And they’ve always really wanted to create a community that would showcase what would happen if they implemented their principles on a broad scale. They’ve never been in charge of a nation, or a state, or even a city. I’d put it like this: There’s a national community of libertarians that has developed over the last 40 or 50 years, and they’ve never really had a place to call their own. How would you describe the “Free Town Project” to someone who doesn’t know anything about it? Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling I wanted to know what happened in New Hampshire, why the experiment failed, and what the whole saga can teach us not just about libertarianism but about the dangers of loving theory more than reality.Ī lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows. I reached out to Hongoltz-Hetling to talk about his book. Needless to say, utopia never arrived, but the bears did! (I promise I’ll explain below.) The movement was cooked up by a small group of ragtag libertarian activists who saw in Grafton a unique opportunity to realize their dreams of a perfectly logical and perfectly market-based community. The experiment was called the “Free Town Project” (it later became the “Free State Project”), and the goal was simple: take over Grafton’s local government and turn it into a libertarian utopia. Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling, author of a new book titled A Libertarian Walks Into a Bear, says it’s the “boldest social experiment in modern American history.” I don’t know if it’s the “boldest,” but it’s definitely one of the strangest. Something like this happened in the mid-2000s in a small New Hampshire town called Grafton. ![]() Listen to The Gray Area - a philosophical take on culture, politics, and everything in between with host Sean Illing - wherever you find podcasts
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |