Jeff Berwick, the globe-trotting founder of the Dollar Vigilante, a financial newsletter that preaches the coming end of the current monetary system; Cobin's Chilean partner; and Ken Johnson, a roving entrepreneur whose previous investment projects included real estate, wind turbines, and "water ionizers," pseudoscientific gizmos that are advertised as being able to slow aging.
That initial group quickly fell apart, though today the principals disagree on why. Now, two years after its founding, the would-be paradise is ensnared in a set of personal conflicts, mainly centered on Johnson. Instead of living in a picturesque valley selling Galt's Gulchbranded juice, the libertarian founders are accusing one another of being drunks, liars, and sociopaths. GGC's would-be inhabitants have called Johnson a "weirdo," a "pathological liar," "insane," a "scammer," and other, similar things. Some shareholders are pursuing legal action in an effort to remove him from the project, a drastic measure for antigovernment types to take. Johnson, who remains the manager of the trust that controls the land, claims all the allegations against him are false. So what happened?
more at
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bn53b3/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10
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Libertarian Floating Island Will Have Own Govt, Cryptocurrency, 300 Houses [View all]
appalachiablue
May 2018
OP
First of all, these libertarian bros have been talking that pipe dream for decades
Blue_Tires
May 2018
#19
LOL, Didn't some libertarians try that recently in Peru or Chile? That never ends well.
FSogol
May 2018
#29
Libertarian Utopias are fairy tales for selfish people. Kick ass societies come from people working
FSogol
May 2018
#37
Pitcairn Island, example of a remote island refugee community not going well.
appalachiablue
May 2018
#49
When the pirates land to rape and pillage, they'll be wondering why the United States Military
Snake Plissken
May 2018
#42
These people are visionaries! very rich ones. The Practical stuff, eh, later...
appalachiablue
May 2018
#46
Even if this turns out as envisioned - and it won't - it wouldn't work to scale up.
Garrett78
May 2018
#52