[karl11]

What better way to find out whether or not this is true than with a real experiment? This is a fantastic idea, because we could see what alternatives actually look like. If you don't want to live there, you just simply don't live there.

[newbie789]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

Here you go!

[Nicksil]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

[ncallaway]

Sure, we could also try giving people arsenic to determine if it's toxic to humans.

We've done both experiments already, and we should learn from the extant data rather than repeating unethical experiments.

[Arrath]

The experiments already happened, though. And they were a bloody mess, often literally if the residents dared talk about forming a union.

[leesalminen]

Pretty sure this has been tried time and time again over the past 150 years [0]. It didn't end well then; why would it now?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_town

[babelfish]

Of course this has happened before: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feudalism

[ruined]

last time company towns were commonplace, America had a minor civil war (10k+ combatant pitched battles, air raids) that dragged on for decades https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_Wars

[rodgerd]

We've already done this. They were called company towns.

I realise that a lot of modern tech culture would rather re-invent the world from first principles while making 10,000 years of human mistakes at high speed in preference to acknowledging the existence of disciplines outside of STEM, but history, economics, anthropology, town planning, they're all right there with many of the answers.

[oh_sigh]

And if you look at the track record for company towns - it is mixed. Not every company town exploited workers and paid in scrip. Some company towns were successful, humane endeavors that had higher standards of living and more upward mobility than the surrounding region.

Modern federal and state law already effectively prevents the worst sort of abuse that employees had to deal with in the worst company towns of the past, so I don't foresee the same kind of exploitation happening.

[gabereiser]

Can you cite an instance where this actually worked?

[IG_Semmelweiss]

Jamshedpur comes to mind (from Tata).

Sun City, Arizona is also a good example.

Gurgaon ,India - but note there are private (company) areas and public areas. In fact that may offer a nice comparison, but from my understanding the seed stage was 100% company-backed.

The Woodlands, Texas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woodlands,_Texas

I think Ciudad del Este gets pretty close although thats a FTZ charter city, not exactly a "company" charter city.

When you look at these cities you need to select local comps that make sense.

[moron4hire]

Why repeat a several-times-over failed experiment?

[mlthoughts2018]

“If you don’t want to live there, don’t live there” - the siren song of inhumane exploitation.

[jonathankoren]

“Anyone can buy OCP stock, and own a piece of our city. What could be more democratic than that?”

Robocop 2 https://youtu.be/wA_P8CaNwro