# Libertarian Islands **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [August 16, 2011, 6:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928 "2011-08-16T18:20:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 10:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/81 "2011-08-17T22:44:15Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > There’s no need for an EPA if the court system works sufficiently well. Someone dumps arsenic on my property, I sue them for damages. And what make you sure that you’d automatically even know they are poisoning you? Plenty of toxins are invisible. What’s the benefit of suing them when you are already dying or your children are already born with birth defects? What about all the pollution that can’t be traced to a specific source, like acid rain? What about the companies that will decide that the price of the lawsuits is worth it? ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/82 "2011-08-17T22:56:37Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Move your little mouse pointer to the box called ‘Search’. Click on it. When the little dropdown opens, type “libertarianism” and press your enter key. You will be inundated with page after page of threads on this topic. So you don’t specifically know where I can see specific libertarian beliefs? Because unless you tell me exactly what they are, I suspect you’ll simply declare any one that’s criticized a not really libertarian idea. Honestly, I wonder if anyone at all is actually a Scottsman. > [@](#): > > Open any one of those threads, and read. I just did that at random, and almost every one of them I looked at contains long messages from people like me, John Mace, xtisme and others giving very patient, very detailed explanations of libertarian philosophy and practice. You’ve been present in most of them. If you can’t remember or don’t bother to read them, I have no idea why I should be compelled to write it again for you or go to the work of sifting out links for you to follow. It seems to me, that the board libertarians sometimes advocate nonsense that would never work in reality. And when called on it, they backtrack or ignore it. But you’re the one who made the assertion, shall I assume you’re retracting it? > [@](#): > > Or, you could do what I suggested in another thread (and got mocked for): You could try reading a book or watching the video series called “Free To Choose”, which is available for free streaming on the web. Google it. I’m not going to watch a video series so I can understand where you get the nonsense you believe. I don’t want to know why you decided to devote yourself to a rigid ideology, I want to understand what, in your opinion, that ideology is. > [@](#): > > But you don’t really want to know these things, do you? You don’t honestly care about understanding libertarian beliefs. You’re just looking for ammunition, or doing what you’re doing now, which is to demand that your opponents work their asses off to spoon-feed you information which you aren’t going to read anyway, or if you do you’ll skim it looking for some nugget you can throw back like a grenade to derail the conversation until the next time this comes up, at which point you’ll demand more cites again. You are long on ideals and short on actual ideas. Specifically what are you advocating? What is libertarian? By being fuzzy about your beliefs you grant yourself space to hide when those beliefs are criticized. > [@](#): > > In the meantime, you almost never bring anything substantive to the table yourself. Just snipes and jibes at your enemies - people who are expending great effort in good faith, with the goal of having a reasonable discussion about differing points of view. What is your point of view again? Specifically? If I snipe, it’s because your point is a little flitting bird, and thus hard to hit. ---
**Author:** ![Lobohan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobohan/32/79_2.png) [@Lobohan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobohan)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/83 "2011-08-17T23:14:30Z")
Ontopic: The Libertarian Islands are far too stupid to actually ever exist, but if they did, I’d laugh at their utter failure. Until they sank of course. Then, I’d be sad. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2011, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/84 "2011-08-17T23:33:18Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > And what make you sure that you’d automatically even know they are poisoning you? Plenty of toxins are invisible. What’s the benefit of suing them when you are already dying or your children are already born with birth defects? What about all the pollution that can’t be traced to a specific source, like acid rain? What about the companies that will decide that the price of the lawsuits is worth it? The hope is that after a few expensive cases, companies would learn that dumping toxins is unprofitable. Beyond that, there would undoubtedly be an army of lawyers running around with testing kits and offering free tests to anyone near a factory. And besides, it’s not like this isn’t _already_ a problem in other ways. The EPA isn’t everywhere at once. The problem simply needs to be manageable. Pollution that can’t be traced to a specific source, or that doesn’t have specific victims, is problematic. The EPA doesn’t really have a great history here either, with their slowness in dealing with acid rain and greenhouse gases. One might imagine a massive tobacco-style lawsuit that ultimately concludes with huge settlements and contract-enforced concessions. Frankly, I don’t think there are any optimal solutions here, other than “supreme enlightened dictator of the world”. A libertarian system would have to plod its way to improvement, just as we do now. As for “the price of lawsuits being worth it”; well, it depends on the specifics of what we’re talking about. There’s no de facto reason to believe that it would be a _worse_ situation than it is today, where fines may be seen as a cost of business. And court-imposed damages are likely to be higher than the equivalent fines (since they would include court costs, extra damages from willful negligence, and wouldn’t be subject to legal upper bounds). The idea isn’t necessarily a problem, anyway. Suppose some company allows chemicals to leak onto adjacent residential properties, but that the problem is caught before anyone becomes sick. The residents sue the company, recover the lost property value, and move away. Not a big deal. ---
