An alternate view to "retreat" anarchism or libertarianism.

I recently read an article by Murray Rothbard in which he expressed great contempt for groups of libertarians (and, presumably, anarchocapitalists since his version of libertarianism strongly espoused anarchy) who would go off to form a separate community.

I'm a great fan of Rothbard. But I think he missed the boat on this one. Granted, his reasons were valid. But he missed out or ignored another motive for doing this other than to escape the current system. I actually think that's reason enough to do it, if you wanna be a hermit, but it's not why I advocate seasteading. Not at all.

Retreating, in the long term, accomplishes nothing for the philosophy and movement of anarchy. It does free one individual, to the extent that they can pull it off. But they then become invisible.
That ain't my style.

Forming a separate community under anarchic principles at sea is an entirely different sort of approach. It's based on an old axiom: Nothing sells like success.

Think about it. A seastead that was successful, autonomous, and connected to the world via internet and trade is newsworthy. That's aside from blowing your own horn. Not only is it newsworthy, it's a template. And given the dynamic geography of seasteading, there would probably QUICKLY arise several competing models. It allows the theories of anarchy to be put to the test in a part of the earth that, by long standing convention, is unowned and unownable. Seasteads would be movable. Not necessarily mobile, but movable.

I favor an aquacultural base, at least at first. Fish farms already exist, the technology is improving rapidly, and every gadget that you need to build a completely autonomous habitat at sea is readily available. Not all of it is cheap, but it is all readily available. Much of it can be built by a moderately handy person. Fish farms have the potential to be immensely profitable, if you don't care who you sell food to, and the demand is growing with the population. There are multiple processor ships that already inhabit the oceans and buy their goods directly from fishing vessels. Some of them would be willing to do business with a sea farm.

As it becomes successful, this hypothetical venture could expand, and it could and should advertise itself to the world. Maintain websites, video coverage, and as many other media as possible to shout it's existence from the rooftops. Or the Doldrums, as the case may be.
And that's the point. It would show people, rather than merely telling them, what motivated individuals can accomplish in the absence of government. I suspect that this would cause two complementary outcomes. First, especially early in the experiment, it would attract like minded people to try the same thing. As with any new frontier, some would make it, some would fail. But the frontier would again exist, and humans historically make the most advances when there is a frontier.

Second, those who don't wish to take to the ocean would nevertheless SEE what can be done by those who are free. And some of them will want it. Those that want it bad enough will start trying to get their own little corner of the world to secede from the almighty State and go it alone. Some will succeed.

I think, then, that properly formatted, the establishment of new groups outside the current system is a very good tactic from an anarchist viewpoint. Because frankly, even if anarchy does take root in the hearts and minds of the masses, it's implementation will likely start small in various places, and spread virally. This is one way to start the process.