[Image: Roatan Tourism Bureau]
Bloomberg and Vice have the latest on Próspera, the so-called “self-governing” enclave on the Honduran island of Roatán—founded as a free-market paradise by a bunch of libertarian billionaires who are still stuck in some teenage rebellion phase.
Vice actually describes them as a “bunch of freak libertarian billionaires who never matured into full adults”.
You know, the kind of guys who think “rules” are just suggestions and “taxes” are an affront to their genius. Naturally, they decided the best solution was to build their own city, free from pesky government interference. What could possibly go wrong?
Enter Próspera: a one-square-mile gated compound with its own legal system, rock-bottom taxes, and all the unchecked capitalism money can buy.
Vice actually described it as “a place where the extremely rich, petulant, and deeply unethical go [sic] in the hope of establishing a true utopia exclusively so a bunch of manchildren with too much money could foster unhindered innovation,” noting that the place “ends up coming off more as a rebranded version of colonialism.”
Side note: Vice probably needs to check on their writers – this article’s grammar is off and even ends without a full stop. We have Bloomberg to verify the weirdness, though:
Anyway, Próspera quickly became a magnet for Silicon Valley billionaires, crypto bros, and biohackers convinced they could “innovate” their way to eternal life. Conferences with themes like “Make Death Optional” were all the rage because, of course, immortality is the next logical step after dodging taxes.
Around 50 companies set up shop, hoping to cash in on this utopia of deregulation. But shocker—things didn’t go as planned. What started as a $120 million investment is now an $11 billion legal dumpster fire. The Honduran government, under current president Xiomara Castro, has denounced Próspera as a “narco-regime”.
And it’s hard to argue with that assessment, considering the project’s biggest cheerleader, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, is now serving 45 years in a U.S. prison for drug trafficking and money laundering—after taking bribes from none other than El Chapo himself.
Honduras’ supreme court also weighed in, ruling Próspera’s legal framework unconstitutional. But the enclave’s founders, clinging to their libertarian fever dream, refuse to back down.
The initial idea for this city-state concept was created by the Venezuelan-born rich guy named Erick Brimen and championed by the likes of Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Romer. Originally, the concept was pitched as a way to harness private industry to jumpstart economic development in impoverished nations—with the not-so-subtle endgame of curbing illegal immigration into the United States and other wealthy countries.
Now Romer thinks the whole idea isn’t working out too well, according to a lengthy but fascinating feature article in Bloomberg.
“It’s like a gated community,” he said. “They’re just trying to isolate themselves and do what’s best for them. They’re also somehow living in this libertarian fantasy that took root early in this project, that this will be a place they can be free of the government. That’s not gonna turn out well.”
“[It’s] not even close to what anybody would recommend for a model of what to pursue if you are trying to help a country develop.”
At the end of the day, Próspera looks less like a beacon of freedom and more like a 21st-century rebrand of colonialism—because nothing says “progress” like rich foreigners buying up land to escape the rules that apply to everyone else.
And now that the locals have had enough, the billionaire manchildren are throwing tantrums because their sandbox is being taken away. There are even rumours that they’re trying to bring the concept to sub-Saharan Africa. God help us.
Truly, the downfall of Próspera is surprising to absolutely no one—except, of course, the dipshits who built it.
[Source: Vice]
