Galt’s Gulch One Token at a Time

Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged (1957) explores the idea of society’s biggest industrialists going on a strike of conscience against coercive government. Such government on one hand takes these industrialists for granted by overtaxing and overregulating them. On the other, government denounces them as “greedy capitalists” for even striving to produce as much as they do. Without spoiling too much of the plot, the industrialists on strike rendezvous at a secretive refuge called Galt’s Gulch as government botches successive interventions in its attempt to replicate the societal wealth and stability which the industrialists had made possible.

In the peculiar way life imitates art, productive people from around the world have grown weary of government surveilling every cent they earn and spend. People are fed up with government obsequiously regulating their productive industry, then intruding on their leisure by needlessly regulating those industries in which they may spend their hard-earned money.

Such people now have a moral home, which is both physical and digital. This home which warmly welcomes them is called Montelibero.

[Many of the embedded references link to materials in Russian. Unless you understand the language unaided, your browser will have to translate the pages for you. For Telegram’s links in Russian, you can copy and paste the text into Google’s Translate, which tends to render coherent if not perfect translations. Or you can do what I did years earlier and marry the cute Russian girl, so many thanks to my wife Anna for assisting me with the research, and also to the Monteliberans who were generous with their time to answer my queries.]

In December 2020, a Libertarian couple from Kyiv, Ukraine emigrated to the country of Montenegro. By March 2021, they were joined by like-minded Russians. In this small and gorgeous Balkan country – which offers a stunning contrast between the lush Adriatic coastline, fertile valleys and the picturesque Dinaric Alps – they proposed to establish a society grounded in the philosophy of Libertarianism. The society would welcome any person who shares a profound commitment to voluntaryism and all its derivatives, such as mutual respect for personal autonomy and reasonable environmental stewardship. They as partners collectivized their resources to launch the project of Montelibero.

Montelibero exists in physical form in Montelibero City (MTL-City), the prototypical settlement in Montenegro, located in the municipality of Bar’s Pečurice district. Currently there are fewer than 100 settlers on site, but the settlement will grow into districts for townhouses, private homes, geodomes, offices and industry, of which only a fraction are now constructed. Nearby lies Montelibero Village, which consists of three hectares for agriculture. Roads have been constructed to connect these, as well as a paved roadway which links MTL-City to the Bar municipality. At least €1.28 million have been invested thus far into this settlement.

MTL-City steadily arises

Beyond MTL-City, active supporters of Montelibero have businesses and homes elsewhere in Montenegro. Montelibero celebrates its supporters’ integration into Montenegrin society, so this is no isolationist bunker for aloof expatriates. Some native Montenegrins have even pledged support to Montelibero, recognizing the value in the project’s Libertarian vision.

Just as the Free State Project in the USA had surveyed multiple jurisdictions and decided on New Hampshire, Montelibero chose Montenegro as this project’s destination after careful evaluation. Besides the impressive landscapes mentioned earlier, points in Montenegro’s favor were its location on mainland Europe where railroads extensively connect it to the continent. Montenegro also features seaports for maritime commerce and travel, which connect Montenegro to the wider world. The country’s population is small at 622,000 with no ethnic majority, which makes Montenegro amenable to immigration. Finally, Montenegro does not yet belong to the European Union but circulates the euro, which avails a valuable currency without overbearing regulation from Brussels. All these advantages resoundingly convinced those concerned that Montenegro was ideal for this project, such that even Free State Project Europe – which since 2014 had attempted a Libertarian settlement in southern Switzerland – conceded the case and dissolved.

Besides its physical existence in Montenegro, Montelibero also exists abroad in two related and significant ways. Firstly, it propagates its voluntaryist ethic by way of Montelibero Global (MTL Global), which fosters nodes of supporters and partnerships in many countries. Thus, there are MTL Global support hubs in Israel, Brazil, Thailand and the United Kingdom, amongst others. To date, Montelibero estimates that 60% - 90% of its support comes from sympathizers abroad who cannot presently emigrate to Montenegro. Secondly and importantly, Montelibero transacts predominantly in digital tokens which percolate to MTL Global’s hubs and beyond, so a brief discussion on tokenomics is in order.

