Trump’s “Freedom Cities” proposal is fundamentally aligned with and directly connected to the technology billionaire agenda for building network states—but with a crucial strategic difference: rather than relying on members to crowdfund land acquisition (Balaji Srinivasan’s original model), the Freedom Cities concept leverages federal land and executive power to bypass democratic approval processes entirely.wikipedia+2

The Network State Connection

In March 2023, Trump announced a plan to charter up to ten new “master-planned cities” on federal land, roughly the size of Washington D.C., to be awarded through a competitive process to development entities. The official campaign language—promising to “open up the American Frontier” and give “families and individuals a new shot at the American Dream“—is nearly identical to network state rhetoric. Most tellingly, technology billionaires and their advisors have been directly engaged in shaping Freedom Cities policy.techpolicy+1

The Peter Thiel Connection: The Freedom Cities initiative draws directly from the charter cities movement, which has been championed by Thiel protégés and allies. The Charter Cities Institute, working with the American Enterprise Institute and the Frontier Foundation, has been actively lobbying the Trump administration and drafting legislation to operationalize Freedom Cities. Trey Goff, chief of staff for Próspera (a Honduras-based charter city explicitly modeled on network-state principles and backed by tech investors), has briefed Trump administration officials directly on Freedom Cities implementation. Goff stated that “the energy in DC is absolutely electric” and that administration officials “feel empowered to pursue some of the ambitious ideas Trump has put forth.”chartercitiesinstitute+1

In other words, the Freedom Cities proposal is not an independent Trump invention; it is the tech billionaire / network state movement’s rebranding of their governance vision for mainstream political adoption.techpolicy​

How Freedom Cities Bypass Democracy More Effectively Than California Forever

California Forever’s failed strategy: The original California Forever plan sought to create a new incorporated city through a ballot measure in Solano County. The project acquired 65,000 acres of farmland for $900 million to $1 billion and proposed a phased development of up to 400,000 residents marketed under the banner of “affordable housing.”

In November 2024, the ballot measure failed due to “catastrophic polling”—voters were deeply skeptical that a billionaire-backed real estate venture would deliver actual affordability. The project then pivoted to annexation of existing Suisun City, which still requires municipal approval and environmental review.businessinsider+3

Freedom Cities’ more radical approach: The Trump proposal uses the federal government’s Property Clause—which grants Congress absolute authority to set rules on federal land—to create cities that would be completely exempt from nearly all federal environmental, healthcare, labor laws, and the tax code. Rather than seeking voter approval or even municipal permission, Freedom Cities can be created via:news.bloomberglaw+1​

1. Interstate compacts between states with pre-approved regulatory zones (not subject to congressional review for each city).
2. Federal enclaves designated by the executive branch with special jurisdictional status.
3. Executive orders directly establishing Freedom Cities.

This means California Forever had to ask voters whether they wanted a billionaire-planned city. Freedom Cities, by contrast, can be imposed on federal land without any local or national democratic vote.wired+2​

Housing Affordability: The Marketing Bridge

Both California Forever and Freedom Cities use “housing affordability” as their primary legitimacy claim, yet neither includes enforceable affordability mechanisms.

California Forever’s framing: After the ballot failure, the company repositioned itself as solving the “housing crisis” through “affordable homes in safe, walkable neighborhoods.” The Charter Cities Institute paper on Freedom Cities similarly emphasizes that “efficient, affordable housing is the backbone of any advanced economy” and promises “expanded living space for families, stabilized rents and home prices.”realtor+2​

The reality: Neither project defines “affordable,” sets income-based deed restrictions, or mandates long-term affordability covenants. “Affordability” is framed as an outcome of density and regulatory relief—i.e., if you remove zoning restrictions and let developers build fast, housing will become cheaper. This is an economic assumption, not a policy commitment. Once developed, Freedom Cities housing would likely price based on market rates, with no mechanism to preserve affordability for lower-income residents.chartercitiesinstitute+1​

Housing affordability language thus serves as a politically acceptable wrapper for what is fundamentally a private governance experiment—one where billionaires, not voters or elected officials, control land use, housing policy, labor standards, and environmental rules.ncrp

The National Park Land Appropriation Model

A particularly concerning aspect of Freedom Cities is the willingness to appropriate public lands and national parks for this purpose. The Freedom Cities Institute has identified the Presidio National Park in San Francisco as an ideal site for one of the ten cities.ncrp+1 (see below)

This represents a critical difference from network states that depend on crowdfunding members’ capital: if billionaires can convince the federal government to hand them national parks in exchange for “job creation” and “housing,” they have found a way to build network states without needing either member buy-in or democratic approval.news.bloomberglaw+1​

Academic research on “crypto spaces” documents patterns of this kind of appropriation: virtual blueprints for cities like Liberland and Cryptoland have been drawn up despite local authorities’ opposition; Bitcoin mining has operated near Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo despite conservation status. The lesson is that crypto-backed development projects, when given access to public or protected lands, tend to pursue extractive, parasitic relationships with those lands and communities.pure.hva​

Freedom Cities on federal or national park land would bypass:

• Environmental impact assessments (federal exemptions).
• Endangered Species Act protections (federal exemptions).
• National Parks Act oversight (federal Property Clause interpretation).
• Clinical trials for new drugs especially life extension drugs
• Local democratic input (federal enclaves bypass municipal approval).

The Cryptocurrency Dimension

The connection between Freedom Cities and cryptocurrency infrastructure is less explicit but increasingly clear. The Trump administration, advised by Thiel protégés and crypto advocates, is pursuing parallel paths:

1. Federal cryptocurrency legitimation: David Sacks (crypto czar) and allies are pushing the Senate to pass bills like CLARITY Act and GENIUS Act that normalize stablecoins and DAOs.thehill+1​
2. State-level DAO normalization: Wyoming’s DUNA law (2024) grants DAOs legal corporate status. Other states are being pushed to adopt similar frameworks. Andreessen Horowitz’s crypto advocacy arm explicitly frames this as a pathway to help DAOs “outcompete corporate networks” and “solidify the U.S.’ status as the crypto capital of the world.”a16zcrypto​
3. Freedom Cities as execution: Once DAOs have legal status and stablecoins are normalized, Freedom Cities’ exemption from federal law becomes the template for token-gated, blockchain-governed enclaves operating within U.S. territory.wired+1​

In this reading, Freedom Cities is not just a housing or deregulation policy; it is infrastructure for network states to operate on U.S. federal land with minimal oversight.techpolicy+1​

Three Pathways Converging on Post-Democracy

Technology billionaires are pursuing network-state governance through three simultaneous channels:ChannelExampleKey FeatureDemocratic BypassPrivate capitalCalifornia ForeverBillionaires buy land via market ($1B+ land purchase)Vote fails; pivot to municipal annexation still requires approvalPublic land appropriationFreedom CitiesFederal government grants exemptions on federal/national park landBypasses all local, state, environmental review via federal Property ClauseBlockchain/DAOCrypto regulatory normalization (DUNA, CLARITY Act, GENIUS Act)Token-gated governance, smart-contract law enforcementGovernance by capital, not citizenship; no equal voting rights

The California Forever failure was actually a lessons-learned moment for the network-state movement. It revealed that billionaires cannot rely on voluntary crowdfunding or even local electoral silence; they need explicit government permission to opt out of democratic rules. Freedom Cities is the resulting pivot: use executive power, federal land, and regulatory exemption to create network-state infrastructure without asking voters.ncrp+2​

Why This Matters

If Freedom Cities are implemented as proposed, the U.S. will have effectively created internal “special economic zones” governed by private entities with federal legal exemptions from labor, environmental, and healthcare law. These zones could then:wikipedia+1​

• Test blockchain-based governance and DAO structures without SEC/regulatory interference.
• Attract crypto-native populations and capital, creating physical network states with legal U.S. backing.
• Demonstrate that post-democratic, founder-centric governance is viable and scalable.
• Serve as templates for similar projects globally, undermining democratic governance norms.

The genius of the Freedom Cities rebranding is that it wraps a fundamentally anti-democratic network-state agenda in pro-housing, pro-growth, and “American frontier” language—making it palatable to voters and policymakers who would reject “network state” or “exit from democracy” framing directly.

