Balaji
Balaji|Jul 02, 2025 15:32
Everyone is a libertarian on the Internet. Because it is simultaneously far more progressive and far more capitalist than any previous society. It is ultra-progressive because billions of people from every race, religion, and ethnicity are on the global Internet. Anyone can speak to anyone, broadcast anything, associate with anyone, and do just about whatever they want if it is permitted by code. It is also uber-capitalist because billions of people can transact with anyone, hire anyone, work for anyone, found their own businesses, become zillionaires, set up their own servers, and enjoy perfect freedom of association. The common thread is individual consent. You consent to sign up to a server. You consent to install an app. And every million-person community on the Internet is formed by a million similar voluntary actions. So: the Internet proves that consent scales, that voluntarism scales, that internationalism scales, that capitalism scales. It proves this empirically. Because by and large, despite all its faults, the total freedom of the Internet is attractive. The ultra-nationalist nevertheless chooses to post on an international network. The anti-capitalist nevertheless chooses to post through a capitalist phone. The reason the Internet works is that code is law. So all the impractical libertarian ideas that presupposed flawless judges or strict property rights suddenly became feasible. For example, open borders in the physical world doesn’t work. But in the digital world, a site like Facebook actually can onboard billions of strangers and automatically adjudicate the interactions between them. Similarly, polycentric law before the Internet didn’t work, because you couldn’t realistically have multiple legal systems in the same physical location. But now with Bitcoin and Ethereum and Solana, you can simply swap between different monetary policies and contract enforcement as you see fit. The fundamental point is that the Internet makes libertarianism more practical. For example, the esteemed @RonPaul wrote about ending the Fed, but that couldn’t realistically be done at the level of the state. However, tech libertarians could build Bitcoin, and thereby practically end the Fed at the level of the network. Similarly, tech libertarians couldn’t shut down the Post Office, but they could boot up email. They couldn’t reform taxi medallions, but they could boot up Uber. They couldn’t reform these failed states, so they built the alternative on the global network. Such examples can be multiplied. But the point is that actually existing libertarianism does exist. It is called the Internet. It is simply the most popular thing in the world, perhaps the most popular thing in human history. It is much more popular than any individual politician or state. And yet it is still underestimated.
+4
Mentioned
Share To

Timeline

HotFlash

APP

X

Telegram

Facebook

Reddit

CopyLink

Hot Reads