41.  Ali, Dubai: Gilded Cage, 91.

    42.  Brook, A History of Future Cities, 359.

    43.  Davis, “Fear and Money in Dubai,” 63.

    44.  Christopher M. Davidson, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 18.

    45.  “Fantasy Islands,” Financial Times, May 28, 2005, Financial Times Historical Archive, Gale.

    46.  Adam Nicholson, “Boom Town,” Guardian, February 13, 2006, ProQuest Historical Newspapers.

    47.  Brook, A History of Future Cities, 359.

    48.  Robert Vitalis, America’s Kingdom: Mythmaking on the Saudi Oil Frontier (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2006), 88–92.

    49.  “Fantasy Islands.”

    50.  Salem Saif, “Blade Runner in the Gulf,” Jacobin, November 2, 2017, https://jacobin.com/2017/11/gulf-states-oil-capital-ecological-disaster.

    51.  Nicholson, “Boom Town.”

    52.  Brook, A History of Future Cities, 357.

    53.  Therborn, Cities of Power: The Urban, the National, the Popular, the Global, 288.

    54.  Soules, Icebergs, Zombies, and the Ultra-Thin: Architecture and Capitalism in the 21st Century, chap. 2.

    55.  Deborah Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2014), 168. For a similar metaphor see Davis, “Fear and Money in Dubai,” 51.

    56.  Negus, “An American Style Emirate? Dubai Sees a Future as Ally.”

    57.  Kennicott, “Arabian Heights.”

    58.  Ramos, Dubai Amplified, 137.

    59.  Ramos, 133.

    60.  “Rwandan Government Signs a Feasibility Study with ‘Jafza International’ to Set Up a Free Zone in Kigali,” Middle East Company News, September 6, 2005, Global Newsstream.

    61.  “Rwandan Government Signs a Feasibility Study.”

    62.  Presenna Nambiar, “Jafza Quits Managing Port Klang Free Zone,” New Straits Times (Malaysia), July 19, 2007, Gale OneFile.

    63.  “Jafza Manages Tangier Med,” Middle East Financial News, June 21, 2005, Global Newsstream.

    64.  “Ready for a Leap from the Desert,” Financial Times, May 23, 2005, Financial Times Historical Archive, Gale.

    65.  “TRIL Forms JV with Jafza for Seven Logistic Parks in India,” PTI—The Press Trust of India, October 30, 2007, Global Newsstream.

    66.  “Jafza International Offers to Extend Full Support to Russia in Developing Sezs,” Middle East Company News, March 18, 2007, Global Newsstream; and “Jafza, MFZ Sign MOU on Development of Misurata Economic Zone in Libya,” Middle East Company News, October 3, 2007, Global Newsstream.

    67.  “Dubai World to Invest US$800M in Senegalese Economic Zone,” National Post, January 22, 2008, Newspapers.com.

    68.  “Romania Shows Interest in Jafza’s Unique Business Model,” Middle East Company News, August 18, 2007, Global Newsstream.

    69.  Khalili, Sinews of War and Trade, 108.

    70.  Stephen Williams, “DP World Makes Giant Acquisition,” The Middle East (January 2006), Global Newsstream.

    71.  Oliver Wainwright, “Inside the London Megaport You Didn’t Know Existed,” Guardian, September 15, 2015, ProQuest.

    72.  “Somali Pirates Risk Choking Key World Trade Route,” Reuters, April 15, 2009, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-somalia-piracy-shipping-factbox-idUSTRE53E2JR20090415.

    73.  David S. Fick, Africa: Continent of Economic Opportunity (Johannesburg, South Africa: STE Publishers, 2006), 285.

    74.  “JI Project Opens New Vista for Djibouti,” Gulf Industry Online, August 1, 2007, http://www.gulfindustryonline.com/news/5728_JI-project-opens-new-vista-for-Djibouti.html.

    75.  Diery Seck and Amie Gaye, “The Impact of the Global Financial Crisis on Arab States and Sub-Saharan Africa: An Agenda for Growth-Inducing Collaboration,” in Regional Economic Integration in West Africa, ed. Diery Seck (Cham, Switzerland: Springer, 2013), 17.

    76.  Arang Keshavarzian, “Geopolitics and the Genealogy of Free Trade Zones in the Persian Gulf,” Geopolitics 15 (2010): 276.