U.S. support for cryptocurrency is difficult to separate from support for the technological backbone of anti‑democratic “network state” projects such as Freedom Cities. Crypto does more than enable speculation; in the network‑state vision it is the core infrastructure for building private, exit‑based quasi‑governments that compete with and undermine democratic states.[1][2][3][4]

Why crypto is fundamental to network states

Network‑state proponents like Balaji Srinivasan explicitly describe blockchains and cryptocurrencies as the backbone of new digital countries.[2][3][4][1]

• A network state is conceived as a “decentralized country” whose citizens are coordinated via on‑chain mechanisms: nodes, stakers, token‑holders, and smart contracts.[1][2]
• The movement’s own literature says blockchain technology “will allow the foundation of new societies that can eventually evolve into digital nations and states” and that a network state must be “backed by a cryptocurrency that acts as the ledger of truth and the backbone of its economy.”[3]
• The lifecycle Balaji sketches—online community → “network union” → “network archipelago” owning land → diplomatically recognized network state—is explicitly built on tokenized treasuries, on‑chain membership, and smart‑contract governance.[4][2][3]

In this design:

• Money, identity, and law are all on‑chain. Tokens define who is “in,” how much voice they have, and how resources are allocated.
• Exit replaces democratic voice. If you dislike the rules, you are supposed to sell your tokens and leave; there is no guarantee of equal suffrage or constitutional rights, just market exit.[2][3]
• Censorship‑resistant rails are not just about protecting dissidents; they are framed as protection for secessionist communities from democratic states that might regulate or tax them.[3][2]

So if the U.S. aggressively normalizes and strengthens these rails without constraint, it is not just supporting a payments innovation; it is investing in the core infrastructure of projects whose goal is to route around democratic institutions and eventually claim sovereign standing.

Why this is anti‑democratic

The network‑state model is anti‑democratic in at least three structural ways:

• Governance by capital, not citizens. Decision rights are tied to token holdings and founder authority, not to the equal citizenship typical of constitutional democracies. Wealth concentration becomes political power by design.[2][3]
• Exit over accountability. There are no robust mechanisms for citizens to change the rules collectively; the primary “check” on authority is the ability to leave, which only the relatively wealthy and mobile can realistically exercise.[3][2]
• Jurisdictional arbitrage. These entities explicitly aim to pick jurisdictions, regulators, and legal obligations à la carte, seeking places where democratic safeguards—labor law, environmental rules, taxation, civil‑rights protections—are weakest.[2][3]

In that sense, a fully crypto‑enabled network‑state ecosystem becomes a political technology stack for oligarchy: small founder/investor groups controlling communities via smart contracts, with public law and democratic oversight pushed to the margins.

If the U.S. wants to defend democracy, it should be wary of building and subsidizing technologies whose leading political use‑case is to create private, borderless, minimally accountable polities.

What crypto lobbyists want Washington to do

The crypto industry is now one of the most aggressive lobbying forces in Washington:

• In just the first half of 2025, crypto firms spent more than $18.4 million on federal lobbying—on track to beat 2024’s record spending.[5]
• At least 27 crypto companies or advocacy groups filed first‑ever lobbying disclosures this year across about 20 firms, reflecting a rapid expansion of influence.[6][5]

Their goals cluster around three themes:

1. Regulatory “clarity” that favors the industry

• The industry backs bills like the CLARITY Act, a market‑structure bill that would hand oversight of many digital assets to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)—an agency widely seen as more permissive than the SEC.[5][6]
• Lobbyists want many tokens deemed commodities, not securities, shrinking SEC jurisdiction and easing compliance burdens.[7][8]

1. Favorable treatment for stablecoins and private rails

• The GENIUS Act, a bipartisan bill signed by President Trump in 2025, created a federal framework for dollar‑pegged stablecoins, which crypto firms view as a major green light for their business model.[9][6]
• Crypto lobbyists are pushing the Senate to advance the CLARITY Act and to pass laws that prohibit a Federal Reserve–issued central bank digital currency (CBDC), because a public digital dollar would be a direct competitor to private stablecoins.[10][6]

1. Blocking public alternatives and preserving the private moat

• Industry groups support bills or policy language that ban or limit a Fed CBDC, frame it as “surveillance money,” and instead channel traffic through privately issued dollars on crypto rails.[6][10]
• They seek bank‑like treatment and access to payment systems (sometimes even national charters) without taking on full bank‑level regulation.[10]

In short, the lobby is not asking for modest experimentation at the edges; it is asking Congress to lock in crypto as a core, privately controlled layer of the financial system and to weaken public options that might compete with or constrain it.

Key crypto bills currently in or near the Senate

Several major federal bills shape—or would shape—the crypto environment:

• GENIUS / GENIUS Act (stablecoins)
• A bipartisan stablecoin bill that passed the House and was signed by President Trump, establishing a federal framework for dollar‑pegged stablecoins.[9][6]
• It is viewed by the industry as a strong endorsement that private dollar‑linked tokens should play a significant role in U.S. finance.[6]
• CLARITY Act (digital asset market structure)
• A House‑passed bill that defines which digital assets fall under the SEC vs. CFTC and moves many into the CFTC’s orbit, aligning with industry preferences.[5][6]
• Key Senate Republicans have released a draft version; crypto firms are lobbying hard for Senate passage.[5]
• Lummis–Gillibrand Responsible Financial Innovation Act (RFIA) [S.2281]
• A broad, bipartisan Senate bill that builds a detailed regulatory framework for digital assets, including definitions of “ancillary assets,” significant CFTC authority over spot markets, and registration paths meant to normalize crypto businesses.[8][7]
• Lummis–Gillibrand Payment Stablecoin Act [S.4155]
• A Senate bill creating a regulatory regime for payment stablecoins, with the stated goal of preserving dollar dominance while encouraging “responsible innovation.”[8]
• CBDC prohibition bills
• Various proposals, supported by the crypto lobby, aim to prohibit or sharply limit the Federal Reserve from issuing a retail CBDC, entrenched as a way to protect private stablecoin businesses from public competition.[10][6]

Taken together, these bills push the U.S. toward institutionalizing crypto and stablecoins as core infrastructure rather than treating them as speculative fringe products.

Argument: Why the U.S. should not support crypto in this context

Given these facts, a democracy‑focused argument against supporting cryptocurrency looks like this:

1. Crypto is not politically neutral infrastructure.
   Its most ambitious political use case, as articulated by its own leading ideologues, is to build “network states” that bypass and ultimately supplant democratic governments, with token‑based, capital‑weighted governance and limited rights for non‑founders. Supporting crypto at scale is not just supporting “innovation”; it is supporting the core rails for anti‑democratic sovereignty projects.[4][1][3][2]
2. The architecture locks in oligarchic control.
   Smart‑contract–based polities structurally tie power to token holdings and founder control, with exit as the only recourse. That is the opposite of one‑person‑one‑vote democracy and makes it nearly impossible for the poor, indebted, or rooted to participate on equal footing. Building public policy around such rails risks entrenching de facto plutocratic microstates alongside or even inside the republic.[3][2]
3. Lobbyists are steering Congress toward industry‑written rules.
   With record $18M‑plus lobbying in half a year, and dozens of firms entering the influence game, the crypto lobby is pressing for exactly the legal regime network‑state builders want: stable, lightly regulated private currencies, CFTC‑dominated oversight, and a ban on public digital alternatives (like a CBDC) that might embed democratic constraints. This is a textbook case of regulated entities writing their own rules, not of neutral technology policy.[6][10][5]
4. Public digital money could meet legitimate needs without secessionist side effects.
   If the U.S. wants faster, programmable, interoperable payments, it can pursue:

• A carefully designed public or quasi‑public real‑time payments system or CBDC with democratic oversight, privacy protections, and explicit civil‑rights guarantees.
• Regulated, bank‑linked digital accounts that are subject to elections, administrative law, FOIA, and judicial review.
  These approaches deliver many of the efficiency benefits that crypto promises but without handing critical monetary and identity rails to private, secessionist‑inclined actors.

1. Democracy must not underwrite tools built to escape it.
   Supporting crypto as a primary financial rail, in light of the network‑state agenda, means subsidizing a technological pathway for wealthy actors to exit from democratic obligations—taxation, labor standards, environmental rules—while retaining all the protections of U.S. nationality and markets. A democracy that voluntarily empowers an infrastructure of private, borderless, minimally accountable “states” is eroding its own sovereignty.[2][3]

On this analysis, a democracy‑protective stance would be:

• Freeze further legal expansion of crypto’s role in core payments and banking until there is a clear firewall between legitimate, regulated uses and explicitly anti‑democratic, network‑state projects.
• Oppose bills that favor private stablecoins over a public digital dollar, especially CBDC bans pushed by self‑interested lobbyists.[10][6]
• Channel innovation into public and cooperatively governed systems rather than private, token‑gated polities.

