
The "charter city" movement in Honduras - pelle
http://www.citylab.com/politics/2014/10/what-would-it-be-like-to-live-in-a-town-run-by-investors/381532/
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kauffj
Taleb made this comment on Facebook yesterday. Seems relevant:

Another attribute of small is beautiful: (what we call) democracy.

The idea of democracy is to take the citizens’ location as fixed, and the
identity of those in government as variable, the “representatives” matching
the preferences of the people. But you can get similar results of
representation, even under dictatorships, by varying the people’s location
instead.

Assuming you are able to move to the canton or municipality where you feel the
dictators represent your tastes & beliefs, such competition would put pressure
on local municipal dictators to please taxpaying constituents so they stick
around. So the smaller the size of political units (and the larger their
number), the more democracy we get in the system.

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kauffj
The concept is fascinating because it offers a chance to experiment with
altering fundamental aspects of society that are otherwise static. What
happens when a place exists with no or limited IP? What happens when a place
exists with little-to-no restrictions on medicine or transportation? Who knows
what we could create?

Larry Page is right when he says we need more opportunities to experiment with
society. The fundamental problem with government is a lack of pressure to
improve. In Hirschman's conception, it's become all voice, no exit.

It's completely possible this implementation could be shady or mismanged. The
fact that Romer has left should be disconcerting. But as an idea it's terrific
and we should all be excited.

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zcaceres
I am interviewed in this article and have been a close observer of the
situation in Honduras since 2011. Many of the concerns raised in this piece
are legitimate.

However, Paul Romer's involvement and renunciation do not indicate what people
think it does. Romer was also behaving badly just as the government has been.
It was sort of a mutually-destructive power struggle that, sadly, hurt the
people of Honduras most of all by jeopardizing the integrity of the reforms.

Further, the ideological aspects ('free market zones' etc) distract from a
more important idea – namely that cities can incubate better policies more
safely, cheaply, and effectively than if reforms are tried first at the
national level. Think Lean Startup for political reform.

The use of neighborhoods and municipalities as testbeds for reform is
politically neutral... and it ought to stay that way, contrary to the wishes
of some in this article!

Please consider visiting www.startupcities.org for a practical alternative to
the 'charter cities' idea.

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kauffj
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMwc1c0HRQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlMwc1c0HRQ)

(seriously, why isn't there a mailing list option on the site?)

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frozenport
It should be noted that Honduras as an extremely limited number of
professionals that can make these cities productive. As mentioned they might
simply become havens for the hereditary wealthy who have mismanaged the
country into oblivion.

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ASneakyFox
I like how they changed the name from autonomous zone to zone of employment
and economic development and then it got passed.

I sense it'll end up being a sweatshop farm and the "employees" will be paid
so little that they won't be able to leave.

The us used to allow small towns like this. Employees would get paid in
company minted currency. Then they'd only be able to shop at stores and
restaurants owned by the company. This sort of thing is of course illegal now.

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praxeologist
That's crazy. How did they get the people to go there? Did they trick them
somehow?

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lotsofmangos
You load 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. St
Peter don't you call me cos I can't go, I owe my soul to the company store.

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seanflyon
"Sixteen Tons" by Tennessee Ernie Ford

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2tWwHOXMhI](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2tWwHOXMhI)

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anovikov
I was always thinking that Singapore and Hong Kong were total opposites of
'unregulated free market', Singapore is almost a dictatorship and Hong Kong
was a British colony under a strong, undemocratic rule. Good geography and
lack of 'legacy' issues due to these territories being freshly developed from
scratch made them successful, bringing free market with no government pressure
to Honduras will bring nothing but more violence and poverty.

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logicchains
Market freedom is not necessarily connected with political freedom. One could
for instance have an oppressive leader who instituted free market economic
policies, such as Pinochet. A free market doesn't necessarily imply democracy
(freedom to choose one's political leader), it only implies freedom of
exchange (freedom to buy and sell as one wishes, with only minor taxation
being applied).

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tormeh
>minor taxation

What do you mean? As long as the tax is low enough to not be a de facto ban, I
think it's still a free market.

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zo1
I think what he's trying to say is that minor taxation implies minor-
intervention on the part of the government.

So the more taxation you have, the more funding is given to the government.
The implication being that more funding means that they can institute more, or
more overreaching policies that distort free-market operation.

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lotsofmangos
They might get it done too, as long as the main opponents to the plan, like
Antonio Trejo Cabrera, keep being murdered.

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gph
So we've finally gotten to the point where Snow Crash is going to become a
reality. That's fun.

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lsiebert
Strange, I was thinking Detroit in "Robocop".

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zo1
Oh don't mind that, that's your inner biases and preconceptions talking. Some
see one thing, others see differently.

