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posted by Fnord666 on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the company-towns-and-company-scrip dept.

Nevada bill would allow tech companies to create governments:

Planned legislation to establish new business areas in Nevada would allow technology companies to effectively form separate local governments.

Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak announced a plan to launch so-called Innovation Zones in Nevada to jumpstart the state's economy by attracting technology firms, Las Vegas Review-Journal reported Wednesday.

The zones would permit companies with large areas of land to form governments carrying the same authority as counties, including the ability to impose taxes, form school districts and courts and provide government services.

The measure to further economic development with the "alternative form of local government" has not yet been introduced in the Legislature.

[...] The governor's economic development office did not respond to questions about the zones Wednesday.


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(1) 2
  • (Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:47AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:47AM (#1109516)

    Who's Nevada Bill?

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:51AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:51AM (#1109519)

      Nevada Bill Gates.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:54AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:54AM (#1109561)

        Pretty sure it's Pecos Bill, Nevada Slim, and Montana Joe. Oh, and Idaho Jack. And there is some Dakota, but female.

  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:20AM (102 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:20AM (#1109531) Journal

    I would like some examples of company owned towns that have worked out well. Exclusionary trade zones really made a mess of China, India, and the rest of Asia, not to mention Africa, various Banana Republics in the western hemisphere, and much of the rest of the world.

    Corporate ruled zones are probably a good thing though. Just like Communism, we just haven't done it right yet. Any day now, some wonderful corporation with a nice "don't be evil" slogan will come along, and show us the right way to set up a corporation town/county/state.

    • (Score: 2) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:25AM (29 children)

      by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:25AM (#1109534) Journal

      This is all about sovereignty of corporations, not about sovereignty of state.

      --
      Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:51AM (28 children)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:51AM (#1109541) Journal

        Yes, exactly. And - how, exactly, were the various special trading zones in China developed? Or, how about Hudson's Bay company, or the East India company? In each case, privately owned companies or corporations were granted "rights" to conduct business as they saw fit. And, in each case, the natives were horribly exploited by those companies. And, banana republics? American owned companies actually hired and funded armies to overthrow governments, and to impose their will on the little brown men who actually did all the work.

        You really don't get much more sovereign than recruiting and equipping armies to enforce your will. Armies, or police forces, or just plain old gangs.

        • (Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:06AM (13 children)

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:06AM (#1109548) Homepage Journal

          You really don't get much more sovereign than recruiting and equipping armies to enforce your will.

          Sure you do, you make the people you're oppressing foot the bill.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
          • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:42PM (12 children)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:42PM (#1109601) Journal

            I seem to recall you referring to the military and its taxpayer funded status as "necessary evil" at some point...? :)

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 3, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:29PM (11 children)

              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:29PM (#1109620) Homepage Journal

              Absosmurfly. It is not, however, necessary to point them inwards.

              --
              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
              • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:17PM (10 children)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:17PM (#1109705)

                The 6th shiws that is a lie. Not to mention all the times you assholes wanted tobuse the military to violate thenrights ofnpeaceful protesters.

                Is there no low for you? Are you truly psychotic?

                • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:51PM (9 children)

                  by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:51PM (#1109752) Homepage Journal

                  Oh what a completely inaccurate strawman you need to keep from feeling like a moron. You want to hear my actual take on it? The US military, including the Guard because they are military not militia, should never be used on US soil or citizens except during a civil war. Period. No exceptions.

                  --
                  My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:42PM (6 children)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:42PM (#1109777)

                    What do you think an insurrection is?

                    Fuck yer stoopid

                    • (Score: 5, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 06 2021, @09:00PM (5 children)

                      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Saturday February 06 2021, @09:00PM (#1109782) Homepage Journal

                      You reckon a hundred or so mostly unarmed idiots fucking around for a few hours are a civil war? You're a shitload more stupid than I am then.

                      --
                      My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                      • (Score: 0, Troll) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 07 2021, @04:23AM (4 children)

                        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday February 07 2021, @04:23AM (#1109878) Journal

                        They sure as hell reckoned it was going to be. I say take them at their word for it.

                        How about this: I try my level best to kill you, but fail even to inflict light injuries. That means I get away scot-free because I fucked up, riiiiight? :) Because by your logic that's the exact same thing on a smaller scale.

                        --
                        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                        • (Score: 2, Touché) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:22PM (3 children)

                          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:22PM (#1109949) Homepage Journal

                          They sure as hell reckoned it was going to be.

                          Thus extreme accuracy in the "idiots" assertion.

                          Second point? If you're utterly incapable of killing me, I'm just going to laugh at you. No amount of butthurt on my part would or should cause assault with a nerf feather duster to be taken seriously as attempted murder.

                          They're not getting off scot-free though. They have to pay the price for what they did. Actions have consequences, even for the terminally stupid.

                          --
                          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                          • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 08 2021, @01:44AM (2 children)

                            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday February 08 2021, @01:44AM (#1110092) Journal

                            You contradict yourself with that last line: these *are* the consequences for the "terminally stupid." Attempt a coup, even if you're utterly incompetent, and you will be treated like a terrorist. Play Stupid Games, Win Stupid Prizes.

                            --
                            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                            • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 08 2021, @06:16PM (1 child)

                              by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 08 2021, @06:16PM (#1110317) Homepage Journal

                              Sigh, engage your brain for a change and pay attention to what is actually said. This is both ultra-mega-clown-shoes when screeched about as a coup attempt and illegal. At the same time.

                              --
                              My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                              • (Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday February 09 2021, @01:34AM

                                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday February 09 2021, @01:34AM (#1110489) Journal

                                And being ultra-mega-clownshoes does not erase mens rea. You really ought to stop gibbering about things you don't even half-understand.

                                --
                                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:55AM (1 child)

                    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:55AM (#1109852)

                    Not even for disaster relief/humanitarian aid?

