Patchwork

Urbism, also called Ultramunicipalism or Patchwork, is a political ideology that seeks the maximum possible increase in City-States and Microstates in general. Ideally seeing a world in which every locality is its own sovereign state.

History

The first states in human history were formed primarily around urban and agricultural centres and were at first way smaller than the modern nation-state. A case in which a number of these states formed yet one state failed to conquer and subjugate all the other states can be considered the first examples of a working urbist system, as can be seen in Ancient and Classical Greece.

After the end of the Roman Empire examples of Urbist systems took hold in parts of Europe under Feudalism and lasted as late as to the rise of modern nation-states during and after the Age of Enlightenment. With the most famous examples being Germany and Northern Italy, but also including much of Eastern Europe before the expansion of Russia.

Patchwork systems largely declined after the rise of Nationalism and Colonialism (and fall of the latter) from 17th to 20th with nothing much left except for a small number of microstates scattered around much of the old world such as the 6 microstates in Europe and Singapore.

In the 21st century the notion of organising the world around city-states and microstates became popular among a number of political circles, including Libertarian, Neoreactionary and anti-nationalist circles. Notably including the right-wing blogger Mencius Moldbug who coined term "Patchwork" to describe system in which a a specific region is made up entirely of microstates.

Beliefs

In an Urbist system all localities on within a region have their own jurisdiction residing over them and primarily only them, in an even more radical version of this system this is even applied to the seas and oceans.

Arguments

A common for a patchwork system is the belief that market competition over competing states creates an incentive for good leadership over a polity, as such the opportunity to compete within a market framework should be maximised as much as possible. Under this argument Urbism is commonly combined with Neocameralism, the belief that the state itself should be run for profit under a joint-stock framework.

Complementary arguments to the market argument are experimentation argument and liberty argument. The former is the belief that having multiple small jurisdiction rather than a large small leaves a greater opportunity and incentive for experimentation in policy allowing and allowing for good new policies to be implemented faster and the bad ones discarded faster. The Latter is the belief that a small state under competition has a lesser incentive to infringe on the rights of it's citizens than a larger state without much competition.

Another argument for ultramunicipalism is the belief that the nation is too much of an artificial unit to base sovereignty around as compared to the much more "real" unit of the city, and as such it would make more sense to base sovereignty on the city rather than the nation.

Strategy

The primary strategy for people who align themselves with urbism is generally taken to be unconditional secessionism at all times, supporting every secession movement and every single break-away state that there is, including those that are not ideologically aligned with the movement.

Another proposal for creating a society of independent city-states is seasteading, meaning creating new settlements in the sea away from the reach of current states.

Personality

Urbism as a character isn't usually portrayed in any unified character. Although he can, but doesn't have to be shown as an ethusiast for microstates currently in the world as an enthusiast for creating micronations.

How to Draw

Urbism's design was created by the discord user Kapitein Kanker#7156, on the Polcompball discord. The grey represents city infrastructure while the blue represents the seas on which city-states form on.