Weakly pushing back on bare optimism about this—not saying it makes no sense in any form:
Within OP a rare concrete advantage mentioned is ‘tax code’. And rightly, tax is a super key domain. Issue: First solve asymmetric tax competition, else you just introduce a new type of race-to-the-bottom elements that are more parasitic than genuinely productive.
It’s trival to attract big money as minuscule charter city within the large EU pond. But it subverts the idea of a functioning overall redistributive ecosystem.
Stability vs. Instability as ideal ground: Yes stability is helpful. BUT, the other way round: Charter cities’ theoretical potential is also greatest where we have instability and a failure to enable labor to be productive and where sunk investments are subject to hold up/expropriation one way or other. The latter is usually not an issue in EU. And there are many places in Europe that allow labor to work reasonably productively and without prohibitive taxes. Backfiring labor protection in many places yes, but some states even design template engagement forms to purposely circumvent official employment in what clearly is employment. So you’re free to hire persons close to how you want. High taxes in many places yes, but some places have simply reasonably low or maybe arguably too low taxes e.g. in some places due to three-fold tax competition (country/state/commune each in competition with their peers at the same level). Basic economic liberty mostly given—well, arguably a ton of bad laws wherever you look, but does lifting them really make the big bang for most of society? Not automatically convinced about that.
Finally: We anyway already have a ton of implicit, small special regional zones in Europe. Many are countries or other subnational jurisdictions whose main advantage is not innovation but indeed: simply low taxes/great conditions for the rich. One of them is indeed so successful atm they literally ran out of good ideas how to spend the excess money they get[1] - though for its original citizens the situation isn’t automatically great as many complain they cannot afford housing anymore as the region is too attractive (if you search a room you will stumble upon people offering one on the condition for you to not be there—as many seek the location just to benefit from low taxes).
Surely you can theoretically with smart policies find great ways to foster innovation etc., and to reign in govt overreach by having competing small jurisdictions. All for it. Before you get my support though, show how you avoid simply becoming yet another Monaco or Zug or what have you with doubt-able net benefit for the world.
Sounds implausible right? It’s true still. They were searching for ways to redistribute the money back to the economy/people. They now even open a new fund of dozens of millions for“blockchain research”—doesn’t quite appear to be the lowest hanging fruit for what to do with random spare money.
Weakly pushing back on bare optimism about this—not saying it makes no sense in any form:
Within OP a rare concrete advantage mentioned is ‘tax code’. And rightly, tax is a super key domain. Issue: First solve asymmetric tax competition, else you just introduce a new type of race-to-the-bottom elements that are more parasitic than genuinely productive.
It’s trival to attract big money as minuscule charter city within the large EU pond. But it subverts the idea of a functioning overall redistributive ecosystem.
Stability vs. Instability as ideal ground: Yes stability is helpful. BUT, the other way round: Charter cities’ theoretical potential is also greatest where we have instability and a failure to enable labor to be productive and where sunk investments are subject to hold up/expropriation one way or other. The latter is usually not an issue in EU. And there are many places in Europe that allow labor to work reasonably productively and without prohibitive taxes. Backfiring labor protection in many places yes, but some states even design template engagement forms to purposely circumvent official employment in what clearly is employment. So you’re free to hire persons close to how you want. High taxes in many places yes, but some places have simply reasonably low or maybe arguably too low taxes e.g. in some places due to three-fold tax competition (country/state/commune each in competition with their peers at the same level). Basic economic liberty mostly given—well, arguably a ton of bad laws wherever you look, but does lifting them really make the big bang for most of society? Not automatically convinced about that.
Finally: We anyway already have a ton of implicit, small special regional zones in Europe. Many are countries or other subnational jurisdictions whose main advantage is not innovation but indeed: simply low taxes/great conditions for the rich. One of them is indeed so successful atm they literally ran out of good ideas how to spend the excess money they get[1] - though for its original citizens the situation isn’t automatically great as many complain they cannot afford housing anymore as the region is too attractive (if you search a room you will stumble upon people offering one on the condition for you to not be there—as many seek the location just to benefit from low taxes).
Surely you can theoretically with smart policies find great ways to foster innovation etc., and to reign in govt overreach by having competing small jurisdictions. All for it. Before you get my support though, show how you avoid simply becoming yet another Monaco or Zug or what have you with doubt-able net benefit for the world.
Sounds implausible right? It’s true still. They were searching for ways to redistribute the money back to the economy/people. They now even open a new fund of dozens of millions for “blockchain research”—doesn’t quite appear to be the lowest hanging fruit for what to do with random spare money.