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:47AM (5 children)

          by Mojibake Tengu (8598) on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:47AM (#1109558) Journal

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_East_India_Company [wikipedia.org]
          (Now tell me about what the "D.C." in "Washington, D.C." really means...)

          And yes, corporate military forces is naturally the next step.

          --
          Respect Authorities. Know your social status. Woke responsibly.
          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by RS3 on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:27PM (4 children)

            by RS3 (6367) on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:27PM (#1109598)

            And yes, corporate military forces is naturally the next step.

            Yup, and was done long ago: https://www.britannica.com/event/Homestead-Strike [britannica.com]

            • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @02:01PM (3 children)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @02:01PM (#1109626) Journal

              Wish I had thought to use that as an example. It's perfect. The workers revolt against crap conditions, and the company hires an army to put the revolt down brutally. And, it happened right here in the US, in a nice free democratic country.

              There is a lot wrong with our police and military forces as things stand. When a company controls the police and military, things go to shit real fast. We should all be abundantly aware that corporate executives put human life into a ledger, assign monetary values to those lives, then spend those lives as they see fit. The pharmaceutical companies are a prime example, and thalidomide stand out among all their examples.

              https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/health/thalidomide-fda-documents.html [nytimes.com]

              • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:11PM

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:11PM (#1109699)

                Runaway is exactly right on this. Corporations are nothing more than kingdoms and always have to be reined in. They are not responsive to their workforce ("citizens") anymore than the law requires and only care to make money for shareholders, in many cases not even local to the nation. If you want to maintain "free markets" and "healthy work environment", you need strong oversight and regulations that are enforced. Anything else, you'll end up with a banana republic-like counties.

              • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:12PM (1 child)

                by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:12PM (#1109809)

                Well -- leave it to a Demcorat to propose the most literally fascist policy possible, except worse because in the normal fascism, government and corporate interests openly collude but with this plan, the corporation _is_ the government. The level of tone-deafness this proposal requires is astounding.

                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:12PM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:12PM (#1109944)

                  This is what you get when you don't have any litmus tests for party membership.

        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:49PM (5 children)

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:49PM (#1109751)

          And, in each case, the natives were horribly exploited by those companies.

          But were they worse off due to being company towns?

          Yes South Rhodesia was not a paradise for black folks in 1900

          However weren't they comparatively better off in Rhodesia in 1900 than, say, Mississippi in 1850?

          Isn't the quality of life for both whites AND blacks in Rhodesia in 1900 higher than Baltimore or Flint or Detroit in 2020?

          For example, the First Matabele War was pretty much a victorian era "Bloods vs Crips" thing. Arguably the company stopped the violence a hell of a lot sooner with fewer deaths than the modern USA experience of gang violence during the "crack wars" of the 80s. Certainly on a percentage basis, "free" people in the 1980s suffered a lot more than "company town" people in the 1900s there's not even a real question here.

          Its kind of like arguing that a monarchy in 2020's would be a bad idea because historically the only medical care we had during certain monarchy eras was leeches, therefore monarchy is a bad idea in 2020 because leeches are a bad idea. But I don't really see any reason to assume that, for example, Thailand having a king, means they can only have leeches for medical care in 2020, because I donno why, wait I do, its because its a faulty argument.

          The really interesting propaganda story about company towns is how the residents were generally better off than capitalist or dictatorship towns "of the same era" but the only story we get to hear is how bad the 1800s were and company towns existed in the 1800s therefore they are a bad idea. Well, no, not exactly.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:00PM (3 children)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:00PM (#1109758) Journal

            The logic isn't flowing. Life in the 1900s was better than life in the 1500s for most people, therefore, what exactly?

            • (Score: 2, Troll) by VLM on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:18PM (1 child)

              by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:18PM (#1109765)

              Yeah exactly.

              It seems exploitation of natives, for example, is completely orthogonal to how leadership is selected for a government. Treatment of natives seems to depend solely on the morals and ethics of the era.

              I'll throw out an interesting idea that quality of life depend on how close they align to their leaders. Aren't most people likely to be close to the main employer of their area?

              When looking at things like native exploitation the local company is likely to be far closer to the natives than some governor appointed from the other side of the world.

              The proper comparison isn't Africa 1850 vs London today, its more fair to compare Cortez 1520 vs Africa 1850. I think the Africans got pretty lenient treatment compared to the ancient Mexicans.

              • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:27PM

                by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:27PM (#1109771) Journal

                I think the Africans got pretty lenient treatment compared to the ancient Mexicans.

                Human sacrifice makes Europeans shudder. When cannibals and human sacrifice were discovered in any corner of the world, the Euros made short shrift of the natives. The remainder were merely enslaved when possible, and exploited when not possible.

            • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @12:00AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @12:00AM (#1109831)

              The logic isn't flowing.

              Of course not, it is coming from VLM and attempting to pass through Runaway! Conservative constipation on both ends.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2021, @02:41AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2021, @02:41AM (#1110110)

            khallow is way better at deploying this argument. You don't go full nihilist retard with it.

        • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:56PM (1 child)

          by anubi (2828) on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:56PM (#1109829) Journal

          Old song. Tennessee Ernie Ford.

          He knew.

          https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EkRYuMqw-B0 [youtube.com]

          --
          "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
          • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 10 2021, @10:54PM

            by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 10 2021, @10:54PM (#1111302) Homepage Journal

            "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]

            A modern English translation would say "Test all things". The meaning of the verb "prove" has changed in the intervening centuries.

            -- hendrik

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Arik on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:27AM (14 children)

      by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:27AM (#1109536) Journal
      "I would like some examples of company owned towns that have worked out well."

      I would as well.

      I suspect there are few examples at all; and if you can find one you'll find it went bad shortly after the founder left.

      "Corporate ruled zones are probably a good thing though."

      "Good?" How?

      "Just like Communism, we just haven't done it right yet."

