Manifesto: Sovereign Localism — Beyond Libertarianism
We are the Laurentian Institute.
Not liberal. Not conservative.
We are post-libertarian.
A new force for sovereign economics, productive citizenship, and local resilience.
At our core is a new political philosophy:
Sovereign Localism — a framework for voluntary order, sound money, and civilizational continuity in an age of centralization and collapse.
We begin with one premise: The current system is rigged.
- Money is created as debt, by banks, for profit.
- Nations are told they must borrow to build roads, feed families, and educate children.
- Liberty is reduced to the freedom to consume, not the freedom to govern.
When people first encounter the idea that governments could create money without borrowing or without tying it to debt, they often react with disbelief or anxiety. The idea is too simple, too clean. It threatens the intellectual mystique of modern economics and undermines the narrative that austerity, taxation, and sacrifice are necessary to maintain civilization.
For the state, this truth is dangerous: It reveals that scarcity is a policy choice, not a natural law— and that its power rests on a manufactured sense of dependence. And if the public truly understood this, the legitimacy of debt-based finance would unravel. We reject this.
We believe:
- Governments can and must create debt-free sovereign money for public goods.
- Decentralization is not chaos — it’s dignity, accountability, and true diversity.
- Families are the core economic unit, not banks or bureaucracies.
- Localism is not nostalgic — it is sovereignty in practice.
- A nation that cannot fund its future without creditors is not sovereign.
This is not just a manifesto — it is a foundation.
We build models. We test systems. We publish ideas anyone can use — from citizens and mayors to provinces and sovereign nations.
Our research applies sovereign localism to real-world problems: energy, housing, finance, governance. Each proposal is a blueprint for post-debt civilization. Our mission is not national — it is civilizational.
Mission Statement
To design, defend, and promote sovereign economic systems rooted in productivity, sovereign localism, and national self-determination — starting in Canada, and scaling to the Anglosphere and beyond.
We advance:
- Monetary reform through sovereign credit
- Fiscal autonomy without debt dependency
- Cultural and family-centered resilience
- Decentralized and locally-anchored governance models