In 2009, Honduras found itself in turmoil after a military coup destabilized the country leading to unprecedented levels of violence and repression. Taking a page out of the “shock doctrine” playbook, the elite political actors behind the coup (including narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández, now pardoned by Donald Trump after being sentenced to 45 years in prison for drug trafficking and weapons charges) watered down environmental protections on Honduran land and approved illegal contracts to sell Indigenous and protected land to the highest bidder.
Among other corrupt dealings and land grabs, the government approved a law that enabled the creation of Peter Thiel’s Zones for Employment and Economic Development (ZEDEs). ZEDEs derive from the idea of “charter cities.” Proposed by former World Bank executive and economist Paul Romer, these proposed cities are enclaves within lower-income nations that “promote economic growth” through privatization and the disposal of national regulations, while gifting major tax incentives for foreign nations to invest in businesses. Special economic zones in Kenya, Bangladesh, and Ethiopia have faced criticism due to low wages, harsh working conditions, and threats to rights to free association and collective bargaining. Romer, one of the initial proponents of ZEDEs in Honduras, expressed criticism in 2015 regarding the Honduran ZEDEs and their lack of accountability to local laws, and anti-democratic governance.
These ZEDEs are a project of Praxis, a tech billionaire-funded start-up that aims to create libertarian city-states to “restore Western Civilization.” The ZEDEs are allowed to have their own government, police force, courts, laws, and any taxes collected would not be paid to the Honduran government but to the ZEDEs themselves. ZEDEs are a tech billionaire’s dream: unbridled power, tech fantasy, and resource hoarding, where the government is run by AI and cryptocurrency is the main currency.
Nothing about what they’re doing resembles anarchy. It’s straight autocracy.
Anarchy is the opposite of what they want. Anarchy means no person is artificially elevated into hierarchy over others, and then where would they be? Treated equal? To the rest of us plebs? What a horrifying thought!
Led by Charles and David Koch in recent years, members of the group have joined politicians with similar political beliefs to carry out their policy agenda, which, prominent conservative William F. Buckley Jr. once called “Anarcho-Totalitarianism.” These billionaires, however, prefer the label “libertarians” to that of “anarchists,” believing that the latter term is too often associated with “terrorists.” Still, they are anarchists nonetheless and are considered the radical right-wing faction of the Republican Party.
Words have meaning and right winged ideology and totalitarianism (same thing let's be honest) are incomparable with the anarcho philosophy.
Right winged governments started linking it to terrorism and created the far right winged libertarian. Who are so stupid and brainwashed they think they can survive without any societal structure (read a libertarian walks into a bear for a good case study on them getting exactly what they wanted).
But the anarchists that have more than two braincells to rub together know that society is needed and a blessing. Pre colonial Americans are a good example of what they are after. No threats of state violence, no leaders ruling by edict, and they would band together to defend their sovereignty.
I was, like I assume you are, thought it was just "everybody do whatever". But I was educated by an unlikely source Benn Jordan https://youtu.be/W_F4rEaRduk
Even if you're not into the tech segments, I highly recommend the video if only for his history of the movement.
These people very much believe in a society, they just support the abolition of government because they believe capitalists (like Peter Thiel) were born to be placed above the rest of society and control society via privatization.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarcho-capitalism
They call it a "voluntary" society bc their argument is you could just go somewhere else if you're not happy with the society they offer.
But this is the same logic that applies to any capitalist monopoly. If you don't like the only option being forced on you, you can just go somewhere else... Except realistically it's your only option (other than potentially a different "voluntary" society run by a different billionaire where democracy has also been abolished) so take it or leave it.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/modern-american-history/article/f-a-hayek-libertarianism-and-the-denationalization-of-money/B17D6B3E276C1007194928373B431E3B
I don't know what you are trying to argue with this response.
I'm responding to your statements
Anarchocapitalism is a branch of a anarcho philosophy favored by many right wing billionaires such as the Koch brothers. It's not an abolition of society it's an abolition of government so that society can be controlled by the elite. I'm not lumping all anarchists in with these people, I'm just warning right wing anarchists do exist.
•But he’d [Thiel] made the point in far greater detail in an earlier essay on Strauss, in which he argued that elites must use “esoteric” doublespeak to hide their true intentions from the masses who wouldn’t and shouldn’t understand the plans their natural-born leaders were making for them.
Thiel's approach is very similar to the emphasis placed by the John Birch Society on stealth and subterfuge, today the “trademark” approach of the Kochtopus.
There are right wing disinformation campaigns being used against society in the hopes they will do the bulk of the work of dismantling the government and any remaining protections of democracy, so that billionaires can then swoop in and purchase control when society is left in a desperate and vulnerable position.
Putting such incompetent people in charge during the Trump administration was no accident, neither is exposing the weaknesses of American democracy and democratic leadership in its current state. Many of these weaknesses have been intentionally created by the right over the last 50+ years. The entire point is for government to fail and do as much damage as possible, so that society loses all trust in any government regulation and control. In other words, it's a pattern of destabilization just like we've seen in other countries countless times before including Honduras.
Or as it was put regarding Thiel and Epstein's plans to destabilize the middle east: "The more of a mess, with just lots of bad guys on different sides, the less we will do."