The Haiti earthquake is biblical in its devastation, and has major
implications for the United States.
** Haiti, seething with ethnic violence, may require US forces for a long time
** http://www.generationaldynamics.com/cgi ... 17#e100117
John
Haiti
-
The Grey Badger
- Posts: 176
- Joined: Sat Sep 20, 2008 11:50 pm
Re: Haiti
That You-tube quote -was it out of Haiti? (my speakers are down so I won't be playing You-tube till I fix them.)
Meanwhile, a proposal from another blogger:
Haiti Tweet
Alex Tabarrok
Port-au-Prince, Charter City?
Definition:
Charter Cities
Paul Romer's TED talk on charter cities is up and Romer is now writing more about the idea at his Charter Cities Blog. In the TED talk and on the blog Romer gives a "fanciful" example of how a charter city might work:
Imagine that the United States and Cuba agree to disengage by closing the military base and transferring local administrative control to Canada...
To help the city flourish, the Canadians encourage immigration. It is a place with Canadian judges and Mounties that happily accepts millions of immigrants. Some of the new residents could be Cuban émigrés who return from North America. Others might be Haitians who come work in garment factories that firms no longer feel safe bringing into Haiti...
Initially, the government of Cuba lets some of its citizens participate by migrating to the new city. Over time, it encourages citizens to move instead to a new city that it creates in a special economic zone located right outside the charter city, just as the Mainland Chinese let its citizens move into Shenzhen next to Hong Kong.
With clear rules spelled out in the charter and enforced by the Canadian judicial system, all the infrastructure for the new city is financed by private investment. The Canadians pay for the government services they provide (the legal, judicial, and regulatory systems, education, basic health care) out of the gains in the value of the land in the administrative zone. This, of course, creates the right incentives to invest in education and health. Growth in human capital makes income grow very rapidly, which makes the land in the zone even more valuable.
It's interesting to compare charter cities to Patri Friedman's concept of seasteading (Alex, Tyler). Both charter cities and seasteading are motivated by the desire to break out of conventional political arrangements and create a system with much greater scope for innovation in rules.
Romer wants charter cities built on uninhabited land (of which there is plenty), seasteading is cities built on the sea (even more plentiful). Aside from the obvious advantage of building on land, charter cities allow current elites to buy-in and gain from the charter city (ala Shenzhen and in other ways) and thus probably have a better chance of getting "on the ground." Charter cities also address a key question about seasteading - will governments regulate or takeover a successful seastead? A charter city is an agreement between governments - Cuba agrees to let Canada import Canadian rules onto a small portion of Cuban property. Cuba could renege on the deal but it's going to be much harder for Cuba to renege on Canada than for the U.S. government to regulate or otherwise control seasteading.
By the way, the fact that Romer wants charter cities built on uninhabitated land with plenty of immigration from the charter nation goes some way to reducing the problem of nationalism that concerns Tyler and also the problem of transplanting legal institutions that concerns Arnold Kling.
We don't have many examples of charter cities in action but Hong Kong is a promising example. Despite nationalism, the agreement with Britain was accepted for over 100 years and it worked. Contra Tyler, we shouldn't think of what happened in 1997 as China taking over Hong Kong but rather as the final element of Hong Kong taking over China.
Seasteading does have one big advantage over charter cities. Seasteading is more radical but it is more open, less tied to elites, and more flexible so, if it works, it is a better design for what Romer calls innovation in rules formation.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on August 10, 2009 at 07:43 AM in Economics, Political Science | Permalink
Hat tip: Tim Kane.
January 15, 2010 at 01:43 PM in Current Affairs, Economics | Permalink | Comments (14)
Meanwhile, a proposal from another blogger:
Haiti Tweet
Alex Tabarrok
Port-au-Prince, Charter City?
Definition:
Charter Cities
Paul Romer's TED talk on charter cities is up and Romer is now writing more about the idea at his Charter Cities Blog. In the TED talk and on the blog Romer gives a "fanciful" example of how a charter city might work:
Imagine that the United States and Cuba agree to disengage by closing the military base and transferring local administrative control to Canada...
To help the city flourish, the Canadians encourage immigration. It is a place with Canadian judges and Mounties that happily accepts millions of immigrants. Some of the new residents could be Cuban émigrés who return from North America. Others might be Haitians who come work in garment factories that firms no longer feel safe bringing into Haiti...
