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muriel_volestrangler

(101,316 posts)
7. My prediction: the 'independent' governing board will be rich capitalists
Sat Sep 15, 2012, 11:45 AM
Sep 2012

with libertarian leanings, who just happen to have not invested in the projects, although their friends have. Despite the claim from the developer that "once we have jobs then we will need affordable housing, schools, clinics, churches, stores, restaurants, all the businesses that create a real community", they will build the call centres and factories for cheap labour, and restricted upscale housing (and upscale stores and restaurants) for senior management and investors - and then stop. The labour will have to live outside, and commute in each day. There will be next to no 'affordable housing'. This means the 'guarantee' that any Honduran citizen will have the right to be a resident will be meaningless - only the rich will be able to afford to live inside the city.

Any school or clinic will be expensive, and designed for the rich - either the investors, or senior management, who will have a comfortable lifestyle as long as they go along with the decisions of the board (think of the ex-pat community in Saudi Arabia - no political power, but good salaries and facilities as long as you don't rock the boat). It will be 'fire at will' labour laws, so any employee who gets uppity can be fired at once - and then how can they afford to stay there in expensive housing with all the employers refusing to take them on as trouble-makers? Unless they are Honduran, they will be kicked out at once as 'non-citizens', which the laws will allow.

The board will appoint a like-minded governor, who will set the initial laws as hyper-neo-liberal, with the trade laws focused on how to get most profit with the rest of the world, not how to be good for Honduras' economy. The board chooses its successors, so they will appoint more like-minded people. By restricting the housing in the enclaves, they prevent the "popular votes among all residents of the cities" from ever threatening a change - the workers won't be resident inside the city.

Honduran law will not apply in the cities, and they can set their own international trade policies. Effectively, they will be independent statelets (like the tax havens of Monaco, Jersey and Guernsey, for instance, but without a native working class population). They'll employ commuting workers for the lowest wage possible, and Honduras will end up having to build the schools, etc. outside the cities to support workers and their families, with just those low wages as a tax base. The real money will stay inside the tax haven. Outside will be a ring of slums.

Honduras has just stuck its neck out in front, in the 'race to the bottom'. They've capitulated to the extreme capitalists, in the hope they can attract jobs of any sort.

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