Free State Project

What the Free State Project is

The Free State Project is not a settlement but a movement: it recruits people who believe the proper role of government is the protection of life, liberty and property, and asks them to move to one small state, New Hampshire, where a few thousand like-minded residents can matter. It is organised by an educational non-profit of the same name, which is not a political party, runs no candidates and endorses no legislation; participants take part in the state’s ordinary politics and civic life as individuals.

Its premise is arithmetic. A political philosophy spread thinly across a country of hundreds of millions has little purchase, whereas the same number of people gathered in a state of about 1.4 million can serve in its citizen legislature, run its towns and set the tone of its public life.

Where the Free State Project is

New Hampshire, in New England in the north-eastern United States. Participants live across the state rather than in one town; the annual Porcupine Freedom Festival, PorcFest, was held for two decades at a campground in Lancaster in the White Mountains, and the winter conference, the New Hampshire Liberty Forum, takes place in the state capital, Concord.

How the Free State Project works

Anyone may sign the Statement of Intent, a pledge to move to New Hampshire and exert one’s fullest practical effort towards a society in which the maximum role of government is the protection of individual rights. The project set itself the target of 20,000 signers before calling the move; that threshold was reached on 3 February 2016, now marked as Porcupine Day. Movers organise themselves: the non-profit runs the Liberty Forum and a calendar of gatherings, while PorcFest has grown into a decentralised summer festival run by the community itself.

Who the Free State Project is for

Libertarians and classical liberals from across the United States, from software engineers and entrepreneurs to homesteaders and retirees, drawn by low taxes, since New Hampshire levies no general income or sales tax, by the “Live Free or Die” tradition and by the country’s largest citizen legislature, to which movers have been elected since 2006. It is an American, English-speaking movement; nothing about it requires a visa, a purchase or a membership fee.

How the Free State Project came about

Jason Sorens, then a doctoral student at Yale, proposed the idea in an essay in 2001. Participants chose New Hampshire by vote in 2003, over candidates such as Wyoming and Montana, and the state’s governor publicly welcomed them. The first PorcFest was held in 2004, the first mover was elected to the state house in 2006, more than four hundred had moved by 2008, and by the trigger in 2016 the movement had a decade of institutions behind it.