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Unfortunately, this is probably what lies ahead for civilization very long term (500+ years or more). As people "pop" like popcorn all over the world (becoming

Unfortunately, this is probably what lies ahead for civilization very long term (500+ years or more). As people "pop" like popcorn all over the world (becoming worth vast sums of money), they are going to become rapidly disincentivized from living in high tax jurisdictions. They will ask why they pay so much in taxes when they could join a commune with other ultra high net worth individuals and buy better services than they would ever receive in a big city. Once you can get to anywhere on the globe in under 3 hours for a reasonable sum of money, this will likely become the norm. The wealthy will just take their stuff and go somewhere else.

atlasunshrugged 6y ago
So while I agree that microstates/citystates will become much more prevalent in the mid-long term I disagree about the rationale and whether it'll just be for the wealthy. I think we would have seen much more of that in the U.S. already between high and low tax jurisdictions (e.g. California and Nevada) if it was as simple as tax optimization. I think for the ultra-wealthy there are other considerations than just taxes including visa agreements between nations and stability/rule of law (I know Henley & Partners does a brisk business selling citizenship to Chinese/Russians because they want to have citizenship in a place that won't throw them in prison or take all their money if they say the wrong thing). All that said, I do think that we'll end up with something like what Malka Older posited in her books with rather small Singapore style jurisdictions all over the world but probably catering to a range of people (e.g. the talent city in Nigeria currently in planning, manufacturing hubs, tourism/remote work hubs, etc.)
toyg 6y ago
If that happens, “regular” democratic countries will take countermeasures. The market will remain where the masses are, after all. Someone has to buy those iPhones.
refraincomment 6y ago
Sounds awesome. Citizens don't owe anything to the government, we shouldn't be born with a liability towards the government, we should be born free and be in total control of our finances, and be free to choose the hosting city that offers us the most.
- newsclues 6y ago
  Sounds less awesome if you aren’t wealthy
  - refraincomment 6y ago
    Why? Nobody, poor or wealthy, need to be a servant of any government.
    - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
      Agreed, if anything more migration opportunities would be much better for those who are poor. A semi-recent article put the value of free movement globally at an additional $78 Trillion for the global economy https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of-free-movement-would-be-78-trillion-richer https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...
    - WJW 6y ago
      Indeed! Powerful individuals should be free to exploit their fellow man without any interference from the plebs banding together! There's a Galts' Gulch in Chile that you might be interested in. They have no government at all there.
      - refraincomment 6y ago
        Use the terminology you like. If it makes you feel better this set of words, it's fine by me! No individual owes anything to the bigger group. That's the principle. In practice you see a lot of abuse, sadly.
        EGreg 6y ago
