Not sure how many are still in operation as such, but, well... Company Towns started in the US.

the example I can think of right off my head is, of course, the old feudal system.
And the city states of Rome/Italy and ...Greece?

The interesting thing about this Honduran plan is that these cities, will have the rights to act as separate independent countries,
re:taxes, and across the border trade.
AND
at the same time we are watching Europe, most notably Greece and Italy, give up their state sovereignty for bailout money answering not to the citizens or local government but to bank picked leaders.

Then throw in the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) which is being signed off on by corporations in several countries, including USA,
http://www.democraticunderground.com/101641722

and it all adds up to destruction of what we know as nationality and nations as self ruling entities.

That's what we need, outsource USD to foreign soil! That way the super rich can cut out the middle man, the lower man, the upper man, all people who work in America and keep the money too.

Here, I'll take the 40 billion in my wallet right now and invest! Hey, I could even buy the people in my new city! Just the kind that are, hmm... how do say it, acceptable, pleasing, fair and delightsome.

So the practical immortality of the US comes into focus! (per another post)



(and I'm totally being sarcastic just for the record)

Honduras is one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, which means cheap servants and cheap labor. You can live like a king on a U.S. income, and enjoy low taxes and not have to pay for social services.

There are websites where libertarians trade information on Third World countries where they can create American ghettos.

I had no idea, but on 2nd thought, it makes perfect sense, in a way.

10 years ago, Mr.dixie and I were exploring the idea of leaving the country, and that was before the melt down and the rapid increase of police state behaviors.
However, our concern was that any So.American country we moved to would, most likely, eventually get pretty fed up with American corporations raping their wealth and eco-systems, thus we did not want to be in the middle of
blowback.

Detroit’s reforms may soon be headed for the rest of the state, too. Under Gov. Rick Snyder’s corporate martial law that he signed back in March, state-appointed emergency financial managers like Bob Bobb now have unilateral power to dissolve public unions, seize and sell assets, shut down schools and eliminate services if they feel it’s appropriate to help a town avoid bankruptcy.

Last Wednesday, Snyder announced that he would appoint emergency financial managers for 23 cash-strapped school districts. Eighteen of them are in Metro Detroit, the Detroit News reported. All of the districts have more than a $1 million deficit, and according to Michigan’s Department of Education, together they have an operating deficit of $440 million. With a $327 million deficit, the bulk of that deficit still sits with the Detroit Public Schools.

Michigan’s new emergency financial managers are being dispatched to poor communities of color, where they’re being given total power to attack public institutions and public workers in favor of, very often, financial reforms that favor corporations and private business over. As The Advancement Project’s Judith Browne-Dianis told Rinku Sen back in March , three of the four cities and school
districts that already had emergency financial managers are majority black. “I believe this is the waterfront and Detroit bill,” Browne-Dianis said. “This is how Detroit will become gentrified. This is how corporate interests and developers will get to have wholesale control of our towns, our land and there’s nothing we can do about it.”

http://www.alternet.org/story/150875/corporate_martial_law%3A_public_schools_auctioned_off_to_highest_bidder

with libertarian leanings, who just happen to have not invested in the projects, although their friends have. Despite the claim from the developer that "once we have jobs then we will need affordable housing, schools, clinics, churches, stores, restaurants, all the businesses that create a real community", they will build the call centres and factories for cheap labour, and restricted upscale housing (and upscale stores and restaurants) for senior management and investors - and then stop. The labour will have to live outside, and commute in each day. There will be next to no 'affordable housing'. This means the 'guarantee' that any Honduran citizen will have the right to be a resident will be meaningless - only the rich will be able to afford to live inside the city.

Any school or clinic will be expensive, and designed for the rich - either the investors, or senior management, who will have a comfortable lifestyle as long as they go along with the decisions of the board (think of the ex-pat community in Saudi Arabia - no political power, but good salaries and facilities as long as you don't rock the boat). It will be 'fire at will' labour laws, so any employee who gets uppity can be fired at once - and then how can they afford to stay there in expensive housing with all the employers refusing to take them on as trouble-makers? Unless they are Honduran, they will be kicked out at once as 'non-citizens', which the laws will allow.

The board will appoint a like-minded governor, who will set the initial laws as hyper-neo-liberal, with the trade laws focused on how to get most profit with the rest of the world, not how to be good for Honduras' economy. The board chooses its successors, so they will appoint more like-minded people. By restricting the housing in the enclaves, they prevent the "popular votes among all residents of the cities" from ever threatening a change - the workers won't be resident inside the city.

Honduran law will not apply in the cities, and they can set their own international trade policies. Effectively, they will be independent statelets (like the tax havens of Monaco, Jersey and Guernsey, for instance, but without a native working class population). They'll employ commuting workers for the lowest wage possible, and Honduras will end up having to build the schools, etc. outside the cities to support workers and their families, with just those low wages as a tax base. The real money will stay inside the tax haven. Outside will be a ring of slums.

Honduras has just stuck its neck out in front, in the 'race to the bottom'. They've capitulated to the extreme capitalists, in the hope they can attract jobs of any sort.

And remember the reports coming out of Iraq about the slave labor that contractors hired to build the Embassy and aother areas? Poor men from Bagladesh and other similar countries were hired for "good jobs", put on airplanes, their passports taken, and found themselves in Iraq when they landed, where they were forced to live behind wired and gated compounds, to live in barracks, and then charged for rent and food out of their meager pay.
This labor model has become more widespread of late.

How long before these cities become violent shit-holes like the Randoid dystopia in the the game Bioshock?

Spoilers (they are good novels, and I recommend them - many here think highly of Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale&quot :


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The world in which the characters live is separated into corporate compounds and pleeblands. The compounds are communities where people work, live, and do everything essential to life. No one is allowed to leave without special permission from the corporations. The corporations featured in the novel are either science- or media-based, and they seemingly work together on new ideas and marketing strategies. No government authority is ever mentioned. The compounds are fueled by powerless public consumers and run by the corporations who create all the products and monitor and control the activities of the residents. Pleeblands are the low security and often dangerous territories where ordinary, unprivileged people reside. Prostitution, drug use and thievery are common practices in these areas.