A quarter of a century 2025 – 18 x 73 x 67cm, card, photographs, wire, vinyl lettering, latex, trace acrylic paint
Don’t assume for one second that Trump and President Musk’s plans for free cities will be democratic ones, they’re the playgrounds of tech entrepreneurs and the libertarian right. Free cities, free speech, free zones, and freeports are absolutist experiments that utilize zoning as a template to cement world dominance of the Anglosphere, zoning entire nations is coming, dictators and oligarchs have infiltrated govts to destabilize social governance by replacing it with a corporate political model. The rule of law is meaningless now. Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is a secretive corporate justice court that can bypass domestic courts and the sovereignty of countries. ISDS was set up in 1966 by The World Bank, it has a committee of 3 individuals, none of whom have a law degree.
There is a recent trend of employment patterns throughout the public sector where candidates for jobs such as teaching and healthcare do not need to be qualified, the private sector is behind this move. Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) is part of the UK’s post-Brexit CPTPP free trade deals, ISDS also has another UK equivalent known as the London Court of International Arbitration (LCIA). Free cities are extraterritorial carve-outs of deregulated paradises for the ultra-wealthy that will disrupt the world order to further entrench corporate hegemony and abolish democracy altogether.
Just in case you are wondering, yes, free cities are the next step after Freeports and Special Economic Zones. The UK used to be 10 years behind the US, it’s now about 5 years behind. Zone Fever has arrived by stealth in Brexit Britain.
