In our cynical times, most people are familiar enough with doublespeak to understand that anything called a "freedom city" is likely to be the opposite. It's a sign of the delusional self-confidence in their own mendacious powers that the tech oligarchs who are financing this idiotic idea insist on going with that branding anyway. Investigative reporters Vittoria Elliott and Caroline Haskins published an in-depth report on this scheme for Wired earlier this month. What immediately becomes clear is that what the Silicon Valley billionaire class considers "freedom cities" is simply neo-feudalism, a plan to end the concept of citizenship and make every working person a serf whose entire life is controlled by the whims of their boss.
By design, the details of how "freedom cities" would be established are laden with legalese like "federal enclaves with special economic and jurisdictional zones" or "interstate compacts." In practice, the plan is straightforward. Advocates want the federal government to set aside land to build cities exempt from federal and state laws. Instead, the cities would function as mini-dictatorships, where the CEO of each town runs everything, and the people who live and work there are subject to the boss's whims. It would be like being an employee of a controlling company, except you don't clock out at the end of the day or have a life — or rights — outside of what the boss allows you.
