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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.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Mojibake Tengu on Saturday February 06 2021, @06:47AM (5 children)
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)
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)
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
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)
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
This is what you get when you don't have any litmus tests for party membership.