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128 sats \ 4 replies \ @Coinosphere 18 Feb \ on: What if we could redesign society from scratch? The promise of charter cities econ
Honduras was a perfect example of why charter cities don't work.
Long before your city (like Prospera) can grow to any size, the host state's government is going to change hands to a political enemy of the people who let you in... In Honduras it changed hands from a freedom-loving liberal government to an actual Communist named Castro! & Now she's made it her life's mission to remove all those horrible expat libertarians from her land, revoking Prospera's EEZ and setting her country against them all.
I certainly wouldn't feel safe living there today. How can that economy grow?
States just don't sell their sovereignty over land, period. The rare cases like Hong Kong and Singapore that were successful were always temporary situations made from an Occupier with a more liberal mindset. I truly feel sorry for those living in HK today under Beijing's full rule.
So as far as I'm concerned, Charter cities are all doomed by their very concept. To believe in them, you have to be naive enough to believe that the state that grants you the land will keep it's word and so will all of it's future rulers. That's just retarded.
That's why I'm a seasteader. Making new land is the only way to go.
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& it's not sovereignty in the first place. Host countries are still counting on the fact that they'll get to tax you one day, if not from the start. They still demand that their legal structure is applied to your city.
States simply DO NOT sell sovereignty. If you think you've found a historical example otherwise, look again. It's never full sovereignty.
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I am fascinated by the concepts of charter cities and seasteading.
I actually firmly believe that the former, if implemented correctly, could help solve the migrant crisis and provide an economic boost to empoverished regions in Africa.
The more of them we have around the world the better. A country revoking an agreement would make the other charter cities more valuable.
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100% of charter cities are doomed within a decade for reasons I've posted above.
A charter city becoming "more valuable" does not add to it's defense against the host state. If anything, the charter city becoming more valuable makes it MORE ATTRACTIVE to be plundered by the host state.
Think about it this way: if you were a commie tin-pot dictator and your formal political rival gave a bunch of undesirables (in your opinion) some land to make a community out of, but then suddenly those undesirables became really rich, what would you do?
You'd pillage them as much as you possibly could. That's exactly what you'd do.
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