The Network State as An Investment Product

(If you don’t know what the Network State is, start here first. In short, the Network State is a conspiracy of tech billionaires to start their own nation-state by compromising and seizing the American government and seceding on American soil, building a tech fascist state-within-a-state, as well as colonial expansion in Africa, Latin America, the Philippines, the Mediterranean and likely Israel). 

One thing that people tend to miss about the Network State is the fact that it will also be an —investment product —. Nation-states, banks, international financiers, sovereign wealth funds, universities, pensions and other capital masses, are constantly investing and trading in major land and development products — and, yes cities — , are buying and developing land in the global south, are buying up and setting up new zones, drilling and mining for natural resources, etc. 

Here is an interesting thing I found reading Erin McElroy’s exceptional work in the book Silicon Valley Imperialism, who has long-term worked on the Anti-Eviction Mapping Project, a serious intervention against takeover of the Bay Area by technofascism. Regarding “when Harvard University set its eyes on Romanian forestlands”:

“In 2004, the university designated Dragos Lipan as its representative to begin purchasing newly restituted lands through various shell companies. Though many of his purchases were made through dubious restitution claims, by 2010, Harvard became the largest private owner of forest in Romania and found itself managing over $100 million worth of investments through the Boston-based tax-exempt Phemus Corporation.”  

While being just generally relevant to colonialism, it is interesting for our purposes because universities are major investors (limited partners) in venture capital funds. We find a contemporaneous instance in this documentation of engagement between Harvard and Silicon Valley venture capital, regarding Silicon Valley’s ongoing military and capital support of the genocide of Palestinians and its attempts to use its influence to squash dissent on campuses: 

“Executives atop Harvard University’s $51 billion endowment made an unusual tour of Silicon Valley last week to try to smooth relationships with top venture-capital investors. Some have been upset at the university’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel. 

Some of the venture-capital executives who invest money for Harvard had pushed the endowment’s executives to try to get the university to address their concerns about what they viewed as Harvard’s weak response to the attacks and to antisemitism under former Harvard President Claudine Gay.

 Executives at Harvard Management Company, the nation’s largest college endowment, met with firms including Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and Andreessen Horowitz. They also met with Elad Gil, an Israeli-born investor, and Patrick Collison, the chief executive of payments company Stripe; both are influential in Silicon Valley and have been among those who have been more outspoken to Harvard’s endowment. Harvard is a direct investor in Stripe.

… Many leading venture capitalists have criticized what they see as a pro-Palestinian bias in academia. The industry also counts several prominent Israeli-born investors and has poured billions of dollars into Israeli startups.” 

So, venture capitalists have an existing base of limited partners like Harvard who are and have engaged in colonialism, imperialism and the squashing of student protestors. And is actively trying to influence political resistance on their campus.

And in this very well established context, there will be domestic and global investment in the Network State, the same way there is domestic and global investment in VC firms themselves. In many important respects, this is a diversification and horizontal and vertical expansion of the product that venture capital has to offer to investors (And indeed, Coinbase just added retail futures contracts for gold and oil to its product listings.) 

Of interest in all of this in Saudi Arabia, which is a massive funder of a16z — a16z as in the major money behind the Network State. Saudi Arabia is a major investor in the firm and it’s also interesting because of Saudi Arabia’s NEOM, a futuristic new city which is already up and running after launching in 2017, with two major complexes as of now, and is aiming to be 10,200 square miles. Of course, people were forcibly relocated for this, there’s been deaths, and terrible working conditions. See also: Dubai. A major inspiration for the Network State. Importantly tho, Saudi has proven interest and building experience in this whole “new city” thing. Their alliance with a16z not only on AI but on land is a fine match. 

People who say that the Network State has no hope of success don’t seem to understand that this is actually a highly lucrative effort. Consider even the fact that the Network State is an ideal location for a FUCKLOAD of businesses; that in fact registering businesses has been top of mind for Network State sites like Prospera in Honduras, which has registered over 100 companies, and Praxis, with a still-undisclosed location with the goal to host 3800 total companies. Prospera, which this year announced Prospera Africa, has a particular focus on offering companies libertarian/accelerationist regulatory frameworks, as well as “competitive taxes” of 5% personal income tax, 1% business income tax, 2.5% sales tax and 1% land tax. This is of course, astonishingly low and sickeningly but also, very clearly competitive in the global market. 

More specifically, Praxis is proposing that businesses can become “a registered entity within the legal framework of the Praxis Acceleration Zone”’ the Acceleration Zone of course being a type or variation/evolution on the Special Economic Zones that are allowing this kind of “exit” activity to occur. Here is some of what Praxis plans to offer: “Economic Incentives: financial concessions, grants, contracts, investment.”. A “techno-optimist regulatory environment - removing unnecessary hurdles in nuclear, biotch, crypto, etc.”, As well as “low input costs: energy, compute, real estate”. 

While the first thing that one’s mind goes to is residents re: Network State, it is vital to consider the business interests that will be more than eager to join the Network State because it offers them a host of benefits, in particular around regulations and taxes, that will appeal to them. We are likely to see *not even just Silicon Valley tech companies* but corporations from all over the world, using the Network State to conduct all manner of legitimate and illegitimate business activities. 

So first of all one of the major business propositions here is that they can basically help legions of businesses set up shop within a governance structure, provided and overseen by the Network State, which lets them do whatever the fuck they want with almost no taxes. Seems like a winner to me. 

On the residency side, you also have Metropolis, the Network State project based in Palau and with a new site in Manila Bay, Philippines, with the goal of serving as a bridge between the crypto and tech classes and sovereign “partners” by, in this case, providing permanent, easy and cheap residency and citizenship in the Philippines.   

This is gonna make the Bahamas look like a hostile regulatory environment. 

Global capital is constantly looking for new investment opportunities and the Network State offers a compelling investment on multiple axes: land and real estate development, natural resources, drilling/mining opportunities, business parks, tax sheltering as a service, foreign passports as a service, etc. 

While many of the very few people knowledgeable and critical of the Network State are saying that it is doomed to fail and thus not worthy of taking seriously (and by extension, not worthy of trying to stop), they aren’t acknowledging that this is actually a pretty attractive investment opportunity and one that is taking off when tech is at never-before seen heights, as well as investors appetites off the charts to get into the tech game and participate in new “innovative” platforms; the Network State fits this bill. 

Venture capitalists coordinate capital. That is who they are, and it is what they do. So for the Network State, they will be orchestrating global investment in order to get this thing built. And with functionally 0 resistance to the Network State, there is nothing stopping them from taking in fuck-loads of money as investment to build this. And with these investments and partnerships, they are able to gain access to many of the competencies that people suggest they lack; I.e. with construction. For example, Saudi Arabia lending a hand. Or perhaps Israel. 

And ultimately with the goal being sovereignty of the Network State, it certainly has something to ask from its new breed of investors.