Given the state of the world, it’s easy for libertarians to become bitter and misanthropic.
However, libertarians should not lose hope. Even if liberty-loving cultures are not evolutionarily stable, the universe is unfathomably vast. In the long run, we'll always be able to find freedom at the frontiers.
That said, I'm optimistic that we'll discover how to grow and maintain a liberty-loving culture over the long term. Toward that end, here are some strategies I support:
Concentrate libertarians into defensible territories such as the Free State Project, Próspera, and Dubai International Financial Centre. Large socialist countries don’t seem especially motivated to attack small countries like Switzerland, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Singapore, or Anguilla directly. If populous enough, small libertarian countries could put up enough of a fight to make conquering them not worth the cost.
Promote and develop technology that enables colonization of the frontiers: seasteads, spacesteads, nuclear power, rocketry, vertical farming, robotics, etc. Once space travel and space colony technology mature, those who want liberty will be able to move to the frontier.
Promote virtual reality, human emulation, mind uploading, AI, etc. The richer artificial worlds become and the more time humans spend in them, the less external governments will matter. An encrypted MMORPG running on a decentralized network of nodes will be costly to detect, let alone shut down.
Promote censorship-resistant privacy tech: Signal, Simplex, Nostr, Monero, Zcash, Tor, darknet markets, LBRY, Arweave, etc. The government can’t tax what it doesn’t know about, can’t easily censor software without a central server, and can’t imprison anonymous individuals it can’t find.
Monkeywrench the socialist state. There are too few libertarian-leaning politicians like Massie, Amash, and Rand to easily pass pro-liberty legislation. But a small number of libertarian politicians can slow new legislation by throwing sand into the gears of the state.
Promote privately owned cities, such as Ciudad Morazán (https://bootstrap.city). Free private cities align more closely with libertarian values than democratic states. Owning and operating free private cities can make libertarians rich, whereas running for office often leads to loss and corruption for sincere libertarians.
Push for the separation of school and state. Taxpayers should not be forced to subsidize the indoctrination of their children by the state or their ideological enemies. Teachers’ unions form the backbone of the Democratic Party, so this is an area where libertarians can make common cause with conservatives. (Though beware that conservatives may try to seize power to indoctrinate other people’s children with their misguided ideas instead.)
Twin studies suggest that genetics strongly influence our political orientation (https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2013/12/09/study-on-twins-suggests-our-political-beliefs-may-be-hard-wired/). Fund research to identify the genes that foster libertarian moral intuitions and intelligence (https://righteousmind.com/largest-study-of-libertarian-psych/). Promote freedom for reproductive technologies, such as IVF, surrogacy, cloning, genetic engineering, in vitro gametogenesis, artificial wombs, nanny bots, and polygenic risk screening. Have children of your own and encourage libertarians to become parents. Encourage authoritarians to consider voluntary sterilization.
Fight for freedom of movement between governments. Freedom of movement is essential for the libertarian concentration strategy. The right of entry and exit also encourages intergovernmental competition and discourages governments from instituting draconian policies, lest they lose their tax base or skilled professionals to freer countries.
To reduce nativist opposition to freedom of movement, push to end or nullify laws that ban private discrimination. If nativists are free to exclude criminals, Blacks, Mexicans, atheists, Muslims, Jews, socialists, or trans/gay individuals at the local level, they’ll be less motivated to seize control of the government (and the borders) at the national level.
Create and promote pro-liberty media. South Park, The Babylon Bee, Doug Stanhope, Michael Malice, Joel Salatin, and Ryan Long all seem to thrive financially by promoting a pro-liberty message or mocking authoritarians. Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman also amassed wealth and significantly influenced culture by advocating for liberty.
Get rich in a non-ideological way by becoming an entrepreneur like John Mackey (Whole Foods), Patrick Schumacher (Zaha Hadid Architects), Peter Thiel (PayPal, Facebook), Elon Musk (PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, Starlink), or the Koch brothers (Koch Industries). Use the wealth you create to fund politicians or NGOs that promote liberty (Cato, Reason, Mises, AFP, YFL, SSDP, etc.).
Fund social policy bonds (https://socialgoals.com). Instead of giving money directly to NGOs or governments to solve social problems, financially back bonds that only pay out if objective measures of success are met. NGO and government employees are incentivized to increase their personal wealth and power, not to solve the problems their institutions were created to address. For example, if an NGO created to reduce homelessness actually eliminated homelessness, its employees would be out of a job. As a result, their incentives are to pretend to solve homelessness (or even exacerbate it) while securing donor or government funds. Social policy bonds solve this problem by making payment contingent on actually solving the problem.
Fund longevity research. Authoritarian regimes repeatedly arise because those who lived through the last authoritarian regime age and die. The transfer of institutional knowledge from parents to children is highly imperfect, and humans have inborn biases that make them susceptible to authoritarian promises. If humans lived for thousands of years, the evils of socialism, fascism, and democracy wouldn’t fade from memory so quickly.
So, reject despair, embrace the frontier, and build the free world you envision—one defiant step at a time.