This is so meta. Taking the Exit from WSJ's legacy walled garden to his own Substack, in response to a story about taking the Exit from USA's legacy walled garden to his own network state.
Well written explanation and expressions. I wish that such rationality and ontological realism were the norm, not the small exception. (Insert Heinlein quote “ … it’s called bad luck.” here.)
hmmmm.... interesting!! You are right, someplace that is not in mainland. India's politics is brutal. We need to gather like-minded ppl and create our own ecosystem. I just bought a place in Gurgaon and will try my best to start a conversation in this direction.
I’ll bet when a freer country like Singapore makes it easy and cheap to relocate and gain citizenship, immigrants from America will triple. For every million US citizens who relocate yearly, there are at least 2 million who want to but cannot.
The article's strongest point is that exit matters, and that the initial Israeli-passport allegation appear to be unsubstantiated. But Woo moving to Singapore doesn’t rebut the WSJ’s core frame. Thirty-five million people changing residence shows demand for mobility, not demand for new sovereign states. And moving Network School from Malaysia to Kazakhstan proves portability, not sovereignty. Every physical campus still depends on a host state for visas, land use, licensing and enforcement. What would concretely make this a network state rather than a globally mobile community shopping among existing jurisdictions?
I think you've identified the missing half of the story.
Exit proves that communities are portable. But portability also reallocates sovereign resources. Once states perceive that reallocation, they don't simply retreat—they adapt. They compete harder, expand their intervention boundaries, and try to retain or recapture mobile resources.
In that sense, the Malaysia → Kazakhstan episode wasn't just evidence for exit. It was also evidence of sovereign adaptation.
Thanks! I read it, and I think the exit/sovereign-response feedback loop is the strongest part. I agree that a mobile community doesn’t just move people, that it shifts capital, talent and future activity, which gives the community leverage and pushes states to compete or clamp down.
The distinction I’m still stuck on is bargaining power versus sovereignty. Kazakhstan’s welcome may be sovereign adaptation, but Kazakhstan is still granting the terms, and can revoke them. So maybe portability creates power short of sovereignty.
In your framework, what would need to happen before you’d say sovereignty itself had moved to the network, rather than the network simply gaining bargaining power through a credible exit option?
That’s exactly where I think Violence Immunity becomes useful as a distinction.
The overnight move from Malaysia to Kazakhstan certainly demonstrates the freedom of exit. But it also demonstrates something else: the community didn’t move from sovereignty to autonomy. It moved from one sovereign possessing violence immunity to another.
In other words, the relationship remained one of hosting, not sovereignty. Kazakhstan granted the terms, and Kazakhstan can ultimately revoke them. The host changed, but the underlying structure did not.
That’s why I distinguish bargaining power from sovereignty. Portability increases bargaining power. Violence immunity defines sovereignty.
To me, the Malaysia → Kazakhstan episode doesn’t show that the network has become sovereign. It shows that highly mobile communities have become much better tenants.
A tenant can certainly gain rights, leverage, and create enormous value. But a tenant and a landlord still occupy fundamentally different structural positions.
Regarding "anti-Indian" sentiment in the USA, what you're seeing is the natural reaction to a nation being scammed. Recent "immigrants" from the subcontinent aren't as highly educated, many have scammed their way into HB1 visas, gotten trucker licenses without proper vetting that they can even speak English, etc.. Most Americans don't want or need the world's poor & uneducated to come here & drive down wages & not assimilate properly. It's a natural & normal reaction. Under Biden, he let in tens of millions of illegal immigrants without even a vote by the American people. There are repercussions to that insane violation of our borders. Immigration should be slow, limited, & highly selective in the opinion of most Americans. We don't want to be India with a population of 1.4 billion even if our GDP will be higher. No thanks. Besides that, big fan of you Balaji!
