Fireside chat | Netherlands VS Liberland | Common S3nse - 2026

[music] Moving on. Um yeah, another very interesting talk. I am very well interested in this talk. The reason is because um Liberaland, I actually knew of Liberaland before this talk. Um we're gonna have Justin and of course the president of Liberaland which um to give a little bit of context is like yeah a country that exists somewhere between Serbia and Croatia, right?

Like an island and then you know it was unclaimed and then you claimed it and then that will happen, right? Okay, perfect. At least I remember that. Um now please welcome to the stage the president of Lipeland Vit. I'm so sorry.

The last name is a little bit tough for me, but how do you say that?

Don't try. Don't try.

Yeah, I'm trying. I'm learning some some Yes. Thank you very much. You can uh Well, this is fun. I wasn't expecting this.

I was actually asked to moderate this panel and uh I was asked one minute ago to come uh be on the panel instead. Um but I'm actually very happy about it. We had some really good political chats yesterday actually. I really enjoyed that very much. I

think we can actually dig deeper into those topics.

That would be interesting. Um I feel a little bit uninformed like I don't know that much about the exact structure of Liberland. So it' be we could maybe dig into that a little bit more. Like I I suppose what I was saying yesterday uh h how much of you know what Liberland is here? Like how much Okay.

Okay. Yeah, you know the history. All right. So, the Okay, I'm I'm just going to I'm have to come up off the off the shoot here, but let's What worries me personally about Liberland is your neighbors. I'm just going to go straight off the cuff here.

Obviously,

I mean, Croatia and Serbia, I think, in some sense, are great neighbors. They I think they're kind of finished with fighting each other. Uh, and I think they kind of learned their lesson also from from that last fight. And yes, like the after this fight there is this seven square kilometer territory which could potentially revitalize not just the whole balcons if if done right but also whole Europe right the idea that for example Hong Kong brought to China is quite strategic in that sense that that whole China copied the model and uh and that actually created this whole prosperity from for the for the China later on and and Europe really needs to find similar remedy for this illness like they now recognize it themselves, right? If you have a a continent growing at 1% uh per decade and that you combine it with somebody that grows or compare it with somebody grows at 10%, you really have a big problem and now Musk is pushing on that side.

I think we potentially have a big ally in that that that Europe needs to find remedy and fixing it along the lines of like deregulating and lowering taxes in Europe is kind of mission impossible in many places. I mean I even see that in Czech Republic you know there was like quite a few of like liberal lenders were actually elected into the new government but it's such a difficult system to reform that it really kind of makes sense to take some of that energy that you're putting into trying to fix something that is broken or you know fix it from within as as many people tried before to really put that energy into building something new and the resistance of the system to oppress something new which is actually doesn't making any harm and we are liberal land is literally not making any harm. Think about it unlike you know some countries that had to kill people and they had to steal some territory from somebody and Liberland is not taking any land from anybody. There was no private owner. There was no sovereign owner over the territory.

There was nobody living there. There is literally no economic activity in Liberland except of some illegal fishing migrations. But um it's it's pretty u great clean slate of building a country. And yes, in order to become a country, you have to go through some hardship. It's not like the club is open for everybody.

There is only 200 countries that made it into UN. And uh that hardship I would say is very reasonable so far and it helps us to become a country in that sense that our institutions are being formed through the resistance that we are getting from the from the existing uh system and the costs of that compared to the costs of I don't know running political campaign or or I don't know we're still below like one Patriot rocket. Do you understand that? Like do do you understand that that that insanity right that people could consider that it's it's build difficult or expensive to build liberal land but we are literally operating on that level. So I just wanted to like change your perspective on that and of course like building free society on this planet is a collective effort.

I cannot do it alone you know not not the couple dozens of people that are working hard. We need to get on board a proper nation. We need to take all these 800,000 people that applied for citizenship and activate at least properly, you know, 2% 3% out of that. And that's what that's what we are into. But also something just needs time, you know, something really need time to develop and and also they need for society to digest it.

So I'm very happy that we have this now big mainstream media that came to Liberland and they didn't necessarily came to make a hit piece. they actually came to inform. So, Deutsche, Al Jazzer, uh, Dval, you know, we had all these guys there two weeks ago. And I hope it will also result in opening eyes and potentially minds of some people that are, for example, the ones responsible for the German politics because of course Germany is a major player. It's like a big daddy for Croatia and it's still running the things from the EU perspective.

