Tom W. Bell earned his J.D. from the University of Chicago in 1993, then practiced law in Silicon Valley and Washington, DC before serving as a policy director at the Cato Institute. In 1998, he joined the faculty of Chapman University, Fowler School of Law, where he teaches all of the first-year common law courses and electives in high-tech and intellectual property law. Bell's prior publications include Intellectual Privilege: Copyright, Common Law, and the Common Good (2014). Through Archimediate LLC, Bell advises companies developing special economic zones on the design, installation, and support of legal systems.

Introduction: from dinosaurs to chickens; Part I. Facts: 1.1. The most valuable thing in the world?; 1.2. Revolution, inside-out, bottom-up, world-wide; 1.3. Special jurisdictions in the United States; 1.4. Case study 1: Fordlandia; 1.5. Case study 2: Honduran REDs and ZEDEs; 1.6. Case study 3: Seasteads; Part II. Theory: 2.1. The center of the law; 2.2. Why consent to consent?; 2.3. Up the ladder of consent; 2.4. Forget it is a constitution; Part III. Practice: 3.1. Best practices in governing services; 3.2. Abolish governmental immunity; 3.3. Citizen courts; 3.4. From orphaned cities to shared communities; 3.5. Double democracy; 3.6. United States special economic zones (USSEZs); 3.7. Ulex: An Open Source Legal Operating System; 3.8. Stories of the sort ordinarily recounted over drinks; Conclusion: from smart governments, gold swans; Appendix 1: worldwide census of SEZs and similar zones; Appendix 2: economics of monopolies in governing services; Appendix 3: Ulex Open Source Legal Operating System Version 1.0 (2016).