Actually, Patri's primary reason for building free floating nations is because of an economic concept he calls "dynamic geography".<p><a href="http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/new_pages/dynamic_geography.html" rel="nofollow">http://seasteading.org/seastead.org/new_pages/dynamic_geogra...</a><p>Basically, he postulates that the reason current governments suck is that there is a high barrier of entry into the industry and a high cost for consumers to switch providers. But a ruler of an archipelago of seasteads who passed an unpopular law might wake up to find all the residents have moved their platforms. Seasteading puts competitive pressure on the government industry and provides incentives to govern wisely.<p>Also see Patri's Econ Talk podcast:<p><a href="http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/10/patri_friedman.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2008/10/patri_friedman.html</a>