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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, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday February 06 2021, @07:49PM (5 children)
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)
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)
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
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
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
khallow is way better at deploying this argument. You don't go full nihilist retard with it.