8 Books Like Seasteading

This book opens your eyes to the power of jurisdictional competition and brings hope of a future where governance is conducted for the benefit of the people being governed, rather than the benefit of government bureaucrats as is the case today.

An increasing amount of SEZs, startup societies, and privately run cities are springing up across the world. Judging by their progress, this optimistic part of human development is likely to continue.

This book opens your eyes to those developments and current opportunities for new and better governance.

Startup Societies are the next generation of SEZs.

In this book, the authors lay out not only the technical, but also the cultural aspects of founding startup societies.

While mainstream people still see the prospects of these kinds of societies as radical, unrealistic, or even harmful, this book allows you not only to dream, but to realize that full-scale projects of new societies, and even new cities, are possible.

These can be governed in radically different ways than the towns and cities we are accustomed to, to the benefit of prosperity and cultural fulfillment of its people. 

This book is crucial for practitioners of innovative cities, whether new SEZs, charter cities, or various forms of private communities.

It deals with legal aspects and administration in an instructive and professional way.

Anyone claiming that the community of people attempting to foster private and other forms of novel jurisdictions have not thought out the necessary details are proven wrong through this book.

It takes seriously the possible pushback of existing communities and the social institutions of education, healthcare, and the like, that will be needed for new communities to gain public support. 

This book lays out the logic of governance without state-sanctioned governments.

For those not already convinced, it explains in detail how society functions, at its best, when run by a private corporation rather than entities with monopoly of force.

In the world of commerce at large, those who serve reaps the rewards. Governance is supposed to be about service.

When incentives of service align with those of profits, the probability of good governance is at its highest. 

I like this book because it’s very complementary to Peter Thiel’s book.

It emphasizes how to make yourself the focus of your “zero to one” effort.

Too many entrepreneurs burn out before they go the distance, usually because they’re exhausted and frustrated trying to manage their employees and all the tasks associated with the business.

Brantley, a successful entrepreneur, proposes a new approach that gets entrepreneurs out of micromanaging (which they tend to do) by leveraging the time and talent of their best people.

I tend to get myself into the weeds on things that are important to me (like a business), and this book helped me see what I was doing before I did any real damage.

I think you’ll feel like he wrote the book for you. No fluff, just great advice and tools you can actually use.

This book is a really fun investigation by a brilliant journalist who leads readers through a thorough yet skeptical look at the Silicon Valley-based movement known as “radical life extension” or “transhumanism.”

From hobbyists, to hackers, to scientists, to venture capitalists, a broad contingent of people in and around the “tech” space are convinced today that techno-scientific advancement will eventually allow humanity—or at least a certain small cadre of the wealthiest and savviest humans—to live forever.

There are heavy ideas here, and the book will give you a lot to think about, but it manages to be a breezy read despite the often troubling subject matter.  

Jonathan Taplin’s excellent book focuses on just four billionaires–Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, and Marc Andreessen. What I found special about this book is that it shows how these billionaires have created and sold utopian futures to the world, whether they come in the form of the metaverse, cryptocurrency, space travel, or transhumanism.

Even more disturbing is Taplin’s argument that under the pretense of these utopias, billionaires have been able to grow their wealth and power without interference from the government. Meanwhile, inequality continues to expand, nature is replaced with technology, and oligarchy gets more and more entrenched. In short, billionaire utopian visions are a distraction from the real and present danger of gross economic inequality.

Full disclosure: I work with Luke Burgis at the university. But it was him—and this book—that introduced me to René Girard, and my world has never been the same. It unpacks Girard’s concept of mimetic desire in a way that is both deeply insightful and immediately practical. It explains so much about human behavior—my own included—both inside and outside of business.

What struck me most is the weight of responsibility this places on business leaders. Desire is not neutral; it can be cultivated in ways that either elevate human dignity or exploit it. Burgis makes a compelling case that when leaders engage with the desires of their employees and customers responsibly, the result isn’t just business success—it’s human excellence and lasting happiness.

Beyond the ideas, it is simply a beautifully written book. I’ve had the privilege of seeing Luke’s storytelling ability in the classroom and as a friend, but he… show more.