      Ahh, sarcasm.

      "Any day now, some wonderful corporation with a nice "don't be evil" slogan will come along, and show us the right way to set up a corporation town/county/state."

      It's amazing how often the reality of 2021 matches the distopian fiction of 1981, isn't it?
      --
      If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
      • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:54AM (13 children)

        by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday February 06 2021, @05:54AM (#1109544) Journal

        Isn't Singapore a company town? UAE is a company country.

        --
        La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
        • (Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:13AM (2 children)

          by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:13AM (#1109552) Journal
          "Isn't Singapore a company town?"

          Well, sort of, if the CCP is a company.

          It's "the good Hong Kong." No mass protests when the law is turned upside down. Lots of casinos where the corrupt CCP bosses can spend their money. Not a lot left there now, other than that, from what I've heard at least.
          --
          If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:22AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:22AM (#1109555)

            I believe you're thinking of Macau, not Singapore.

            • (Score: 2) by Arik on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:38AM

              by Arik (4543) on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:38AM (#1109557) Journal
              Oh dear, you are indeed completely correct.

              How embarrassing.

              In my defense, Singapore looks set to be just like Macau in another 10-20 years.
              --
              If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 5, Interesting) by fakefuck39 on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:42AM (8 children)

          by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:42AM (#1109587)

          Have you, umm, been to the UAE? Most modern place in the world, you can order a helicopter in your uber app to take you from your skyscraper to the air conditioned solar powered beach, or the desert ski slope. Every company has an office there, from HP and Oracle, to the local popcorn shop. They make zero rules, and have zero influence on laws. I dated a girl there for a year or so. The companies come in, follow the archaic laws, make lots of cash that's barely taxed, then use it to expand in the country, because moving cash outside is taxed. Companies in the UAE do not dictate to their government. Company country? No, a country with lots of companies that follow the government rules to the letter, or they get kicked out. So literally what we want here for companies to do, just under our rules.

          so.. the opposite of what you said is true.

          • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:23PM (7 children)

            by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:23PM (#1109767) Journal

            Most modern place in the world, you can order a helicopter in your uber app to take you from your skyscraper to the air conditioned solar powered beach, or the desert ski slope.

            With enough money, you can do that from anywhere.

            Companies in the UAE do not dictate to their government.

            Things are not as they seem. I believe you are wagging the dog. The companies use the government to limit competition.

            --
            La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
            • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:08PM (6 children)

              by fakefuck39 (6620) on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:08PM (#1109795)

              With enough money you can use the Uber app on your phone to order a helicopter instead of a car? Well cool, you should tell that to people you know in real life so they can also laugh at the idiot making up blatantly obvious lies. It's very entertaining. "Enough money" in this case btw is $200. Super-rich, I know.

              >I believe you are wagging the dog
              Yeah, let's believe a guy without a passport talking about a country he's never been to, as opposed to me, who's spent a year there, lived there, and tried to open an office for my little company there to avoid taxes.

              >The companies use the government to limit competition.
              I don't even know what this means. You said the corporations run the government in Dubai and dictate the rules and laws there. This is blatantly false, and the opposite is true. Now you are claiming something else you pulled completely out of your ass. There is no limit to competition in Dubai. Literally everyone is welcome, and there are government incentives to open an office there. No one uses the government of Dubai, which is a monarchy and a dynasty. It is literally run by a fucking King who is richer than god, and does whatever the fuck he wants. He uses the companies, the companies do not use the King or have any say or influence in what he does.

              it's weird, every comment I notice you post you're talking out of your ass about shit you obviously know nothing about and have no experience with. not just on this thread - on just about every topic I see you post. I'm starting to wonder if this is some weird personality you invented for being online, because it's hard to believe someone could actually be like that.

              • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 07 2021, @12:40AM (5 children)

                by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 07 2021, @12:40AM (#1109835) Journal

                :-) You're funny. I like your style... World traveler who knows all...

                It's just plain old symbiosis. The government of Dubai will do what is necessary to bring in revenue. If their laws negatively affect business they will change them. Companies that support heavy restrictions on outsiders will happily prop them up. It's the only reason there is a "Dubai". It is a business, not a country, like Belize, and all those Caribbean islands. Big business likes big government. Works in the States too.

                --
                La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                • (Score: 2) by fakefuck39 on Sunday February 07 2021, @01:16AM (4 children)

                  by fakefuck39 (6620) on Sunday February 07 2021, @01:16AM (#1109839)

                  The reason it seems like "I know all" is because when I make statements like you do, it is about things I know. When I'm talking about shit I don't know and only think, I communicate that. Do give that a try sometime.

                  But you won't will you.. You're going to keep shitting all over the internet with your theories, stating them as fact. And you just keep going and doubling down.

                  Hey sherlock - the reason there is Dubai, is because it was a good place for fishing, so people started living and working there. As global trade established, voila - it was on a trade route from Iran, so it boomed. Then in the 70s there was a big oil crisis, and people started looking for more oil everywhere. And they found a bunch in Dubai. And the population tripled in under a decade and it became a huge modern city. It is now quite literally the busiest sea port in the middle east.

                  Companies are there because taxes are low, and business is high because of tourism and the trade route.

                  >Companies that support heavy restrictions on outsiders
                  there are no heavy restrictions on outsiders. you keep saying literally the opposite of what is true. it is one of the most open and welcoming places in the world for outsiders. yes, companies do support heavy restrictions to outsiders. UAE does the opposite of what the companies support. And you're using that to say UAE policy is dictated by the companies...

                  I'm 90% sure now this is some online persona you have. No one could be this dumb. You dip your hands in the water and say the ocean is dry, because if you were to dry your hands with a towel, they would be dry, and if the ocean had water they would be wet. You look at a black object and say it being black is proof that it's white. Either a goofy persona for the web, or you really, really need to get an MRI before you start crossing through traffic when you have a red. Because if you had a green, there would be no cars, so it's safe to cross on red.

