4 ms·

What do you think will go wrong? Please be concrete. If such cities suck worse than the alternatives, no one will move to them. The real worry I think many ha

What do you think will go wrong? Please be concrete. If such cities suck worse than the alternatives, no one will move to them. The real worry I think many have is that charter cities will be successful and will demonstrate (by being successful without it) that a lot of existing socially favored regulation is harmful.

Natanael_L 10y ago
You're forgetting inertia in multiple levels. Moving away from such a place could prove harder and costlier than moving in.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  The same is true of the surrounding dysfunctional country (e.g. Honduras). Charter cities add more options, and generally make exit easier. I.e. exiting Honduras is easier if a charter city is right next door.
andrepd 10y ago
That thinking works in a perfect world with perfect information, 100% rational agents, and frictionless movement. It doesn't work for impoverished, illiterate, uneducated people with the weight of poverty, culture and a myriad of other practical considerations from food to roads to family preventing them from take the 100% rational actions that you expect them to take. The problem with you libertarians is that everything you say works with spherical objects in a frictionless vacuum, so to speak. But the real world isn't such a place. Outside your idealistic worldview everything collapses.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  Ok. How does it fail in reality? Please be specific.
  - andrepd 10y ago
    Precisely because of what I said: people aren't 100% rational beings with full information. People, especially in third world, war-torn, poverty-ravaged countries don't have the power to make the "best decision" in to a libertarian free-market approach as you suggest. Some things aren't solved by capitalistic competition.
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      Again, what bad decision will they make regarding charter cities due to being irrational? Why do you think that Hondurans will make choices so terrible w.r.t. charter cities that they should be forbidden from having that choice? Similarly, because Hondurans are irrational, should they also be forbidden from entering Mexico and the US? Similarly, Brexit is good because Europeans and Brits might irrationally make the wrong choice on where to live? Pointing out that people are irrational is not a magic argument against all policies that sound "too libertarian" to you. You still need to actually make an argument (presumably using irrationality as an underlying premise), which you haven't.
- evanpw 10y ago
  This is very similar to an argument that libertarians make about their opponents. As long as the government is made up of benevolent geniuses with perfect information about every individual citizen, then socialism is a great idea. In reality, individual preferences are unknowable, and government workers are fallible and have motivations of their own. In reality, neither utopia is particularly achievable in the world as it currently is, but that doesn't mean that incremental steps in one direction or the other can't improve the situation.
  - safeignorance 10y ago
    I'd guess very few of libertarianism's opponents believe in socialist utopias, and what the article suggests is about as far from an incremental step and one can possibly get...
    - evanpw 10y ago
      > I'd guess very few of libertarianism's opponents believe in socialist utopias Just as most libertarians are not anarcho-capitalists. My point is that you don't need to believe in the utopia (in either direction) to believe that a smaller move would be positive. > what the article suggests is about as far from an incremental step and one can possibly get... In terms of total impact, drastically changing the rules in a region where no one currently lives could certainly be a smaller step than slightly changing the rules for millions of people, which is what most political arguments are about.
- zo1 10y ago
  "The problem with you libertarians is that everything you say works with spherical objects in a frictionless vacuum, so to speak. But the real world isn't such a place. Outside your idealistic worldview everything collapses." Remind me again how big the death-toll from government wars is? Or perhaps simply how badly it is failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country? You are right, outside of our idealistic view of the world, everything does collapse. I am watching it collapse right now, on the state's watch. >"It doesn't work for impoverished, illiterate, uneducated people with the weight of poverty" Luckily, those people have noble individuals such as yourself to tell them what to do, and fix their problems for them. Because you deem them unfit to do so for themselves.
  - andrepd 10y ago
    >Or perhaps simply how badly it is failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country? That's quite a bold claim to make. I'm afraid I can't quite see what you mean by that. What I can see is that the countries with the most regulation and state "babysitting", as you like to call it, are the ones best placed in any poverty, development, health or well-being index. I really don't see what you can possibly mean by "badly failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country".
    - zo1 10y ago
      I count it as failed if the government is spending money from the budget on unnecessary items while any social problem is still unresolved. That includes homelessness, poverty, health-care for the poor/needy/elderly, etc. Same goes for crime, road-fatalities, and a multitude of other things we expect of the government. These should be largely solved problems by now, especially with the technology available these days. Either way, yes you are most likely statistically right. Spending on healthcare, poverty, and disabled individuals probably directly correlates with their well-being. You were presenting a case against a hypothetical ideal, and claiming it would not be able to fix social problems in a non-idealized setting. The counter-claim to that is that those very same things are not resolved in a society almost-exclusively run by state-governments, either. Whether 1st world or otherwise.
CPLX 10y ago
This already went wrong. We are commenting on an older article. He actually got a chance to try this project and it failed pretty resoundingly. I eagerly await your "no true Scotsman" response.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  No, he didn't. Honduras cancelled the project.
  - safeignorance 10y ago
    Failing to coalesce and maintain political support from the host government is just about the most predictable failure mode imaginable.... no true scotsman, indeed.
  - CPLX 10y ago
    Ah yes, and there it is. "The problem with [obviously unworkable governing system] is of course that it's never been given a proper chance!"
    - yummyfajitas 10y ago
      So basically, any project which politics cancels can then be assumed to be completely unworkable? Basic income can now be rejected since the Swiss considered it then rejected it? Ok. Incidentally charter city like policies have been tried. Hong Kong. Singapore. Gurgaon. But I guess all the successes should be ignored because Honduras cancelled their project.

