You Don't Have to Debate the Future
From ancient times to the present, whenever societies begin to decline, people tend to talk more about politics.
They organize speeches.
They hold debates.
They write proposals.
They describe, again and again, what they believe the future should look like.
This happens everywhere.
America has always had one rather unusual answer to this problem:
You do not necessarily have to persuade everyone. You can try to build what you want yourself.
That is one meaning of self-government.
Somewhere along the way, many Americans seem to have forgotten that they live in a system where people possess far more institutional freedom than they often realize.
The White House does not hold a monopoly on institutional design.
Congress does not hold a monopoly on human experimentation.
Within the limits of law, people can create organizations, contracts, businesses, communities, private institutions, and entirely new forms of cooperation.
Private autonomy distributes part of the capacity for institutional experimentation far beyond government itself.
And it can reach people far beyond America's borders.
My experiment is simply an attempt to make that capability more productive.
What if open commercial ecosystems were not merely ideas?
What if open institutional and governance models were not merely things to debate?
What if we built them, tested them, measured their consequences, and allowed reality to decide?
A successful experiment may eventually become something larger through lawful advocacy, lobbying, legislation, or voluntary adoption.
You still have every right to say:
“I don't want to debate. I just want to get what I want.”
I understand.
But understanding your choice does not mean making that choice for you.
If you want something, you can wait for someone else to build it.
Or you can try to build it yourself.
That choice is part of self-government.
And that is the experiment I am interested in.
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