Libertarian Dream Cities: Coming to Honduras

Independent cities run entirely by the business class? They’re in the making in Honduras, where President Porfirio Lobo Sosa has proposed the creation of autonomous, nondemocratic, privatized metropolises, or “Ayn-Randias,” as University of Missouri-Kansas City economist William Black calls them.

Proponents of the plan are casting the cities as opportunities to unleash the power of pure capitalism unhampered by regulation. Black understands the program as another iteration of the ceaseless effort of powerful economic interests to do what they want with their money.

“This is not a democratic movement,” Black says. “This is tremendous hostility not only to government, but to the entire concept of democratic decision making, which they see as inherently coercive and inherently backed up by the military and guns. And in contrast, they say, private decision making is inherently voluntary and almost inherently beneficial.” What this arrangement will produce, he continues, is crony capitalism and social disaster.

— Posted by Alexander Reed Kelly.

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