Revisiting the Techno-Utopian Microstate Liberland

In 2015, Czech politician Vít Jedlička proclaimed the foundation of a new techno-libertarian microstate on an unclaimed piece of land. Liberland is not yet officially recognised as a nation, but the project still moves forward. We have interviewed Jedlička about his views on the nation’s future.

Originally published in SCENARIO Magazine in 2018.

“It seemed like a much more reasonable action to start a new country rather than try and fix an existing one”. This is how my conversation with Czech politician Vít Jedlička, President of The Free Republic of Liberland starts. Liberland is a micronation established in April 2015, when Jedlička claimed an uninhabited no man’s land — a so-called terra nullius — of 7 square kilometres in-between the Croatian and Serbian border.

The vision was to create the world’s first decentralised government, using blockchaintechnology to set up a state without compulsory rules and hierarchical structures. The project received massive attention within its first year in media from The Guardian, CNN, New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News, The Telegraph to note a few. During its first week alone, Liberland attracted no less than 250,000 people from all over the world, who signed up online for citizenship.

But where is Liberland today? I caught up with Vít Jedlička for an interview about what has happened in the past three years; about starting a new country from scratch, attempting to rethink governance systems with blockchain technology, and his expectations for the future of Liberland.

No man’s land

In recent years the world has seen an increased focus on the re-drawing and strengthening of territorial borders. The Crimean Peninsula was annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014. The same year, then-candidate Trump declared his plans to build a great wall on the border between the US and Mexico. Several EU member countries reinstated border control during the migrant crisis of 2015, and in 2016 Britain voted to leave the European Union.

So, when I first heard about Liberland, I didn’t really believe the story. The idea that a new country could be formed on an unclaimed piece of land on the European continent seemed unreal. So naturally, I start my conversation with Jedlička by asking how he went about doing this:

“It wasn’t that difficult really. We just went on Google and searched for ‘no man’s land’ and found a territory between Serbia and Croatia that was unclaimed by either country for more than 26 years. I thought it was a great opportunity and we claimed it on April 13, 2015. We went there and stacked the flag. We got a surprising amount of attention and received a lot of support from important political figures, mainstream media, the business world and the cryptocommunity. It was amazing how much traction we gained so quickly.”

What was your motivation for starting a new country?

“I think the relationship between State and citizen really needs reconfiguration. We need to see a movement towards a decentralisation of power and more options for people to choose from with regards to what type of government they live under. We need to see a change from the status quo, where the majority of citizens are not part of making the decisions no matter how much they contribute to society. Thus, we wanted to replace the relationship between State and citizen from one that is mandatory to one where you simply have less decision-making power than others if you don’t pay taxes. That is why we’ve started a country based on voluntary taxation.”

It seems like there is a critique of existing governance systems inherent in your motivation for starting Liberland. Is that what is driving this project?

“It is more an understanding than a critique. It comes from the realisation that existing systems cannot be changed from within. But I think that if we can start something new in accordance with our ideals we can influence politics in other countries much easier. Because we can lead others by example.”

Governing by blockchain

By now it is clear what was driving the early motivation for starting Liberland: A revolt against centralised over-regulation and the desire to create a society where the state plays a minimal role.

Unlike the current wave of anti-globalisation populism that is sweeping the globe, Liberland does not represent a desire to go back to the “good old days” of the Nation State. Rather, it is shaped by a desire to move forward. At the core of the project is Jedlička’s vision of using new technology to disrupt old governance models:

“It makes no sense at all that we haven’t innovated our way of governing for centuries. Despite the huge technological advances made since the first industrial revolution, we have seen very little advancement in the terms of governance. So, we are trying to rethink the system by combining the best of the old and the new.”

“We have tried to take all the best parts of the United States’ Constitution and fix the elements that we believe don’t work so well. We base Liberland on idea that the state should only take care of justice, security and diplomacy. And we combine this with a system of meritocracy, where people collect merits based on their contributions, which gives them stronger decision-making power.”

“We are using blockchain to issue tokens — what we call ‘Merits’ — which essentially rewards those who contribute to the state with more voting-rights. With this we transform the relationship between state and citizen, from one based on coercion to a voluntary one; motivating people to pay taxes, rather than forcing them.”

In a meritocracy, political power is assigned based on talent and effort rather than wealth or birth-rights. The idea of greater voting power for those paying more taxes sounds contradictory to that principle. Isn’t there a risk then of building a system where those with the most wealth rule others?

“Yes, that is a critical challenge. And that is why we include an element of democracy in our governmental structures, inspired by the Swiss veto-system. This means that if the majority of the public disagrees with a decision made by the government, they can always veto it. Only those with Merits can suggest new policies and regulations, but the majority can always vote to veto this decision. In this way we are combining what we think are the best elements of democracy, the republican system and meritocracy. Moreover, we are using new technologies to do that by building a decentralised and autonomous governance system. The government budget is distributed in a dozen crypto-currencies, and we are building a blockchain-based DAO-platform to run our legal system on.”