Yeah, I can see our German relationship be very important for you guys for sure. Um, look, I I love I love what you guys are doing.

Fantastic.

Oh, introduce yourself, sir.

Yes. Hi, I'm I'm Ralph Deca. I'm member of the house of representatives in the Netherlands for a forum for democracy and I very recently visited feed actually in well close to Liberaland so we decided to have a discussion on uh well how to set up a country really that's that's fascinating because my role is to try and be inside a existing country with existing structures that are pretty choking u and from that angle looking at a country that can be set up from scratch is of course fascinating. So it's nice to have a blank sheet of paper and then put everything in. So uh I look forward to this discussion.

Well, this is the exciting part when things can actually flip very quickly, right? like from like being very difficult and not having enough allies into really having great guys like Ralph in different parliaments around the world and they from becoming opposition they actually become a government and then you have all these governments around the world that actually see Liberland as something favorable and it's not really their business right and the similar situation can also happen in Croatia and Serbia so yes like things needs time but really liberal is not here to make any damage to anybody we're just trying to make really better system of governance. So I really appreciate everybody like Ralph you know that that has managed to survive and flourish in existing system while he also is forwardlooking and he understands what we're doing. So really thank you very much.

But there are some amazing parallels. For instance, like you're being a play ball of international politics and we are that of course in in the Netherlands already for ages. We are a vessel state basically of the United States as we all know. Um and then also a vessel state of this EU structure which nobody wanted. Uh so then you think okay we you set up Liberland and you're completely free.

But only a small discussion there already learned to me that Liberal is there in the pressure between Ser Servia and and Croatia. And since Croatia doesn't want Servia to have something and Servia doesn't want Croatia to have something that in that well in that space vit can grow. Isn't that Isn't that true V?

Yeah. Yeah. It's a fun fact like the more land hungry Croatia is the less it can claim Liberland. So I this is an answer to your question, right? Their their own land hangriness is protecting us from being uh taken over by Croatia which is really the b form of protection in some sense.

So that's fascinating and also you know the the sort of discussions which have grown to be completely taboo in existing environment like the Netherlands like u meritbased influence on uh the governance of a country. Um you know in the very very distant past we had a similar structure where only men at the time who were actually uh adding to um the country and actually paying into the system were allowed to have a say in whatever political thing you want. Well, that has been completely abolished of course and now we've been uh in our country but in most western countries the largest voices from the actual takers which gives a very strange effect to to organizing a country and also there feet can start from scratch and say no just the investors here have a say that that's basically the the reasoning isn't it?

Yes. I mean, we've got one person, one vote when it comes to vetoing stuff, right? And I think this is really something that has proven to be working quite well in Switzerland, you know, you can see that the vetos were able to get rid of the stupid ideas by government. While interestingly enough, if you look into things that people want to push in through referendum are also quite stupid. So we we have like learned that democracy can really have a positive effect if it's about getting rid of the laws because the the the corporation of course doesn't necessarily need to have answers for everything and the corporation shouldn't really do stuff against the majority of citizens right uh so I think that's that's an important um thing which is important to stress uh there was this term coined by Titus Gable called double democracy um like not pushing against the term democracy itself.

It's like a double I like that as well that we're building a double democracy where actually the first layer is corporation and the second layer is democracy and that should work well. So I believe this is the right way to structure things

and also the difference between citizenship and inhabitant which is a big difference certainly in Liberal

we also have that in the Netherlands but basically it's the same thing you live in the Netherlands you're inhabitant and you're also a citizen you can be a citizen outside but that is a bit complex and I think in Liberland that these are two completely different concepts because you have tens of thousands of citizens and very very few inhabitants isn't that correct Yeah, we we've got them as as e- residents, right? Uh that's the main first step. And yes, citizens also quite a few that never visited Liberaland. You know, I'm okay. We're thinking that we might make it harder for them to vote if they don't visit once a year.

We're considering that there's a little bit of a incentive for people to actually come down because yes, we actually need to eventually move these not 800,000 but at least couple hundred thousand people to Liberland. That would be fun. It's a it reminds me some of the ancient Roman Republic because in the ancient Roman Republic not everyone was a citizen and and we actually get the term citizen from the Roman Republic as well and and back back then it really meant something. There was a type of sacred status a protection that came with that you know and and I think that's a beautiful idea no matter what way we uh we express the term.