                  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:56AM (3 children)

                    by fustakrakich (6150) on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:56AM (#1109853) Journal

                    And you're using that to say UAE policy is dictated by the companies...

                    Of course it is. The company picks the government, not the other way around. The government complies, or there is a coup, or a boy king emerges from a death in the family.

                    --
                    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
                    • (Score: 3, Funny) by fakefuck39 on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:12AM (2 children)

                      by fakefuck39 (6620) on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:12AM (#1109856)

                      >The company picks the government, not the other way around

                      Ok, so I was right. You're trolling with this online fake personality. Corporations picked the thousand year dynasty and its current king of UAE in that line of kings.

                      >The government complies, or there is a coup
                      right, and if fish had fur and went clubbing, they'd go bald and need hair loss medicine so they get all the young club chicks.

                      here in reality, the king of UAE is part of a family dynasty going back a thousand years, and microsoft and oracle with their offices in tech park aren't unseating him, but following his rules.

                      you're making up this hypothetical bullshit that doesn't exist. what we have is facts. those facts are, that neither the government, nor a single law or regulation in UAE has been put in place by a single corporation.

                      and yes, maybe there is a chance that if the king did something to piss off some of those powerful corporations, which have less money than the dynasty does, they will rally the people who absolutely adore their king, and have him overthrown. and if a nuclear missle in the shape of an alien fish landed in dubai and a walrus stepped off of it and declared dubai an alien seaport, it would be populated by fish. see, I just proved dubai is an aquarium for aliens. but you are using your theoretical fantasy based on lack of any knowledge of the area to tell facts about the area. this is just funny.

                      what's really funny is this is a thing you do, and you are guaranteed to do it in other aspects of your life. that knowledge puts a wide smile on my face, because you are now my personal clown.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2021, @02:48AM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2021, @02:48AM (#1110114)

                        I, for one, welcome our furry, club-hopping piscine overlords.

                      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2021, @08:43AM

                        by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2021, @08:43AM (#1110606)

                        Another user figures out that fusty is just a troll. How sad would it be if he wasn't?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:16PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:16PM (#1109704)

          Isn't Singapore a company town? UAE is a company country.

          Wrong on both counts. Singapore is a rich-are-kinds type of a state where democracy is voting for the defacto 1 party.. UAE has its own king, so don't fuck with him or you'll be in jail. Also, not a place to be poor.

          Neither are company towns.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:09AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:09AM (#1109563)

      Mondragon Corporation has and is currently doing more or less this. I don't know about taxes and shit, or if they've got an actualized government, but they have internal schools and shit. Pretty neat. Worker owned coop, not a soulless husk corporation squeezing endless yield out of the proles beneath them for the shareholder's benefit.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by unauthorized on Saturday February 06 2021, @09:36AM (25 children)

      by unauthorized (3776) on Saturday February 06 2021, @09:36AM (#1109583)

      I love how American rightoids keep bringing up the "communism always fails" meme when the USA is responsible for destabilizing and toppling like 99% of all communist states. Like... yeah, communism doesn't work if the "good guys" invade your country to replace your government with a brutal corporatist dictatorship which serves the economic interests of the "good guys".

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:45PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:45PM (#1109602)

        To be fair, that is a legitimate argument. Anarchy had historically failed due to the lack of standing armies and organized hierarchy failing to resist centralized military dictatorships. Communism has failed due to human nature to be fractious assholes. Democracy is failing for the same reasons Capitalism as well.

      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:45PM (16 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Saturday February 06 2021, @12:45PM (#1109603) Journal

        Communism doesn't scale, though. Humans spent at least 99% of our evolutionary history in smallish groups, mostly on the scale of extended families or clans; we even have a limit, Dunbar's Number or "the monkeysphere," on how many individual humans we can actually "think of as human" before they all start just blending together and greying out. I would wager that number, about 150 give or take a few dozen, is the maximum size Communism can really scale to.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @03:42PM (8 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @03:42PM (#1109667)

          Yeeees, with 80k+ members, Mondragon is failing hard.
          And communists can't live if each of them don't know every other one; this is why capitalism is superior, it can function even if none knows nobody else but himself.

          Come on, enlighten us. How is that socialism and capitalism can avoid the Dunbar number and still be functional, but communism can't.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:22PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:22PM (#1109710)

            She should weigh in, but I wager it is because capitalism is supposed to allow individual economic leeway that generally is not possible under communism. Of course that fails in the later stages of caputalism once the pyramids have gotten large enough and the average person struggles to just get by. Like right now in most western capitalist countries. Even the better ones with social safety nets like education and healthcare survival is still an unnecessarily difficult struggle because some greedy fucks want to sit on their piles of gold.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:58PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:58PM (#1109805)

              She should weigh in, but I wager it is because capitalism is supposed to allow individual economic leeway that generally is not possible under communism.

              The problems of communism are more complicated than suggested by your simple (simplified/simplistic?) answer. But I digress.

              I raised the narrower question of "What the heck the Dunbar's number has to do with communism?" for the benefit of Azuma, she's quite prone in this case to stuck with a non-answer and stop asking relevant questions on what makes communism hard or impossible.
              It is a lot better if she ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ than it is to think that she's got it and nothing else needs to be said.

          • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday February 07 2021, @04:03AM (5 children)

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday February 07 2021, @04:03AM (#1109872) Journal

            Very easily: they are both less intrusive and less against humans' (evil...) natures than communism. In the same way a lot of people seem to *need* the Big Angry Beard In The Sky to keep them from doing immoral things, I don't believe most humans are good-natured enough for communism to work. And if we all were, *any* economic system would work, because the flaw ALL of them have is that people forget money and goods and economic activity are for humans, not the other way around.

