The Seasteading Institute is an organization promoting the construction of dwellings and communities offshore in the ocean, outside the territorial limits of any country. It was co-founded by Patri Friedman, who described its mission as “homesteading the high seas” and building new societies on what he called the next frontier for human advancement. Seasteading (2009)
Founding and mission
Friedman presented seasteading as a response to a world in which “every bit of land has already been claimed by some government,” leaving no blank canvas for trying new social systems. He proposed forming micro-countries offshore, outside the territorial limits of any other country, and described the existing industry of government as having “a few large firms, the current 150 countries or so, that are huge, much too big to innovate.” The goal was to let people start many small countries that would be more experimental, creating what he called government startups. Seasteading (2009)
Bob Zadek characterized the project as a “sea-based Silicon Valley incubator for new countries,” a framing Friedman accepted, saying he wanted government to resemble Silicon Valley, where many people try different things and customers can easily switch, producing an innovative and competitive industry. Seasteading (2009)
Funding and philosophy
The institute’s initial funding came from Peter Thiel, whom Friedman described as the founder of PayPal, the first investor in Facebook, and an early investor in LinkedIn. Friedman said Thiel was a free-market supporter who had given up on conventional politics and saw the possibility of fixing social problems through new technology. Seasteading (2009)
Friedman’s argument rested on competition: politicians are corrupt because they have no competition, because new countries cannot be started, and because current countries do not compete for citizens. If technology allowed people to do country startups, he argued, those startups would learn innovative ways of running a country, and existing countries would have to improve in order to compete. Seasteading (2009)
Zadek raised the question of patriotism and whether abandoning one’s country was justified. Friedman responded that it was a personal question, noting that government spending as a percent of GDP in the United States had risen past Canada’s. He said that if what one loved was the principles of small government, non-interference and federalism, then starting something new could benefit those who stayed, because competition from other countries would force the United States to be a better place to live. Seasteading (2009)
Zadek also introduced the Free State Project as an intermediate example of experimenting with different lifestyles, describing it as a concept started by a professor in Buffalo named Jason Sorens, who identified New Hampshire as a target state and promoted a commitment by 20,000 libertarians to move there. Seasteading (2009)
Later development
By 2017, Joe Quirk had become president of the Seasteading Institute and had co-authored a book titled Seasteading with Patri Friedman, described as the grandson of Milton Friedman. Quirk said he was also co-founder of Blue Frontiers, which planned to start on a very small scale in French Polynesia, establishing small floating islands with significant regulatory and administrative autonomy. Michael Strong on Creating a World in Which All Humanity Flourishes (2017)
Quirk placed seasteading in a historical sequence of city-states, citing ancient Greece, Venice, the Hanseatic League and the American frontier, and argued that the mechanism driving improved government is the liberty of people to choose among different governance entities. He noted that more than 4,000 special economic zones exist worldwide, vastly outnumbering city-states, and that 45% of the world’s surface is unclaimed by any existing nation-state. Michael Strong on Creating a World in Which All Humanity Flourishes (2017)
In 2020, Quirk said the first seastead had been built off the coast of Thailand, with more planned for sale in Panama through a company called Ocean Builders, and that startup societies would be started along the equator on the high seas. He summarized the institute’s pitch with the phrase “vote to float,” arguing that “we don’t need political voice if we have political choice.” Vote to Float (2020)
On that episode, Zadek framed the discussion around zones—political units existing within or without countries that are politically independent of their physical surroundings—and welcomed Tom W. Bell, a lawyer with a JD from the University of Chicago and author of Your Next Government? From the Nation State to Stateless Nations, as co-guest alongside Quirk. Vote to Float (2020)
From seasteading to charter cities
In 2022, Zadek noted that more than a decade earlier Friedman had co-founded the Seasteading Institute and shared his concept of governments competing for citizens, and that Friedman had recently founded Pronomos Capital, seeking to create a new model for urban development where the city is the product. Zadek pointed to Governors DeSantis and Newsom trying to induce each other’s citizens to move as evidence that Friedman had been onto something. Patri Friedman’s Plan to Accelerate the Free Cities of the Future (2022)
Across episodes: exit and competition
The same core argument—that competition among jurisdictions improves governance—runs through all four episodes, but the institutional vehicle changes. In 2009, Friedman presented seasteading itself as the mechanism, describing offshore micro-countries as government startups and comparing them to Silicon Valley. Seasteading (2009) By 2017, Quirk was situating seasteading within a broader history of city-states and special economic zones and pointing to Blue Frontiers in French Polynesia as a concrete first step. Michael Strong on Creating a World in Which All Humanity Flourishes (2017) By 2020, Quirk cited a built seastead off Thailand and planned communities in Panama, while the conversation expanded to include zones and Bell’s work on stateless nations. Vote to Float (2020) By 2022, Friedman had moved to Pronomos Capital and land-based charter cities, with Zadek noting the shift from seasteading to that new model. Patri Friedman’s Plan to Accelerate the Free Cities of the Future (2022) What changed across the episodes is the emphasis: from floating micro-nations as the primary goal, to seasteading as one instance of a wider movement for competitive governance, to land-based charter cities as the vehicle Friedman himself pursued.
What the sources do not cover
The excerpts do not state the Seasteading Institute’s founding date, its legal structure, or its current status. They do not describe the outcome of the Blue Frontiers project in French Polynesia, the Ocean Builders community in Panama, or the Thailand seastead beyond Quirk’s mention. No excerpt states what became of Pronomos Capital or specifies the terms of Peter Thiel’s funding. The excerpts also do not identify the specific legal regimes, statutes or court decisions governing seasteading or special economic zones.