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How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart

• jackvalentine 12y ago
  I don't understand what was supposed to be particularly Randian about this project. It just sounds like a poorly managed housing development with a HOA that selects for political bent rather than ethno-religious (as the original HOAs were used).
  • tjradcliffe 12y ago
    It's Randian because they say it is: Objectivism is a shared mythology, and like all mythologies it comes to bits rather badly when forced into contact with reality. In my experience, most self-declared libertarians aren't very good business-people, and a surprising number work in institutionally-coddled enterprises like real estate, medicine and law. As such, it's no surprise that they're ill-equipped to deal with scam artists. The Free State Project in the US (which aims at what amounts to a democratic coup in New Hampshire: https://freestateproject.org/ https://freestateproject.org/) is the only scheme of this kind that seems remotely plausible, but that's in part because their ambitions are relatively modest. They want to get enough like-minded people together in one American state that they can have a significant influence on the local government. They are aiming at a state that already has notable libertarian leanings. And they aren't aiming for an anarcho-capitalist utopia, although some of them are anarcho-capitalists. It's a great democratic experiment, and while my money is on failure it has at least a modest chance of success, and either way it should be fascinating to watch.
    • MCRed 12y ago
      Objectivism is a philosophy, not a mythology. This was not an objectivist effort, actually at all. You're giving the article too much credit, it is pretty much all spin. > most self-declared libertarians aren't very good business-people This kind of broad smear is exactly the point of the article-- to give you cover so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity.
• nikatwork 12y ago
  This is the problem with trying to shoehorn reality into a purist ideology: people. Wherever you go, there you are. Until we learn how to stop being shitty and selfish, democratic government looks like the least bad option.
  • sausman 12y ago
    Democratic government: Shitty and selfish people electing shitty and selfish people to initiate violence against shitty and selfish people and their property. Libertarianism: Shitty and selfish people not condoning the use of violence against shitty and selfish people and their property.
    • vacri 12y ago
      I wish libertarians would stop their crusade to redefine the word 'violence'. It waters down the word and will eventually make it meaningless if their version catches on.
      • steanne 12y ago
        their crusade is going less well than you fear: i'd never heard of it until this thread.
        • MCRed 12y ago
          The striesand effect at work. Most leftists have only heard of Atlas Shrugged because of the constant bashing it gets in the mouthpieces of the left. I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to read it and think about it for themselves? Cause if you do-- you would no longer be a leftist.
          • eevilspock 12y ago
            Oh I read it. And it made a lot of sense, when I was 15. "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old’s life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs." ~John Rogers
• rdtsc 12y ago
  Why would anyone thik it would succeed? Any other sucessful examples in modern times? For the amount of seemingly rational and intelligent believers and press this "philosophy" gets, I would expect there by now to be countless of obvious example of it working.
  • jpadkins 12y ago
    hong kong vs. pre-market reform china, south korea vs. north korea, 18th century US vs. 18th century mexico, cayman islands vs. cuba, singapore vs. jakarta there are many examples of the more free market society doing better than its counterparts.
    • JDShu 12y ago
      Those really aren't examples of libertarian ideology.
    • jlangenauer 12y ago
      South Korea, 18th C US and Singapore are hardly examples of "free markets", but much more of capitalist state planning and intervention.
      • vacri 12y ago
        And 'free market' isn't synonymous with 'libertarian' anyway.
        • idlewords 12y ago
          In fact a free market implies all kinds of social mechanisms to set and enforce ground rules. All the examples upthread had very strong state control.
          • MCRed 12y ago
            Yes there are social mechanisms in the honest use of the word- that is, when someone proves to be a scammer they lose business in a free market. But otherwise a free market is an unregulated market. "very strong state control" is the opposite of a free market. That's central planning, and despite the name "Socialism" there's not much social about it because it does not benefit society, but it benefits the people who dictate prices (namely government bureaucrats.)
• wmil 12y ago
  Libertarians, basically by definition, are people with a low group instinct. So any project that requires large numbers of them to work together tends to fall apart. The other big problem with the micronation / charter city idea is that people get killed over land and water rights in developing nations. Just because you have the national government onside doesn't mean it's safe to ignore angry locals.
