August 19, 2025 • 37 mins
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
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Michael Phillips, an historian and the author of a
book about racism in Dallas called White Metropolis, and the
co author of a recently published book about the eugenics
movement in Texas called The Purifying Knife.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
And I'm Stephen Monticelli. I'm an investigator reporter in Dallas,
where I contribute to a variety of publications. As well
as Cool Zone Media. I cover political extremism in Texas
and beyond. Elon Musk has dominated the news since the
twenty twenty four presidential campaign, and for a lot of reasons.
There's a billionaire's flirtation with neo Nazi politics. There's his
(00:43):
gutting of the social safety net through Doge. His soap
opera estrangement from President Trump also grabbed much of the spotlight.
In the past two years, Musk has resuscitated in two
Texas communities, one of the worst ideas from the robber
baron age. In an effort to control roll his workers'
lives on and off the clock, Musk is bringing the
(01:03):
company town back to life.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
On May third of this year, on the South Texas
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, people went to the
voting booth on a peninsula called Boca Chica. They voted to
turn their one and a half square mile patch of
unincorporated land into a city called Starbase. Almost all of
the voters were employees of Musk SpaceX Rocket Company. So
(01:29):
are the candidates elected to govern Texas newest city. But
Musk is clearly the power behind the throne.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Meanwhile, in Bastrop County near Austin in central Texas, Musk
gobbled up local real estate in loosely governed unincorporated lands.
That's where, in addition to Starbase, he's working to create
another company town he calls Snailbrook. Many bast Re presidents
say Musk's businesses are poisoning the water, air, and soil
(01:57):
in their community. On this episodis of it could happen here,
we'll discuss the unfortunate history of company towns in the
United States, how company towns have always undermined democracy and workers' rights,
and what these elon Musk company towns may mean for
the future of United States capitalism. Speaking of capitalism will
(02:18):
be back after a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Roughly between eighteen eighty and the mid nineteen thirties, an
astounding twenty five hundred company towns dotted the American landscape.
A product of Gilded Age greed. At best, these corporate
planned communities represented paternalistic experiments of mind control. At their worst,
they became miniature police states. In Steinway Village in New York,
(02:54):
where not surprisingly, workers manufactured Steinway pianos, Paulman, Illinois, where
employees made train cars, and Hershey's Pennsylvania, which was, of
course a chocolate manufacturing center. Employers built the houses that
the workers lived in, the stores where they shopped, the
saloons where they drank, and the schools where their children learned.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Chad Pearson is an historian of American labor at the
University of North Texas, and he's the author of a
noted book called Capitalism's Terrorists, Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in
the Long nineteenth Century. We talked to him about the
rise and fall of company towns from the mid eighteen
hundreds to the early twentieth century.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Could you explain how company towns got started in the
United States and the motives of the businessmen who started them?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Certainly so, really, I think we can identify three periods
three phases. So the first phase would be we might
associate with the so called Lowell Girls in Lowell, Massachusetts,
which began in the eighteen twenties and continued into the
subsequent decades. These were young women, men and girls, and basically,
you know, they lived on the campus the town. The
(04:05):
boss would decide when they would work and when they
would eat and that sort of thing. After that, we
have another phase which we could identify with George Pullman
and the Pullman Company just outside of Chicago in the
late nineteenth century, really in the eighteen eighties. Again, these
were very controlling environments in which you know, the employer
had all to say. Workers would live in company housing. Again,
(04:29):
they'd go to the company church, and you know, we're
really controlled both during and after the workday.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
And then we have a whole bunch of.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Them, mostly mining and textile lumber communities.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
By nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
There were seventy planned industrial settlements built after nineteen hundred.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
So quite a few.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So whatever period we're talking about, these places where infamous
for management's use of surveillance and power. This is designed
really to fundamentally control folks, which round expression again and
homes workplaces, churches.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
You would have to sign contracts.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
So in a place like mining towns in West Virginia,
you'd have to sign a contract that gave the boss
the authority to evict labor activists or people, you know,
workers who might be involved in trying to improve their
conditions by fighting back, or they would be evicted for
so called undesirable behavior, again that generally involved things like
(05:22):
union organizing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Pearson described these company towns as many dictatorships in which
fighting for better conditions could result in harsh retaliation, and
in which ministers that were hired by the company and
a church built by the company bosses fed workers a
steady stream of propaganda.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
This happened in places like New England textile mills to
coal mining areas in Alabama and West Virginia.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Well might happen.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
You'll say you're you're active in a union, or you're
resisting your boss. Right, the boss or his underlings might
send in mind guards and say you and your family
get out, throw the stuff, their furniture on the street,
and there would be no no accountability.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
No way to address that problem.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
You'd also have company towns, you'd have a religious you'd
have preachers who would preach the company line as well. Right,
so that kind of pro business, pro capitalist and doctrination
was expressed both in the workplace and from the pulpit.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
A key way that company towns control workers was by
not paying them an actual American dollars, but paper certificates
called script They can only be spent in company owned stores.
