Friedman has now abandoned the seastead project, in favor of promoting autonomous “charter cities” to promote free markets and the rule of law in poor countries on the model of Hong Kong (an undemocratic British colony before it became an undemocratic satrapy of China’s communist dictatorship). Honduras has revised its laws to accommodate such autonomous zones. According to Details: One potential model is something Friedman calls Appletopia: A corporation, such as Apple, “starts a country as a business. The more desirable the country, the more valuable the real estate,” Friedman says. Let us hope Appletopia is a kinder, gentler place than Apple’s Foxconn supplier company town in China, where netting had to be placed around dormitories to catch unfree workers seeking to escape from serfdom to multinational corporations by committing suicide. But let me close on a conciliatory note. While libertarianism as a philosophy is superficial, juvenile nonsense, particular libertarian proposals are sometimes worthwhile on their merits. The seastead and charter cities movements are examples. If libertarians want to move to converted offshore oil platforms or multinational-owned company towns in the jungles of Central America, I for one will wish them well. Michael Lind is the author of Land of Promise: An Economic History of the United States and co-founder of the New America Foundation.
Posted on: Fri, 27 Jun 2014 15:54:30 +0000
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