IO Podcast | Episode 68
Morazán City, a Honduran special economic and development zone (ZEDE) designed for Hondurans, has been quietly reshaping what governance can look like. The construction started in 2020, and now a few hundred residents have chosen to move to this partially autonomous city. In this location, innovative institutions promise a more secure, prosperous, and business-friendly locale than elsewhere in Honduras.
In 2024, President Xiomara Castro repealed the ZEDE Law, giving existing ZEDEs a 10-year deadline to operate under special rules. Despite political uncertainty Joyce Brand, author of Pioneering Prosperity: The Morazán Model for Free Cities (2024), contends autonomous cities like Morazán are the future of governance and economic freedom. Brand emphasizes: “Honduran workers, not libertarians, are happy to reside in Morazán City.”
Morazán City provides core state services—security, liberty, and property protection—but with a private-sector twist. Instead of public police, Morazán contracts private security firms. Guards who fail to do their job are swiftly replaced. Entrepreneurs can register a business in a single day for just $10, removing the bureaucratic barriers typical in Honduras.
For Brand, free cities and seasteading communities are rewriting the rules of governance. When leaders run jurisdictions like enterprises, they have skin in the game, a strong incentive to keep residents—their clients—safe, free, and prosperous.
Recommended Links
- Follow Joyce Brand on X.
- Subscribe to the Free Cities Substack.
- Visit the Morazan Model Association.
- Pioneering Prosperity: The Morazán Model for Free Cities by Joyce Brand.
- “Five White Pills for Honduras,” Impunity Observer.
- “Three Takeaways from the Utopian ZEDEs in Honduras,” Impunity Observer.
- “What Became of Fort Galt Chile,” Econ Americas.