            Since this is the case, the next question we should ask ourselves is "what system has the longest time before it reaches an Ouroboros-like failure mode and turns into a cannibal orgy?" The answer appears to be a mix of capitalism and socialism, with the elasticity of any given good or service determining how "free market" the approach to it should be; the less elastic the demand (i.e., the more necessary and tied to survival it is), the less "market forces" ought to have a say in it. This means things like healthcare need to be waaaay over on the "socialist" side, while things like designer clothing and jewelry can be basically as cutthroat as they care to be.

            We have examples approaching close to this in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Canada to a slightly lesser extent, etc.

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
            • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @04:39AM (4 children)

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @04:39AM (#1109882)

              Something's wrong, Azuma is making too much sense.

              I think you are on the right track with elasticity, but it's not exactly that. Demand for food is pretty inelastic, but the free market does just fine producing food.

              Where you get the problem is when you have a situation where customers cannot make meaningful choices. Inelasticity is related to that because it takes away the choice of how much to buy, but it still allows for the choice of suppliers and substitute goods.

              Health care doesn't allow that either, except in elective procedures. Patients aren't really even permitted to choose their course of treatment, and it's too hard to choose doctors, with patient satisfaction determined more by the doctor's personal attributes than their medical skill.

              Basically, inelastic + monopoly = problem, which is economics 101. Health care isn't a monopoly, but it might as well be : no price competition, no meaningful choice of supplier, no ability for the patient to assess the quality of the treatment.

              • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday February 08 2021, @01:53AM (1 child)

                by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday February 08 2021, @01:53AM (#1110098) Journal

                I make plenty of sense. If people refuse to see it, because they would rather worship their false God du jour (libtertarian "free market" principles, Trump having won the election, "all taxation is theft," what-the-fuck-ever), that is a problem with them, not me :)

                --
                I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
                • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday February 10 2021, @10:58PM

                  by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday February 10 2021, @10:58PM (#1111305) Homepage Journal

                  I agree. You usually make plenty of sense.

                  And maybe most mothers warned their children about you, but mine never did.

                  -- hendrik

              • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 08 2021, @06:22PM (1 child)

                by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 08 2021, @06:22PM (#1110319) Homepage Journal

                The problem is she's an ideologue moron who thinks the proper way to fix an ingrown toenail is to cut your legs off so you can't get one ever again. Instead of, you know, something sane like fixing the ingrown toenail.

                --
                My rights don't end where your fear begins.
                • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2021, @08:46AM

                  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 09 2021, @08:46AM (#1110607)

                  You always describe yourself when insulting others, intriguing.

        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:17PM (1 child)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:17PM (#1109706) Journal

          Actually, I think communism scales a little larger than a mere 150. With some minimal management skill, you can easily add a zero to that number. With better management, you can add one or two more zeros. With superb management, add yet another zero. A charismatic leader might be good for multiple zeros, but individual leaders only last a lifetime, no matter how charismatic. Without management, and trust in the management, your number of 150 is about right.

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:36PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:36PM (#1109821)

            With some minimal management skill

            And this yet another trap: the economy is not all there is for human societies.
            One needs governance not just management. With the note that governance does not necessary imply government.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:23PM (3 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:23PM (#1109711)

          Communism doesn't scale, though.

          You don't seem to understand *how* communism is suppose to work.

          The central idea of communism is, the workers own the means of production. If you ever worked in a co-operative, that's the definition of a communism.

          The problem with communism is that there is inability to plan flows of ... capital. Especially on large scale and then down to small scale. So everything is stuck in quagmire. In capitalism, this mechanism is with the "wealthy class".

          Now, if there ever was some way of having a middle between the two idiotic extremes. Some way of allowing capital flows and some people to have more than others without blowing things completely out of proportion on either end?? Maybe some kind of a social-centric ideology??

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:11PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:11PM (#1109734)

            Socialism is workers own means of production.

            Communism is the government owns means of production.

            Socialism is generally better as it is the intersection of capitalism and communism.

            • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:10PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:10PM (#1109808)

              Communism is the government owns means of production.

              Wrong. In the last stages of "successful" communism, it is supposed there is no government.

              That is one point of failure that makes communism an utopia - even assuming that this status is possible, there's no way to achieve it top-down approach starting from a society that values private property; "government as a mean to reach a non-government in which everybody behaves" is impossible for any practical purposes.

              And this is not the only point of failure.

          • (Score: 3, Informative) by c0lo on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:15PM

            by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:15PM (#1109810) Journal

            The central idea of communism is, the workers own the means of production. If you ever worked in a co-operative, that's the definition of a communism.

            False. That's the definition of socialism. For your convenience [wikipedia.org], with the emphasis on what you missed in your "definition":

            Communism (from Latin communis, 'common, universal')[1][2] is a philosophical, social, political and economic ideology and movement whose ultimate goal is the establishment of a communist society, namely a socioeconomic order structured upon the ideas of common ownership of the means of production and the absence of social classes, money[3][4] and the state.[5][6]

            --
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:55PM

          by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:55PM (#1109755)

          That's almost phrase for phrase the argument for authoritarianism from "Fire in the Lake".

          The thing about a 100 person Vietnamese village operating under hereditary dictatorship is a dictator of a 10 million person country can F over 9.999... million lives without F-ing over his own family, but the dictator of a farm village can't F over anyone because essentially everyone under his domain is some form of distant cousin or cousin-in-law at worst.

          Some dude has a nice house in a 10M person dictatorship you just kill him and take the house; you can't do that in a 100 person farm village dictatorship because the guy with a nice house is literally your son, or maybe nephew or something.

          Essentially you can run a vastly extended family on a dictatorship, but not much larger.

      • (Score: 2, Touché) by crafoo on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:03PM (1 child)

        by crafoo (6639) on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:03PM (#1109610)

        Why don't you go live in Venezuela?