Natanael_L 10y ago

You're forgetting inertia in multiple levels. Moving away from such a place could prove harder and costlier than moving in.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
The same is true of the surrounding dysfunctional country (e.g. Honduras). Charter cities add more options, and generally make exit easier. I.e. exiting Honduras is easier if a charter city is right next door.

andrepd 10y ago

That thinking works in a perfect world with perfect information, 100% rational agents, and frictionless movement. It doesn't work for impoverished, illiterate, uneducated people with the weight of poverty, culture and a myriad of other practical considerations from food to roads to family preventing them from take the 100% rational actions that you expect them to take. The problem with you libertarians is that everything you say works with spherical objects in a frictionless vacuum, so to speak. But the real world isn't such a place. Outside your idealistic worldview everything collapses.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
Ok. How does it fail in reality? Please be specific.
- andrepd 10y ago
  Precisely because of what I said: people aren't 100% rational beings with full information. People, especially in third world, war-torn, poverty-ravaged countries don't have the power to make the "best decision" in to a libertarian free-market approach as you suggest. Some things aren't solved by capitalistic competition.
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    Again, what bad decision will they make regarding charter cities due to being irrational? Why do you think that Hondurans will make choices so terrible w.r.t. charter cities that they should be forbidden from having that choice? Similarly, because Hondurans are irrational, should they also be forbidden from entering Mexico and the US? Similarly, Brexit is good because Europeans and Brits might irrationally make the wrong choice on where to live? Pointing out that people are irrational is not a magic argument against all policies that sound "too libertarian" to you. You still need to actually make an argument (presumably using irrationality as an underlying premise), which you haven't.
evanpw 10y ago
This is very similar to an argument that libertarians make about their opponents. As long as the government is made up of benevolent geniuses with perfect information about every individual citizen, then socialism is a great idea. In reality, individual preferences are unknowable, and government workers are fallible and have motivations of their own. In reality, neither utopia is particularly achievable in the world as it currently is, but that doesn't mean that incremental steps in one direction or the other can't improve the situation.
- safeignorance 10y ago
  I'd guess very few of libertarianism's opponents believe in socialist utopias, and what the article suggests is about as far from an incremental step and one can possibly get...
  - evanpw 10y ago
    > I'd guess very few of libertarianism's opponents believe in socialist utopias Just as most libertarians are not anarcho-capitalists. My point is that you don't need to believe in the utopia (in either direction) to believe that a smaller move would be positive. > what the article suggests is about as far from an incremental step and one can possibly get... In terms of total impact, drastically changing the rules in a region where no one currently lives could certainly be a smaller step than slightly changing the rules for millions of people, which is what most political arguments are about.
zo1 10y ago
"The problem with you libertarians is that everything you say works with spherical objects in a frictionless vacuum, so to speak. But the real world isn't such a place. Outside your idealistic worldview everything collapses." Remind me again how big the death-toll from government wars is? Or perhaps simply how badly it is failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country? You are right, outside of our idealistic view of the world, everything does collapse. I am watching it collapse right now, on the state's watch. >"It doesn't work for impoverished, illiterate, uneducated people with the weight of poverty" Luckily, those people have noble individuals such as yourself to tell them what to do, and fix their problems for them. Because you deem them unfit to do so for themselves.
- andrepd 10y ago
  >Or perhaps simply how badly it is failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country? That's quite a bold claim to make. I'm afraid I can't quite see what you mean by that. What I can see is that the countries with the most regulation and state "babysitting", as you like to call it, are the ones best placed in any poverty, development, health or well-being index. I really don't see what you can possibly mean by "badly failing at taking care of the sick, the poor, and the needy in almost every single 1st world country".
  - zo1 10y ago
    I count it as failed if the government is spending money from the budget on unnecessary items while any social problem is still unresolved. That includes homelessness, poverty, health-care for the poor/needy/elderly, etc. Same goes for crime, road-fatalities, and a multitude of other things we expect of the government. These should be largely solved problems by now, especially with the technology available these days. Either way, yes you are most likely statistically right. Spending on healthcare, poverty, and disabled individuals probably directly correlates with their well-being. You were presenting a case against a hypothetical ideal, and claiming it would not be able to fix social problems in a non-idealized setting. The counter-claim to that is that those very same things are not resolved in a society almost-exclusively run by state-governments, either. Whether 1st world or otherwise.

CPLX 10y ago

This already went wrong. We are commenting on an older article. He actually got a chance to try this project and it failed pretty resoundingly. I eagerly await your "no true Scotsman" response.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
No, he didn't. Honduras cancelled the project.
- safeignorance 10y ago
  Failing to coalesce and maintain political support from the host government is just about the most predictable failure mode imaginable.... no true scotsman, indeed.
- CPLX 10y ago
  Ah yes, and there it is. "The problem with [obviously unworkable governing system] is of course that it's never been given a proper chance!"
  - yummyfajitas 10y ago
    So basically, any project which politics cancels can then be assumed to be completely unworkable? Basic income can now be rejected since the Swiss considered it then rejected it? Ok. Incidentally charter city like policies have been tried. Hong Kong. Singapore. Gurgaon. But I guess all the successes should be ignored because Honduras cancelled their project.