by Jason Torchinsky
I am not sure why, but I long for things to be just slightly stranger than they are. I find myself hopefully latching onto every rumor or mumbled, poorly supported fact of supernatural occurrences I hear.
The desire is always with me, and I'm always disappointed as I find out that Jamie Lee Curtis really isn't a hermaphrodite, or that aliens didn't build a single pyramid, or that tennis balls don't really contain poisonous gas. And yet, then, just as I'm about to give up and accept the normalcy of life as a wonderful, interesting thing in its own right, along comes Mathias Rust, flying his Cessna into Red Square, or that woman whose body released that toxic smog, or some other true, genuine lunatic or event that gives me just enough hope. The Atlantis Project is one of these events.
I first heard of the Atlantis Project about a year and a half ago, when I was idly flipping through a copy of the Atlantic, wishing for a bagel and some lox to complete my northeastern Jewish intellectual look and hoping that somebody would see me and quietly wonder if I was a member of Mensa. As I self-consciously thumbed, I came across a two-page ad from the Pilkington Glass Company. Normally, ads from glass companies arrest my attention about the same way that small patches of moisture do, or perhaps a dropped grocery receipt.
But this one was different. It wasn't advertising glass at all. It was advertising this new plan to build an artificial island in the North Atlantic and have it be an independent country, called Oceania, with a government based on the teachings of people like Ayn Rand. Very few things published in the Atlantic are capable of making me do a double-take, but this was most of them.
The very idea of a new country being created out of virtually nothing compelled and excited me immensely. It made me question all of my previous notions about the concepts of a nation, freedom, and artificial islands. Then I pretty much forgot about it for about a year.
But now, after having located a new store of Oceania information, I'm amazed again. I have learned that now the location is a bit different, 50 miles off the eastern coast of Panama, but that crazy pack of whoevers is still planning to make their own sovereign nation.
When I try to talk to people about this, which I've been doing a lot lately, in lieu of having an interesting life to discuss, usually I'm treated to the same response:"They can't do that" people usually say.
"Why not?" I usually reply, with irritating smugness.
"Because..." they start, then they usually inhale in preparation to speak, then close their mouths again, then open their mouth again and inhale once more, then, after pausing, close their mouths finally and release their wasted breath out their nostrils. This happens because nobody knows why you can't start your own country. Sure, it's prohibitively expensive and time consuming, but, really, there's nothing that says you can't. Who would you have to ask? There's no one to get permission from. Even if you tried to ask the UN for some license or something, chances are they'd have no clue what to do and tell you to shove off, they've got enough problems of their own without little Napoleons like you bothering them.
This train of thought occurred also to the founder of Oceania, Eric Klien.
Eric Klien is the retired former computer programmer and investor who started the Atlantis Project officially in February, 1993. Klien is also 28, which seems quite young to be starting your own country, especially when you realize that I'm 23 and haven't even started a savings account.
Klien quit his computer programming job in Massachusetts in 1991, and moved to Nevada, where he felt that he would be free from oppressive government taxation. Klien had long been very libertarian, believing strongly in a large distance between a government and the people of a nation, especially in commerce. After a failed backing of a Nevada state senatorial candidate whom he felt was defrauded out of her victory, Klien gave up on America and resolved to start his own damn country, one based on the principles of remarkably limited government interaction and completely pure capitalism.
After checking into buying or leasing some islands, Klien decided that none offered him the complete sovereignty he was looking for, and instead came upon the idea of building his own, though some sources claim an Australian named Richard King was actually the first to propose the floating sea-city concept of Oceania. Whoever had the original concept, the amazing thing is nobody burst out laughing, clapped one another on the back and said "yeah, right." They're actually trying to do it.
From an engineering standpoint what "it" is is a horseshoe-shaped island, designed by Swedish architect Sten Sjostrand. The island will be composed of about 80 hexagonal units, each 1.6 acres in area, making for a total area of 128 acres, with an initial projected population of anywhere from 10-30,000. The modular construction will allow for theoretically unlimited expansion (well, within the area of the Atlantic). The artificial island will be located 50 miles east of Panama, in an area of ocean only 100 feet deep and known for its safety from hurricanes.
From an ideological standpoint, plans are equally strange. The original ad for Oceania I saw, the one paid for by the British Pilkington Glass company, whose association with Oceania I have yet to understand, mentioned that the influences on the country would be the teachings of people such as Ayn Rand, Austrian economist Ludvig von Mises and F.A.Hayeck. Perhaps the best known of these thinkers, at least to me, is Ayn Rand. Rand espoused a doctrine called objectivism, which pretty much pushed self-fulfillment in a capitalist society. She detested weakness and altruism, and regarded selfishness as a worthy trait. In short, she's not the kind of person you'd call to pick you up from the airport or help you move a sofa.
