http://www.volokh.com/2012/09/08/privately-run-cities-in-honduras-prepare-to-launch/
Surprised that this hasn’t been discussed here yet afaik
I’m getting a kick out of the comments thread:
I didn’t have time to click the link; I was too busy playing Bioshock…
lol get it?
Very cool idea indeed.
I’m not so sure about that. The gist I get is that this is hardly a desirable setup nor any closer to some libertarian ideal.
Why so? A semi-private lawgiver may be expected to provide law that is at least marginally better that that provided by a government. Surely, an experiment to be applauded (if they manage not mess things up in the actual contract).
I’ve heard that natives are being displaced for this to happen…
From:http://www.infowars.com/honduras-sets-stage-for-3-privately-run-cities/
Michael Strong, an executive with the MKG Group that was granted this project, stated that the objective is to create a secure and prosperous community for Hondurans.
Michael Strong is an Author and Thought Leader. He is lead author of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems, co-authored with John Mackey, Muhammad Yunus, 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, Hernando de Soto, Co-Chair of the U.N. Commission on the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, and others. Michael’s work is featured in academic journals (The Journal of Business Ethics, Economic Affairs, Critical Review, etc.), specialty publications (Microfinance Insights, Policy Innovations, Carnegie Ethics, etc.) and in media reaching popular audiences (The New York Times, Bloomberg, The Huffington Post, RealClearPolitics, Barron’s, etc.). He serves on the board of Conscious Capitalism, Inc., The Free Cities Institute, The Seasteading Institute, and the Advisory Boards of The Lifeboat Foundation, Trilinc Global, The Moorfield Storey Institute, and is a mentor for developing world entrepreneurs for the MIT Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship and Development.
I have found that Michael Strong has a site: The Purpose of Education.
He is a libertarian. This is from his About page:
In order to create an educational system capable of improving the happiness and well-being of humanity, we need to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, government involvement in education at all levels, as well as government restrictions on the free pursuit of whatever occupation one desires. Government financing and regulation of education at all levels prevents the emergence of the more authentic, humane, and effective forms of education that we need. Thus around the world we need to move towards a principled separation of school and state, occupation and state, and research and state.
Sometimes, “libertarian,” means, libertarian, and other times, it means, corporate fascist. It’s a spectrum that seems to be determined by the scale of one’s endeavors.
Which is the case here?
I’m not sure yet. I have to go out and collect eggs, feed the chickens and help Becky get the kids fed, bathed and into bed. I’ll return to this later tonight.
In any event, this is clearly the most interesting story that isn’t getting much play in the regular media at the moment.
Just found this listening now: http://soundcloud.com/freetalklive/ftl-interviews-michael-strong
It’s more likely to be successful than seasteading.
Will there be police? If so, who will run the police (people with guns)?
My guess is there will be a no gun rule. Which, if it’s voluntary, I have no problem with, but I wouldn’t want to live there myself.
I find it amusing that the Free-Talk Live link below has the creator of this project saying that the biggest threat to the whole project is the Government of the USA.
But I do wonder who will lead the city and put away criminals. Wont that be some form if government?
I’ve mulled over an idea similar to this for a while now. The first step would be to obtain sovereign land. Preferably this would be done just by homesteading, but I doubt any state would readily go along with that (look what happened to the “Republic of Minerva”). So the state would have to be either bought off or fended off. Once sovereign land is obtained, it would be parceled out according to a pre-existing agreement among all parties involved. Thus there wouldn’t be one single, ultimate owner of the entire area of sovereign land - each landowner would be sovereign. If a landowner wants to parcel his land out to others, that’s up to him. If he wants to rent it out to others, that’s again up to him.
from what ive found they have full sovern powers at least ive havt found any thing to the contary .library named after mises
Some vids from the “Future of Free Cities” conference
More from Strong on his vision of free cities.
http://explorersfoundation.org/archive/strongm-creating-libertopia.pdf
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-19999536
Honduras court bans private cities project
The “model cities” project was backed by President Porfirio Lobo, who said it would attract foreign investment and create jobs
By 13 votes to one, Supreme Court judges decided that the proposal violated the principle of sovereignty.
Aaand back to seasteading. Thanks for the news update, been waiting for this decision to get handed down, and exactly what we all expected :\
Is judicial review given in the Honduran constitution? Because it sure as hell isn’t in ours.