Tiebout sorting disciplines a state only when the exiting population is representative. Once exit is priced through visas, capital thresholds and residency minimums, the sample selects hard on mobility and wealth. So the signal a declining jurisdiction receives is narrow: it reads as capital flight rather than as governance failure, and the rational response is to court mobile capital while conditions for the immobile continue to degrade. The right to exit is real and the feedback it generates is far more selective than the theory assumes.
I'm a pretty big fan of yours. Generally agree with much of your analysis and your approach. Unlike the dude below who criticized you for the BTC prediction, you put your money where your mouth is. Journalists are the commentators...the guys in the cheap seats. You're on the field and trying to make something happen.
My only issue is that you would accede to the Malaysian gov't request re: filtering out Israeli passports. Obviously, they can do that...but you don't have to have an event there that implicitly condones that.
I hope Kazakhstan is a more accepting and tolerant place. And I hope you consider these types of things in the future. Building an open future while discriminating to get there...
Anyway, you're human. You learn as you go, like we all do. It's too bad that Mr. Woo has to make a living taking a cheap shots, but hey...that sells, right?
If I can just get this knowledge Renaissance out it is going to be so transformative that I think it'll raise the quality of life for everyone. We might not then be building Doomsday bunkers by the rich or looking for escape perfect habitats...
This is so meta. Taking the Exit from WSJ's legacy walled garden to his own Substack, in response to a story about taking the Exit from USA's legacy walled garden to his own network state.
Well written explanation and expressions. I wish that such rationality and ontological realism were the norm, not the small exception. (Insert Heinlein quote “ … it’s called bad luck.” here.)
Does anyone read WSJ
Does anyone watch “Murder She Wrote”
Yes
Mic drop. Loved it.
Good luck, I'm rooting for you.
I like your writing and whenever you do podcasts I always listen.
You should engage with the Indian government on the Great Nicobar Island project.
India would be a great place, but the timing isn't right!!
Nicobar island is a perfect place for this and this is the perfect time.
India keeps losing its elites to US, UK, Singapore, UAE.
The Indian elite needs its own first-world cosmopolis. But it cannot bE done on the mainland at this point in time due to the political economy.
A network state for India’s elite that is nominally within Indian jurisdiction is an idea that is waiting to be executed on.
hmmmm.... interesting!! You are right, someplace that is not in mainland. India's politics is brutal. We need to gather like-minded ppl and create our own ecosystem. I just bought a place in Gurgaon and will try my best to start a conversation in this direction.
Plan a get together in NCR and I would be open to turn up later half of August.
oh this will take time... probably mid next year!!
I see. No worries. I should be around whenever you plan.
Would be happy to host something myself if you know a small set of people interested in these ideas.
I’ll bet when a freer country like Singapore makes it easy and cheap to relocate and gain citizenship, immigrants from America will triple. For every million US citizens who relocate yearly, there are at least 2 million who want to but cannot.
This article is beautifully written!
- Discreetly sums up Capitalism vs Communism
- Gives young people clarity on the right places to head to
- Proper content and links that help us dig deeper on the ongoing situations around the world.
Thank you so much for writing this out, Balaji!
Very well written and answered many questions I had as a current NS member! Thank you Balaji and team! Keep up the good work!
The article's strongest point is that exit matters, and that the initial Israeli-passport allegation appear to be unsubstantiated. But Woo moving to Singapore doesn’t rebut the WSJ’s core frame. Thirty-five million people changing residence shows demand for mobility, not demand for new sovereign states. And moving Network School from Malaysia to Kazakhstan proves portability, not sovereignty. Every physical campus still depends on a host state for visas, land use, licensing and enforcement. What would concretely make this a network state rather than a globally mobile community shopping among existing jurisdictions?
I think you've identified the missing half of the story.
Exit proves that communities are portable. But portability also reallocates sovereign resources. Once states perceive that reallocation, they don't simply retreat—they adapt. They compete harder, expand their intervention boundaries, and try to retain or recapture mobile resources.