This gave the company monopoly power of what their workforce bought.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
A twenty five pounds sack of flower costs two fifty
at the company store, it costs only.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
One ninety elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Right, So this was a way for companies to sort
of corner the market. If you will, right, they could
jack up prices. You're basically a slave to the system.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
George Pullman, who established the company that made luxury railroad cars,
created a company town in Illinois in eighteen eighty one.
Pullman presented his experiment to the world as a utopia.
The workers' houses there had natural gas and running water,
which was not the norm at the time. Some even
had indoor plumbing. The town had retail shops and well
(07:25):
supplied markets, and tourists visited it as a supposed ideal
community of the future.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
In spite of the apparent shininess of Pullman, Illinois. The
relationship between Pullman and his employees turned violent in eighteen
ninety four. As doctor Pearson explains.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So Pullman, George Pullman, began creating this utopian community in
eighteen eighty. Okay, that's shortly after this massive nationwide strike
in eighteen seventy seven of railroad workers. So a lot
of bosses in the aftermath of these massive confrontations were like, Okay,
we got to do something. We got to do something
to solve what they called the labor problem, the labor question.
(08:03):
And one way they did that was through welfare work,
trying to be more benevolent right parents as opposed to
only stix. And so Pullman was established in eighteen eighty
four just outside of Chicago, had about twelve thousand residents,
and it was at the time the largest, most famous.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Company town in the nation.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
And he did, I mean, let's give credit where credits
to some things that did improve the conditions for employees.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
So he had a company doctor.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
He oversaw a good school system, funded athletic programs a
company banned, and he modeled this on a company town
outside of Bradford, England, so what we see is, you know,
the company towns do not.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Originate in the United States.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
They are sort of a phenomenon that we see across
the industrialized world.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
But of course there was also a darker side.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
He banned alcohol, he restricted tobacco use, He imposed a curfew. Right,
so you want to go out, you know, it's five
o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
No, it's not right. And so it was also pretty
expensive to live there.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Residents had to spend something like thirty percent of their
money on rent, and when they saved enough money an
impossible thing to do. Often when they did save that money,
they would they would get out.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Pullman's experiment in welfare capitalism came crashing down when the
United States sank into an economic depression that lasted from
eighteen ninety three to eighteen ninety seven. At one point
three million people, or about twenty percent of the country's workforce,
could not find jobs. Hunger and suicide became rampant as
(09:36):
hard times dragged on, and Pullman laid off hundreds of
workers and slashed wages by thirty three percent.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
During this time, residents of the company town in Illinois
struggled to pay rent at the Pullman owned housing where
management refused the lower prices. Eugene Debs, who would soon
emerge as the leader of the Socialist Party of America
and would serve five times as that party's presidential nominee,
led one hundred and fifty thousand member American Railway Union
(10:05):
there u stage a strike calling for a rollback in
pay cuts and a reduction rents at the company housing.
The strike spread nationwide, with railroad workers refusing to handle
trains carrying Pullman cars.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
President Grover Cleveland dispatched twelve thousand troops to crush the
uprising and reopen the rail lines. Federal marshalls shot two
strikers to death in Kensington, Illinois, not far from Chicago,
while authorities arrested Debs and put him in prison for
defying the court order by continuing the strike. In a
stop to workers, the House and Senate unanimously passed a
(10:42):
bill creating what we now know today as Labor Day.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Later on, in jail, using deaths becomes radicalized, reading marks.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Runs for president.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
A few times after that, bottom line workers lost a strike,
but Pullman's experiments soon ended. The Illinois Supreme Court rule
that George Pullman's ownership of the community was in violation
of its charter and dismantled the town in eighteen ninety eight.