**Author:** ![ZPG\_Zealot](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47c2d/32.png) [@ZPG\_Zealot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZPG_Zealot)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/85 "2011-08-18T01:57:39Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > Are you seriously so callus that you’d wish death on a group of people you disagree with? When those people are seriously so callous toward their fellow citizens as to abandon their communities and build their own isolationist colony because they don’t want to pay taxes to provide community resources, it’s called poetic justice when the lack of those very same community resources results in their demise. ---
**Author:** ![SeldomSeen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/7ba0ec/32.png) [@SeldomSeen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SeldomSeen)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 2:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/86 "2011-08-18T02:24:21Z")
> [@emacknight](#): > > There is a lot wrong with your post, but this one jumps out at me. The point isn’t to be less wasteful or more efficient. I’m sure you could find many things “wrong” with the post…it wasn’t intended to be anecdotal, just illustrative. But wait - if a libertarian system can’t claim to be less wasteful or inefficient than others then what makes it more desirable than other systems? It certainly can’t claim to be more equitable, on the contrary it distinctly benefits certain elites that happen to have the money or power to do as they please. The reason for libertarian resistance to regulation seems to be that it places a burden on business and introduces inefficiencies into the system. You are correct in saying that “the opposite of laissez faire isn’t necessarily going to be any less wasteful or more efficient”, if by opposite you mean some sort of collectivism. But no one’s advocating that either. It doesn’t have to be either/or, all or nothing. As I pointed out, there is a middle ground between the dog-eat-dog world of \*laissez faire \*libertarianism and the inertia of collectivism. A participatory democracy, where ambition and lethergy are balanced, by reasonable rules and sensible regulation. We can - and should - argue about the _degree_ of regulation and the specific rules that apply. > [@](#): > > Not sure how many times this has been mentioned, but in a libertarian system you are NOT allowed to make people sick, nor can you murder, nor can you steal. Why is that so complicated to understand? Just like today, I am not allowed to dump arsenic in your well. In a libertarian system you would not be allowed to dump shit onto my property, or poison a stream that runs through my property. Really? and in the absence of the regulatory entities that you claim to despise, how do you propose to enforce that? If your successful business model includes dumping shit onto your neighbors property, wouldn’t it be an undue burden on you, an unfair “taking” of your hard-earned money to force you to install a sewage-treatment facility? And how could said neighbor force you stop dumping? Come after you with a gun? What if you could afford a bigger gun than he could? Of course, he’s quite free, in this utopian society, to pack up and move…re-establish himself elsewhere, on another stream, where hopefully he’d find less-shitty neighbors. On the other hand, if you establish governing agencies to oversee sewage disposal, arsenic storage, etc. then you are veering away from your libertarian model. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/87 "2011-08-18T03:08:46Z")
> [@Bosstone](#): > > Regardless of an individual’s leanings, that individual contracting of fire services is certainly libertarian. It’s privatizing a service that is currently being taxed. Actually, it was a privatization of a service that was not previously being provided - the fee was a way to fund the expansion of the neighboring city’s fire department’s sphere of influence. The problem wasn’t that the city was selling its services to people living outside the city, it was that they did it _stupid_ - making their work harder and putting that fire truck out of commission for longer because they didn’t want to give out a freebie. The phrase “cutting off your nose to spite your face” comes to mind. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/88 "2011-08-18T04:34:37Z")
It seems to me that I could dump arsenic down my own well all the live-long day, and people would be hard pressed to prove that it was _my_ arsenic that was poisoning their land and/or water supply. ---