    77.  Davidson, Dubai: The Vulnerability of Success, 116.

    78.  Fick, Africa: Continent of Economic Opportunity, 286.

    79.  Cowen, The Deadly Life of Logistics: Mapping Violence in Global Trade, 123.

    80.  Gene Zaleski, “Mission to Dubai,” The Times and Democrat (Orangeburg, SC), March 30, 2008, https://thetandd.com/news/mission-to-dubai/article_a44fa0c4-7148-52b4-b527-fc923e3ecbfc.html.

    81.  Harvey Morris, “Dubai’s $600m Hub in US ‘Corridor of Shame,’” Financial Times, January 12, 2008, Financial Times Historical Archive, Gale.

    82.  Kristian Coates Ulrichsen, “The Political Economy of Dubai,” in Dubai’s Role in Facilitating Corruption and Global Financial Flows, ed. Matthew T. Page and Jodi Vittori (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2020), 17.

    83.  Greg Lindsay, “From Dubai to Chongqing to Honduras, the Silk Road of the Future Is Taking Shape in Urban Developments Based on Airport Hubs,” Wall Street Journal Asia, March 4, 2011, ProQuest.

    84.  Jean-Paul Rodrigue, The Geography of Transport Systems, 5th ed. (London: Routledge, 2020), 236.

    85.  Stephen Yiu-wai Chu, “Brand Hong Kong: Asia’s World City as Method?,” Visual Anthropology 24, no. 1–2 (2011): 48.

    86.  For a study of these dynamics in India see Ravinder Kaur, Brand New Nation: Capitalist Dreams and Nationalist Designs in Twenty-First-Century India (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2020).

    87.  Cornelia Zeineddine, “Nation Branding in the Middle East—United Arab Emirates (UAE) vs. Qatar,” Proceedings of the International Conference on Business Excellence 11, no. 1 (2017): 592.

    88.  Simon Anholt, “‘Nation Branding’ in Asia,” Place Branding and Public Diplomacy 4, no. 265–269 (2008): 268.

    89.  Ramos, Dubai Amplified: The Engineering of a Port Geography, 117, 29.

    90.  Curtis Yarvin, “UR’s Plan to Fix Iraq,” Unqualified Reservations, May 16, 2007, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/05/urs-plan-to-fix-iraq/.

    91.  Heidi M. Peters, “Department of Defense Contractor and Troop Levels in Afghanistan and Iraq: 2007–2020,” Congressional Research Service, February 22, 2021, 6, 12.

    92.  Anna Fifield, “Contractors Reap $138bn from Iraq War,” Financial Times, March 18, 2013, Financial Times Historical Archive, Gale.

    93.  Curtis Yarvin, “A Formalist Manifesto,” Unqualified Reservations, April 23, 2007, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/04/formalist-manifesto-originally-posted/.

    94.  Curtis Yarvin, “Against Political Freedom,” Unqualified Reservations, May 25, 2007, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2007/08/against-political-freedom/.

    95.  Yarvin, “A Formalist Manifesto.”

  CHAPTER 10: SILICON VALLEY COLONIALISM

      1.  Paul Romer, “A Theory of History, with an Application,” The Long Now Foundation, May 18, 2009, https://longnow.org/seminars/02009/may/18/theory-history-application/.

      2.  Paul Romer, “Escape from the Great Distress,” Issues in Science and Technology (Fall 2012): 65.

      3.  Romer, “A Theory of History, with an Application.”

      4.  See Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism (New York: PublicAffairs, 2013).

      5.  Pauline Lipman, “Obama’s Education Policy: More Markets, More Inequality, New Urban Contestations,” in Urban Policy in the Time of Obama, ed. James DeFilippis (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2016), 143.

      6.  David Wessel, “A Plan to Turn Honduras into the Next Hong Kong,” Wall Street Journal, February 3, 2011, ProQuest.

      7.  Song Jung-a, Christian Oliver, and Tom Burgis, “Daewoo to Cultivate Madagascar Land for Free,” Financial Times, November 19, 2008, Financial Times Historical Archive, Gale.

      8.  Renée Vellvé and Mamy Rakotondrainibe, “The Daewoo-Madagascar Land Grab: Ten Years On,” Thomson Reuters Foundation News, November 16, 2018, https://news.trust.org/item/20181116144408-pdi0a. See also Daniel Shepard and Anuradha Mittal, (Mis)investment in Agriculture: The Role of the International Finance Corporation in Global Land Grabs (Oakland, CA: Oakland Institute, 2008).