        • (Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:37PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:37PM (#1109623)

          Maybe because the US constantly attempt to overthrow the government as he said? Ain't nobody got time for that.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:16PM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:16PM (#1109811)

        What you say isn't completely false, but it does gloss over the many tens of millions killed by Stalin and Mao for wrongThink, so let's not pretend that communism works out in all the best ways.

        • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:30PM

          by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:30PM (#1109951) Homepage Journal

          I think you'll find it's over a hundred million.

          --
          My rights don't end where your fear begins.
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2021, @12:58PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2021, @12:58PM (#1110222)

          Yeah, capitalism made many cities have average life expectancy below 20/30 years during industrialization. Not to mention, genocide, slavery, and every other horror you can name.

          • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday February 08 2021, @06:25PM

            by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Monday February 08 2021, @06:25PM (#1110320) Homepage Journal

            Slavery is not an artifact of capitalism, sorry. Slavery existed long before naming an economic model even made sense and has existed under every economic model. Communism especially since under that everyone except party leaders is a slave.

            --
            My rights don't end where your fear begins.
      • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @05:57AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @05:57AM (#1109893)

        Communism isn't a stable situation whether or not the US wants to go in and topple them. It wouldn't be possible to so easily topple them if they weren't already rather precarious. It's not like things were all hunkydorry in those countries prior to the US intervening. If it was, it would be a lot more expensive and difficult to topple the state. In most cases, since there's effectively no rewards for working harder, people don't. We're getting to the same basic issue in the US, it's just that rather than the party taking everything, it's an increasingly small number of kleptocrats that are stealing everything. We're not quite to the point where the Russians were just before the Soviet Union and most of their satellite states collapsed, but we're likely to get there during my lifetime if something doesn't stop the slide.

        It's inherently unstable to have a handful of people controlling everything, getting all the proceeds from the labor of a much larger group of people. When the people at the bottom think they can work their way up and get the things they want out of life, it sort of works, but at this point, an increasing share of the people don't get vacation time, don't get proper health care, can't count on ever getting to retire and are on the verge of bankruptcy since any savings they do manage to accumulate winds of being ripped off by one business or another even if they are engaging responsible behavior.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Leebert on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:33AM (1 child)

      by Leebert (3511) on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:33AM (#1109585)

      I would like some examples of company owned towns that have worked out well.

      The Reedy Creek Improvement District [wikipedia.org] is, for all intents and purposes, a Disney-owned government. By most accounts it works out quite well.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:56AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:56AM (#1109589)

        Yup.

        There is small trail court, 25(?) trailers, that is only Disney employees. as north of Pleasure Island. The mayor is choosen by who has the best front "lawn". They vote on the 4th floor of Team Disney. the land of lawyers. Disney controls that "town", since only an employee and family cane live. If they are fired or quit, you must leave. There is waiting list that 10yrs longs. Rents in in the low $100 for a trailer. So only true Disney files live there.

        This town oversee the Police, Fire, Draining the swamp, etc. It also sells municipal bonds. IT is only a town with land mass size of San Fransisco (including water). It crosses two counties and those counties also get sales tax dollars from parks and hotels.
         

    • (Score: 2) by driverless on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:40AM

      by driverless (4770) on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:40AM (#1109586)

      We've already got corporations as psychopaths [springer.com], and now they're going to let these psychopaths form their own local governments? Charming...

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:24PM (10 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:24PM (#1109616) Journal
      I'd suggest Disney World as an example.

      Corporate ruled zones are probably a good thing though. Just like Communism, we just haven't done it right yet.

      Or we have "done it right" numerous times, and you just don't like the yardstick used. For example, most of those company towns do alright for the people depending on their products - it might suck relatively being a coal miner in a company town, but not so much if you were keeping the lights on or the furnace going with the cheap coal from that company town.

      Keep in mind that if your interests don't sufficiently align with that of the corporation, then you don't have to live or work there.

      • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Thexalon on Saturday February 06 2021, @02:37PM (5 children)

        by Thexalon (636) on Saturday February 06 2021, @02:37PM (#1109643)

        For example, most of those company towns do alright for the people depending on their products - it might suck relatively being a coal miner in a company town, but not so much if you were keeping the lights on or the furnace going with the cheap coal from that company town.

        So what you're saying is that putting people in awful situations is totally fine so long as it's not you that's in that awful situation.

        If you know the history of the West Virginia coal wars, you know that the people who lived there did not in any significant way approve of how the system worked. They went into coal mining because their only alternative, after the coal companies poisoned what had been their farmland, was to starve to death. Company thugs murdered a mayor and a local police chief that tried to resist them among others. There was even a pitched battle between company forces and the miners, who apparently thought that attacking an entrenched enemy uphill armed with nothing but handguns and clubs was preferable to enduring their current situation.

        But hey, there's money to be made here, so that makes it OK! /sarcasm

        --
        The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:08PM (4 children)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:08PM (#1109671) Journal

          So what you're saying is that putting people in awful situations is totally fine so long as it's not you that's in that awful situation.

          So what you're saying is that you're an idiot who doesn't have a thing to contribute to this thread? Don't put words in my mouth.

          Awful is relative. You already acknowledge later that coal mining in a company town was better in your view than other things those people could be doing (such as allegedly "starve to death"). I imagine that if those coal miners had been transported a century into the future, even into a hypothetical company town in Nevada, it'd still be vastly than where they were. But the only way to get from there to here is one back-breaking day at a time.

          Similarly, a century or so down the road, we may have all the big ticket troubles that humanity faces solved. In such a case, today would probably look pretty awful to those future people. But we can't just choose to transport ourselves to that future. There's no royal road to good situations. One has to work to get there.

          That's why I support this idea. It's an experiment that has considerable potential to make a better future. And as I noted with my Disney World example, sometimes it works pretty damn well.

