Pronomos: Better Cities, Better Laws | Patri Friedman

This Salon gives an introduction to Charter Cities and illuminates why we believe charter cities can be a solution to addressing future pandemics. Pronomos Capital is a VC fund which invests in the creation of new cities with new legal systems. Experimenting with new ideas in societies that are already in existence poses many problems: there is historical momentum which makes change difficult, established interests risk being upset, and if the experiment fails it may harm people. By creating a new city and a new society, you can avoid these problems, and easily experiment with new technological and legal paradigms. When institutions are outmoded, corrupted, or failing, the result is untold human suffering. Workers are trapped in low wage jobs and dangerous working environments, children don’t get educated, adults can’t get quality healthcare, and people can’t start businesses to support their families. Yet, upgrading national institutions is notoriously difficult, and consensus on country-level changes should be slow and deliberate.