Surging government interference is motivating high-profile Silicon Valley leaders literally to seek new frontiers where innovation can flourish. PayPal founder Peter Thiel, for example, is funding "seasteading," man-made sea colonies. The concept is not new and innovators can find a valuable case study in the short-lived Republic of Minerva.

As revealed for the first time in the new book, "Willard Garvey: An Epic Life," Minerva was the brainchild of international developer Willard Garvey, pioneering global investor John Templeton, and entrepreneur and yacht designer Seth Atwood. Like today's Silicon Valley tech leaders, the three friends saw the ill effects of governments quashing opportunity and dreamed of an alternate environment where individual rights would be respected and entrepreneurship could flourish unabated. They set out to find an unclaimed piece of property.


Unfortunately, Oliver proved far less reserved than his backers, and in early 1972, he filed a "Declaration of Sovereignty" with the U.S. State Department. As reported by The New York Times, the following month, Tonga -- some think at the behest of the U.S. State Department -- laid claim to the reefs.


Sovereignty remains the hurdle in any attempt to establish a new nation, and the Seasteading Institute's "Poseidon Award," offered for the first established sea colony, rightly includes de facto political autonomy as a criterion. Yet it is hardly in the interest of the world's established nations to bestow recognition on a new country setting itself up in competition for the world's entrepreneurs and taxpayers.


Garvey supported pro-liberty groups such as the Independent Institute, created the National Center for Privatization, and engaged in a campaign of building support for opportunity-enhancing systems of government. Templeton created his own foundation, which continues to champion the advancement of freedom and free enterprise.

The fall of the Berlin Wall provided vindication within their lifetimes of the ideas they backed. Consider, for example, the former Soviet colony of Estonia. Freed from Moscow's control, Estonia embraced free trade, a low flat tax, sound money and privatization, resulting in one of the freest societies and fastest-growing economies of the late 20th century. Just twenty years later, The Economist calls Estonia "a world leader in technology."


In addition to Thiel's quest, Google's Larry Page proposes creating "a piece of the world" where new ideas can be tried out in the absence of antiquated laws, and venture capitalist Tim Draper is backing a ballot initiative to carve California into six states, including an autonomous "Silicon Valley."


Mary L.G. Theroux, the daughter of Willard Garvey, is senior vice president of the Independent Institute and publisher of "Willard Garvey: An Epic Life." She wrote this article for this newspaper.