          If you know the history of the West Virginia coal wars, you know that the people who lived there did not in any significant way approve of how the system worked. They went into coal mining because their only alternative, after the coal companies poisoned what had been their farmland, was to starve to death. Company thugs murdered a mayor and a local police chief that tried to resist them among others. There was even a pitched battle between company forces and the miners, who apparently thought that attacking an entrenched enemy uphill armed with nothing but handguns and clubs was preferable to enduring their current situation.

          Cool story, bro. Note first that you acknowledge that coal mining in a company town was a relatively good choice. Second, you fail to acknowledge that the alternative to all that is move somewhere else (which wouldn't have been that far away) where farmland isn't poisoned and such and you don't need jobs in company towns to keep from starving. People mined coal by choice.

          And given that they knuckled under after the defeat at the Battle of Blair Mountain, there apparently were things worse than the current situation.

          • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:24PM (1 child)

            by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:24PM (#1109712) Journal

            It's an experiment

            And, you look like a fine guinea pig to me!

            • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:09PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:09PM (#1109762)

              khallow is now too fluffy and round to run on the wheel. It's more of a tumble cycle. So he can no longer be a guinea pig. Sorry.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:28PM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:28PM (#1109714)

            Your outrage short circuits your reading skills. Not surprising, one can not bury their emotions for long without causing serious mental disorders.

            • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @01:12PM

              by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @01:12PM (#1109931) Journal

              Your outrage short circuits your reading skills. Not surprising, one can not bury their emotions for long without causing serious mental disorders.

              In other words, a "heads I win, tails you lose" position. If I show emotion, it's an outrage short circuit. If I don't, then it's "burying" emotion. There is no right approach to your criticism which let us note is irrelevant to the discussion.

              But most significantly, there's no word at all on the bogus "So what you're saying is" straw man that sparked this alleged outrage short circuit. Some alleged minor outburst on my part is worth mentioning. A blatant fake characterization of my words is not.

              Can't you see the dishonesty of these posts, both Thexalon's and yours?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @06:00AM (3 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @06:00AM (#1109894)

        Except that's not true, in a bunch of those coal mining towns you had to buy from the company store in order to get the gear you needed to do your job and the money you paid to the store was enough to ensure that you were always in debt to the company. It was effectively slave labor as you couldn't leave if you hadn't paid your debts.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:10PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:10PM (#1109938) Journal

          as you couldn't leave if you hadn't paid your debts

          Except, of course, by leaving without telling said company where you were going, you didn't have to stay or pay off those alleged debts. Seriously what could the company do to you? Send the Pinkertons? Waste a bunch of money in a court to get blood from a stone? Unless the target had that money somewhere, it would be a losing and very unprofitable proposition for them even for the purpose of scaring the rest of the miners.

          The US was notoriously fluid when it came to such things back then. I find it remarkable how poorly founded some of these myths are.

          Strikes and other protests that were put down with military force are well documented. People who chose to stay under abusive circumstances because that was better than the alternatives are pretty well documented.

          But so are miners moving from one mine to another and few examples of large debts to the company store. In the references to this paywalled article [cambridge.org], we have the following:

          There is evidence that miners moved in response to nonwage aspects of the employment package, including stores, housing, schools and health care. For example, Jairus Collins, a nonunion operator, attracted workers during one upturn by cutting store prices “to the bone.”

          Corbin asserts that the mobility was limited to movements within the same coal region, but there was substantial movement in and out of coal mining as well. U.S. Senate, U.S. Coal Commission

          Net store profits at the Stonega mines were between 10 and 15 percent of sales from 1910 to 1915 and then averaged about 6 percent both from 1916 to 1929 and from 1937 to 1947. Compiled from Comparative Statements of Annual Store Reports, 1911–1947 in Boxes 253–5. Data on coal prices and production costs are from Annual Operating Statements, 1929–1933, Box 248 from the Stonega Coke and Coal Collection, Series II, within the Westmoreland Coal Collection at the Hagley Museum and Library, Wilmington, Delaware. The Stonega Coke and Coal operations, which employed about 1400 men in 1915, seem representative of the average coal community.

          At some mines miners could get cash advances, but these were carefully doled out only to better workers. Testimony of Cabell, Conditions in Paint Creek, p. 1499. In West Virginia in 1908 some “individuals, saloons, and independent storekeepers buy the scrip at from 65 to 85 percent of its face value and use it in buying provisions from the company store.” A majority of companies disallowed the selling of scrip to stop such practices.

          Doesn't sound to me like a number of the problems alleged in this thread such as being forced to stay and work, company store debt, company scrip, etc were widespread practices.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:51PM (1 child)

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:51PM (#1109960) Journal

          Except that's not true, in a bunch of those coal mining towns you had to buy from the company store in order to get the gear you needed to do your job and the money you paid to the store was enough to ensure that you were always in debt to the company.

          Do these company towns have names? How much is a bunch? How does the company collect on that debt once you move out and start working for a competitor?

    • (Score: 2) by legont on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:31PM (2 children)

      by legont (4179) on Saturday February 06 2021, @01:31PM (#1109622)

      I am sure Carnal Pleasures LLC will be a hit. Just imagine a 200 square miles park with naked whores of all ages walking around ready and able. It's limitless. Say sky dive with your instructor leaking your parts...

      --
      "Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:11PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @04:11PM (#1109674) Journal
        Sounds like you have good ideas there. Probably ought to get in on that action!

        My take is that the prostitution and gambling businesses will be early adopters. Should be interesting to see what they come up with.
      • (Score: 0) by Ethanol-fueled on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:33PM

        by Ethanol-fueled (2792) on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:33PM (#1109719) Homepage

        I ain't gonna work on Faggie's farm no more!

        Well, he hands you a nickel,
        He hands you a dime,
        He asks you with a grin
        If you're having a good time,

        Then he fines you every time you slam the door.
        I ain't gonna work on Faggie's farm no more!