A DAO is a digital Decentralised Autonomous Organisation, controlled by distributed shareholders instead of a central organ, and its financial transaction record and program rules are maintained on a blockchain. The most well-known example of this type of organisation is “The DAO”, launched in 2016. It was immediately hacked and drained of 50 million US dollars, proving just how vulnerable decentralised systems can be. Even so, Jedlička plans to base Liberland’s legal system on a DAO:

“We obviously don’t want to repeat the mistake of The DAO, but I think the time has come to try it again.”

In some ways Jedlička’s faith in the potentials of these new technologies seems like an echo of the techno-utopianism of the 90’s dot-com era, with its unyielding belief that the Internet and its free access to information would lead to personal freedom and a worldwide democratic revolution. There is no doubt that technological advances often play key roles in political and social change. But can technology really solve the problems of modern democracies? Jedlička is optimistic:

“Well, everything is kind of ready. Right now, we are running a pilot-version of it, and it seems like all the technology that we need to make this happen is something that now exists. It is still somewhat of an experiment, and right now we are keeping red buttons on every system we develop. But I think we are getting close to a stage where all these systems can be fully implemented within the next year”.

A president without a country

It’s now been more than three years since the founding of Liberland, and today the country has a constitution, a flag, a national anthem, and even its own brewery. Yet, I remain unsure if Liberland is still just an idea, or if real people live there. Curious, I ask Jedlička how to become a citizen and how many of those there are now:

“To become a citizen of Liberland you have to stake 5,000 Merits. Further, we will only let people in who contribute to Liberland in some way; by investing money, energy, time, by representing us in the world, or for instance organising a diplomatic state visit. But to control the flow we are limiting the number of citizens to a maximum of 140,000 people. The small 7 square-kilometre territory of Liberland does not allow more than that if we want a reasonable form of living and urban development. Right now, 530,000 people have registered for a citizenship. Around 180,000 of them are eligible, and out of those we have maybe 5,000 active e-residents, and 600 approved citizens. And among those 150 diplomats. This is because we decided early on that we were going to start issuing ‘diplomacy passports’ instead of regular passports, because that would lead to more problems than solutions at first.”

So far, no UN member state has recognised Liberland as a sovereign country and diplomatic relations have only been established with the unrecognised, self-declared state of Somaliland. I ask Jedlička what the response to the projects has been from Liberland’s neighbour-states:

“We don’t have any territorial disputes with neighbouring countries. Serbia quickly stated that they don’t mind the creation of Liberland, despite Serbia being the last known owner of this land. Croatia just say that we cannot claim the land, even though are not claiming it themselves. Meanwhile, the legality of our claim is now confirmed by two international legal studies from Chicago and Michigan.”

Even though Jedlička insists on upholding the narrative of an unproblematic relation to other countries, there have been reports of Croatian police preventing people — including Jedlička himself — from entering Liberland. I ask him if that is still the situation, or if he can now access the territory freely:

“I visit Liberland frequently, but the situation is not solved, and we discourage people from coming to Liberland — especially from Croatia, because they will be passing the border outside of official border control. If people want to visit us, they should always contact Liberland first to avoid conflict.”

So what form will Liberland’s government take in the future; a physical, or only a digital one?

“Our government is primarily a digital one, but we are doing the best we can to develop our physical presence as well. Right now, the best — and most friction-less — place to do it is in Liberland’s waters. So, we are parking houseboats and building bigger boats from which the government can operate. We also recently held an architecture competition, organised by Zaha Hadid Architects, to get ideas for how we should develop Liberland in the future. And this is one of our highest priorities right now. But potentially 6–7 million people could live elsewhere and just have an e-residency with Liberland.”

So, what are the next steps for Liberland? What are the must-win battles on the road ahead?

“Well, the physical development is important. We will be slowly overtaking the territory that we’ve claimed with development projects and by parking plenty of houseboats in Liberland’s waters. The second important thing is to build the blockchain-platforms and getting the decision-making mechanisms right, making the governance truly decentralised.

Third, we have to prioritise diplomacy. I’ve been invited on several statevisits to other countries, and I hope this will move us forward in getting international recognition of Liberland.”

And what do you think will be the most significant challenge in this?

“The biggest problem is that we are sometimes in conflict with our founding principles of having a limited role of the state and a decentralised decision-making process. This happens whenever we are in a situation where we have to make strategic investments and partnerships. The challenge is that we still need a central and clear vision in the early phases of the project to give it direction.

Thus, I am trying to keep a decent amount of control over what happens with Liberland in these early years, before we have a fully decentralised process. Right now it simply wouldn’t work without a central vision, but once I see that the systems are in place, and we’ve tested them, I would really like to leave Liberland to develop itself. I can pretty much see the whole system being autonomous within two years. I think that is a likely scenario.”

Even though techno-utopianism often involves overestimation of the potentials and an ignorance of the pitfalls of technology, no one — not even the techno-optimists of the 90’s — could have predicted how much the Internet would actually change the lives of every human being on the planet.

With that in mind I am left wondering: Is Jedlička a visionary who sees how recent technological advances might truly empower us to disrupt the old governance systems of the world? Or is he just another techno-utopian libertarian, chasing the ideal of voluntary taxes and total personal freedom? Will Liberland be the next Cayman Islands, or will it change the way we think about governance for good? Only time will tell.