The U.S. may reasonably tolerate crypto as a niche speculative asset, but it has strong reasons not to endorse or entrench it as foundational infrastructure—because that infrastructure is already being weaponized, conceptually and practically, to build post‑democratic network states.[1][4][3][2]

Sources
[1] Balaji Srinivasan on the Network State: Takeaways From His Talk at …
[2] We need network societies, not network states
[3] The Network State by Balaji Srinivasan — How To Start a Digital …
[4] The Network State
[5] Crypto Industry Is Spending More on Lobbying Than Ever – Sludge
[6] Crypto lobbying skyrockets under Trump; 27 firms file first-ever …
[7] Senator Gillibrand Calls for Clear Rules on Digital Assets and Firm …
[8] US Crypto Tracker Legislative Developments – Latham & Watkins LLP
[9] Gillibrand Statement On House Passage Of The Genius Act
[10] Wall Street faces a reckoning in Washington as crypto influence grows

Presidio National Park Freedom City

The Presidio is legally part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area (GGNRA), just like Alcatraz, and its long, layered history that should make it one of the least plausible and most controversial candidates for a “Freedom City.”wikipedia+2 And yet it is the primary target for Trump’s 10 Freedom City proponents.

Where the Presidio fits in the park system

• The Presidio of San Francisco sits at the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge and has been part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area since 1994, managed jointly by the National Park Service (NPS) and the Presidio Trust.nps+2​
• GGNRA includes Alcatraz Island, Fort Point, Muir Woods, Ocean Beach, Marin Headlands, and other units; the Presidio is one of these units and is also a National Historic Landmark District.npshistory+2​

In park terms, Presidio and Alcatraz sit under the same GGNRA umbrella, even though Presidio has its own special management structure.

History of the Presidio

Key phases:presidio+3​

• Indigenous era: The land was home to the Yelamu, a local group of the Ramaytush Ohlone people.
• Spanish period (from 1776): Founded as a Spanish military garrison on September 17, 1776, as the northernmost outpost of New Spain in western North America, supporting Mission Dolores and defending the bay.wikipedia+2​
• Mexican period (1821–1846): After Mexican independence, the Presidio became a Mexican military post for about 24 years.nps+1​
• U.S. Army period (1846–1994):
  • Seized by the U.S. during the Mexican–American War in 1846; became the main Army post guarding the West Coast.
  • Hosted major commands and generals (Sherman, Pershing, others); oversaw campaigns in the West and the Aleutians.
  • Fort Point (at the base of the Golden Gate inside the Presidio) became a key 19th‑century coastal fortification.
  • Intensively used in World War II as a headquarters, deployment, and training hub for Pacific operations.npshistory+2​
• National park era (since 1994): The base closed in 1994; it was folded into GGNRA and entrusted partly to the Presidio Trust, which has rehabilitated over 80% of the buildings and 60% of landscapes for housing, offices, and public uses.presidio+1​

Current (non–Freedom City) plans for the Presidio

Outside the Freedom City talk, the Presidio has a clear, incremental plan: preserve, adapt, and lightly infill, not erase.sfchronicle+2​

• The Presidio Trust is restoring historic buildings and landscapes and leasing them for housing, offices, cultural uses, and hospitality, to generate revenue that keeps the park “beautiful, safe and clean…with no entrance fees, forever.”presidio​
• A recent example: in 2025 the Trust advanced plans for the first new ground‑up housing in 20 years—a 196‑unit, six‑building apartment complex on a 4.6‑acre site in the former Letterman General Hospital district.sfchronicle​
  • The project replaces non‑historic 1970s buildings with low‑scale structures designed to match the Presidio’s utilitarian, military vernacular.
  • Units are mostly studios and 1–2 bedrooms, intended to diversify a housing stock that is currently dominated by 3‑ to 5‑bedroom family units.
  • The stated goals: add residents, restore a historic district, and strengthen the revenue base that supports the park.presidio+1​

Planning documents stress: preserve the historic district, repair underused areas, enhance trails, and keep the campus pedestrian‑oriented and park‑like. None of this resembles wholesale redevelopment into a tabula‑rasa “Freedom City.”presidio+1​

Why the Presidio is compelling for visitors

For an architect:presidio+2​

• Cohesive military vernacular: simple, utilitarian barracks, officers’ quarters, and support buildings in consistent colors and proportions.
• Adaptive reuse case study: historic structures turned into housing (Presidio Landmark), offices (Letterman Digital Arts Center), inns, and museums while maintaining district coherence.
• Urban design in a park context: careful insertion of new low‑rise housing and paths into a protected cultural landscape.

For a historian:presidio+3​

• Continuous military history from Spanish empire to U.S. Cold War.
• Material record of U.S. expansion, wars with Native peoples, Pacific wars, and the evolution of U.S. coastal defense (Fort Point, gun batteries, command posts).
• Rich archives and interpretive exhibits on Ohlone history, Spanish colonization, Mexican governance, and U.S. Army operations.

For other visitors:

• Trails, overlooks, and beaches with views of the Golden Gate Bridge, the Bay, and the Pacific.
• Cultural sites like the Walt Disney Family Museum, the Presidio Officers’ Club, public art, and varied event programming.wikipedia+2​

It’s both an outdoor recreation area and a living museum of layered urban and military history.

Freedom City talk and opposition

There is no formal federal decision to designate the Presidio as a Freedom City, but it has been floated in think‑tank and op‑ed circles as a potential site; this has already sparked pushback in the Bay Area.

• An opinion piece in December 2024 asked whether San Francisco should build a Trump “Freedom City” in the Presidio, explicitly raising the idea of replacing a large portion of the park with Paris‑style mid‑rise housing for up to 120,000 residents.reddit+1​
• Local commentary (including urbanist and YIMBY circles) has been sharply divided:
  • Some argue that, in a severe housing crisis, even the Presidio should be densified.
  • Many others—including people who normally favor up‑zoning—call the idea “utterly ridiculous,” stressing the Presidio’s historic and park value and urging that infill focus on vacant city lots instead.sfchronicle+1​

So while there is not yet an organized national campaign specifically branded “Stop the Presidio Freedom City,” there is already a vocal local movement in San Francisco public discourse opposing the idea of wiping out or radically densifying the Presidio for a Freedom City–style project. The existing Presidio Trust plan—small infill, historic rehabilitation, park revenue sustainability—functions as a de facto alternative vision.reddit+1​

Would all structures be removed for a Freedom City?

The think‑tank Freedom City concept, as applied to the Presidio, is loosely sketched and not an adopted plan. However, the logic of that concept is large‑scale redevelopment, not surgical infill:

• Freedom City advocates speak of bringing “Paris‑like density” and accommodating ~120,000 residents in six‑story buildings across much of the Presidio.sfchronicle+1​
• At that scale, maintaining the Presidio primarily as a historic park and military district becomes incompatible; large numbers of existing structures would need to be removed or radically altered, and open landscapes heavily built over.

By contrast:

• The actual Presidio Trust projects (like the 196‑unit Letterman district infill) explicitly replace only non‑historic 1970s structures and preserve the overall historic pattern; they retain the park identity and National Historic Landmark status.sfchronicle+1​

So if the Presidio were truly designated as one of ten Freedom Cities under an aggressive interpretation of federal authority, it would almost certainly mean:

• Extensive demolition or overbuilding of existing structures,
• Fundamental alteration of historic landscapes, and
• A sharp break with current NPS/Presidio Trust policy.

Right now, however, that remains a speculative scenario. The active, implemented plan is the Presidio Trust’s slow‑build, preservation‑centered program—not wholesale replacement with a Freedom City.presidio+2

Techno-Billionaires, End-Stage Democracy, and the Ideological Rejection of Self-Governance

Your question identifies a critical contemporary phenomenon: a self-conscious movement among technology billionaires to reject democratic governance as incompatible with freedom and progress. This is not incidental criticism but rather articulated ideology with growing real-world implementation. The intellectual and practical dimensions reveal a coherent—if concerning—worldview about why democracy supposedly fails and what should replace it.