Initially, the government of Cuba lets some of its citizens participate by migrating to the new city. Over time, it encourages citizens to move instead to a new city that it creates in a special economic zone located right outside the charter city, just as the Mainland Chinese let its citizens move into Shenzhen next to Hong Kong.
With clear rules spelled out in the charter and enforced by the Canadian judicial system, all the infrastructure for the new city is financed by private investment. The Canadians pay for the government services they provide (the legal, judicial, and regulatory systems, education, basic health care) out of the gains in the value of the land in the administrative zone. This, of course, creates the right incentives to invest in education and health. Growth in human capital makes income grow very rapidly, which makes the land in the zone even more valuable.
It's interesting to compare charter cities to Patri Friedman's concept of seasteading (Alex, Tyler). Both charter cities and seasteading are motivated by the desire to break out of conventional political arrangements and create a system with much greater scope for innovation in rules.
Romer wants charter cities built on uninhabited land (of which there is plenty), seasteading is cities built on the sea (even more plentiful). Aside from the obvious advantage of building on land, charter cities allow current elites to buy-in and gain from the charter city (ala Shenzhen and in other ways) and thus probably have a better chance of getting "on the ground." Charter cities also address a key question about seasteading - will governments regulate or takeover a successful seastead? A charter city is an agreement between governments - Cuba agrees to let Canada import Canadian rules onto a small portion of Cuban property. Cuba could renege on the deal but it's going to be much harder for Cuba to renege on Canada than for the U.S. government to regulate or otherwise control seasteading.
By the way, the fact that Romer wants charter cities built on uninhabitated land with plenty of immigration from the charter nation goes some way to reducing the problem of nationalism that concerns Tyler and also the problem of transplanting legal institutions that concerns Arnold Kling.
We don't have many examples of charter cities in action but Hong Kong is a promising example. Despite nationalism, the agreement with Britain was accepted for over 100 years and it worked. Contra Tyler, we shouldn't think of what happened in 1997 as China taking over Hong Kong but rather as the final element of Hong Kong taking over China.
Seasteading does have one big advantage over charter cities. Seasteading is more radical but it is more open, less tied to elites, and more flexible so, if it works, it is a better design for what Romer calls innovation in rules formation.
Posted by Alex Tabarrok on August 10, 2009 at 07:43 AM in Economics, Political Science | Permalink
Hat tip: Tim Kane.
January 15, 2010 at 01:43 PM in Current Affairs, Economics | Permalink | Comments (14)
Re: Haiti
Dear Pat,
without playing the video.
John
The quote is in one of the comments. You can read the commentsThe Grey Badger wrote: > That You-tube quote -was it out of Haiti? (my speakers are down so
> I won't be playing You-tube till I fix them.)
without playing the video.
John
Re: Haiti
Haiti is currently a window on the darker side of humanity.
A few years ago while traveling in China, our Chinese guide told us that in the "old days" before the revolution, when things got really bad ( as in lack of food ) families would exchange children who were then eaten, because they were hungry and could not bear to eat there own children. During the collapse of the Easter Island civilization people reverted to cannibalism. The early American settlers mentioned a practice employed by some coastal New England Indians. When, food got very scarce they would kill their youngest children, because these children were too young to contribute to the tribe's survival, and could easily be replaced later. Most people have no idea how bad things can get, nor how fast it can get bad. When I was a child growing up in a nice middle class white suburb of Chicago we were hit with a 3 foot snow fall, closing down all commerce. I was sent to the supermarket, to get milk, the store was closed because the employees could not get there. However, the manager, outside and alone was at the supermarket trying to keep the gathered people from breaking down the doors, in desperation and to prevent damage to the store he finally let them in. Humanity is always just a short step from anarchy.
A few years ago while traveling in China, our Chinese guide told us that in the "old days" before the revolution, when things got really bad ( as in lack of food ) families would exchange children who were then eaten, because they were hungry and could not bear to eat there own children. During the collapse of the Easter Island civilization people reverted to cannibalism. The early American settlers mentioned a practice employed by some coastal New England Indians. When, food got very scarce they would kill their youngest children, because these children were too young to contribute to the tribe's survival, and could easily be replaced later. Most people have no idea how bad things can get, nor how fast it can get bad. When I was a child growing up in a nice middle class white suburb of Chicago we were hit with a 3 foot snow fall, closing down all commerce. I was sent to the supermarket, to get milk, the store was closed because the employees could not get there. However, the manager, outside and alone was at the supermarket trying to keep the gathered people from breaking down the doors, in desperation and to prevent damage to the store he finally let them in. Humanity is always just a short step from anarchy.
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