So a dramatic period in US history, one of the
most important struggles in US labor history, and really showed
(11:16):
the way in which bosses the state came together to
really fight labor.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
By around the end of the eighteen hundreds, about three
percent of the American population lived under the almost complete
control of their corporate masters. Meanwhile, an extensive network of
spies filled company towns. These corporate agents posed as fellow workers, bartenders, mailmen,
or just another customer at the store. They reported to
(11:44):
management any e mail content who complained about working hours
or wages. Fired workers were often placed on a blacklist
that was widely distributed among corporations and made landing a
new job even more difficult.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Some mining towns resemble prison camps. Armed guards surrounded the
towns to keep out union organizers in the corporate overlords
in company towns used violent means to maintain tyrannical control.
We asked doctor Pearson to explain this. Now, Doctor Pearson,
you titled one of your books Capitalism's Terrorists, and you
(12:20):
were referring basically to the fact that corporations, including the
ones that own company towns, often used private armies, armed militias,
or they basically hired outside violent groups to control labor.
Could you go into that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
More, Let me read you an anecdote from Vandergriff, Pennsylvania. Vandergrift,
Pennsylvania is a company town not far from Pittsburgh. It's
a steel town. And in July nineteen oh nine, during
a strike against the American Sheet and Tinplay Company, the
company's superintendent was a guy named Oscar Lindquist. He led
a mob of hundreds to a hotel in the nearby
(12:55):
town of Apollo, where the union organizers were staying. So
there's an effort to build union membership in this company town.
And Linquist was so pissed about their presence, so he
informed the organizers that they had an hour to leave
town and that he would burn the building down if
they refused to comply. When they protested, insisting that they
(13:16):
had free speech and assembly rights, Linquists claimed that quote
his word was the law. A local town official, reinforcing
linquist demand, gave the men until.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
The next morning to leave.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
So we have threats of like burning places down, killing
people right, and ultimately no accountability.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
I think it's fair to call these people terrorists.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
The harshness of company towns inspired worker resistance, including what
came to be known as the Colorado Coalfield War. We'll
hear more about that, and a tragedy that came to
be known as the Ludlow Massacre. After this break sponsored
by some companies, one of the bloodiest confrontations between a
(14:10):
company militia and striking workers in American history took place
in Ludlow, Colorado, in the early twentieth century. The Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company controlled several coal mines, and it
was owned by the world's richest man, John D. Rockefeller,
who also owned the Standard Oil Company. The coal workers
were unhappy with several things.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
They were working twelve hour days, six days a week,
sometimes seven. Through their union, the United Mine Workers, they
asked for a rays and for their workday to be
no more than eight hours. They also demanded the right
to live in housing that wasn't part of the company
town controlled by Rockefeller, and to spend their hard earned
money in stores that he didn't control.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The relationship between the United mineworkers and Rockefeller broke down
when he refused to negotiate with them. Between September nineteen
thirteen and December nineteen fourteen, the coal miners and Ludlow
stage strikes against the richest man on the planet at
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Instead of negotiating, Rockefeller assembled a private army of local
sheriff's deputies and private detectives. The militia armed itself with
a motorized gatling gun that Rockefeller's goons named De Death Special.
The nation recoiled in horror when on April twentieth, nineteen fourteen,
militia troops attacked a company miner's tent colony. They were
(15:33):
living in the tent colony because that had been kicked
out of company housing. During the armed assault, Rockefeller's troops
killed sixty six men, women, and children. They doused the
tents with kerosene, incinerating eleven hiding in a pit, including
a pregnant woman.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
The folk singer Woody Guthrie immortalized the horrific scene at
Ludlow in his ballad The Ludlow Massacre.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
You struck a man, Jim the blaze it started. You
pulled the triggers of your gathering guns. I made her
round for the children, for the farwell stuff. The thirteen
children died from your guns.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
About two hundred people and all died in what came
to be called the Colorado Coalfield War. So we asked
doctor Pearson about the long term impact of the Ludlow
massacre and what happened to company towns in the subsequent years.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So basically, on the morning of April twenty ath nineteen fourteen,
National guards and men who were aligned with the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company, which is owned.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
By John D.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Rockefeller, attacked this camp of strikers, mineworkers, strikers, ultimately killing
twenty one people, including eleven children. This brutality, this brutality
lasted for fourteen hours. The guards torched the colony. And
this came in the midst of a strike that had
been going on for months, which started in September nineteenth thirteen.