I. The Core Philosophical Claim: Democracy Incompatible with Freedom

Peter Thiel crystallizes the billionaire position most explicitly: “I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” This is not a casual observation but a deliberate ideological stance undergirding his vast political spending and venture capital decisions. Thiel further clarifies: “I stand against confiscatory taxes, totalitarian collectives…I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.”[1][2][3]

The argument proceeds from a specific premise: democracy requires redistribution to maintain legitimacy among the non-wealthy majority. Taxation appears to Thiel as “confiscatory” (governmental theft), and redistribution as coercive. Therefore, a truly free society cannot tolerate democratic mechanisms that permit the many to vote for transfers from the few. This logic inverts classical liberal theory: freedom requires protection from democracy rather than through democracy.[1]

Thiel’s ideal alternative appears in his writing explicitly: a society “led by a small elite—men, wealthy entrepreneurs, preferably—where technology and individualism are exalted.” His 2014 book Zero to One declared monarchy the best form of government. This is not metaphorical; it reflects a genuine rejection of egalitarian governance.[1]

The replacement mechanism Thiel envisions is technological domination: “you could unilaterally change the world without having to constantly convince people and beg people and plead with people who are never going to agree with you through technological means, and this is where I think technology is this incredible alternative to politics.” Technology becomes the tool bypassing democratic deliberation entirely.[3]

II. The Intellectual Foundation: Curtis Yarvin and Neoreactionary “Dark Enlightenment”

Behind Thiel’s polished venture capital rhetoric lies a more radical intellectual tradition originating with Curtis Yarvin, a San Francisco software engineer writing under the pseudonym “Mencius Moldbug.”[4][5][6]

In 2008, Yarvin published “Patchwork: A System for 21st Century Governance,” proposing to replace traditional nation-states with a “global spider-web of tens, even hundreds of thousands of sovereign mini-countries, each managed by its own joint-stock corporation, disregarding public opinion.” This is not novel political theory but rather an explicit rejection of democratic principle: governance structures that deliberately ignore the preferences of governed populations.[4]

The core mechanism is “exit” rather than “voice.” In this model, dissatisfied citizens cannot vote to change their government; they must relocate to a different micro-state. Yarvin describes his vision: “If residents disapprove of their government, they can and should relocate. The model is entirely about ‘exit,’ not ‘voice.'” In other words, democracy (voice—voting to change systems) is abandoned entirely in favor of market mechanisms (exit—choose which corporate-governed territory to inhabit).[7][8][4]

The intellectual genealogy is crucial: Yarvin founded what became the “Dark Enlightenment” movement, a neoreactionary intellectual tradition that became foundational to the alt-right. Yarvin’s blog “Unqualified Reservations” circulated among Silicon Valley libertarians, and he explicitly encouraged readers to “take the red pill,” adopting the Matrix metaphor of awakening to hidden reality.[6][9]

Critically, Yarvin’s ideology is not merely anti-democratic but explicitly rooted in pseudoscientific racism: “human biodiversity” claims that intelligence is genetically determined by race, with white people congenitally smarter than Black and Brown people. His historical revisionism includes claims that “Nazi Germany acted in preemptive self-defense against the nefarious scheming of Stalin and FDR.” These are not peripheral to his framework but central to its logic: inequality is natural and rooted in biological difference, making democratic redistribution not merely economically foolish but biologically pointless.[5]

III. Network States: The Contemporary Tech Billionaire Alternative

The latest iteration comes from Balaji Srinivasan, former CTO of Coinbase, who popularized the concept of “network states” as a replacement for traditional nation-states. A network state, in his formulation, is “a highly aligned online community with a capacity for collective action that crowdfunds territory around the world and eventually gains diplomatic recognition from pre-existing states.”[8][10][11][12]

The model explicitly applies corporate organizational structure to political governance: “society run by Silicon Valley” in Srinivasan’s phrase, with the network state as “Society-as-a-Service” (SaaS). Governance occurs via blockchain, digital identity verification, and smart contracts—technological systems where “code is law” and democratic deliberation is unnecessary.[10][11]

Like Yarvin’s framework, Srinivasan emphasizes exit over voice: if you disagree with your network state’s governance, you exit and join (or create) another aligned community. He frames this as more honest than traditional democracy: “If you like your country, you can keep it,” but those dissatisfied need not agitate for change but simply leave. The promise is frictionless political choice—politics as consumer preference.[11][8]

The illusion of exit, however, reveals the fundamental problem with this framework. True exit requires either vast wealth (to purchase territory) or joining existing communities already owned by others. Geographic territory and resources cannot be exited; they remain subject to existing states’ sovereignty. What appears as “exit” for the wealthy becomes permanent residence for the non-wealthy—a reproduction of feudalism where lords control territory and commoners are bound to land. Srinivasan’s own analysis contradicts his conclusion: he notes that as tech startups scale beyond founder autonomy, they develop hierarchy, bureaucracy, and policies—the very ossification he claims exit solves. Yet this pattern repeats identically at state scale, producing not liberation but techno-feudalism.[11]

IV. Elon Musk: Democracy as Inefficiency

Elon Musk operationalized these ideas through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a term coined by Thiel in 2016 and materialized under Trump beginning January 2025. DOGE’s mission was stark: massive government dismantling ($2 trillion in cuts from a $7 trillion budget) achieved through what the U.S. press described as “an attempt to hack the federal government.”[13][1]

Within weeks, “DOGE kids”—young software engineers—”swarmed federal agencies,” demanding full access to government data and systems. This was not traditional budget negotiation but technological takeover of government functions, embedding engineers in key agencies who remained after Musk’s departure within four months.[1]

Musk’s philosophical position is revealing: he admires China’s decision-making speed and explicitly envies China’s governmental structure where a centralized leader (or standing committee) can implement policy without democratic constraint. He views democratic deliberation as an obstacle to technological transformation. His statement that he would embrace a government of “high-status males” reflects Yarvin’s vision: governance by a self-selected elite based on presumed merit (technological talent, wealth, status).[14][15]

The accelerationist logic is transparent: democracy is too slow. Consensus-building, public deliberation, accountability mechanisms—these are friction preventing the rapid technological transformation Musk believes necessary. In his view, technology requires decisiveness that democracy cannot deliver.

V. Effective Accelerationism: Technological Determinism as Ideology

The intellectual crystallization of this worldview appears in the Effective Accelerationism (e/acc) movement, led publicly by venture capitalist Marc Andreessen and articulated in the “Techno-Optimist Manifesto.”[16][17][18][19]

The manifesto’s central claims are starkly anti-democratic:[19][16]

• “Markets—free people making free choices—are the proper determinant of which technologies are created and deployed” (rejecting democratic regulation)
• “We oppose the philosophy of the unproductive ‘steady state'” (rejecting sustainability and caution)
• “We are pro-civilization and thus we are focused on the private sector” (implying civilization requires absence of public governance)
• “We believe the techno-capital machine…may be the most pro-human thing there is”

The movement’s epistemic strategy is revealing: critics of acceleration are labeled “decels” or “doomers,” terms designed to frame skepticism not as reasonable caution but as irrationality or pessimism. This creates epistemic authoritarianism: questioning the accelerationist narrative becomes not just incorrect but morally suspect.[18][16]

E/acc embraces technological determinism: the belief that innovation follows a predetermined path that humans cannot meaningfully shape. Resistance is therefore futile and foolish. This reproduces the logic of historical determinism—Marxism’s “inevitable revolution,” free-market fundamentalism’s “invisible hand”—each of which silenced debate by claiming historical inevitability.[16]

The movement is not merely anti-democratic but explicitly fascistic in structure:[13][16]

• Glorifies speed and power over deliberation and equity
• Frames democratic oversight as weakness preventing progress
• Celebrates the will of technological “pioneers” over collective wisdom
• Positions a self-selected elite as arbiters of humanity’s future
• Dismisses those who disagree as obstacles to inevitable progress
• Creates a moral calculus “indifferent or even hostile to individual and collective human flourishing”

VI. The Structural Argument: Why Billionaires No Longer Need Democracy

Beyond ideological positioning, there exists a material argument for why tech billionaires increasingly reject democracy: they no longer need democratic legitimacy to maintain power.[15][13]

Classical democratic theory assumes that elites depend on the consent and productivity of broader populations. Workers must be enfranchised to maintain economic productivity and social stability. Redistribution (through taxation and public services) becomes necessary to buy consent. This creates incentive for even wealthy elites to tolerate democratic mechanisms.[15]

But automation and AI fundamentally alter this equation. If artificial intelligence can replace human workers entirely, elites no longer require workers’ consent. Better data processing and surveillance capabilities reduce dependence on distributed decision-making; centralized algorithmic authority can replace democratic deliberation. As one analysis states: “Rising inequality, fueled by various ‘digital divides,’ widens the rift between a coming generation of tech trillionaires and the rest while also increasing the perceived cost of enfranchisement.”[13][15]

This creates a vicious cycle toward oligarchy:[15]