        I do not think you believe your own principle. Do you have a family? Do you work for a company? Do you live in a neighborhood? Do you hold money in a bank? Do you buy goods and services from corporations? You realize that you are not contracting with an individual when you do this, and the bank or corporation will continue to have your account in their (computer) systems long after any specific individual has left the company, because it doesn’t belong to any specific individual? Everywhere you go, you enter into agreements with the people who are affected by your actions. Money is just a paper or digital asset representing how much other people or organizations owed you and cleared by sending this asset. Even property ownership itself is just a result of laws passed by certain jurisdictions. They vary from place to place and are balanced against other rights. Property rights make sense for small amounts of property but as you come to “own” larger and larger amounts of capital, you simply expect the system to scale indefinitely, without changing, but that is not necessarily a reasonable expectation. Just like you can’t just scale up an ancient ship and expect everything to work. What you’re really saying is that someone owes you the safeguarding of your large amount of money because they are being paid some of this money to do so. You want to be able to unilaterally centrally plan where it’s going to go, including sending massive amounts out of a town or community just because it found its way into your accounts. But all your “principles” ironically are just extrapolations of rights and affordances given to you by a state or other organization that has been running things in an orderly manner. The reality is the other way around - no organizations owe you the safeguarding and enforcing of a monopoly on the unlimited use of {insert resource here} while you unilaterally get to exclude all others from using this resource more productively. You want to centrally plan how the resource will be utilized and you get upset that your “slippage” (eg progressive taxes) is getting bigger and bigger!
unishark 6y ago
To avoid taxes they need to relinquish ownership of the land. At which point, how does them having lots of stuff and good times on their island affect the rest of us?
pessimizer 6y ago
This sounds like end-of-history talk. In 500 years, the world will not look like now + sci-fi tech. There may not even be money in 500 years. It's also strange that getting places in 3 hours rather than 2-3 days is the radical change you predict. If people can get anywhere quickly and cheaply, the posited ultrarich would have to spend an awful lot on security, which will bring up their travel times/costs.
- curation 6y ago
  There is no money now. What is the definition of money? A timed deposit? An entry? It's a relationship, an IOU. That's why we need PR people (Central Bankers) to keep the faith. They don't control 'money' because what is it? Where is it? The Eurodollar market is not even calculable.
luckylion 6y ago
You don't need to be a billionaire to find that attractive. Work remote, have a nice climate and a city that runs efficiently? I'm guessing you'll have lots of people find attractive (I'm one of them). The question will be mostly whether it's an actual state or more of a vacation/work travel location. If it's an actual state, they'll have to deal with all the annoying stuff, like running their own prison system, running whatever level of welfare programs they want. If it's not, they can just "deport" people and let their home countries deal with them.
- throwaway316943 6y ago
  Banishment from the city state is a convenient and humane punishment so long as it’s not abused. If a portion of your assets are invested in the city it also makes for an effective bond against criminal activity.
  - luckylion 6y ago
    That's true, as long as there's something else surrounding the city that is happy to take those people of the city's hands. If there isn't, you can really only banish them by driving them outside the 200 mile zone and abandoning them there. The "humane" part kind of falls away in that case.
cblconfederate 6y ago
It's going to happen much sooner. Generations > millenials and overworked immigrants won't be subsidizing aging boomers' pensions and real estate wealth forever. They 'll either move elsewhere or turn many european countries to tax havens Btw the wealthy have already taken their stuff, live in their yachts or multiple houses around the world.

atlasunshrugged 6y ago

So while I agree that microstates/citystates will become much more prevalent in the mid-long term I disagree about the rationale and whether it'll just be for the wealthy. I think we would have seen much more of that in the U.S. already between high and low tax jurisdictions (e.g. California and Nevada) if it was as simple as tax optimization. I think for the ultra-wealthy there are other considerations than just taxes including visa agreements between nations and stability/rule of law (I know Henley & Partners does a brisk business selling citizenship to Chinese/Russians because they want to have citizenship in a place that won't throw them in prison or take all their money if they say the wrong thing). All that said, I do think that we'll end up with something like what Malka Older posited in her books with rather small Singapore style jurisdictions all over the world but probably catering to a range of people (e.g. the talent city in Nigeria currently in planning, manufacturing hubs, tourism/remote work hubs, etc.)

toyg 6y ago

If that happens, “regular” democratic countries will take countermeasures. The market will remain where the masses are, after all. Someone has to buy those iPhones.

refraincomment 6y ago

Sounds awesome. Citizens don't owe anything to the government, we shouldn't be born with a liability towards the government, we should be born free and be in total control of our finances, and be free to choose the hosting city that offers us the most.

newsclues 6y ago
Sounds less awesome if you aren’t wealthy
- refraincomment 6y ago
  Why? Nobody, poor or wealthy, need to be a servant of any government.
  - atlasunshrugged 6y ago
    Agreed, if anything more migration opportunities would be much better for those who are poor. A semi-recent article put the value of free movement globally at an additional $78 Trillion for the global economy https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of-free-movement-would-be-78-trillion-richer https://www.economist.com/the-world-if/2017/07/13/a-world-of...
  - WJW 6y ago
    Indeed! Powerful individuals should be free to exploit their fellow man without any interference from the plebs banding together! There's a Galts' Gulch in Chile that you might be interested in. They have no government at all there.
    - refraincomment 6y ago
      Use the terminology you like. If it makes you feel better this set of words, it's fine by me! No individual owes anything to the bigger group. That's the principle. In practice you see a lot of abuse, sadly.
      - EGreg 6y ago
        I do not think you believe your own principle. Do you have a family? Do you work for a company? Do you live in a neighborhood? Do you hold money in a bank? Do you buy goods and services from corporations? You realize that you are not contracting with an individual when you do this, and the bank or corporation will continue to have your account in their (computer) systems long after any specific individual has left the company, because it doesn’t belong to any specific individual? Everywhere you go, you enter into agreements with the people who are affected by your actions. Money is just a paper or digital asset representing how much other people or organizations owed you and cleared by sending this asset. Even property ownership itself is just a result of laws passed by certain jurisdictions. They vary from place to place and are balanced against other rights. Property rights make sense for small amounts of property but as you come to “own” larger and larger amounts of capital, you simply expect the system to scale indefinitely, without changing, but that is not necessarily a reasonable expectation. Just like you can’t just scale up an ancient ship and expect everything to work. What you’re really saying is that someone owes you the safeguarding of your large amount of money because they are being paid some of this money to do so. You want to be able to unilaterally centrally plan where it’s going to go, including sending massive amounts out of a town or community just because it found its way into your accounts. But all your “principles” ironically are just extrapolations of rights and affordances given to you by a state or other organization that has been running things in an orderly manner. The reality is the other way around - no organizations owe you the safeguarding and enforcing of a monopoly on the unlimited use of {insert resource here} while you unilaterally get to exclude all others from using this resource more productively. You want to centrally plan how the resource will be utilized and you get upset that your “slippage” (eg progressive taxes) is getting bigger and bigger!

unishark 6y ago

To avoid taxes they need to relinquish ownership of the land. At which point, how does them having lots of stuff and good times on their island affect the rest of us?

pessimizer 6y ago

This sounds like end-of-history talk. In 500 years, the world will not look like now + sci-fi tech. There may not even be money in 500 years. It's also strange that getting places in 3 hours rather than 2-3 days is the radical change you predict. If people can get anywhere quickly and cheaply, the posited ultrarich would have to spend an awful lot on security, which will bring up their travel times/costs.

curation 6y ago
There is no money now. What is the definition of money? A timed deposit? An entry? It's a relationship, an IOU. That's why we need PR people (Central Bankers) to keep the faith. They don't control 'money' because what is it? Where is it? The Eurodollar market is not even calculable.

luckylion 6y ago

You don't need to be a billionaire to find that attractive. Work remote, have a nice climate and a city that runs efficiently? I'm guessing you'll have lots of people find attractive (I'm one of them). The question will be mostly whether it's an actual state or more of a vacation/work travel location. If it's an actual state, they'll have to deal with all the annoying stuff, like running their own prison system, running whatever level of welfare programs they want. If it's not, they can just "deport" people and let their home countries deal with them.

throwaway316943 6y ago
Banishment from the city state is a convenient and humane punishment so long as it’s not abused. If a portion of your assets are invested in the city it also makes for an effective bond against criminal activity.
- luckylion 6y ago
  That's true, as long as there's something else surrounding the city that is happy to take those people of the city's hands. If there isn't, you can really only banish them by driving them outside the 200 mile zone and abandoning them there. The "humane" part kind of falls away in that case.

cblconfederate 6y ago

It's going to happen much sooner. Generations > millenials and overworked immigrants won't be subsidizing aging boomers' pensions and real estate wealth forever. They 'll either move elsewhere or turn many european countries to tax havens Btw the wealthy have already taken their stuff, live in their yachts or multiple houses around the world.