      9.  Sebastian Mallaby, “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Ending Poverty,” Atlantic, June 8, 2010, Gale OneFile.

    10.  Venusia Vinciguerra, “How the Daewoo Attempted Land Acquisition Contributed to Madagascar’s Political Crisis in 2009,” in Contest for Land in Madagascar: Environment, Ancestors and Development, ed. Sandra Evers, Gwyn Campbell, and Michael Lambek (Leiden: Brill, 2013), 242. See also Tom Burgis, “Madagascar Leader Cancels Daewoo Farm Deal,” FT.com, March 18, 2009, Financial Times Historical Archive, Gale.

    11.  In the 1980s, the country was a rear operating base for the Reagan administration’s contra offensive against Sandinista-governed Nicaragua.

    12.  Michael Engman, “Success and Stasis in Honduras’ Free Zones,” in Special Economic Zones: Progress, Emerging Challenges, and Future Directions, ed. Thomas Farole and Gokhan Akinci (Washington, DC: World Bank, 2011), 49. The domestic term is ZIPs (Zonas Industriales de Procesamiento).

    13.  This paragraph draws from Todd Gordon and Jeffery R. Webber, “Post-Coup Honduras: Latin America’s Corridor of Reaction,” Historical Materialism 21, no. 3 (2013): 16–56.

    14.  Engman, “Success and Stasis in Honduras’ Free Zones,” 62.

    15.  Wessel, “A Plan to Turn Honduras into the Next Hong Kong.”

    16.  Adam Davidson, “Who Wants to Buy Honduras?,” New York Times, May 8, 2012, ProQuest.

    17.  Congress approved a constitutional amendment creating REDs with a vote of 124–1. Tom W. Bell, “No Exit: Are Honduran Free Cities DOA?,” Freeman (December 2012): 10; and Wessel, “A Plan to Turn Honduras into the Next Hong Kong.”

    18.  Paul Romer and Octavio Sanchez, “Urban Prosperity in the RED,” Globe and Mail, April 25, 2012, ProQuest.

    19.  Michael R. Castle Miller, “The Ciudades Modelo Project: Testing the Legality of Paul Romer’s Charter Cities Concept by Analyzing the Constitutionality of the Honduran Zones for Employment and Economic Development,” Willamette Journal of International Law & Dispute Resolution 22 (2014): 280.

    20.  For a thorough legal analysis see Miller, “The Ciudades Modelo Project: Testing the Legality of Paul Romer’s Charter Cities Concept by Analyzing the Constitutionality of the Honduran Zones for Employment and Economic Development,” 271–312.

    21.  Davidson, “Who Wants to Buy Honduras?”

    22.  Lindsay, “From Dubai to Chongqing to Honduras, the Silk Road of the Future Is Taking Shape in Urban Developments Based on Airport Hubs.”

    23.  “Hong Kong in Honduras,” Economist, December 10, 2011, Gale in Context: Global Issues.

    24.  Eli Sugarman, “Should Struggling Countries Let Investors Run Their Cities?,” Atlantic, July 11, 2013, Gale OneFile.

    25.  Bell, “No Exit: Are Honduran Free Cities DOA?,” 10.

    26.  Tom W. Bell, “Principles of Contracts for Governance Services,” Griffith Law Review 21, no. 2 (2012): 494.

    27.  Graham Brown, “Honduran ZEDEs: The New Frontier,” PanAm Post, February 8, 2014, http://blog.panampost.com/graham-brown/2014/02/08/honduran-zedes-new-frontier/.

    28.  Paul Romer, “Why the World Needs Charter Cities,” TED Global (Oxford, UK), July 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mSHBma0Ithk.

    29.  Romer and Sanchez, “Urban Prosperity in the RED.”

    30.  Engman, “Success and Stasis in Honduras’ Free Zones,” 51, 54.

    31.  Brian Hutchison, “Opportunity in ‘Charter City,’” National Post, December 27, 2012, Global Newsstream.

    32.  Brandon Fuller and Paul Romer, Success and the City: How Charter Cities Could Transform the Developing World (Ottawa: MacDonald Laurier Institute, April 2012), 15.