  • aetherson 12y ago
    That may or may not be true, but it doesn't sound relevant to this case. Despite the headline gloss of a "libertarian paradise," they never actually got to the point of trying to live together or work together. Rather, it looks like some people either gave their money to a scammer or a guy who just wasn't competent to achieve his plans. As the article says, that doesn't seem like it's anything particular to any political viewpoint.
    • zanny 12y ago
      I do like how some of the larger investors still want to give the plan a shot. Albeit their methods, I think, betray the ideology - so Johnson has proven himself amoral to the philosophy and thus nobody should do business with him again, and in the anarcho vision they would collectively boycott and draft contracts with anyone they associate with to also boycott him, but really they would have to go find new land since they are acknowledging his possession of the plot. I'm more interested in the politics in trying to approach nations to effectively take a chunk of land out of its jurisdiction. I doubt any state around today is really privy to the idea, and in this context I doubt Chile agreed to anything close to giving this town independence.
      • aetherson 12y ago
        I guess it depends on where exactly they stand in the grand spectrum of libertarian-anarchism. I agree with you that it's unlikely that Chile was planning on giving this area any kind of special jurisdiction, and the impression I got from the article was that they weren't really expecting any -- they were just planning on being isolated enough that they ordinarily only had to deal with other people who were similarly politically inclined. Plenty of libertarian types are fine with enough of a state that you can sue someone for breach of contract. I don't know whether these guys were. Maybe some are and some aren't. Just because they like Rand enough to name the place Galt's Gulch doesn't mean any or all of them were actually expecting hard-core anarchy.
• Frozenlock 12y ago
  "Housing development gone bad after being handled poorly. They also happen to be libertarians." Nan, that doesn't sell well... "How a Libertarian Paradise in Chile Fell Apart" Oh wow, much better!
  • idlewords 12y ago
    The running joke on libertarians is that they would be immediately eaten if they succeeded in putting their ideas into practice. So an example of that very thing happening seems apposite.
    • MCRed 12y ago
      I think that "running joke" is pretty silly, given that libertarians putting their ideas into practice would be pretty well armed. How are you going to eat them? A naive perspective at best. Secondly, if you have an example of that happening, please, do present it. IF you're referring to this article, well, you believe what you read in hit piece hatchet jobs?
      • deleted 12y ago
        [deleted]
  • zanny 12y ago
    Seriously, when I'm reading about zoning problems I'm thinking "this isn't anarcho-capitalistic at all". It sounds like the guy just ripped off a bunch of probably fanatics with Chliean land he could not treat in way necessary to build a "libertarian paradise" in the first place.
  • MCRed 12y ago
    Some other points: 1. This was an obvious bad idea to anyone who has been in Chile (such as myself) given its location. Namely they wanted to build a "farm" and sustainable development midway between Santiago and Valparaiso, along a main highway, in an area that is borderline desert, yet which has a fair amount of development already, housing neighborhoods, businesses, olive pressing plants and the like... meaning effectively the chilean version of suburbs (convenient to the big city yes) and not a rural farm appropriate area. Alas, one thing americans do too often[1], especially when buying real estate outside the country, is they want to fly in, buy the property over a long weekend and fly out. I think it's too easy to project american standards for property transactions onto other countries. Any time you're spending thousands of dollars, do your due diligence, and if that means buying a retirement property in another country, spend at least a summer there to make sure you like the country! Chile is really wonderful in many ways, but like everywhere else it has its things that are annoying. 2. It never got off the ground. There are thousands of terrible real estate deals that never got off the ground in the USA, especially after 2008. But no sensationalist articles about them. Why? Because the purpose of this article is purely political... it's to give the people commenting in this thread an opportunity to spew their hate. 3. There is, actually, a libertarian "paradise" in chile. Not only is much of the country pretty close to that definition on a lot of scores, but there's a successful sustainable housing / real estate development there which predates this effort by several years. (I'm not going to mention it by name because they deserve their privacy.) But of course, you'll never hear about that operation on the pages of Vice or Salon, or any other leftist rag. Unless, of course, they become well known enough and need to be "taken down a few notches", like Ayn Rand seems to every few months, despite being dead for nearly 40 years. (such power to reach out from the grave! If only people felt the need to make up stuff to write 2,000 word articles to bash me with 40 years after I'm in the ground!) [1] as reported in a variety of expat forums and magazines, and based on the way some of these "gringo focused" operations market themselves. For example, the same property in many central and south american countries is listed online at one price much higher (but with a full service real estate agent attached) online, than it is listed in the local listing services. OR pay dollars and pay twice to three times as much when you buy with pesos.
