Writing
The U.S. should allow radical experiments in governance models
Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone could be a great thing for American innovation and perhaps even democracy
Published about 5 years ago.
All the isms'
Fascism. Communism. Socialism. Free market capitalism. Anarchism. You often hear about each of these political ideologies and their associated failings in other countries. Communism failed Russia. Socialism failed Venezuela. Capitalism is failing the United States. Fascism gave us Mussolini. If you want Anarchism go to Mogadishu. All strong evidence and fair points.
But what if it didn't have to be like that? What if a government wanted to try to innovate on governance models by allowing small scale experiments in radical political ideologies?
But what if it didn't have to be like that? What if a government wanted to try to innovate on governance models by allowing small scale experiments in radical political ideologies?
CHAZ
The very recent (June 10th, 2020) establishment of the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) in Seattle is very interesting to me. For those unfamiliar, CHAZ is an area of Seattle, Washington where people have decided to assert that they are autonomous from Seattle, Washington and the United States and basically the only thing the people in that 6 square blocks of area can agree on is that they do not want or need police or military presence in their community.
I'm almost sure this incarnation will fail, but it sparked some of my neurons together in a way that formed an idea. What if we (To be clear: When I say "we", I mean the U.S. government) took basic principles of American culture - such as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the bill of rights - and gave a green light to perform experiments where we allow multiple of these political ideologies to form mostly autonomous cities away from our already moderately functioning society?
What if we allowed a dozen CHAZ's to bud?
I'm almost sure this incarnation will fail, but it sparked some of my neurons together in a way that formed an idea. What if we (To be clear: When I say "we", I mean the U.S. government) took basic principles of American culture - such as life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the bill of rights - and gave a green light to perform experiments where we allow multiple of these political ideologies to form mostly autonomous cities away from our already moderately functioning society?
What if we allowed a dozen CHAZ's to bud?
How Sway?
Listen, I don't have all the answers but I think at a high-level this might look like the following:
- Create an application to start a city that runs on a particular "ism" to figure out who is founding the city, where it will be, who will be allowed to live there, what the expectations are, etc
- Charter a "constitution" for that city that at least has the bill of rights and other basic human rights protections built in
- Get 500 people to commit to a city in a kick-starter like fashion by paying taxes up front
- Only approve the application if at least 500 people have committed
- Select the 500 people who will seed a city
- Run the experiment in iterations of one year.
- If all laws in the city constitution are respected in that year, then population can grow by 10% and it's allowed to continue.
- If not, population is reduced by violators and their respective nuclear families and closest friends - they're sent to either actual prison/jail or back to origin city.
This will prevent a particular city from growing too quickly, will allow it's culture and laws to be preserved and provide ample time to U.S. administrations to study the things that are working and not working.
Why Auston? Why?
Before you wholesale write me off as a kook, know that I understand that at some level I'm saying there should be full on white supremacist (fascist) cities, black supremacist cities, communist cities, cities in complete anarchy, and more.
Remember though, that I am advocating that these cities not interrupt existing cities or suburbs where peace loving, hardworking Americans like myself live and furthermore, that these cities respect the basic principles for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness alongside other baseline laws such as our bill of rights.
I believe these sorts of experiments can reinforce what a lot of already think we know, but I think they could also challenge our preconceived notions of what these sorts of political ideologies can look like given a sort of "fertile ground". Beyond that, I believe they could further entrench America as the land of the free and potentially give us new and interesting ideas around welfare, policing, labor and capitalism as a whole.
I'm curious to know how crazy you think I am.
Remember though, that I am advocating that these cities not interrupt existing cities or suburbs where peace loving, hardworking Americans like myself live and furthermore, that these cities respect the basic principles for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness alongside other baseline laws such as our bill of rights.
I believe these sorts of experiments can reinforce what a lot of already think we know, but I think they could also challenge our preconceived notions of what these sorts of political ideologies can look like given a sort of "fertile ground". Beyond that, I believe they could further entrench America as the land of the free and potentially give us new and interesting ideas around welfare, policing, labor and capitalism as a whole.
I'm curious to know how crazy you think I am.
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