Tokenization is the digital valuation of some asset into divisible quantities, which are denominated tokens. Any real or prospective value can be tokenized. A carton of milk at a grocery may be valued at 2 tokens. Similarly, a cobbler may pledge to mend a boot, and that future labor is valued at 10 tokens. The cobbler thus transfers 10 tokens to the customer against the obligation to mend the customer’s boot, and the customer prepays him. When the work is completed to the customer’s satisfaction, the customer returns the cobbler’s 10 obligation tokens, and the cobbler keeps the customer’s prepayment. Depending on the tokens’ rate and volume of exchange, reputational profiles emerge, guiding a prospective buyer of goods and services to those sellers best suited for the buyer’s necessities and budget.

Montelibero utilizes several digital tokens across its operations. It deposits stablecoins – cryptocurrencies designed for invariability by valuation to external, real-world assets such as gold and fiat euros – but Montelibero’s principal token is the MTL. A supporter “joins” Montelibero by pledging strict adherence to the project’s Declaration of Participation and acquiring a balance of MTL tokens, which binds him to Montelibero’s success. This success in turn is paid forward since settlers in Montenegro can qualify for a type of universal basic income which pays weekly dividends from the fund of MTL tokens. The twenty largest MTL token-holders are invited to steer the executive Montelibero Association Council since they have the biggest stake in the project’s overall success.

Cryptocurrency may not overly interest you, but a basic familiarity with it is needed for interfacing with Montelibero in any way. Thankfully the MTL Helper Bot on Telegram (partially operated by a live volunteer) patiently guided me through configuring a compatible crypto-wallet and populating it with an introductory balance of MTL tokens.

Montelibero in Its Own Words

Conformant with Montelibero’s undergirding philosophy of Libertarianism which values personal autonomy, Clause Four of the Declaration of Participation stipulates that no person or organization may speak on behalf of Montelibero as a whole. Nonetheless, graciously two Monteliberans shared with me their individual thoughts and aspirations about the project, such that we get some internal perspective as if in Montelibero’s own words.

Viktor Korb, who has been involved in the project since October 2021 and now serves on the MTL Fund’s Board, encourages urgency in Montelibero’s development of a template for societal voluntaryist contracts over the next five to ten years. He views Montelibero as being in desperate need of “independent people… capable of organizing their own lives and building productive and effective collaborations with others. Entrepreneurs in the broadest sense of the word… in both business and social spheres.” Korb recommends that anyone interested in Montelibero contact the project through its Telegram channels and join the MTL Association.

Tatiana Bugrova, who imparted a thorough presentation on Montelibero to the “Liberty in Our Lifetime” conference in Prague, Czech Republic, on October 15th, 2023, finds Montenegro “innovative and forward-thinking,” and was attracted to settlement there amidst a community of Russian-speakers. Bugrova estimates the ratio of male settlers to females at 70% to 30%, so for any Libertarian ladies interested in settlement… the odds skew in your favor!

Needed Now More than Ever

Any conscious person viewing current events realizes that the paradigm of the coercive State is tottering towards collapse. In February 2022, war erupted between the kindred peoples of Russia and Ukraine. After four years of conscripting the flower of their youth into this meatgrinder, we may be no closer to the conflict’s termination, especially given that apparently neither country’s electorate is allowed to vote for some kind of truce, much less to replace those statesmen hell-bent on the war’s perpetuation. In the USA, the current president elected on explicit campaign promises to avoid war, has dragged this country into an undeclared war with Iran, with dire consequences for the global economy. In short, no conscious person can perceive events like these and think it wise that statesmen and governmental employees exert such unmitigated power over our lives and destinies.

Statists cynically invoke terms like “homeland” and “patriotism” to manipulate a citizen’s sense of belonging, sometimes to induce him to override his own conscience to kill and maim complete strangers who never harmed or threatened him in any way. These terms cozen the citizen to subjugate instinctive self-preservation by demanding his exposure to risk and sacrifice on behalf of the “nation,” yet as soon as misgovernment’s consequences catch up with the statesman responsible, he is the first to flee for his own preservation, like Peru’s president Alberto Fujimori in the year 2000, or Ukraine’s president Viktor Yanukovych after Maidan in 2014. It is high time that regular people of conscience start thinking rationally about banding together with one another in a project like Montelibero.

Concededly cryptofinance is not my forte, so I dare not expatiate on tokenomics, but fixation on tokens overlooks Montelibero’s greatest appeal. That appeal is a home for conscience and fellowship with like-minded people. Whilst my “countrymen” in power wax concupiscent about bombing unsuspecting strangers in Iran, I can’t help but think that I’d find more in common at a fireside in Montelibero City – beer in hand and cat on lap – conversing in halting Montenegrin with a Russian about our grandkids learning how to swim.