**Author:** ![China\_Guy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/779978/32.png) [@China\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/China_Guy)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 4:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/89 "2011-08-18T04:51:43Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > More recently, Hong Kong was a British experiment in self-governance. Colonial administrator John Cowperthwaite took an explicitly Laissez-Faire approach to Hong Kong administration, refusing to engage in any industrial policy at all. Taxes were kept low, the region was left to determine its own form of governance, and business regulations next to nonexistent. Even today, you can open a business in Hong Kong by filling out a one-page form and turning it in. Then go rent a space and start your business. > > China has created prosperity zones freed from state management, and those zones have exploded in wealth. Sam, I suggest you actually research these claims on HK and the Special Economic Zones. It isn’t the picture you paint and never was in either place. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/90 "2011-08-18T05:09:16Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > I suspect we’re splitting hairs and are in general agreement. Quite possibly. > [@](#): > > ‘Taxes’ may be low, but how do you characterize a government that technically allows free enterprise, but if your little shack gets too successful government thugs will come by and beat you and burn down your shack because you’re gaining a little too much power for their liking? I’d characterize it as lacking rule of law. > [@](#): > > The biggest problem I have with ‘charter cities’ is that I don’t know how they avoid becoming targets if they are too successful - targets not just of the government, but of zealots and grassroots movements outside the zone that seek to confiscate their wealth. I know these cities are supposed to have first-world sponsors, but are those sponsors ready to go to war to protect them? If those inside the city want to tax themselves for more public services, I don’t have a problem. If those outside the city want a piece of the action and decide to start charging tariffs or income taxes, that’s politics baby. Canadians for example renegotiate all the time (I’m not being a wise guy here, btw, Canada does an above average job of handling tribalism without bloodshed). If another Baby Doc actually invades the principality, then that’s a problem – I suspect that the sponsor could establish a police force and maybe a Swat team. But if it came to open warfare, the principality loses. Hm. This plan won’t work in Zimbabwe. But I suspect that there instances where it could work – India comes to mind. After all, I suspect there are plenty of people there who are sick of the License Raj. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/91 "2011-08-18T05:09:50Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > It seems to me that I could dump arsenic down my own well all the live-long day, and people would be hard pressed to prove that it was _my_ arsenic that was poisoning their land and/or water supply. Then your problem isn’t with libertarians, it’s that the police aren’t omniscient. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/92 "2011-08-18T05:21:04Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Firstly, you have a responsibility not to set fire to other people’s property, through negligence or malice. Therefore it is not unreasonable to require that people take precautions to mitigate any damage they may cause to other people. Honest question, from someone who doesn’t much participate in these debates, but I was under the impression that building codes were one of the things that libertarians were generally very much against? If people in a libertarian society aren’t taking precautions to mitigate the damage of other people’s property, what’s the recourse? How do you detect this failure, and rectify it, absent some sort of coercive government agency? > [@emacknight](#): > > Right now, people don’t give a shit about coal fired power plants, so they happily enjoy lower power bills while ignoring the environmental impact. They don’t care about industrial farm run off, because they’d rather cheaper ground beef. Destroying the environment is profitable because people are willing to buy those products. If consumers demanded environmental protections it could be achieved as simply as the Blue Flag program by having the government let people know how much a particular company pollutes. > > The problem isn’t with libertarianism, it’s with people, people suck. People do indeed suck. But if libertarianism is proposed as the best way to organize a society, and because of the nature of people, libertarianism leads to objectively worse outcomes than other approaches, that seems to me to be very much a problem with libertarianism. I mean, any form of government can be shown to be the best way to rule people, if you presuppose an essential alteration to the human character. I’m also confused, in general, by your examples of Chinese government action against corporate polluters. Certainly, these examples point to widespread corruption in Chinese society, but that seems to be an issue entirely separate from the benefits or drawbacks of libertarianism. I mean, I can bribe a judge just as easily as I can bribe a building code inspector. What is it, inherent to libertarianism, that guarantees it will be free of these sorts of corruption problems? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/93 "2011-08-18T05:22:51Z")
> [@Grumman](#): > > Then your problem isn’t with libertarians, it’s that the police aren’t omniscient. No-the problem is that in a libertarian society I am free to do whatever I want on my land unless someone can prove that I am directly causing harm to _their_ land, and without land-use regulation there is nothing stopping me from permanently damaging my land. Now, I suppose there might be the off chance that someone could come up with a way to prove that what I do directly harms specific others, and i could be fined for it-but my land, and the surrounding area, will still be screwed up for a long time. I pay my fine and move away. The person who gets my money uses it to move away. What happens with the useless property…and what stops this from happening again? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/94 "2011-08-18T05:33:40Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > There’s no need for an EPA if the court system works sufficiently well. Someone dumps arsenic on my property, I sue them for damages. > > There are some open questions, like what happens if a pollutant stored on someone’s property migrates naturally to someone else’s. But these can be solved through case law, with again no need to for a public regulatory agency. One thing about libertarian solutions to problems like these is that they are reactive rather than proactive. I would far rather prevent crap from being put into my water or air in the first place, rather than have to rely on suing somone after the fact to mitigate damage. It is quite hard to mitigate environmental damage anyway; The cat is out of the bag, so to speak, and it’s frequently very hard (if not impossible) to get an environmental system back to the way it was before the pollution event. I would rather have a set of well defined regulations that spell out what a person or company is not allowed to put into the public air or water. Case law in environmental pollution cases is notoriously open to interpretation, and is would not give crystal clear directions PRIOR to the pollution event about what can or cannot be done. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Limited liability corporations present another problem in that they make it easier to get out of paying damages. But these are themselves a construct of the state, and there’s no reason they have to exist in a libertarian system. The courts could then go after the executives/employees/investors individually. Yes, and not only that, corporations have deep pockets and many lawyers, and often get out of paying appropriate damages. This happens NOW (Exxon Valdez anyone), and I don’t think it would get better under a libertarian system. And if your solution involved the destruction of the corporation model… good luck with that. I"d love to see individual executives held responsible for environmental damage - not gonna happen though. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/95 "2011-08-18T05:53:34Z")
> [@robert\_columbia](#): > > I recommend the novel “The Moon is a Harsh Mistress” by Robert Heinlein. This book involves a bunch of rebels that try to set up a libertarian society on the Moon, but it doesn’t work as well as they had hoped due to the practicalities of maintaining an orderly and functioning society. As **Sam Stone** noted: Have you actually read the book? That’s a really lousy synopsis. It’s mostly a political revolution book, with a few lengthy passages in which RAH sets out an idealized libertarian society that works great because it’s, you know, fiction. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/96 "2011-08-18T07:07:40Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > One thing about libertarian solutions to problems like these is that they are reactive rather than proactive. How is the current system not also reactive? It’s not like the EPA has someone standing around constantly at every possible source of pollution. Sure, they do inspections, but for the most part their power is in levying fines after the fact. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > It is quite hard to mitigate environmental damage anyway; The cat is out of the bag, so to speak, and it’s frequently very hard (if not impossible) to get an environmental system back to the way it was before the pollution event. All true, but again, how is that much different from what we have now? Environmental disasters still happen, and the worst ones seem to happen because of incompetence, which sadly is a bit out of the EPA’s league. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > I would rather have a set of well defined regulations that spell out what a person or company is not allowed to put into the public air or water. Case law in environmental pollution cases is notoriously open to interpretation, and is would not give crystal clear directions PRIOR to the pollution event about what can or cannot be done. I see that almost as as outright negative. EPA regulations are far from perfect; they contain loopholes, and they are slow to respond to new pollutants. A company may well exploit these loopholes and then claim innocence due to following the existing regulations to the letter. The plaintiff doesn’t care how the pollutant got on his property; only that he is compensated properly. In this sense, regulations seem redundant. What about companies that genuinely want to avoid pollution (either because they think it’s the “right thing” or because they think the financial risk is too great otherwise)? Do they need the EPA to tell them how to behave? No; they can use environmental consultation companies to tell them how to store their waste properly, and so on. These companies already exist, of course. > [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Yes, and not only that, corporations have deep pockets and many lawyers, and often get out of paying appropriate damages. This happens NOW (Exxon Valdez anyone), and I don’t think it would get better under a libertarian system. And if your solution involved the destruction of the corporation model… good luck with that. I"d love to see individual executives held responsible for environmental damage - not gonna happen though. Well–if we are inventing a “Libertopia” from scratch, there’s no reason we can’t build limits on limited liability into the constitution. It’s what I would do if designing one, at any rate (and I’m not even particularly anti-corporate). In any case, all else being equal, there’s no reason a libertarian country would be better _or worse_ than existing models in this regard. It’s an orthogonal problem. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/97 "2011-08-18T07:15:51Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > How is the current system not also reactive? It’s not like the EPA has someone standing around constantly at every possible source of pollution. Sure, they do inspections, but for the most part their power is in levying fines after the fact. They also impose regulations ahead of time, which is more pro-active than hoping for the theoretical possibility that someone at some point _might_ file a lawsuit. > [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > All true, but again, how is that much different from what we have now? Environmental disasters still happen, and the worst ones seem to happen because of incompetence, which sadly is a bit out of the EPA’s league. But far less than there used to be; the present system is _working_. It has produced large and measurable improvements. And when the EPA passes regulations on such things as how to dispose of waste they _are_ to a degree trying to mitigate the effects of incompetence. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/98 "2011-08-18T07:55:29Z")
Longer article on OP: [http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201109/peter-thiel-billionaire-paypal-facebook-internet-success#ixzz1VCNep352](http://www.details.com/culture-trends/critical-eye/201109/peter-thiel-billionaire-paypal-facebook-internet-success#ixzz1VCNep352) “Architectural plans for a prototype involve a movable, diesel-powered, 12,000-ton structure with room for 270 residents, with the idea that dozens—perhaps even hundreds—of these could be linked together.” They are planning on installing the first mothership off the waters of San Francisco. Would it be more than 200 miles off US shores? If not, methinks the residents would be liable for US and California taxes. If so, then I wonder what their military policy would be: they would certainly fall under the US’s security umbrella. There may also be emission issues, though they could easily be finessed by the original planners of this floating condo. I like the charter city concept better, because of its pragmatism and because it addresses an actual failure of governance, as opposed to an inability to persuade your countrymen that you are not a loon. Still, it’s easy to imagine an offshore village of 1-60 pioneers or rather a couple of rich families, plus staff. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 8:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/99 "2011-08-18T08:05:47Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > They also impose regulations ahead of time, which is more pro-active than hoping for the theoretical possibility that someone at some point _might_ file a lawsuit. Only very slightly. A lawsuit seems virtually guaranteed if there is an actual negative effect on someone. If there is no actual negative effect… should it have been regulated in the first place? > [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > But far less than there used to be; the present system is _working_. It has produced large and measurable improvements. And when the EPA passes regulations on such things as how to dispose of waste they _are_ to a degree trying to mitigate the effects of incompetence. I don’t deny that the EPA is a net improvement over what we had, given the other constraints. I simply question whether it is necessary if one makes it easier for plaintiffs to sue for damages over pollution. Quickly perusing their history, it appears that most of their acts are reactions to obvious sources of pollution: sulfur compounds in the air, toxic substances in groundwater, dumping sewage in rivers/lakes, etc. I am genuinely confused as to why these problems didn’t generate huge lawsuits at the time. What was clear to the EPA should have been clear to the courts as well. If there was some flaw in the system which prevented cases from going through, it seems that _that_ is what should have been fixed. For what it’s worth, I will grant that an “EPA-lite” at the least is necessary to control widely-dispersed forms of pollution, such as from cars. A reverse-class-action lawsuit against every car owner would be untenable. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2011, 8:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928/100 "2011-08-18T08:18:12Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Paul Romer, husband of Ex-Obama chief economist Christina Romer and a very influential economist himself, has proposed similar ideas to kick-start wealth and trade in the third world: [Charter Cities](http://chartercities.org/). Explicitly referencing the Hong Kong model, Romer wants countries to find areas of land that are currently not used but which are suitable for development, and zone them off for the development of charter cities. One of the models under which new towns were founded in what’s now Spain and Portugal during the Middle Ages was similar; they had “temporary charters” to help them get started (usually involving something like tax exemptions for certain crops or other types of businesses the king/count wanted to see in that area) but were expected to eventually come up with their own local laws. It worked quite well within the intended parameters: bringing in skilled immigrants, moving travelers to Santiago inland (going by boat used to be most common), populating no-man’s lands… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/libertarian-islands/592928.md?page=6)