Well the nice thing is that you can fundamentally rethink how to set something like that up. uh which is something that you simply don't come across in in an existing society. Uh so it's as a thought experiment it's it's fascinating and the nice thing is that it has a physical component a reality component to it as well. So it is uh now we I certainly will come back because I didn't really get the chance to to visit the actual Liberal land. We were very very close but we were already gone to Belgrade before the the visit took place but we keep that uh for the next time.

No, I hope I hope you will visit us as soon as possible. And I also hope that we were going to be able to do something special with with Netherlands because there is an extremely interesting case where actually Dutch government played an important role in settling similar situation on the border just 50 kilometers down the river where actually the Dutch government donated a scale so people could travel from one side to another while also being a sponsor of some land agreement between the two countries. So I was thinking it's great that you guys are coming because you have some history at least as a like a Dutch tribe to resolve these problems here on this part of the world already. So, uh, yeah, but I have to talk to you about it as well because I it' be fun to find the people that actually were so involved like why Dutch government, why between Croatia and Serbia, why did you guys already sponsored this uh they call it Scala, but what do you tra uh for cars when you put cars on it and you take it on the other side of the river? What is it called?

Ferry. Yes, ferry. So Dutch government already sponsored a ferry only a couple kilometers away from Liberal in order to sponsor a border deal between the country and yes borders are not fixed. You know it's possible to negotiate them if there is enough interest to change them or actually let new country live. Uh we are able to do all kinds of things.

Well we when we came there we expected to encounter a lot of rich hippies. That's what I expected to see. You know, people who want to have complete freedom but are also well don't really have to work because they put money into these sorts of projects. But it appeared that there were just normal ordinary people rather than the the rich u the rich provos that I would have expected to see. So it was also from that angle it was a positive surprise and I must say it's uh it's fascinating to have this in the Balkans because the for for the Dutch there's even a word well I think it's an international word actually balconization which means that you have all sorts of tribes fighting one another and all that and such a place of uh let's say of of pleasure and and and freedom and and renewal.

I I think it was uh it's nice to see that it takes place in the middle of the Balkans actually.

Yeah. I I think if you want to finish that thought.

I just interesting you know thing is that Liberland even though we really don't like prefer rich people. We get quite a lot of them actually. They don't come to these events in Liberland. They just sign up online and become citizens. Right?

So we are very likely but we don't have the exact statistics but we're very likely the richest country per capita already which is kind of another primacy which is kind of crazy right I'll vouch for that that's probably true considering who's on that list currently I mean I'm speaking from the perspective of the crypto community as well and like why this is so meaningful for us like a lot of us in crypto are libertarians

and like like we don't have a libertarian country in the world it doesn't exist And it's never maybe you could maybe find some historical examples arguably maybe maybe not the Hrian League maybe but um maybe that's a that's a different historical debate but today we do not have a libertarian country. We've had libertarian leaders here and there,

but that doesn't equal libertarian country. And the fascinating thing is that if it succeeds and if the libertarians are correct and what the what libertarians and capitalists and anarcho capitalists and agorists believe is that if you set up a place with such freedom with with low taxes, they will become a hub of prosperity will become a shining beacon of freedom for the world and will inspire the rest of us to actually do better. Like that that is this beautiful dream that I really want to see succeed. I'm I'm that's what I'm doing, right? That's that's my my main business.

But uh there there is a reason, you know, it's interesting to like look a little bit into history. There is a some reason which is I haven't figured it out yet. Maybe you can help me why no countries previously were formed as a true corporations. There is some element of like human psyche which we are also dealing with in Liberland, right? It's an interesting element.

And there is also reason why libertarians don't have a country yet. I mean there is also reason why gypsies don't have a country yet in some sense. So it's very interesting to like actually find these reasons and tackle them and we are like a really living experiment. I can see some of these reasons already

arguably there's maybe similarities with the VOC potentially if you think about it because the VOC was a private company which ended up having its own military and the East Southeast India Company as well. Right.

That's the probably the closest example to that but it was

maybe not the best example. [laughter] Not the best example, not the best example, but it's like there are very few examples in the history.