1. As inequality rises, the cost of redistribution (taxes required to maintain stability) rises exponentially
2. Elite opposition to redistribution becomes more aggressive (through political capture, lobbying, judicial influence)
3. This increases inequality further
4. Democratic institutions erode as elites dismantle mechanisms of wealth redistribution
5. Citizens lose faith in democracy when it fails to address inequality
6. Populists exploit disenchantment by further dismantling institutions
7. Governance becomes ever more concentrated, locked in by surveillance technology and computational control

The result is self-reinforcing democratic backsliding: “Eroding trust in public institutions may pave the way for populists who seek to further dismantle democratic structures…As democratic institutions become weaker and weaker, they will be even less capable of imposing redistributive and equalizing measures, further accelerating descent into autocracy and transfer of political power to those controlling the technologies they increasingly depend on.”[15]

VII. Real-World Implementation: From Theory to Practice

These are not merely intellectual arguments but are actively shaping U.S. governance:

Political Capture through Spending:[20][13][1]

• Peter Thiel donated $15 million to J.D. Vance’s Senate campaign; Vance is now Vice President with ties to neoreactionary ideology
• Crypto industry spent $263 million on 2024 elections, reaching 44% of all corporate spending, explicitly to “discipline lawmakers toward adopting industry’s preferred policies”
• These represent unprecedented scales of corporate political dominance

Government Infiltration:[21][1]

• Elon Musk embedded DOGE-aligned engineers in federal agencies after his tenure
• Trump administration awarded Palantir a $10 billion contract for a “super-database” aggregating information from all federal agencies with real-time surveillance of “migratory movements”
• This represents computational infrastructure for surveillance-based governance of a type totalitarian regimes have only dreamed of

Ideological Alignment:[13][1]

• Trump’s “Freedom Cities” proposal aligns directly with Thiel and Silicon Valley visions of privately-governed enclaves
• These would operate under corporate governance structures, not democratic mechanisms
• Prospera (Honduras), Praxis (backed by Thiel), and Metropolitan represent practical implementations of network state ideology

Institutional Erosion:[15]

• Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez explicitly accused tech billionaires of attempting to “overthrow democracy” in 2025
• Democratic backsliding metrics: 42 countries undergoing autocratization in 2023 alone; only 20% of democracies successfully avert breakdown once autocratization begins

VIII. Why This Represents a Fundamental Threat

The danger is not that individual billionaires hold anti-democratic views—wealthy individuals have always chafed against democratic constraints. The danger is systemic and structural:

First, wealth concentration reaches unprecedented scales: A handful of individuals control infrastructure (internet, satellites, AI systems, surveillance technology) upon which democratic participation depends. Amazon, Google, Meta, and others shape information flows and political discourse while being accountable to no one.[20][15]

Second, democracy itself is weakening as an institution: Trust in democratic institutions has collapsed. People increasingly see voting as futile, elections as rigged, and institutions as captured by special interests—because these observations have substantial truth. This creates a death spiral where democracy appears to deliver neither representation nor competence, making authoritarian alternatives seem plausible.[15]

Third, the technological tools for authoritarian control are now available: Facial recognition, financial tracking, real-time surveillance, predictive policing, algorithmic decision-making—these enable a form of automated totalitarianism that previous authoritarian regimes could only approximate through massive bureaucratic overhead. Combined with AI decision-making, these create the possibility of top-down control requiring minimal human participation.[21][13]

Fourth, there is genuine ideological coherence: This is not random billionaire caprice but rather a carefully articulated alternative vision drawing on neoreactionary theory, libertarian philosophy, technological determinism, and accelerationism. It has intellectual production, funding mechanisms, political organizations, and government infiltration. It is an organized movement, not scattered eccentricity.

IX. The “End-Stage Democracy” Narrative and Its Problems

The billionaires’ framing of democracy as “end-stage” rests on several claims worth examining:

The efficiency claim: “Democracy is slow and deliberative; we need speed.” This assumes speed toward technological innovation is the highest good. But democracy is slow intentionally, to allow deliberation, consideration of externalities, and protection of minorities. The speed Musk and others demand is speed toward whose vision of progress? Speed unconstrained by democratic input means speed toward whatever benefits those with control of technology—not necessarily speed toward shared flourishing.[2][14][16][13]

The exit claim: “People can choose their governance model through network states.” This assumes geographic territory is irrelevant; that politics is purely a matter of voluntary alignment. But land, water, minerals, productive capacity—the material basis of survival—remain geographically bounded. Exit works for the wealthy who can purchase entry to desirable territories; it condemns non-wealthy to whatever system accepts them. This is feudalism: serfs bound to land while lords trade territory.[12][11]

The “we’re smarter” claim: “Billionaires and technologists should govern because they’re more capable.” This assumes intelligence and technological competence translate to wise governance—an assumption contradicted by numerous billionaire ventures (Elon’s Twitter acquisition, cryptocurrency crashes, venture capital failures). Moreover, democratic governance is not primarily about intelligence but about legitimacy: who gets to decide what counts as progress, what risks are acceptable, whose interests matter. Democracy’s answer is “everyone has equal weight,” which appears to billionaires as unjust precisely because they believe themselves superior.[2][1][15]

X. Historical Parallels Worth Recognizing

The rhetoric and structures billionaires are building echo 20th-century fascism explicitly:[5][16][13]

• Glorification of speed, power, and decisiveness over deliberation
• Celebration of a self-selected elite as uniquely capable of governance
• Dismissal of democratic input as weakness and inefficiency
• Scapegoating of specific groups (immigrants, welfare recipients, “decels”)
• Use of surveillance and control technology as governance tools
• Merger of corporate and state power
• Appeal to historical inevitability (technological determinism)
• Pseudoscientific justification for hierarchy (Yarvin’s “human biodiversity”)

This is not hyperbole; Yarvin’s neoreactionary philosophy literally incorporates Nazi revisionism and white nationalist ideology, and these ideas have direct lineage to current billionaire advocates.[6][5]

---

Conclusion: Techno-billionaires reject democracy not because democracy is objectively failing but because they increasingly perceive democratic constraints on inequality, regulation, and redistribution as obstacles to their vision. They have sufficient wealth and control over infrastructure to potentially implement alternatives. What they lack is democratic legitimacy. Their intellectual project seeks to overcome this deficit by redefining freedom as incompatible with democracy and by proposing technological alternatives to democratic governance. Whether these alternatives represent genuine improvement or merely more efficient mechanisms for elite rule remains the central political question of coming decades. But the trajectory is clear: from critique of democracy to practical implementation of non-democratic governance structures, with real power, real resources, and real government influence already engaged.

Sources
[1] Peter Thiel, the libertarian billionaire waging war on government
[2] Elon Musk and Peter Thiel’s War on Democracy – Truthdig
[3] Peter Thiel: The Billionaire Buying the End of Democracy
[4] The movement to ditch democracy in favour of start-up cities run by …
[5] The Moldbug Variations | Corey Pein – The Baffler
[6] Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America | The New Yorker
[7] Tech Billionaires Already Captured the White House. They Still Want …
[8] Balaji Srinivasan on the concept of Exit, Voice and Loyalty – YouTube
[9] Dark Enlightenment – Wikipedia
[10] Blog: A Crypto Coup? How Billionaires Are Threatening Democracy …
[11] The Illusion of Tech Exit | The Republic
[12] Network States: Balaji Srinivasan’s vision for digital nations – LinkedIn
[13] Trump 2.0 Runs on Tech Accelerationism | TechPolicy.Press
[14] Thiel, Musk, the Leviathan, and Techno-Authoritarianism – Reddit
[15] Emerging Elites, Tech Trillionaires and the Decline of Democracy
[16] Effective Accelerationism Is Just Technological Authoritarianism …
[17] This A.I. Subculture’s Motto: Go, Go, Go – The New York Times
[18] Effective Accelerationism (e/acc) – Klu.ai
[19] The Techno-Optimist Manifesto – Andreessen Horowitz
[20] Rise of the Tech Oligarchy Part II: Tech companies, US elected … https://politicsofpoverty.oxfamamerica.org/rise-of-the-tech-oligarchy-part-ii/https://a16z.com/the-techno-optimist-manifesto/
[21] The Techlords and Their Ideology Are Mortal Enemies of Humanity
[22] The Billionaire Blueprint to Dismantle Democracy and Build a Digital …
[23] “If the news is fake, imagine history”: The network state and the …
[24] How Private Tech Companies Are Reshaping Great Power …
[25] Founder as Victim, Founder as God: Thiel, Musk & Entrepreneur
[26] [PDF] Oligarchy, State, and Cryptopia
[27] Is Elon Musk More Dangerous Than Peter Thiel? – Mother Jones https://link.motherjones.com/public/28100430
[28] The Network State – Persuasion https://www.persuasion.community/p/the-network-state
[29] Mencius Moldbug – Patchwork: A Political System for the 21st Century

Can you simulate Network Cities?

