200 - Will Próspera Survive Its Own Success? | Erick Brimen

<p><strong>Everyone asks what happens if Próspera fails. Almost nobody asks what happens if it works.</strong></p>

<p>- Four long years of building a Free City while the government of the day tried to repeal the law underneath it. An arbitration claim large enough that Honduras walked out of ICSID. Two television crews in twelve months, Channel 4 and ABC Australia, both arriving with the same script and interviewing many of the same people. Erick has now decided that the answer to defamation is lawyers, and says outlets including the New York Times and Bloomberg have had to retract.</p>

<p>But the more interesting questions are the ones nobody asks him. Did the legal protections actually save Próspera, or did the election save it? Erick's answer is blunter than you might expect. What about Crawfish Rock, the village next door that did not ask to have a city built beside it? And what happens to the neighbours' property rights when the whole project is built on property rights?</p>

<p>Everyone worries about these projects failing. If a hundred thousand people turn up with a hundred thousand opinions, does Próspera survive its own success, and does it survive its founder? Erick concedes a high level of key man risk and says he is not happy about it.</p>

<p>The big takeaway? This new paradigm is not private government, it is governance as a service delivered in partnership between states and the private sector. Erick reckons that when the paradigm clicks, it spreads the way the four minute mile did.</p>

<p><strong>Key topics covered</strong></p>

<ul>

<li>The ABC Australia film and what Próspera does when a crew gets it wrong</li>

<li>Why being controversial beats being irrelevant</li>

<li>Suing the New York Times and Bloomberg, and when legal action is worth it</li>

<li>Why Spanish-language coverage attacks sovereignty and English-language coverage attacks billionaires</li>

<li>Cronyism is not capitalism, and why the anti-capitalist reaction has a point</li>