Me con the check for the recent essay prize in Liechtenstein (that small country between Switzerland and Austria).
The very tall man on my left is the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein Hans-Adam II, a monarch with some real political power. He said that deep in his heart, he’s an anarchist, though he was born the head of state. Accordingly he has for the last decades attempted to make the state as small as possible—extremely low taxation, low government spending, minimal regulation, etc. In 2003 he reformed the constitution of Liechtenstein so that any of the small communities of about 1000 people in the country can decide to secede from Liechtenstein and become their own sovereign country or join Switzerland or whatever. This is probably the closest thing in the world to a post-statist libertarian society consisting of private communities and voluntary associations. And Hans-Adam II wrote about the end of the nation-state in a recent book that actually looks quite good. From the Amazon summary:
He observes that citizens should no longer be viewed as servants of the state, but rather that states be converted into benevolent service companies which serve the people as their customers.
Anyway, here is my winning essay.
(via thediamondage)