• endgovernment 12y ago
  Politicized, garbage headline. Statism has no place in the startup community.
  • idlewords 12y ago
    The startup community is the spoiled child of decades of statist initiatives. That probably explains the petulant libertarianism.
    • MCRed 12y ago
      So, basically you just called the startup community and libertarians childish and petulant. Have you got something more than name calling?
      • eevilspock 12y ago
        Have you? > That you have chosen this as your avenue of response, I take as a concession of my points in completion and admission of intellectual bankruptcy. > No, but they are uncomfortable, hence the down votes. Alas, this is not a site with high intellectual integrity. > I wonder how many of them have, rather than burning the book, decided to read it and think about it for themselves? > so you feel comfortable impeaching your intellectual integrity. > But Hacker News has had a very strong left bias, and a draconian moderation policy going back at least to 2008. You risk being hellbanned for linking to scientific papers here if the papers don't agree with the ideology of the moderators (who, like all unaccountable entities, like to remain anonymous.)
  • noarchy 12y ago
    As your comment shows, the topic might indeed be relevant to HN, given the libertarian bent of some in today's startup scene. The submission was no doubt intended to stir up debate about libertarianism. There are some who are made uncomfortable by what they see as inroads being made by libertarians and their ideology, so some push-back is taking place.
    • 12y ago
• bane 12y ago
  One of the interesting historic tests of any ideology, no matter what, is that it must be able to survive contact with the rest of the world. Example, if your philosophy is absolute pacifism, there is nothing but the good will of your neighbors preventing them from annihilating you and taking your stuff. Even Tibet had an army. Also. Highly individualistic ideologies struggle against moderately collectivist ones. And highly collectivist ideologies struggle against moderately individualistic ones. Better organization and flexibility will generally win against rabble and/or inflexible arrangements.
  • MCRed 12y ago
    Ok, on that first test Libertarianism is doing quite well. Having originated with Rothbard in the 1970s, it's growing every decade pretty significantly. I'm assuming you're not believing libertarians are pacifists, but since you brought it up in an example, the definition of libertarian is: "One who believes that the initiation of force is immoral". This was a pledge that the LP required all members to sign for many years. Note the initiation of force is immoral to libertarians, not its use in self defense, or in defense of another. I do invite you to come hang out in any place where libertarians gather. You'll find that they are nothing if not flexible, as half of them are anarchists, half are not, and none think that they all have to believe the same to work together. (half are pot smokers, half tee-totalers, half pro-life, half-pro choice (though they do agree government should be out of it) half are high tech, half are old school, etc.) This article, though, really has nothing to do with libertarianism.
    • eevilspock 12y ago
      > "Ok, on that first test Libertarianism is doing quite well." I think you misunderstand the test. It is not whether an ideology has a growing number of believers over an extended period of time (On that measure, Islam is doing far better), but how well it does when actually implemented (i.e. in practice not theory). The article is claiming that this story is an example of failure when implemented.
      • MCRed 12y ago
• Nizumzen 12y ago
  I hate it when clearly American authors always equate Libertarianism with Capitalism. Originally Libertarianism was an idea that grew out of left wing politics (socialism and communism) in Europe in the 19th century. Only recently have the Americans hijacked the term for their own means. So called right wing Libertarianism. I wish more people were up to speed with political history because it really gets my goat every time I see someone make this mistake.
• lurkinggrue 12y ago
  I'm so shocked.