I move the Hunan League actually. That's that's the first one that I would phrase which is like a league of merchants that ended up becoming more powerful than governments and controlled massive territories in Northern Europe actually for several hundred years. Personally, I think that's the best one we have

probably and it's kind of close to here. It's the the history. But the discussion we had last night and maybe I'll bring it back to this because this is the confusing part because this is something so novel and new and and like as political thinkers and political philosophers we're trying to think oh what is this actually like in a few words how would you describe what liberal land is as like what type of system what type of ism is this? I really like the volunteerism is I think the best word. I I it doesn't come with any like negative strings attached and meritocracy is also actually nice word.

So voluntarist meritocracy maybe that I really like these two terms and yes because they don't come with any any negative background. you cannot associate anything

but but they don't exactly describe the source of authority right like based on our discussion I think the source because in a democracy the source of authority is the people right you say uh by the right of the people because everyone gets to vote and have a say therefore and we and we can pick that apart but that's the theory right in a monarchy the source is either the king or maybe God because God appoints the king and therefore the source of authority is God in a monarchy potentially but what is the source of authority in liberal It's the corporation. It's the company.

It's really the merit actually. It's the merit. That's that's where we are bringing completely new.

That's too fuzzy of a concept to describe power.

It's [laughter] but it's like that. It's truly like that. So um yes like Liberland is the first basically tokenized sovereignty project which I believe there will be many more but it's taking off fairly slowly. Uh but it's I think it's the right way to do it. Like you literally take like a monarchical let's say rep um monarchy that is limited by direct democracy or limited by some constitution and you tokenize the monarchy into tokens.

Are you crowning the company like the company is now the monarchy

kind of yes it is in some sense you literally take a working monarchy you divided it into in our case 70 million merits and and you say this is the way we will run things

what does the constitutional uh monarchist democrat think of this sir

well you know when you ask our king uh whether the Netherlands is being run by the people and whether it's a pure democracy he will certainly say yes. Um and in the case of Liberland I think Vit is approaching the position of the king really. Um so you should never fully take the the words of such an autocrat uh [laughter] literally. So it's I think it remains to be seen. It's a it's a setup.

Uh it can go diverse directions. I think fit has a certain ideal but at the same time he has a certain position. So it's it's a bit of a position with a with an inherent tension there. Uh and of course you need to attract investors because there's a lot to be done. Um so before you know it you have a sort of a Trump Elon Musk combination sort of governance.

So I think there are a lot of challenges ahead there. Of course of course there are but you know frankly like some of the things really went better than what I would expect right I really wouldn't expect that that person like Justin Sun calls me and and you know runs for the first prime minister position out of nowhere literally like I get a message on telegram. And it's like how can I help with liberal land right? I'm like, okay, you know, elections are in five days. It will be gran if you run.

And yes, I called the people that have like a little bit more merits and we made like a little bit of change of plans last minute. Of course, that actually installed some disharmony among other people that were voting in the system, but I think it was a great decision nevertheless.

What's the what's the title? Prime Minister.

Prime still prime minister of

prime minister of Liberaland. The infamous

infamous

Justin Sun. infamous but still uh you know I think his overall like the fact that that you know he steps out there and we've got so many other like crypto billionaires right but they are like hiding you know and they don't want to be the firm but this guy just calls me and yes I want to be the prime minister and let me do it of course for example I wish he was like more active in like day-to-day business of Liberland it would be great um so we need to we need to really out of these situations s we need to still like readjust a little bit the the incentives of how we will run things. Uh it's learning by doing but I'm trying to really do my best at the current situation to move things forward and attract the best people to join the project at the right time.

Amazing.

I have a question one and this is a good one I promise for for our uh for our esteemed uh parliamentary guest here. Will the Dutch government support and uh Liberland as a country? Will they say yes as a country and vote in the UN to support it? Hard questions.

Uh well, I have to split that question into will our party do that? The answer is yes.

Yeah.

But

but will our government do that? The answer is definitely no.

That's the that's the question is question is when you guys will become part of the government again. That's the question for you. [laughter] So we need a majority there to to make this really happen.

All right, you heard it here, folks. [laughter]

Yeah, in the future that uh yeah, Liberland will get recognition from the Netherlands. Thank you very much once again. A big round of applause for these guys, please. Amazing. Thank you.