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @02:27PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @02:27PM (#1109637)

      Another past example --Dearborn MI when Henry Ford employed Pinkerton heavies to stop unionization. The Rouge Plant (iron ore & coal went in, Model T cars came out) was about as vertically integrated as could be, and Ford was the law.

      First in line for this new deal in Nevada? Musk/Tesla with the Gigafactory making batteries. It's already outside town, makes its own power (solar) and he owns considerable land around the plant.

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday February 06 2021, @03:02PM (3 children)

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday February 06 2021, @03:02PM (#1109654)

      some wonderful corporation with a nice "don't be evil" slogan will come along, and show us the right way to set up a corporation town/county/state.

      Isn't that the one that has employees earning $300K per year sleeping in conversion vans in the parking lot because they can't afford housing within commute distance?

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:15PM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:15PM (#1109939) Journal

        some wonderful corporation with a nice "don't be evil" slogan will come along, and show us the right way to set up a corporation town/county/state.

        Isn't that the one that has employees earning $300K per year sleeping in conversion vans in the parking lot because they can't afford housing within commute distance?

        Good point. A company like Google probably can do vastly better running their own housing rather than depending on crazy California to do it for them. We might see Nevada eat California's lunch, should this become law.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:58PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:58PM (#1109942)

          California is screwed either way, as remote work is now the "new normal" for white collar jobs. Who wants to live in a city when you don't have to, let alone with a housing bubble so outrageous?

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:47PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:47PM (#1109959) Journal
            We'll see if it stays the new normal. My take is that enough of California will be vaccinated within a year to kill off present strains of covid. The old normal wasn't that way just because. A lot of businesses want workplace presence.
    • (Score: 2) by https on Saturday February 06 2021, @03:37PM (1 child)

      by https (5248) on Saturday February 06 2021, @03:37PM (#1109666) Journal

      For nightmare fuel, look up export processing zones. Company towns are hell for their occupants.

      I seem to recall it was Mussolini what suggested fascism should be called corporatism, as it was the usurping of state power by business interest.

      --
      Offended and laughing about it.
      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:51PM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @02:51PM (#1109941) Journal

        For nightmare fuel, look up export processing zones.

        But to be fair, let's also compare those to the rest of those countries. For example, are the export processing zones (EPZ) of Haiti (the first country I found when I googled for "export processing zones nightmare") more nightmarish than the rest of the country?

        My criteria: is it worst than its absence? For the Haitian example, I gather the key concern is that these zones work around tariffs that protect local industries from subsidized industries elsewhere in the world, particularly for agriculture. But that means making food more expensive in a country with a huge number of poor. Sounds to me like tariffs and the subsequent EPZs are just workarounds for problems that would be better fixed in other ways. It'd probably be better to just make the whole country a EPZ rather than just some small part of it.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:09PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:09PM (#1109697)

      Rochester, NY was widely successful for almost 100 years. However, I think company towns only work if the company really cares for the employees, and I think we're a long way from going back to that business model.

    • (Score: 2, Touché) by VLM on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:03PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 06 2021, @08:03PM (#1109759)

      I'll give two contemporary examples of "company town-like" experiences that aren't too awful

      One is unelected corporate dictatorship of the condo-board and the home-owners-association. They do kinda suck and their worst behaviors are legendary yet plenty of people voluntarily move there and live pretty well.

      Another example is very corporate-like Air Force bases. AF is widely seen as the most corporate branch of the mil. I've spent quite awhile on various Army bases back in the 90s and they're generally the nicest place to live for some distance around.

      I would imagine life in the Peoples Republic of Google would be very much like living on a military base.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by edIII on Saturday February 06 2021, @09:34PM

      by edIII (791) on Saturday February 06 2021, @09:34PM (#1109789)

      Go back to the 1800s'. Look up the coal police. You had these towns where you would be kept in debt forever, since you had to rent the pickax, rent your sleeping berth, pay for food from the company owned store, with *company* money. You got paid in company money, not US currency. If you dared to unionize and try to fight back, the companies would hire law enforcement to moonlight as paid enforcers that often murdered people. Since they were working for the coal companies, they were called the coal police.

      I forgot the name of the movie, but it had The Rock in it along with Christopher Walken. Set in South America, and was pretty much an analogue to what happened here in the US in the 1800's. That was back around the Wild West times.

      We don't want to move backwards to that shit. Women and children were murdered in the street in the fight for the 10 hour day. It took some time after that before we even got the to the idea we take for granted now, the 8 hour day. Likewise, we take for granted now that child labor is illegal, or at least heavily regulated.

      The move to give corporations power like that, sounds like exactly the steps necessary to create those dystopian futures we see on TV. Where people in debt that cannot pay, have control mechanisms injected into the back of their neck, and then forced to sit as a robot in a manufacturing plant. Probably earning X, which is Y-Z, with Y being what is needed to get out of debt, and Z is what is tacked onto Y at the end of the day.

      In other words, it's one step towards a modified form of slavery where the idea that the elites get 90% of all production is baked deeply into the system itself.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:14PM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @10:14PM (#1109797)

      The reporting on this is atrocious (gee, what a shock... oh, wait). Here's an analysis of the actual bill: https://www.chartercitiesinstitute.org/post/an-analysis-of-nevadas-proposed-innovation-zones-law [chartercitiesinstitute.org]

      It's basically a proposal to let industry groups set up special economic zones that function like counties, and increasingly become counties over time.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:21PM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 06 2021, @11:21PM (#1109814)

        So it's fascism -- that special delicious blend of corporate and government power.

        • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:21PM

          by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday February 07 2021, @03:21PM (#1109948) Journal

          So it's fascism -- that special delicious blend of corporate and government power.

          Only if you define fascism that way. We're missing the usual stuff, like supremacy of the state, that would make it a fascist government.

          Plutocrarchy or corporatocracy seems more appropriate, particularly since these regions would still be subject to laws and regulation by Nevada and the US federal government.

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