In Texas, the world’s richest man is bringing back to life one of the worst ideas of the Gilded Age, local Robber Baron-owned dictatorships called company towns. Elon Musk has already established two in Texas and other high-tech oligarchs like Peter Theil hope to create more. In this episode, journalist Steven Monacelli and historian Dr. Michael Phillips explore the history of company towns in the United States and their disturbing rebirth. 

Sources:

Margaret Crawford, Building the Workingman's Paradise: The Design of American Company Towns

Alan Dawley, Struggles for Justice: Social Responsibility and the Liberal State

Hardy Green, The Company Town: The Industrial Edens and Satanic Mills That Shaped the American Economy

Chad Pearson, Capitalism’s Terrorists: Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in the Long Nineteenth Century