In that sense, the Malaysia → Kazakhstan episode wasn't just evidence for exit. It was also evidence of sovereign adaptation.
I tried to develop this argument here:
https://deepbitcheesebrew.substack.com/p/state-exit-why-sovereignty-expands
Thanks! I read it, and I think the exit/sovereign-response feedback loop is the strongest part. I agree that a mobile community doesn’t just move people, that it shifts capital, talent and future activity, which gives the community leverage and pushes states to compete or clamp down.
The distinction I’m still stuck on is bargaining power versus sovereignty. Kazakhstan’s welcome may be sovereign adaptation, but Kazakhstan is still granting the terms, and can revoke them. So maybe portability creates power short of sovereignty.
In your framework, what would need to happen before you’d say sovereignty itself had moved to the network, rather than the network simply gaining bargaining power through a credible exit option?
That’s exactly where I think Violence Immunity becomes useful as a distinction.
The overnight move from Malaysia to Kazakhstan certainly demonstrates the freedom of exit. But it also demonstrates something else: the community didn’t move from sovereignty to autonomy. It moved from one sovereign possessing violence immunity to another.
In other words, the relationship remained one of hosting, not sovereignty. Kazakhstan granted the terms, and Kazakhstan can ultimately revoke them. The host changed, but the underlying structure did not.
That’s why I distinguish bargaining power from sovereignty. Portability increases bargaining power. Violence immunity defines sovereignty.
To me, the Malaysia → Kazakhstan episode doesn’t show that the network has become sovereign. It shows that highly mobile communities have become much better tenants.
A tenant can certainly gain rights, leverage, and create enormous value. But a tenant and a landlord still occupy fundamentally different structural positions.
Regarding "anti-Indian" sentiment in the USA, what you're seeing is the natural reaction to a nation being scammed. Recent "immigrants" from the subcontinent aren't as highly educated, many have scammed their way into HB1 visas, gotten trucker licenses without proper vetting that they can even speak English, etc.. Most Americans don't want or need the world's poor & uneducated to come here & drive down wages & not assimilate properly. It's a natural & normal reaction. Under Biden, he let in tens of millions of illegal immigrants without even a vote by the American people. There are repercussions to that insane violation of our borders. Immigration should be slow, limited, & highly selective in the opinion of most Americans. We don't want to be India with a population of 1.4 billion even if our GDP will be higher. No thanks. Besides that, big fan of you Balaji!
Tiebout sorting disciplines a state only when the exiting population is representative. Once exit is priced through visas, capital thresholds and residency minimums, the sample selects hard on mobility and wealth. So the signal a declining jurisdiction receives is narrow: it reads as capital flight rather than as governance failure, and the rational response is to court mobile capital while conditions for the immobile continue to degrade. The right to exit is real and the feedback it generates is far more selective than the theory assumes.
I'm a pretty big fan of yours. Generally agree with much of your analysis and your approach. Unlike the dude below who criticized you for the BTC prediction, you put your money where your mouth is. Journalists are the commentators...the guys in the cheap seats. You're on the field and trying to make something happen.
My only issue is that you would accede to the Malaysian gov't request re: filtering out Israeli passports. Obviously, they can do that...but you don't have to have an event there that implicitly condones that.
I hope Kazakhstan is a more accepting and tolerant place. And I hope you consider these types of things in the future. Building an open future while discriminating to get there...
Anyway, you're human. You learn as you go, like we all do. It's too bad that Mr. Woo has to make a living taking a cheap shots, but hey...that sells, right?
Good luck in the next chapter
Before publishing, we’d like your opinion on this hit piece.
If I can just get this knowledge Renaissance out it is going to be so transformative that I think it'll raise the quality of life for everyone. We might not then be building Doomsday bunkers by the rich or looking for escape perfect habitats...
Great post!!!
Also, I'm old enough to remember what a great resource WSJ was ... their decline has been sad to watch.