    33.  Fuller and Romer, Success and the City: How Charter Cities Could Transform the Developing World, 16.

    34.  Stanford Institute for Economic Policy, “SIEPR Economic Summit 2009,” March 13, 2009, Wayback Machine capture September 11, 2016, https://siepr.stanford.edu/events/siepr-economic-summit-2009.

    35.  Paul Romer, “Governance in Developing Countries,” SIEPR Economic Summit, March 13, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v7fSvDLvkaw.

    36.  Michael Ignatieff, “The American Empire,” New York Times Magazine, January 5, 2003; Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic Books, 2004); and Deepak Lal, In Praise of Empires: Globalization and Order (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004).

    37.  Niall Ferguson, “The Empire Slinks Back,” New York Times Magazine, April 27, 2003, https://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/27/magazine/the-empire-slinks-back.html.

    38.  Keri Vacanti Brondo, Land Grab: Green Neoliberalism, Gender, and Garifuna Resistance in Honduras (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2013), 168.

    39.  Keane Bhatt, “Reporting on Romer’s Charter Cities: How the Media Sanitize Honduras’s Brutal Regime,” NACLA Report on the Americas, February 19, 2013, https://nacla.org/news/2013/2/19/reporting-romer%E2%80%99s-charter-cities-how-media-sanitize-honduras%E2%80%99s-brutal-regime.

    40.  Curtis Yarvin, “From Cromer to Romer and Back Again: Colonialism for the 21st Century,” Unqualified Reservations, August 20, 2009, https://www.unqualified-reservations.org/2009/08/from-cromer-to-romer-and-back-again/.

    41.  Patri Friedman, “Theory: Competitive Government, Practice: Seasteading,” The Future of Free Cities, April 4, 2011, https://newmedia.ufm.edu/coleccion/the-future-of-free-cities/theory-of-free-cities-and-seasteading/.

    42.  Friedman, “Theory: Competitive Government, Practice: Seasteading.”

    43.  Future Cities Development, Wayback Machine capture, September 11, 2012, http://futurecitiesdev.com/about-us/; and “Honduras Shrugged,” Economist, December 10, 2011, Gale OneFile. South Korean investors were also involved. For details see Bridget Martin and Beth Geglia, “Korean Tigers in Honduras: Urban Economic Zones as Spatial Ideology in International Policy Transfer Networks,” Political Geography 74 (October 2019): 1–12.

    44.  He used the abbreviation “ancap.” Michael Strong, “Marketing Free Cities as a Mainstream Solution to Global Poverty,” Future of Free Cities, April 3, 2011, https://newmedia.ufm.edu/coleccion/the-future-of-free-cities/theory-of-free-cities-and-seasteading/.

    45.  Michael Strong, “Free Zones: An Additional Option for the Cambrian Explosion in Government,” Seasteading Institute Conference (2009), https://vimeo.com/7577391. https://vimeo.com/7577391. For details on Strong and other libertarians involved with the Honduras enterprise see Craib, Adventure Capitalism: A History of Libertarian Exit from Decolonization to the Digital Age, 227–31.

    46.  Titus Gebel, “Welchen Staat würden Sie kaufen?,” Schweizer Monat 94 (February 2014): 36.

    47.  Titus Gebel, “Markt des Zusammenlebens,” Schweizer Monat (October 2018), https://schweizermonat.ch/markt-des-zusammenlebens/.

    48.  Titus Gebel, “‘In der Politik findet Man heute eher blender als echte Problemlöser,’” Mises.de, October 14, 2019, https://www.misesde.org/2019/10/in-der-politik-findet-man-heute-eher-blender-als-echte-problemloeser.

    49.  Erick Brimen, “The Startup Society: Political Innovations That Give Rise to Flourishing,” Voice & Exit Festival, December 14, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pa5WzcZAsco.

    50.  Lizette Chapman, “The Hottest New Thing in Seasteading Is Land,” Bloomberg Businessweek, December 20, 2019, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-12-20/silicon-valley-seasteaders-go-looking-for-low-tax-sites-on-land; Joshua Brustein, “A Private Tech City Opens for Business in Honduras,” Bloomberg, March 27, 2021, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-27/prospera-in-honduras-a-private-tech-city-now-open-for-business; and Mario Aguero and Gissel Zalavarria, “Prospera: the First Charter City Approved by the Honduran Government,” Arias, June 30, 2021, https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=1ceb727f-364e-4d50–9018–803744f3c88c.