“Vote with your feet”: Neoliberalism, the democratic nation-state, and utopian enclave libertarianism

Abstract

This paper examines a series of emerging utopian discourses that call for the creation of autonomous libertarian enclaves on land ceded by or claimed against existing states. These discourses have emerged in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis and can be seen as a response to the crisis on the part of free-market advocates who critique previous waves of neoliberal reform for failing to radically transform the existing structures of the state. Enclave libertarianism seeks to overcome neoliberal capitalism's contradictory relationship to the liberal democratic state by rethinking the state as a "private government service provider" and rethinking citizens as mobile consumers of government services. Citizens are thus called to "vote with their feet" by opting-in to the jurisdiction that best fits their needs and beliefs. The paper argues that these utopian imaginaries are key to understanding specific new manifestations of post-crisis neoliberalism, and calls for more research into the diversity of discourses and Vote with your feet 2 imaginaries that circulate through networks of neoliberal actors beyond specific policy initiatives.

Software, Sovereignty and the Post-Neoliberal Politics of Exit

“…(Steinberg et al, 2012(Steinberg et al, : 1533 What has changed, however, is that those dreaming of creating their own states are now greater in number and have more political and institutional support for the aspiration. Enclave libertarian ideas -including the work of the Startup Cities Institute ( 2014) -are now supported by the likes of the Cato Institute, the Mises Institute, the Foundation for Economic Education and the Mont Pelerin Society (Lynch, 2017), as well as Silicon Valley (and other) billionaires and political strategists who have been 'red-pilled' (Majer, 2016). However, and this is our central point, NRx is all about dreaming of a certain kind.…”

New cities: Power, profit, and prestige

“…In other cases, the private nature of new city developments and their distinct regulatory landscape enables the promotion of a distinct lifestyle for residents, from fostering a comparatively socially liberal hub in KAEC, which is exempt from clothing norms for women and sex‐segregated public spaces imposed in the rest of Saudi Arabia (Moser et al, 2015), to imposing conservative Islamic values and restrictions on the use of space and property in an otherwise secular state like in South Africa's Waterfall City (Murray, 2015b). A more extreme example of experimentation in urban governance through private urban development is the Seasteading Institute's proposal for floating cities, intended as libertarian enclaves to “exit government” and foster alternative forms of “competitive governance” (Lynch, 2017; Steinberg, Nyman, & Caraccioli, 2012).…”

“…These "zones of exception" (Easterling, 2014) provide a freer business environment than the rest of the country as a way to attract capital and cater to foreign and national interests with favorable legislation and tax incentives. Some more radical forms of SEZ, including charter cities and the more recent Zone for Economic Development and Employment in Honduras (Lynch, 2017), challenge notions of national territory and sovereignty.…”

Representations of utopian urbanism and the feminist geopolitics of “new city” development

“…Rather, the ZEDE is imagined as an ultramodern city with its own legal, economic, administrative, and political (LEAP) system governed by an appointed board of international libertarian technocrats known as the Committee for the Adoption of Best Practices (CAMP, by its Spanish acronym) and an appointed Technical Secretary. The project's promoters cite Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Chinese Special Economic Zones like Shenzhen, as inspiration for the ZEDE model, highlighting the way special sets of free-market-oriented rules and procedures promote investment and urban development (Lynch 2017). While inspired by such external referents, the ZEDE project can also be seen as the latest in a long line of utopian experiments in "development" either imagined or attempted in Honduran territory, from Scottish pirate Gregor MacGregor's imagined Republic of Poyais in the early 19 th century (Hasbrouck 2011) to the fruit company and railroad enclaves of the early 20 th century (Barahona 2005) and the existing Export Processing Zones dating back to 1976 (Geglia 2016).…”

“…In the years following the coup, the National Party government formed partnerships with several international advisors, proponents of a series of related neocolonial and "utopian enclave libertarian" imaginaries in which new cities would be built through private investment on land ceded to either a foreign government-a proposal that was eventually rejected-or an international board of experts. The most extreme utopian versions of this vision call for the division of the territorial nation-state into fragmented, competing jurisdictions managed by privatized "government service providers" and populated by mobile citizen-consumers who are called to "vote with their feet"-opting in to jurisdiction that best fits their needs (Lynch 2017). The projected site of this new city, the Gulf of Fonseca, is one of the poorest regions in Honduras.…”