Excellent question. You’ve identified the core insight: blockchain and cryptocurrency are not technically necessary to create the governance structures network state advocates propose. Your analogy to Trump golf courses is remarkably apt—existing legal mechanisms already enable private governance with minimal member voice.

Yes, Billionaires Can (and Have) Simulated Network Cities Without Blockchain

Historical Precedent: Company Towns Did This With Paper Ledgers

Company towns in the U.S. (1880s–1935) operated exactly as you describe:[en.wikipedia]​

• Single corporation owned all housing, stores, services, and infrastructure
• Workers paid fees (rent, company store purchases) in exchange for access—functionally identical to membership dues
• Governance through corporate management, not democratic elections
• Paper-based record-keeping tracked wages, debts, housing assignments, and store purchases
• Company scrip (private currency) often replaced U.S. dollars, though dollars also circulated
• Exit option theoretically existed (workers could leave), but economic constraints made it illusory for most
• No blockchain, no cryptocurrency, no smart contracts—yet functionally operated as private city-states

The Pullman Company (Chicago, 1890s) exemplified this model: it owned all housing, set rents unilaterally, operated company stores with monopolistic pricing, employed private police, and collected garbage. Workers had zero democratic voice in governance—identical to your Trump golf course members having “little or no voice for change.” Pullman collapsed after a massive 1894 strike and federal intervention, but not because of technological inadequacy—it failed politically due to worker resentment over lack of representation.[socialwelfare.library.vcu]

Contemporary Examples: Disney, HOAs, and Private Clubs

Disney’s Reedy Creek Improvement District (1967–2023) demonstrates sophisticated private governance using traditional legal tools:[reason]​FeatureDisney ImplementationTrump Golf Course AnalogyGatekeeper tokenProperty ownership in districtInitiation feeOngoing feesProperty taxes paid to Disney-controlled boardMonthly dues + minimumsGovernanceBoard appointed by landowners (98% Disney)Club management appointed by TrumpMember voiceMinimal (paper towns with handful of residents)Minimal (members accept bylaws, limited input)Record systemTraditional property deeds, tax records, zoning permitsMembership database, billing systemCurrencyU.S. dollarsU.S. dollarsLegal basisFlorida statute creating improvement districtCorporate bylaws + property covenantsExit optionSell property and leaveResign membership (forfeit initiation fee)

Disney governed 39 square miles, provided all municipal services (roads, utilities, zoning, building codes, fire protection), issued tax-exempt bonds, and operated successfully for 56 years without blockchain. The technology required: filing cabinets, property records, and accounting ledgers.[chartercitiesinstitute]​

Homeowners Associations (HOAs) replicate this model at scale:[kuester]​

• Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions (CC&Rs) are deed restrictions running with the land—blockchain-like immutability achieved through property law
• Initiation = purchasing property subject to CC&Rs (functionally non-refundable)
• Monthly fees = HOA dues for common area maintenance, amenities, enforcement
• Governance = elected board (equity model) or developer-appointed (non-equity), often with minimal member influence
• Record-keeping = paper/digital databases tracking dues, violations, architectural approvals
• Enforcement = fines, privilege suspension, forced compliance, liens, foreclosure
• Currency = U.S. dollars
• No blockchain required for 60+ years of operation

Disney’s Celebration, Florida (1990s–present) is particularly instructive: Disney created a privately governed town of thousands using:[jrap.scholasticahq]​

• Homeowners association with restrictive covenants
• Disney-retained initial control, gradual shift to resident board
• Detailed rules covering architecture, landscaping, behavior
• Voting restricted to property owners (one unit = one vote)
• Traditional legal contracts, not smart contracts
• U.S. dollar transactions exclusively

Residents explicitly stated they preferred Disney’s “benevolent dictatorship” to elected local officials, believing corporate management would serve their interests better than democratic governance. This is exactly the network state logic—without any blockchain.[jrap.scholasticahq]​

Private Membership Clubs: The Clearest Parallel

Private clubs (country clubs, yacht clubs, golf courses) are the purest example:[gacmaa]​

Equity clubs (member-owned):

• Members purchase equity shares (initiation fee = gatekeeper token)
• Monthly dues + spending minimums = ongoing financial obligations
• Board elected by members, but voting weighted by equity class
• Bylaws define governance, amendable only by supermajority
• Members can be suspended/expelled for rule violations
• Exit = sell membership (if market exists) or forfeit equity
• Member voice exists but is constrained by bylaws, board authority, and voting structures favoring founders/largest equity holders

Non-equity clubs (owner-operated, like Trump properties):

• Initiation fee purchases access, not ownership
• Owner retains absolute control; advisory boards have zero binding authority
• General manager operates under owner’s policies
• Members have no governance voice—they accept terms or leave
• Bylaws exist but are owner-determined
• Identical structure to your Trump golf course scenario

Reciprocal privileges: Many clubs have reciprocal agreements enabling members to access other clubs’ facilities—your “reciprocal privileges at other (non-Trump) courses.” This demonstrates interoperability without blockchain: clubs maintain databases of reciprocal partners, verify membership via phone/email/database lookup, and bill home clubs for guest usage.[carolinascmaa]​

The Club Managers Association of America governs these relationships through contractual agreements and industry standards—no distributed ledger, no cryptographic verification, no smart contracts.[gacmaa]​

So Why Do Network State Advocates Insist on Blockchain?

If existing legal tools suffice, why the obsession with blockchain and cryptocurrency? Three reasons, none purely technical:

1. Ideological: Avoiding State Authority

Traditional company towns, HOAs, and private clubs exist within existing nation-states and are subject to their laws. Disney required Florida legislative approval for Reedy Creek; HOAs operate under state corporate law; private clubs must comply with labor law, anti-discrimination statutes, and tax obligations.[blog.bitfinex]​

Network state advocates want to escape this constraint. Balaji Srinivasan explicitly frames network states as “post-Westphalian”—meaning they reject territorial sovereignty of existing nations. Blockchain enables this through:[coinmarketcap]​

• Censorship resistance: Governments cannot shut down decentralized networks as easily as they can revoke corporate charters[blog.bitfinex]​
• Jurisdictional ambiguity: Crypto transactions occur “nowhere” legally, complicating state enforcement[blog.bitfinex]​
• Encrypted coordination: Communication and financial transactions beyond state surveillance[blog.bitfinex]​

This is political, not technical. Yarvin, Thiel, and Srinivasan don’t merely want private governance—they want governance independent of democratic states. Blockchain provides rhetorical cover for this ambition by framing it as technological inevitability rather than political choice.[lemonde]​

2. Financial: Extracting Value Through Token Appreciation

Your golf course analogy uses dollars, which don’t appreciate simply because Trump opens more courses. But cryptocurrency enables token appreciation as governance mechanism.[yellow]​

Network states issuing their own tokens create financial incentives:

• Early adopters buy tokens at low prices
• As network state grows (more members, more territory), token value rises
• Early members profit from appreciation
• Creates speculative investment vehicle disguised as governance participation

This is multi-level marketing applied to governance: early entrants profit from recruiting later entrants, with “governance tokens” as the product. Existing legal structures (HOA fees, club dues) cannot easily replicate this speculative dynamic—dollars remain dollars regardless of club membership growth.

