Until seasteaders are able to bank their money with independent, ocean-going financial institutions, they may not be able to escape the taxman’s clutches.
You probably can't really escape the taxman's clutches anyway. It is mostly a matter of whom you pay, not if. Taxes exist to cover the costs of governing the people, providing infrastructure and services for the citizens and so on. Even if you can get unplugged from existing governments, someone has to pay for the infrastructure of the seastead and essential services. You can give it a different name, but charging your people to help pay these costs is basically the same thing as taxes. Not charging your people to help pay these costs would mean eventually sinking to the bottom of the ocean. These costs are likely to be relatively high, higher than what it takes to maintain roads and sewage and the like on land.
Unless a seastead were the size of Manhattan its citizens would have to forgo the cultural life, the parks and the wide choice of shopping and restaurants offered by large cities.
They might have to forego a lot of that anyway. I briefly considered applying for a job in Hawaii and I asked around regarding things like food in Hawaii (because I have special dietary needs). I was told basically that spam is a staple food, good luck getting meat and milk on a consistent/reliable basis as it sometimes isn't very available, things get flown in from far away so a lot of it is frozen not fresh, and what is available is quite pricey. There is plenty of sea food available, but I am allergic to shell fish and don't tolerate large quantities of fish well. In fact, I rarely eat fish.
A few years ago, I stayed in Port Aransas, Texas for a few days. I loved the place and have toyed with the idea of going back (as in living there). But I struggled to feed myself while there. There is a great deal of sea food and some very expensive restaurants and some real dives and a very limited grocery store. Given my dietary restrictions, these details made it a daily challenge to try to eat properly for my needs and I don't feel it really did an adequate job.
So if an island a short drive off the coast of Texas has challenges in offering "a wide choice of restaurants" and Hawaii has challenges with making sure food (in terms of variety and affordability) is consistently available, what on earth makes them think a floating platform will do better merely based on population size?
I was told basically that spam is a staple food, good luck getting meat and milk on a consistent/reliable basis as it sometimes isn't very available, things get flown in from far away so a lot of it is frozen not fresh, and what is available is quite pricey.
Uh. There are a lot of reasons why someone may not want to live in Hawaii, but availability of milk/meat/produce or the cost should not be one of them. I don't know why someone told you that, but Hawaii has to support a shockingly large tourist economy of people from places that don't eat seafood. Or spam.
In fact, I rarely, if ever, ate seafood or spam when I lived in Hawaii.
While it is more expensive than on the mainland, frankly it isn't that much different than the prices at your average Whole Foods. And as most fruit/vegetables grow year-round on Hawaii, they are not only fresher, but frankly taste better.
My second hand information about food in Hawaii may well be inaccurate and/or out of date. That wouldn't surprise me at all. It does, however, fit with my first-hand experiences in Port Aransas, which is also on an island and a largely tourist economy. Iirc: town of about 3000 and population can swell to 60k on weekends -- which is the only reason such a small town even has a grocery store when (as I understand it) you typically need about 10k to 15k local population to support a grocery store.
However, my main point was to suggest that food variety/restaurant variety and related "culture" may be limited (or only had at enormous expense -- and Hawaii isn't cheap) on a seastead anyway, regardless of size. I am curious if you think that point holds water.
" good luck getting meat and milk on a consistent/reliable basis "
Maybe in 1950. Or on Niʻihau. But on the bigger islands it is no problem. There is a giant Safeway in the Manoa neighborhood of Oahu that is just as good as the one on Townsend in SF and there are many Foodland grocery stores. I lived there as a broke postdoc and had no trouble.
Taxes exist to cover the costs of governing the people, providing infrastructure and services for the citizens and so on. Even if you can get unplugged from existing governments, someone has to pay for the infrastructure of the seastead and essential services.
Suppose a seasteading nation provided the same transportation, protection, defensive and other public goods as the US government. An eyeball estimate [1] suggests the cost would be 35% of what the US govt spends, and that's assuming the sea-based nation still pays for things like military adventurism and the war on drugs.
>An eyeball estimate [1] suggests the cost would be 35% of what the US govt spends, and that's assuming the sea-based nation still pays for things like military adventurism and the war on drugs.
Only if that eyeball is completely blind to economies of scale.
Which service, specifically, do you feel benefits significantly from economics of scale?
And since most of these services are provided by city governments, why would a town like Edison, NJ have economies of scale that a similarly sized sea-based nation would lack?
If one's main concern is taxes, they vary considerably within the US from one state to another. There are websites with good info on that. Here is just one: http://retirementliving.com/RLtaxes.html
Further, my best understanding is that for most jobs of the exact same type, it makes little or no difference to take the same job title elsewhere for more pay because in most cases the additional salary merely covers higher local cost of living. Those increased local costs of living are typically there due to more amenities (ie San Francisco is more expensive in part because there is more infrastructure, culture, etc there than in Nowhereville USA). Plus, people who are well off in a way that makes them highly mobile (some US retirees fit this descripton, even if not "wealthy" per se) so they can live just about anywhere they choose can already take advantage of doing things like moving south of the border.
I do understand the argument in the article about looking to escape existing governments. That's a very different motivation from wanting to escape/reduce taxes, which can to a large degree already be done without jumping through the hoops involved in seasteading.
You probably can't really escape the taxman's clutches anyway. It is mostly a matter of whom you pay, not if. Taxes exist to cover the costs of governing the people, providing infrastructure and services for the citizens and so on. Even if you can get unplugged from existing governments, someone has to pay for the infrastructure of the seastead and essential services. You can give it a different name, but charging your people to help pay these costs is basically the same thing as taxes. Not charging your people to help pay these costs would mean eventually sinking to the bottom of the ocean. These costs are likely to be relatively high, higher than what it takes to maintain roads and sewage and the like on land.
Unless a seastead were the size of Manhattan its citizens would have to forgo the cultural life, the parks and the wide choice of shopping and restaurants offered by large cities.
They might have to forego a lot of that anyway. I briefly considered applying for a job in Hawaii and I asked around regarding things like food in Hawaii (because I have special dietary needs). I was told basically that spam is a staple food, good luck getting meat and milk on a consistent/reliable basis as it sometimes isn't very available, things get flown in from far away so a lot of it is frozen not fresh, and what is available is quite pricey. There is plenty of sea food available, but I am allergic to shell fish and don't tolerate large quantities of fish well. In fact, I rarely eat fish.
A few years ago, I stayed in Port Aransas, Texas for a few days. I loved the place and have toyed with the idea of going back (as in living there). But I struggled to feed myself while there. There is a great deal of sea food and some very expensive restaurants and some real dives and a very limited grocery store. Given my dietary restrictions, these details made it a daily challenge to try to eat properly for my needs and I don't feel it really did an adequate job.
So if an island a short drive off the coast of Texas has challenges in offering "a wide choice of restaurants" and Hawaii has challenges with making sure food (in terms of variety and affordability) is consistently available, what on earth makes them think a floating platform will do better merely based on population size?