No more gubmint derpity derp derp
'Freedom and liberty' not enough to save Galt's Gulch Chile libertarian community from bureaucracy and internal dissent
Jeff Berwick values “freedom and liberty” and that, he says, makes him an anarchist libertarian. He wears the label proudly. So do his devoted followers, men and women who share his profound distrust of government. “Anyone who wants to see a very free world does not want government,” says the 43-year-old Edmonton native. “I also don’t like being extorted or being aggressed against by others.”
He doesn’t much care for Canada, either. “There aren’t many countries in the world less free,” declares the libertarian guru. North Korea, Cuba, Belarus, the U.S.: That’s about it. Aggressive statism was a big reason he quit Canada in 2003. After losing a fortune in the 2000-01 technologies stock crash, Mr. Berwick sold the Vancouver-based Internet-based financial news service he had founded, embraced “anarcho-capitalism” and then left.
A few years ago he landed in Chile, where, an hour’s drive west of Santiago, he was shown a kind of paradise, an agricultural setting in which a community free of convention and state interference would be built. Or so he thought, and promoted as such.
Mr. Berwick and two partners called their community Galt’s Gulch Chile (GGC), a nod to that freedom-seeking character and enclave depicted in Atlas Shrugged, the classic libertarian novel by Ayn Rand. The partnership secured land, sketched out designs, subdivisions and property lots, and then sold the heck out of it to freedom-starved folk up north. Some forked over tens of thousands of dollars for a slice a freedom they would never see.
What was supposed to be an unfettered freedom place became a real estate debacle, and, in the words of one observer, “another dumb gringo story.” GGC is now tied up in knots, thanks to internecine bickering and a bungled approach to Chilean laws and local requirements, including zoning permits, water rights and property title. The founding partnership has fractured, with each party threatening to run to the courts — the dreaded state apparatus — for redress.
The ironies aren’t lost on anyone: Bureaucracies and internal dissent reduced a libertarian idyll to pixie dust. Allegations of fraud, rumours of skulduggery started swirling last month. This week, investors told the National Post they’ve been left in the dark. And they want their money back.
'Freedom and liberty' not enough to save Galt's Gulch Chile libertarian community from bureaucracy and internal dissent
'Freedom and liberty' not enough to save Galt's Gulch Chile libertarian community from bureaucracy and internal dissent
Jeff Berwick values “freedom and liberty” and that, he says, makes him an anarchist libertarian. He wears the label proudly. So do his devoted followers, men and women who share his profound distrust of government. “Anyone who wants to see a very free world does not want government,” says the 43-year-old Edmonton native. “I also don’t like being extorted or being aggressed against by others.”
He doesn’t much care for Canada, either. “There aren’t many countries in the world less free,” declares the libertarian guru. North Korea, Cuba, Belarus, the U.S.: That’s about it. Aggressive statism was a big reason he quit Canada in 2003. After losing a fortune in the 2000-01 technologies stock crash, Mr. Berwick sold the Vancouver-based Internet-based financial news service he had founded, embraced “anarcho-capitalism” and then left.
A few years ago he landed in Chile, where, an hour’s drive west of Santiago, he was shown a kind of paradise, an agricultural setting in which a community free of convention and state interference would be built. Or so he thought, and promoted as such.
Mr. Berwick and two partners called their community Galt’s Gulch Chile (GGC), a nod to that freedom-seeking character and enclave depicted in Atlas Shrugged, the classic libertarian novel by Ayn Rand. The partnership secured land, sketched out designs, subdivisions and property lots, and then sold the heck out of it to freedom-starved folk up north. Some forked over tens of thousands of dollars for a slice a freedom they would never see.
What was supposed to be an unfettered freedom place became a real estate debacle, and, in the words of one observer, “another dumb gringo story.” GGC is now tied up in knots, thanks to internecine bickering and a bungled approach to Chilean laws and local requirements, including zoning permits, water rights and property title. The founding partnership has fractured, with each party threatening to run to the courts — the dreaded state apparatus — for redress.
The ironies aren’t lost on anyone: Bureaucracies and internal dissent reduced a libertarian idyll to pixie dust. Allegations of fraud, rumours of skulduggery started swirling last month. This week, investors told the National Post they’ve been left in the dark. And they want their money back.
'Freedom and liberty' not enough to save Galt's Gulch Chile libertarian community from bureaucracy and internal dissent