The crypto industry’s lobbying for network states (Coinbase’s Brian Armstrong, Balaji Srinivasan) is not accidental. Network states create sustained demand for cryptocurrency, blockchain infrastructure, and token speculation—generating revenue for crypto companies.[ourfinancialsecurity]​

3. Legitimacy: Technological Mystification

Framing private corporate governance as “blockchain-based decentralization” obscures the underlying power structure.[techdirt]​

Compare these framings:Traditional LanguageBlockchain LanguageRealityCompany townNetwork stateCorporation governs residentsInitiation feeGovernance tokenPayment for accessMonthly duesStaking requirementOngoing feesOwner controlDAO governanceWhoever controls tokens controls decisionsCorporate bylawsSmart contractsRules written by foundersExit = leaveExit = sell tokensWealthy have more options

Blockchain provides rhetorical legitimacy for structures that would otherwise appear as straightforward corporate authoritarianism. Calling it “decentralized autonomous organization” sounds egalitarian; “corporate dictatorship” sounds accurate but unappealing.[techdirt]​

The e/acc (effective accelerationism) movement weaponizes this: framing corporate control as “progress” and democratic skepticism as “deceleration.” Technology becomes the justification for governance models that would be rejected if presented honestly.[klu]​

Trump Golf Course as Network State: A Thought Experiment

Let’s formalize your analogy:

Trump Freedom City (Traditional Legal Model):

1. Territory: Purchase land in Texas (private property or negotiate special district with state legislature, like Disney did)
2. Gatekeeper token: $250,000 initiation fee purchases property deed + membership
3. Monthly obligations: $5,000 dues + $2,000 monthly spending minimum at Trump-owned facilities
4. Governance: Trump Organization appoints all management; resident advisory board has recommendation power only (non-binding)
5. Records: Traditional property records, membership database, billing system (SQL database, accounting software)
6. Currency: U.S. dollars, credit cards, wire transfers
7. Rules: Comprehensive CC&Rs covering architecture, behavior, landscaping, business operations—enforced by Trump-appointed security and management
8. Exit: Sell property (if buyers exist); forfeit membership (lose initiation fee); no refunds
9. Reciprocal privileges: Agreements with other luxury developments/clubs enabling mutual access
10. Legal basis: Florida/Texas statute creating special district OR private development under existing property law + covenants

This is entirely feasible with 20th-century legal technology. The primary constraint is political: states must grant autonomy (special district) OR accept that private covenants will govern a town-sized development. Both have precedent (Disney, Celebration, gated communities, HOAs).[mises]​

What blockchain adds: Exactly nothing functionally necessary. It could:

• Replace property records with NFTs (unnecessary—deeds work fine)
• Replace membership database with blockchain identity (unnecessary—databases work fine)
• Replace advisory board voting with DAO governance (unnecessary—corporate voting works fine)
• Replace dollars with Trump Coin (unnecessary—and would trigger securities regulation)

The only meaningful difference: blockchain enables operation across multiple countries simultaneously while evading any single nation’s regulatory authority. A Trump golf course network spanning U.S., Dubai, Scotland, and Indonesia could coordinate through blockchain with less legal friction than traditional contracts—but at the cost of legitimacy and protection.[coinmarketcap]​

Why Traditional Legal Tools Are Superior for Most Purposes

For a domestically-located private city (like Freedom City in Texas), traditional tools offer advantages:FactorTraditional LegalBlockchainLegal clarityWell-established precedentRegulatory uncertaintyEnforcementCourt system, police powerCode-based (hackable)Consumer protectionState laws, liability”Code is law” (no recourse)FinancingTax-exempt bonds (Disney model)Securities law complicationsLegitimacyDemocratic approval processAppears to evade accountabilityOperational complexitySimple (lawyers, accountants)Complex (blockchain developers)Exit optionsLegal remedies, courtsForfeit tokens

Disney succeeded for 56 years using traditional tools because Florida granted explicit legislative approval. Trump Freedom Cities could replicate this—the barrier is political will, not technological capability.[reason]​

The Real Barrier Is Political, Not Technological

Your insight is correct: technology is not the constraint. The question is whether states will grant autonomy to corporate-governed enclaves.

Historically, this has been contested and reversed:

• Pullman dissolved after 1894 strike and Supreme Court ruling[en.wikipedia]​
• Company towns largely ended with New Deal (minimum wage, labor rights, homeownership policies)[explorethearchive]​
• Disney’s Reedy Creek dissolved in 2023 after DeSantis political dispute[cigionline]​

Democratic accountability repeatedly reasserts itself against corporate governance, not because of technological failure but because residents demand political voice. Company towns failed when workers organized strikes; Disney lost autonomy when political winds shifted.[socialwelfare.library.vcu]​

Blockchain’s appeal to billionaires is that it promises governance structures resistant to democratic accountability—not through superior technology, but through jurisdictional evasion and censorship resistance. This is why crypto advocates emphasize blockchain: it’s not that traditional tools fail technically, but that they remain subject to democratic override.[blog.bitfinex]​

---

Bottom line: Network states require no blockchain; Trump golf courses (and Disney, Pullman, Celebration, and thousands of HOAs) demonstrate that private corporate governance at scale is entirely feasible using traditional legal tools. The blockchain rhetoric serves ideological (evade state authority), financial (token speculation), and legitimacy (mystify corporate control) purposes—not technical necessity. If Trump pursued Freedom Cities using the Disney Reedy Creek model (negotiate special district with Texas legislature, issue tax-exempt bonds, operate under traditional corporate governance), it would function identically to blockchain-based alternatives while enjoying greater legal clarity and legitimacy.

Trump’s first-year agenda—tax cuts tilted to the wealthy, aggressive deregulation, and hostility to independent oversight—mapped cleanly onto a tech‑billionaire vision of private “freedom cities” where democratic constraints on capital, labor, and risk are treated as legacy code to be discarded. That vision is now explicitly converging with network‑state and charter‑city projects seeking quasi‑sovereign enclaves funded by private wealth, insulated from the regulatory and electoral systems built up over 250 years of U.S. democracy.[1][2][3][4][5]

Trump’s first year as anti‑regulatory template

Trump’s first year in office produced three pillars that align with billionaire “post‑democracy” urbanism.

• A regressive tax overhaul: The 2017 tax bill delivered large, permanent corporate cuts and disproportionate benefits to high‑income households, boosting after‑tax cash flows for exactly the class of investors positioned to finance private city‑states.[4]
• Systematic deregulation: The administration bragged about eliminating 22 regulations for every new one in 2017 and 12 for every new one in 2018, targeting environmental, labor, and financial rules as “burdens” on business rather than safeguards for workers and citizens.[6][4]
• Direct attacks on labor protections: Rolling back overtime rules, weakening tip protections, and blocking the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces rule shifted billions from workers to employers each year, normalizing a political economy where corporate prerogative overrides democratic standards of fairness and safety.[2]

These moves made it easier to imagine entire new jurisdictions where taxation, labor law, and safety regulation are not negotiated through public politics but set unilaterally by owners and investors.

Freedom cities as private city‑states

Trump’s “Freedom Cities” proposal—up to ten master‑planned cities on federal land with bespoke tax and regulatory regimes—translates that deregulatory template into urban form. Tech‑aligned think tanks and startup‑city coalitions are already drafting mechanisms to make such cities legally semi‑detached from normal federal and state rules.[3][5]

• Charter‑city mechanics: Freedom Cities proposals explore federal enclaves, interstate compacts, and special zones that can suspend or rewrite large swaths of environmental review, labor standards, and tax law, positioning the city as a kind of corporate charter rather than a democratic municipality.[1][3]
• Network‑state logic: Analysts note that Freedom Cities borrow directly from the “network state” blueprint—private capital, bespoke legal codes, and founder‑centric governance—while swapping crowdsourced land purchases for federal land transfers that leapfrog local opposition.[3][1]

In this model, elections are at best cosmetic: real power sits with the landowner‑developer and the capital stack, not with residents whose rights depend on contracts they cannot realistically negotiate or rewrite.

Gaza, national parks, Greenland as target geographies

Once the political logic shifts from “cities as democratic entities” to “territories as programmable corporate platforms,” any politically weakened or sparsely governed land becomes a candidate “freedom city” site.[1][3]

• Gaza: In techno‑libertarian imagination, devastated or contested territories are “blank slates” where existing political claims are treated as obstacles to be swept aside by capital and technology, turning human catastrophe into an opportunity for experimental regimes. (This shows up in broader startup‑city rhetoric about conflict zones and post‑disaster redevelopment, even when not named explicitly in policy documents.)[3]
• U.S. National Parks: Freedom‑city advocates have explicitly emphasized the appeal of federal land—cheap to acquire, weakly represented locally, and controlled by the executive branch—as ideal for startup cities that want to bypass normal zoning, environmental review, and public participation.[5][1]
• Greenland: For decades, Greenland has been discussed in U.S. strategic circles as a resource and military asset, and in tech‑city discourse as a sparsely populated canvas for climate‑era enclaves, revealing the same pattern of treating land and people as inputs to a geopolitical development play.[3]

In each case, the through‑line is contempt for existing democratic constituencies; the promise is not to deepen self‑government but to put territory under “rational” private rule.

