In the clever science fiction video gameBioshock, an Objectivist business magnate named Andrew Ryan (recognize those initials?) creates an underwater city, where the worlds elite members can flourish free from the controls of government. It is a utopian village that Ayn Rand and her hero John Galt would surely approve of, but unfortunately it ends up becoming a dystopian nightmare after class distinctions form (what a shocker) and technological innovation gets out of hand. It was a hell of a video game, for those of you into that kind of thing.
But I dont bring up Bioshock to talk about video games. I bring it up because there is currently a similar movement happening in real life, and it is being funded by another rather eccentric businessman, the Paypal billionaire Peter Thiel. As some may already know, Thiel has teamed up with the grandson of libertarian icon Milton Friedman, Patri Friedman, to try and develop a seastead, or a permanent and autonomous dwelling at sea. Friedman formed the Seasteading Institute in 2008, and Thiel has donated more than a million dollars to fund its creation.
It is all very utopian, to say the least. But on the website, they claim a floating city could be just years away. The real trick is finding a proper location to build this twenty-first century atlantis. Currently, they are attempting to find a host nation that will allow the floating city somewhat close to land, for the calm waters and ability to easily travel to and from the seastead.
The project has been coined libertarian island, and it reveals a building movement within Silicon Valley; a sort of free market techno-capitalist faction that seems to come right out of Ayn Rands imagination. And as with all utopian ideologies, it is very appealing, especially when you live in a land where everything seems possible, with the proper technological advancements.
Tech billionaires like Thiel, Travis Kalanick and Marc Andressen, are leading the libertarian revolution in the land of computers, and it is not a surprising place for this laissez faire ideology to flourish. Silicon Valley is generally considered to have a laid back Californian culture, but behind all of the polite cordialities, there rests a necessary cutthroat attitude. A perfect example of this was Steve Jobs, who was so revered by the community, and much of the world, yet almost psychopathically merciless. The recent anti-trust case against the big tech companies like Google, Apple, and Intel, who colluded not to recruit each others employees, has even lead to speculation as towhether Jobs should be in jail today, if he were still alive.
So while Silicon Valley is no doubt a socially progressive place (i.e. gay marriage), if one looks past social beliefs, there is as muchruthlessness as youd expect in any capitalist industry. Look at theoffshore tax avoidance, the despicableoverseas working conditions, the outrightviolations of privacy and illegal behavior. There is a very real arrogance within Silicon Valley that seems to care little about rules and regulations.
Libertarianism preaches a night-watchmen government that stays out of businesses way, and allows private industries to regulate themselves. It is a utopian ideology, as was communism, that has an almost religious-like faith in the free market, and an absolute distrust of any government. It is a perfect philosophy for a large corporation, like Apple, Google or Facebook. If we lived in an ideal libertarian society, these companies would not have to avoid taxes, because they would be non-existent, and they wouldnt have to worry about annoying restrictions on privacy. In a libertarian society, these companies could regulate their own actions, and surely Google, with their famous Dont be evil slogan, believes in corporate altruism.
In the Valley, innovation and entrepreneurship is everything, so a blind faith in the market is hardly shocking. And last year one of the leading libertarians, Rand Paul, flew out to San Francisco to speak at theLincoln Labs Reboot Conference, held to create and support a community of like-minded individuals who desire to advance liberty in the public square with the use of technology. Paul said at the conference, use your ingenuity, use your big head to think of solutions the marketplace can figure out, that the idiots and trolls in Washington will never come up with, surely earning laughs and pats on the back.
Rand Paul has had one on one meetings with Mark Zuckerberg, and the floating island billionaire himself, Peter Thiel. The founder and CEO of Uber, Travis Kalanick is another noted libertarian, who used to have the cover of Ayn Rands The Fountainhead as his twitter icon. Kalanick runs Uber just as a devoted follower of Ayn Rand would, continuously fighting regulators and living by whatwriter Paul Carr has called the cult of disruption. Carr nicely summarizes the philosophy of this cult: In a digitally connected age, theres absolutely no need for public carriage laws (or hotel laws, or food safety laws, or or) because the market will quickly move to drive out bad actors. If an Uber driver behaves badly, his low star rating will soon push him out of business.
So basically, with the internet, regulation has become nothing more than a outdated relic of the past, and today consumers truly have the power to make corporations behave by speaking out on social media, or providing negative ratings on Yelp, or filing a petition on Change.com, etc. It is the same old libertarian argument wrapped up in a new millennial cloak, that corporations will act ethically because if they dont, consumers will go elsewhere.
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Welcome to Libertarian Island: How these One Percenters are creating a dystopian nightmare