On this episode of the Plutopia News Network podcast, hosts Jon, Wendy, and Scoop talk with Próspera VP of Growth Lonis Hamaili and community development consultant David Armistead about Próspera, a privately managed “governance as a service” special economic zone in Honduras. Lonis explains that Próspera operates with its own autonomous legal, regulatory, and tax framework, somewhat analogous to Hong Kong or Dubai’s DIFC. It aims to attract global business, generate high-wage local jobs, and experiment with streamlined, market-driven regulation using mechanisms like insurance-based oversight and private arbitration courts. The conversation covers Próspera’s rapid growth since breaking ground in 2020, with hundreds of companies incorporated, thousands of jobs created, and a mixed public–private council that shares lawmaking power, along with revenue-sharing agreements that send a portion of tax revenue to the Honduran government. The guests also address criticisms and concerns, such as fears of deregulation, exploitation, power infrastructure, local opposition, and comparisons to micro-nations or freeports; arguing that Próspera is apolitical in practice, relies on voluntary participation, bans eminent domain, and is legally protected despite the repeal of Honduras’s ZEDE law. They close by touching on frontier ideas like longevity medicine, potential AI legal status, and possible expansion to other countries, framing Próspera as a real-world testbed for new governance and economic models rather than a fully formed utopia.
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Lonis Hamaili:
With Próspera we’re inventing a new industry we call governance as a service. Essentially we partner with host countries, in this case Honduras, and create these zones that have very special and autonomous laws, regulations and practices. You can think of it as a little bit like Hong Kong in China. At least as it used to be, where Hong Kong is part of China, but it has its own completely independent political and economical systems. Similarly, with Prospera here in Honduras, we have our own independent system. However, it’s privately managed, right? So we help with the governance operations which include providing the laws, the security, the justice system. Our business model is access.