© 2026 KRWG
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Tech billionaires want autonomous communities without taxes, government. What are the implications?

FILE - Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, offers a pair of hundred dollar bills to attendees during a keynote address at the Bitcoin Conference, April 7, 2022, in Miami Beach, Fla. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)
Rebecca Blackwell/AP
FILE - Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and Palantir, offers a pair of hundred dollar bills to attendees during a keynote address at the Bitcoin Conference, April 7, 2022, in Miami Beach, Fla. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)

The movement by tech billionaires to create autonomous communities, ruled by their own law, without taxes, and fueled with cryptocurrency, is growing. The latest attempt is the Caribbean islands of St. Kitts and Nevis, where some residents are trying to block it from happening.

But the movement isn’t new. There’s already Próspera in Honduras. Other ideas they’ve floated include sending colonies of their peers to Mars or creating floating island communities, which wouldn’t necessitate purchasing land from an existing country.

But what are the economic, moral and political implications? And can the plans work?

Here & Now‘s Robin Young talks to author and City University of New York professor Douglas Rushkoff, whose books include “Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires.”

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2026 WBUR

Here & Now Newsroom