Can a community without a central government avoid descending into
chaos and rampant criminality? Can its economy grow and thrive without
the intervening regulatory hand of the state? Can its disputes be
settled without a monopoly on legal judgments? If the strange and
little-known case of the
condominum of Moresnet — a wedge of
disputed territory in northwestern Europe, and arguably Europe's
counterpart to America's so-called Wild West — acts as our guide, we
must conclude that statelessness is not only possible but beneficial to
progress, carrying profound advantages over coercive bureaucracies.
The remarkable experiment that was Moresenet was an indirect
consequence of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815), which, like all wars,
empowered the governments of participating states at the expense of
their populations: nationalism grew more fervent; many nations suspended
specie payments indefinitely; and a new crop of destitute amputees
appeared in streets all across Europe.