Yet she's exactly the kind of person who would love the pure-capitalism environment of Oceania, as described in their constitution, or at least revision 0.81 of their constitution. Perhaps the first constitution ever to have a software-like revision number, the 55-page constitution is also interesting in that it uses a new, gender-neutral pronoun convention, formed by removing the "th" from the plural pronouns. `Ey" is he/she, `eir' is him/her, em is him/her, and so on. Very progressive stuff from a country that, ironically, has the same name as the oppressive wasteland that was the setting for Orwell's 1984.
It is the right of every Oceanian citizen to do business, no matter what. The government can do nothing to impede this, which means no taxation, licensing, zoning, censoring, tariffs, anything. Drug use is legal, as is drug selling, prostitution, gambling, selling children, Swiss-type banking, genetic and reverse-engineering industries. Essentially any form of product or service sold or rented to gain currency or whatever is just fine. Pure capitalism. The government provides almost nothing. It will be up to private entities to issue money, provide education, fire protection, sanitation, police, transportation, child care, medicine, product testing and labeling, everything. Supply and Demand will be the tag team, uncontested leaders. A completely privatized society.
The constitution of Oceania gives an elaborate list of the services the government is strictly not allowed to do, to insure that later generations won't forget. Some of the entries are a bit odd, though, as one reads that the government will have no control over "Amateur and professional sports, including boxing." I suppose boxing has some sort of special Federal status here in the US I haven't been aware of. Jefferson probably liked it, or something.
The only crimes in Oceania are those with victims -- that is, everything's fun until someone gets hurt. The constitution contains very elaborate instructions concerning legal practices in Oceania -- apparently they are expecting a very litigious society--but then, again, it seems that the instructions need to be exhaustive, and they do outline a system that has taken great pains to be remarkably efficient and fair. It also seems to make sense to have a well-developed legal system in a society where it is completely legal to mine your property. Elements such as private courts, completely jury-controlled, one main Oceaninic Court, and bail hearings that are available on one-hour notice are all interesting elements. The contract is the key to everything, it seems. Everything, from marriages, to business relations, to the political relationship between governed and governing, is seen in terms of contractual obligations. It has the feel of running a country like a business, I suppose.
There is no extradition from Oceania either. If you're accused of a crime in another country, and hightail it to Oceania, you are tried in an Oceanian court, based on Oceanic law. This means if you're a drug dealer from Columbia and speedboat away from federalis to Oceania, then you won't even have to go to court. Based on this, it's kind of hard to imagine that most of the population of Oceania will remain philosophical economic idealists.
As would make sense in a purely capitalistic society, there will be no forms of welfare or subsidies or any government-funded help. This is only fair, as the government requires no taxes of any sort, and will only accept voluntary donations. The only thing in Oceania resembling any kind of free public works is a simple road-grid that must be maintained on the structure. These roads are only for travel-- you can't try to camp on them, and may not be used for profit, making them very likely little-used back roads.
It is this concept of welfare, of charity, that seems to be Oceania's biggest flaw. At various places in the constitution voluntary charity between citizens of Oceania is alluded to, such as paying the court costs of a poorer citizen, defending a child's or an animal's interests, giving donations to the government, and various other situations. None of these instances are unreasonable, and it is likely that such charity would go on. It is uncertain, specially in a country that so proudly endorses such schools of thought as Rand's objectivism.
In fact, it is still quite unclear how the Oceanian government will get any money at all. aside from the occasional reminder in the constitution that they will accept voluntary donations, most other types of fees and payments are to be made to private organizations, such as private courthouses, police stations, and the like. These fees to such private service companies are really only different from taxes in name.
For these people, maybe name is enough. I hope it is, as I would really love to see them actually get this crazy idea off the ground, and into the balmy Atlantic. If they pull this off, it's going to be like giving a blank check to the crazy, goofball lunatic who lurks within all of us, slinking about behind the kidneys, because now, no idea we can possibly have is going to seem too moronic, too asinine, or too hard to accomplish-- because somebody made their own country. Yeah, it'll be tough for me to build a rocket pack and fly to Tel Aviv, but if somebody can build a whole new country out of nothing but money and megalomania, why the hell not? Besides, it'll be somewhere else I can run when I really screw up and get kicked out of everywhere else.
Go to interview with Mike Oliver, founder of libertarian nation Minerva!