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Nevada Bill Would Allow Tech Companies to Create Governments

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

upstart writes in with an IRC submission for AzumaHazuki:

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.

Original Submission

 
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  • (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?