Recommended

Key Pieces:

• Videos
  • Seasteading & Experimental Government for Entrepreneurs: A 5-min lightning talk by Patri at Breakthrough Philanthropy.
  • Free Zones and the Cambrian Explosion in Government: 25-min talk by Michael Strong at the 2009 Seasteading Conference.
• Books
  • Seasteading: How Ocean Cities Will Change the World, By Joe Quirk with Patri Friedman of The Seasteading Institute.
  • Free Private Cities: Making Governments Compete For You. By Titus Gebel of the Free Private Cities non-profit.
  • The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities, by Mancur Olson. Explains how collective action issues in government systems like democracy affect the long-term course of nations.
  • The Machinery of Freedom, by David Friedman. Argues the case for a radically competitive society where all governance institutions are private and competing. (Now available as a free PDF!)
• Papers / Essays
  • Beyond Folk Activism, by Patri Friedman.  An essay which makes the general case for competition & structural reform instead of education & cultural reform (competing instead of convincing or complaining). (Danish Translation available, also Portuguese translation)
  • Seasteading: Institutional Innovation on the Open Ocean, by Patri Friedman and Brad Taylor.  A working draft of our first economics paper on competitive governance & seasteading, more technical and tying our ideas into existing public choice economics. (PDF)
  • Competitive Government vs. Democratic Government, by Arnold Kling.  An economics article which discusses competitive government in general, including the history of the field and past work, as well as future possibilities.
• Non-Profits
  • Charter Cities Institute (also has a Reading List).
  • Free Private Cities
  • Seasteading Institute
  • Startup Societies Foundation

Full list of recommended reading

(including books, blog entries, and papers available on the web)

Recommended books for seasteading, as an Amazon List

By Randy Barnett

• Is Limited Government Possible? (essay).
• The Structure of Liberty: Justice and the Rule of Law (book).

By Bryan Caplan

• The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies (New Edition) (book).
• Policy  All the Way Down (blog post).

By David Friedman

• Law’s Order (book).
• The Machinery of Freedom: Guide to a Radical Capitalism (book).

By Patri Friedman

• Seasteading: How Ocean Cities Will Change the World (Joe Quirk with Patri Friedman).
• Beyond Folk Activism (essay). (Danish Translation available).
• Dynamic Geography (essay).
• Russ Roberts discusses Seasteading with Patri on EconTalk. (podcast)
• Seasteading & Experimental Government for Entrepreneurs: A 5-min lightning talk by Patri at Breakthrough Philanthropy.
• Patri presents his ideas to the Mises Institute Conference in Brazil (Video)
• The Difference Between Governments and Private Property Developers
• It’s Not an Accident Nice Places to Live Have High Taxes
• What Happens When the Police Go on Strike?
• Many Cops, Not None
• Governmental Innovation and the Wisdom of Crowds

By Arnold Kling:

• Unchecked and Unbalanced (book)
• From Poverty to Prosperity: Intangible Assets, Hidden Liabilities, and the Lasting Triumph Over Scarcity (book)
• Competitive Government vs. Democratic Government (paper)
• We Need 250 States (blog post)
• Why Not Have Profit-Maximizing Governments? (blog post)
• David Friedman on the Myth of the Rational Voter (blog post)

By Jacob Lyles

• Feed the Leeches More Blood–Get Better Leeches (blog post)
• Down With Policy Libertarianism (blog post)
• Structuralism 2 (blog post)
• Different Libertarianisms (blog post)

By Titus Gebel

• Free Private Cities: Making Governments Compete For You.

By Mike Gibson

• The Levers of Wealth and Freedom

By H.L. Mencken

• Notes on Democracy

By Robert Nelson

• Welcome to the New–and Private–Neighborhood (blog post / article)

By Robert Nozick

• Anarchy, State, and Utopia (view the most relevant excerpt for free on Google Books: A Framework For Utopia)

By Mancur Olson – these are the key references on why democracies stagnate

• The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation, and Social Rigidities (book)
• The Logic of Collective Action (book)

By Jonathan Rauch

• Government’s End: Why Washington Stopped Working – applies Mancur Olson’s theories to the government of the USA in the 20th century, showing how they played out in practice.  (book).

By Paul Romer

• A Theory of History With an Application–Romer’s talk at the Long Now Foundation introducing his idea of Charter Cities. (video)
• TEDGlobal Talk about Charter Cities (shorter video).
• Technology, Rules and Progress (PDF Paper)
• Economic Growth–from the Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
• Russ Roberts discusses Charter Cities with Romer on EconTalk (podcast)
• The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty by Sebastian Mallaby–a very good profile of Romer’s efforts to get his Charter Cities idea off the ground.  (article)

Edited by Edward Stringham

• Anarchy and the Law: The Political Economy of Choice (Independent Studies in Political Economy) (book)

By Michael Strong

• Free Zones as an Additional Option for the Cambrian Explosion in Government (blog post)
• Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems (book)
• Michael Strong’s talk on Free Zones at the 2009 Seasteading Conference (video)

By Jonathan Wilde

• Rationalism vs. Pluralism (blog post)

Bonus: For Parents

• Weslandia by Paul Fleischman, a story about a child that founds a new civilization for his summer project.

The Center for Innovative Governance Research also has a reading list which is well worth a look.