Tag Archives: privately run cities

By William K. Black

Michael Strong is an American businessman who is a devotee of  the Austrian school of economics.  Austrians view democratic governance as so inherently illegitimate that they claim that virtually any governmental program irretrievably consigns us to the “Road to Serfdom.”   Strong has decided to save Hondurans from their government.  He wants his corporation to buy a Honduran city named Puerto Castilla and turn it into his first global “model city.”  The Honduran government holds power through a coup that removed that forced out Manuel Zelaya, the democratically-elected President.  The coup occurred during the Obama administration and returned the oligarchs to power.  The administration criticized the coup but recognized the (eventual) newly elected President Profirio Lobo.  The constitutional chamber of Honduras’ Supreme Court (which provided a fig leaf of respectability for the coup) rule 4-to-1 that it was unconstitutional to create privately run cities.  (The decision is expected to be appealed to the full Supreme Court.)

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