Well, they are, of course, going to have to bring in maids and janitors - probably from some part of the world where $1/day is considered a good salary. Of course, it just wouldn't do to have these people vote, or have any authority whatsoever, since they would just misuse the power. Actual citizenship would be restricted to the right sort - those who can pay the citizenship fee (let's say $1 million, as a nice round number) And BANG -we have our social mobility - any house maid can buy her way into citizenship if she can just manage to prove her worth by earning an extra $1 mil. Of course, you would have to restrict who can leave - it would be utter chaos if your entire garden staff could just walk away from their contracts and hop a ship heading home.
As for defense - well with no silly laws regarding private ownership of weapns, there is nothing to prevent a couple of billionares from clubbing together to buy a decommissioned Russian destroyer or two. Of course, they would also have to pay for mercenaries to man them (query - if you have half a dozen paymasters responsible for staffing a single ship, would the first officer report first to the captain, or the guy who is paying her?), which would add heavily armed marines to the semi-permanent underclass.
And, of course, anyone successful enough to become a citizen would have enough foresight to voluntarily contribute enough for maintainence (if it were mandatory, it would be a tax, and we can't have that, but die-hard libertarians would, of course, see that they need to pay for upkeep on parts of the island that they don't go)
Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Right?
Can we just save time and start calling it Jackson's Whole now?
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branchandroot
(no subject)
Date: 2011-08-18 12:15 pm (UTC)As for defense - well with no silly laws regarding private ownership of weapns, there is nothing to prevent a couple of billionares from clubbing together to buy a decommissioned Russian destroyer or two. Of course, they would also have to pay for mercenaries to man them (query - if you have half a dozen paymasters responsible for staffing a single ship, would the first officer report first to the captain, or the guy who is paying her?), which would add heavily armed marines to the semi-permanent underclass.
And, of course, anyone successful enough to become a citizen would have enough foresight to voluntarily contribute enough for maintainence (if it were mandatory, it would be a tax, and we can't have that, but die-hard libertarians would, of course, see that they need to pay for upkeep on parts of the island that they don't go)
Nothing could possibly go wrong.
Right?
Can we just save time and start calling it Jackson's Whole now?