Free Cities: The Vision
It is the year 2060 and most human beings live in highly autonomous Free Cities of all sizes, enjoying previously unimaginable levels of prosperity, peace, health, and happiness. Most of the world’s innovation and production is taking place in Free Cities, as the creativity of billions of human beings on all continents is liberated for the first time in history. Free Cities — with their increasingly sophisticated water, sewage, and energy systems — have urbanized the world, and millions of acres of land have returned to wilderness. Free City residents communicate and trade freely with one another in a golden era of worldwide cooperation and collaboration.
In a 21st century revival of the medieval Hanseatic League, global governance is strongly influenced by this network. Traditional nation-states continue to exist, but they no longer serve as the main mode of governance for national territories or the global commons. Instead, legal system creation and maintenance has become one of the most innovative industries on the planet, with customized solutions available for a dizzying array of cultures, industries, and personal preferences.
In regions around the world, legal entrepreneurs created new systems that allowed other entrepreneurs to create thousands, and then millions, of more traditional new companies, resulting in hundreds of millions of new jobs. In some cases a visionary government explicitly enabled the creation of new legal systems. In other cases, an entrepreneurial group negotiated with a government to obtain the right to create just one. In most cases, entrepreneurs used the existing international legal framework as a foundation in which to contractually create an entrepreneurial legal system. In each case, the new legal system liberated dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands of new entrepreneurs who had previously not had the legal safety and security to create new businesses.
As new Free Cities arose in nations around the world, millions of human beings who had previously had very limited options suddenly had an opportunity to obtain good jobs. The demand for jobs had started out much greater than the supply, so employers initially had some bargaining power. But as dozens, and then hundreds, of Free Cities came into being, all companies headed towards a situation in which “labor shortages” arose. Entrepreneurs eagerly competed and paid for human ability and character– in regions that once suffered perpetually high unemployment rates.
As the demand for skills and talents spread all around the world immigration pressures from poor to rich countries were reduced dramatically. Indeed, old rich countries and new Free Cities began to compete with each other, driving up wages for everyone. More importantly, as large numbers of angry, unemployed young men were no longer available for armies or mischief, levels of crime, violence, war and terrorism dropped precipitously.
At the same time, as the human race completed its move from predominantly rural to predominantly urban environments, the rate of innovation increased dramatically. As research from the Santa Fe Institute suggested early in the 21st century, doubling the size of a city increases the productivity of each human being an average of 15%. As small towns around the world became cities, human productivity increased tenfold, and then grew beyond that.
Not only did the world’s new Free Cities stimulate new products and services, they led to a flowering of cultural innovations. Whereas previous iterations of the “experience” economy had been limited to retail and entertainment outlets within a tiny environment, a new generation of entrepreneurs crafted entire communities, legal systems, schools, and health care systems, each tailored to specific cultural demands and ideals. There were communities and new experiences based on every principle imaginable, many that were not possible to imagine from the primitive perspective of the early 21st century. These Free Cities ended up competing with each other not just for citizens, but to provide the most deeply satisfying lives possible to the widest variety of people around the world.
As audacious and distant as this vision may sound, the Free Cities Institute has a path to get us there, starting today.
In a 21st century revival of the medieval Hanseatic League, global governance is strongly influenced by this network. Traditional nation-states continue to exist, but they no longer serve as the main mode of governance for national territories or the global commons. Instead, legal system creation and maintenance has become one of the most innovative industries on the planet, with customized solutions available for a dizzying array of cultures, industries, and personal preferences.
How Did We Get Here?
In the early decades of the 21st century, a new and unexpected coalition had come into being. It integrated people that had previously thought of themselves as advocates for the poor, or for business, or for innovation, or for the environment. Their uncommon aims led to a common solution: unleashing an innovative legal sector through the creation of new “Free Cities”. By competing to offer great law to people, Free Cities experimented and discovered solutions that generated exponential improvements in quality of life were billions of human beings. As a result, for the first time in history almost all human beings had access to great legal systems and governance.In regions around the world, legal entrepreneurs created new systems that allowed other entrepreneurs to create thousands, and then millions, of more traditional new companies, resulting in hundreds of millions of new jobs. In some cases a visionary government explicitly enabled the creation of new legal systems. In other cases, an entrepreneurial group negotiated with a government to obtain the right to create just one. In most cases, entrepreneurs used the existing international legal framework as a foundation in which to contractually create an entrepreneurial legal system. In each case, the new legal system liberated dozens, then hundreds, and ultimately thousands of new entrepreneurs who had previously not had the legal safety and security to create new businesses.
As new Free Cities arose in nations around the world, millions of human beings who had previously had very limited options suddenly had an opportunity to obtain good jobs. The demand for jobs had started out much greater than the supply, so employers initially had some bargaining power. But as dozens, and then hundreds, of Free Cities came into being, all companies headed towards a situation in which “labor shortages” arose. Entrepreneurs eagerly competed and paid for human ability and character– in regions that once suffered perpetually high unemployment rates.
As the demand for skills and talents spread all around the world immigration pressures from poor to rich countries were reduced dramatically. Indeed, old rich countries and new Free Cities began to compete with each other, driving up wages for everyone. More importantly, as large numbers of angry, unemployed young men were no longer available for armies or mischief, levels of crime, violence, war and terrorism dropped precipitously.
At the same time, as the human race completed its move from predominantly rural to predominantly urban environments, the rate of innovation increased dramatically. As research from the Santa Fe Institute suggested early in the 21st century, doubling the size of a city increases the productivity of each human being an average of 15%. As small towns around the world became cities, human productivity increased tenfold, and then grew beyond that.
Not only did the world’s new Free Cities stimulate new products and services, they led to a flowering of cultural innovations. Whereas previous iterations of the “experience” economy had been limited to retail and entertainment outlets within a tiny environment, a new generation of entrepreneurs crafted entire communities, legal systems, schools, and health care systems, each tailored to specific cultural demands and ideals. There were communities and new experiences based on every principle imaginable, many that were not possible to imagine from the primitive perspective of the early 21st century. These Free Cities ended up competing with each other not just for citizens, but to provide the most deeply satisfying lives possible to the widest variety of people around the world.
As audacious and distant as this vision may sound, the Free Cities Institute has a path to get us there, starting today.
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