Anti‑democracy narrative: “rigged” elections and crypto as exit

For this project to scale, democracy must be delegitimized so that replacing it with “opt‑in” private jurisdictions feels like rescue rather than coup.[7][3]

• “Rigged” elections: Trump’s repeated insistence that U.S. elections are fraudulent or rigged cultivates a mood that representative government is irreparably broken, which aligns with network‑state rhetoric that legacy democracies are sclerotic systems beyond repair.[8][7]
• Dollar as “legacy code”: Tech‑billionaire and crypto narratives frequently cast the U.S. dollar and central‑bank governance as outdated, corrupt, or doomed, arguing that private cryptocurrencies are a superior, trustless substrate for global exchange—and for governance tokens in network states.[9][10]
• Weakening the dollar via conflict with the Fed: Trump’s ongoing clash with Fed Chair Jerome Powell—publicly pressuring for deeper rate cuts, criticizing his competence, and now intersecting with a DOJ probe—undermines confidence in the central bank and amplifies the idea that monetary policy is politicized beyond repair, which benefits assets marketed as independent of state control like Bitcoin.[10][11][12]

Within this storyline, “DOGE” functions as dark comedy: a meme coin born as a joke that achieved real valuations confirms for some that the existing monetary order is absurd, thereby strengthening the case to abandon public money and public governance in favor of speculative private systems.

Trump‑aligned crypto proposals, including Trump‑branded coins and a broader push to entrench private stablecoins while blocking a public digital dollar, further shift power from democratic institutions toward privately controlled monetary platforms that dovetail with network‑state infrastructure.[13][9]

Failures and warning signs: Próspera, California Forever, Pullman, HOAs, golf clubs

The lived experiments in “freedom city” governance already show how anti‑democratic the model is in practice.[14][15]

• Honduras (Próspera and ZEDEs): Honduras’s ZEDE regime allowed private zones with extensive autonomy over taxation, labor, and regulation; Próspera on Roatán became the flagship. Local democratic backlash was so strong that the national government moved to repeal the ZEDE framework, citing sovereignty and labor‑rights concerns—an early illustration of how aggressively post‑democratic city projects collide with popular self‑rule. (Analyses now frame Próspera as a cautionary tale more than a template.)[1][3]
• Sonoma County, California Forever: California Forever, bankrolled by Silicon Valley billionaires, used secretive shell‑company land purchases around Travis Air Force Base, then attempted to rebrand as a housing‑affordability solution while seeking heavy land‑use upzoning and long‑term control over a new community. Local voters and officials reacted against the opacity, the concentration of land ownership, and the mismatch between “community” rhetoric and investor control, forcing the project into retrenchment and rebranding rather than triumphant city founding.[16][17][3]
• Pullman‑style company towns: Historic industrial enclaves like Pullman near Chicago operated as privately controlled company towns—employers owned the housing, set rules, suppressed labor organizing, and left residents with little political voice beyond exit. These are the clearest historical analogues to Freedom Cities: formally modern, but structurally feudal.[15]

Homeowners’ associations and private clubs illustrate the same governance DNA at a smaller, more familiar scale.

• HOAs: Residents sign binding covenants enforced by boards with powers to fine, lien, and foreclose, often operating with minimal transparency and limited recourse beyond expensive litigation or moving away.[17][15]
• Golf clubs and gated communities: Membership contracts define rights; boards can change rules, set fees, and sanction members without electoral accountability, creating micro‑regimes where participation is conditional on wealth and conformity rather than equal citizenship.[18][15]

Freedom Cities and network states are these logics scaled up: company‑town and HOA governance dressed in frontier, innovation, and housing‑affordability language, yet structurally designed to strip out democratic bargaining over taxation, labor, safety, and land use and replace it with the unilateral will of capital.

Sources
[1] ‘Startup City’ Groups Say They’re Meeting Trump Officials to … – WIRED https://www.wired.com/story/startup-cities-donald-trump-legislation/
[2] Ten actions that hurt workers during Trump’s first year https://www.epi.org/publication/ten-actions-that-hurt-workers-during-trumps-first-year/
[3] The rise of freedom cities – Robert Muggah – LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rise-freedom-cities-robert-muggah-hubgf
[4] Trump’s Promises, Kept And Incomplete, After 1 Year In Office – NPR https://www.npr.org/2018/01/18/578690020/from-taxes-to-the-swamp-trumps-promises-kept-and-incomplete-1-year-in
[5] Freedom Cities – Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_Cities
[6] The Historic Results of President Donald J. Trump’s First Two Years … https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/briefings-statements/the-historic-results-of-president-donald-j-trumps-first-two-years-in-office/
[7] How do techno billionaires view end-stage democracy as a reason to reject democracy all together? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/421db57b-0dbc-4f6e-b56a-0a41edbfa462
[8] Are technology billionaires proposing to replace democracy with network and what does that mean for olegarchy, socialism and communism? define each form of decision/policy making in the response and identify the tech billionaires who propose this. How is AI involved? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/32e950bb-4f61-4c4d-9ef6-39d9aa8c30ac
[9] Make an argument that the USA should not support crypto currency because its technology is fundamental to network state governments which by analyses are anti democracy . In the argument discuss why crypto currency technology is so important to network states And what lobbyists want the USA to do regarding crypto currency. What bills are being discussed in the Senate regarding crypto? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/38a958ad-2fa8-42ba-ac63-82a981750e3b
[10] How Trump’s Fed Battle Affects Bitcoin – Crowdfund Insider https://www.crowdfundinsider.com/2026/01/257418-how-trumps-fed-battle-affects-bitcoin/
[11] Bitcoin Holds Firm as Trump–Fed Clash Tests Its Safe‑Haven Story https://99bitcoins.com/news/bitcoin-btc/bitcoin-trump-fed-clash-test/
[12] Trump vs. Powell: Crypto Traders Bet Against Fed Chair’s Indictment … https://coingape.com/trump-vs-powell-crypto-traders-bet-against-fed-chairs-indictment-despite-doj-probe/
[13] Crypto lobbyists are pushing the Senate to advance the CLARITY Act and to pass laws that prohibit a Federal Reserve–issued central bank digital currency (CBDC), because a public digital dollar would be a direct competitor to private stablecoins. Would a Federal Reserve CBDC strengthen the USA dollar and make America Great? If so are crypto lobbyists anti USA Democracy. Should the CLARITY Act pass if it weakens USA standing in the world? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/44244ea5-7a9f-4081-beae-a0990ae7b57f
[14] Are Trump’s “Freedom Cities” part of the technology billionaire desire to foster network states? In the response mention housing affordability as a possible key word for network state and that the easy path to a post democracy involving blockchain might be appropriation of national park land rather than crowd sourcing funds from members of a network state. Also try to incorporate what happened with the California Forever project into the answer involving Freedom Cities. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/a0a2340d-32c4-4109-9da8-5403072f63a5
[15] Compare and contrast network state governance with the city governance of Seattle, New York, a feudal kingdom during the 1500s, and Trump’s federal government. Has the DOGE failure dissuaded network state governance proponents? Why did Europe abandon…

…ork state governance proponents building communities that will be network state governed and give examples. With AI is it possible that populations will be better able to self govern making network state governance less desirable than true democracy? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/c674ea6c-7847-47b7-ad9f-f3e7a0165e34
[16] What is California Forever and has it crowdsourced funds for real estate in Napa Valley? Could a visitor to California visit a physical space for wine tasting and discussion of network states during the next few weeks and do any Napa Valley wineries…

… charter school for California Forever? For each of the top oligarchs of California Forever provide background including net worth, age, amount of token cryptocurrency, passports held and comments of dissatisfaction with democratic political matters. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/0a2d7998-1ae6-44be-9c9d-f2861446e0b7
[17] What is a smart contract? Is it an expert system? Is California Forever a failure or has it just been changed to affordable housing? Did California Forever develop documents for an HOA and if so what would residents in California Forever be agreeing to? Are family members of the billionaires active in California Forever and how are they active? https://www.perplexity.ai/search/3fa2bb1f-a3ee-4931-959b-87103ef6b52c
[18] Could billionaires simulate a network city without the use of Blockchain and cryptocurrency Technology? In other words, why is technology needed to form a Trump Freedom City? Can’t a historical record be used instead of blockchain? Equate a gate kee…

… required fee minimums to a contract and assume Trump golf course members have little or no voice for change. Use US dollars instead of cryptocurrency at the Trump golf courses and assume reciprocal privileges at other (none Trump) courses and clubs. https://www.perplexity.ai/search/36e9e508-fc01-4d18-bd80-adf61c6eedb8
[19] Let’s Be Real About Trump’s First Year in Regulation https://blogs.law.ox.ac.uk/business-law-blog/blog/2018/02/lets-be-real-about-trumps-first-year-regulation