It seems to me that land of the same quality as this can already be bought for cheaper in many places. The post says the new land could be more valuable because of better governance, but governance is an outcome of human politics, so it’s orthogonal to old/new land. In Jules Verne’s Propeller Island, a power conflict eventually leads to physical destruction of the island.
But even existing land offers opportunities for new governance models. In 1917 for example, the existing land called Russia needed a new government model because people had become completely fed up with the old one. (The Communists has little to do with the overthrow of the Tsarist regime: that was almost completely a populist uprising—and not particularly violent. Most of the violence came in contests over the nature of the next government model and in the winning party’s consolidating its power.) The same thing happened (with much less violence) in 1989-1991. France needed a new government model in 1958: almost everyone agreed that the existing model did not work, and the new model (the Fifth Republic) was not arrived at through the workings of the existing model, but rather through a bloodless coup by the French military:
Why would the government models used on the new land turn out any better
Good question. Without significant innovation in governance they would not.
But innovation in governance is useless if there’s nowhere to govern, so you have a catch-22 situation. The solution is to simultaneously introduce new forms of governance and new land to govern.
It seems to me that land of the same quality as this can already be bought for cheaper in many places. The post says the new land could be more valuable because of better governance, but governance is an outcome of human politics, so it’s orthogonal to old/new land. In Jules Verne’s Propeller Island, a power conflict eventually leads to physical destruction of the island.
No, because all existing land is already governed bv someone else and they don’t want to let go of it.
But even existing land offers opportunities for new governance models. In 1917 for example, the existing land called Russia needed a new government model because people had become completely fed up with the old one. (The Communists has little to do with the overthrow of the Tsarist regime: that was almost completely a populist uprising—and not particularly violent. Most of the violence came in contests over the nature of the next government model and in the winning party’s consolidating its power.) The same thing happened (with much less violence) in 1989-1991. France needed a new government model in 1958: almost everyone agreed that the existing model did not work, and the new model (the Fifth Republic) was not arrived at through the workings of the existing model, but rather through a bloodless coup by the French military:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1958_crisis_in_France
Why would the government models used on the new land turn out any better than the model introductions I just described?
Good question. Without significant innovation in governance they would not.
But innovation in governance is useless if there’s nowhere to govern, so you have a catch-22 situation. The solution is to simultaneously introduce new forms of governance and new land to govern.