Marx vs. Ayn Rand: A Floating Galt's Gulch?

In Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged", Galt's Gulch is the place in the Colorado mountains where America's innovators, disgusted with government regulation, retreat from the world, resulting in apocalyptic economic collapse. But as this article reveals, it's not to the mountains that they're planning to escape, but to the sea.  It's called "seasteading", the creation of manufactured sovereign island nations in international waters to be populated by silicon valley libertarians. An organization called "The Seasteading Institute" promotes the concept.

The idea is to escape stifling government regulation. But wait, what do people like these silicon valley innovators actually do when they have the chance to create their own micro-environment, in condo developments and gated communities for example? Do they welcome non-conformists with open arms? Not exactly. What they actually do in such cases is impose increased regulation far beyond what government imposes. If you don't believe me, try starting a garage-based business in a gated community and see what happens. You'll be fined, restraining-ordered, and pretty much driven out of Dodge. It's highly ironic that some of the most famous silicon valley mega-stars started in garages in middle class neighborhoods, but once they struck gold, these same people moved to highly regulated communities that prohibit the very thing that enabled them to get started.

These so-called seasteads would inevitably suffer the same fate. Messy home-based start-ups would not be tolerated, nor any sort of real nonconformity. In fact, many creative types these days are gravitating to places that are anathema to libertarians: Boston and New York City. Supposedly suffering from stifling taxation and over-regulation, these cities are actually highly tolerant of disruptive innovators, especially immigrants. Compared to them, floating islands founded by silicon valley billionaires would be as dull and insipid as Palm Beach, hardly the sort of places to attract the brilliant nonconformists they themselves used to be. What everyone forgets is just this: the billionaire innovators, when they started, were poor. They didn't start out rich.

Floating enclaves created "of the rich, by the rich and for the rich" are unlikely to lead to anything even remotely interesting.