(17:01):
And so this was a real struggle. It was a
terrible public relations disaster. From the vantage point of a
Rockefeller in the company, the pressure to do.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Something was great.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
And so what we see as we see government officials
meeting and discussing this event, they are these various gatherings
of business people and labor unions trying to resolve it.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
And in the aftermath of this.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Rockefeller worked closely with what we might call industrial relations specialists,
and he became a champion of welfare capitalism. Welfare capitalism,
like company unions, these sort of top down initiatives designed
to win, as I pointed out, factory solidarity instead of
class solidarity, and so how successful that was.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Probably not.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
These bosses continued to exploit, but they did so with
smiley faces.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
As we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, company
towns never completely died, and they're making a bit of
a disturbing comeback via Rockefeller's successor as the world's richest man.
South African native and Texas transplant Elon Musk. Texas Governor
Greg Abbott has been a big ally of Musk, at
least until his nasti split with Trump over the president's
(18:17):
tax and spending policies. But nonetheless, Musk is still popular
in Texas and the state and local governments, for instance,
have given Musk sixty four million dollars worth of tax
breaks to establish his Tesla factory called Giga Texas in
Travis County, not far from the state capitol.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
COVID nineteen restrictions in California during the pandemic and rage Musk,
who for a time defied state law. He derided California
as defined by quote overregulation, over litigation, and over taxation,
poop on the sidewalk, and scorn. In contrast, Texas stood
out for its lax environmental and labor standards. As Abbot
(18:57):
bragged to the Fox Business Channel.
Speaker 8 (19:00):
A need that Elon had was speed. He does everything fast,
and this would have taken five, maybe ten years to
accomplish in California. I told him that Texas moves at
the speed of business. He was able to complete a
mal long gigafactory in a year and a half that
is unheard of, probably not replicable in any other state.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Whether Bastard residents liked Musk or not, it soon became
clear that he was making a very large local footprint.
Bastrip County has always been famous for its beauty. This
is how bast sold itself to tourists, businesses, and potential
residents in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Next time you're on the way between Houston and Austin
or points in between, you want to stop here in Bastro.
We've got a pretty little place here along the Colorado River,
the place with charm and great natural beauty. We're the
home of the lost times. So crossed the bridge into
the old town and have a look. We've been growing
(20:02):
here since eighteen thirty two and growing in a good way,
a way that looks to the future and that preserves
the landmarks of the past. Bastrop has more than one
hundred and twenty homes and other commercial and public buildings
on the National Register of Historic Places. Some people come
(20:24):
here just to drive around town and see the pretty houses.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
There's a heavy price for moving at Greg Abbott's speed
of business. However, Chap Ambrose, a landowner in Bastrop County,
thirty three miles southeast of Austin, said that he admired
Musk for being a high tech titan. He was excited
when the billionaire announced he was going to move part
of his business empire to the small, mostly agricultural county.
(20:52):
Ambrose describes his feelings about musk arrival in his YouTube
series Keep Bastrop Boring.
Speaker 9 (21:04):
The weird part here is I'm actually an Elon Musk fan.
I have my Tesla Cybertruck reservation here from November of
twenty nineteen, and SpaceX's Starlink, their satellite service I've also
signed up for last year.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
All of Bashtrop's natural and architectural splendor, however, is in danger.
Since Musk came to town in Texas, counties have even
less ability to protect the environment than do cities, and
Musk strategically places operation on land, we'll face lax local oversight.
He used his fortune to buy about thirty five thousand
(21:43):
acres of what was once farmland in Bastrop County, which
is now headquarters for the Boring Company. The Boring Company
plans to build tunnels. Musk Hope's one Day will provide
high speed underground alternatives to our current web of inner States.
Musk has secured permits to dig six test tunnels in
(22:04):
Bachtrap County, which is now also officially the headquarters of
his social media platform X formerly known as Twitter. The
Musk Industrial complex also includes a five hundred thousand square
foot warehouse where the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation more commonly
known as SpaceX, builds terminals for another Musk business venture,
(22:25):
the satellite company Starlink Neuralink, which manufactures computer chips that
have been experimentally implanted in test subjects brains and resulted
in the deaths of many chimpanzees. Is also nearby.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
The Tesla Gigafactory, which produces electronic cars, is just thirteen
miles west on an unincorporated land neighboring Travis County. I've
seen it driving down the highway. It's an abomination.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Construction has also begun on a company town Musk has
named Snailbrook. Plans for Snailbrook eventually include one hundred and
ten single family rental homes actually owned by Musk. So far,
fewer than twenty modular homes have been completed. According to
teen Vogue, plans are that rent for these houses will
(23:12):
start at about eight hundred a month for a two
or three bedroom dwelling, which is well below the nineteen
hundred and twenty five dollars median rent in Bashtrop County.
A Montessori school called ad Astra, which from the Latin
which means too the Stars, is open, along with the
boring bodega, which the Austin American Statesman notes offers snacks, soda, coffee, beer, wine,
(23:37):
a children's playground, lounge space complete with video games and
beanbag toss, a pickleball court that can be rented for
a dollar an hour, and of course, a variety of
Boring Company merchandise, such as a T shirt that says
Tunnel Mars.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
This purported worker utopia already has a Gilded Age style catch.
If workers get fired by Musk long Amos for his
volatility and mass layoffs at his companies, they will only
have a month to vacate their homes. And as with
the Gilded Age, much under the Snailbrook glitter is not gold.
The town's playground, for instance, lack shade from the broiling
(24:14):
summertime Central Texas heat, and much of the equipment is
broken and made of inferior materials. The Monastery school initially
admitted fifty students, but the campus wasn't big enough. Only
sixteen actually attended when classes first opened because the facilities
were too small.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Musk once marketed himself as an environmental savior. His electric
cars would supposedly save the planet from climate change. However,
in Bashtrop County, he's a major polluter. The Boring company
petitioned Texas for the right to pour one hundred and
forty three thousand gallons of treated wastewater into the Colorado
River every single day. Meanwhile, the Texas Commission on Environmental
(24:54):
Quality to date has cited SpaceX and the boring company
thirteen times because the unauthorized discharge of water used to
clean concrete trucks. The company also failed to meet state
standards regarding erosion control and the release of toxic chemicals
in the soil, As Team Vague reported. However, the resulting
(25:15):
fines represent mere pocket chaine for a man who earns
an estimated one thousand dollars a second.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
The self professed musk fan Chap Ambrose, who he heard
from earlier, study's disappointed about all this.
Speaker 9 (25:29):
There's a culture of secrecy, and it seems they're actively
trying to obscure the truth, not just from neighbors, but
also are county officials. If you're going to prototype the
world's fastest tunneling machine in minderborhood, then I expect the
most innovative and transparent safety systems to go alongside it.
Why do they refuse to give direct answers and why
(25:51):
won't they put their promises in writing?
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Why do they refuse to.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
Follow the very minimal restrictions we have in Texas for
development and why do I have to go to Commissioner
Court so that they put in a legal septic system.
It seems to me that they only follow the rules
and behave when they're being watched.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Transparency may have disappeared forever for residents amost other company town,
one Amos's most lucrative companies, SpaceX, launches its rockets about
twenty miles outside of Brownsville on the Texas Gulf Coast
near the Mexican border. Most of the residents near the
launch site, known as Bokachica Village or Tejanos, and many
(26:31):
struggle economically. The wetlands and beaches are considered sacred by
members of the Carazo Komikrudo tribe of Texas. The area
residents were clearly invisible to mus during a twenty eighteen
press conference when he spoke of how test flights such
as those as the plant at the Bukachica site were
a necessary first step for exploration in the Moon and Mars.
(26:53):
The subsequent controversy was reported by a local TV station KRGV.
Speaker 10 (26:58):
When asked how soon fly would be going to the
Moon or Mars, must talked about the necessary test flights
that would need to take place first.
Speaker 9 (27:06):
Most likely he's going to coach it having enter browns
Feel location, because I've got a lot of land with
nobody around, and so if it was up.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
It's cool.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
People at Brownsville didn't agree that if for rocket ship
blew up in their neighborhood it would be quote cool.
Speaker 10 (27:21):
His comment is not sitting well with Gail McConaughey.
Speaker 11 (27:24):
He's been out here before. He damn sure. I ought
to know that he's seen the village. You gotta know
that it's not a ghost town.
Speaker 10 (27:31):
McConaughey and his wife have been living a book at
Chica Village every winter for the past eleven years. He
says he's offended that he and the other residents are
considered nobody. It also raises questions, he adds, about how
safe the launches will be in a.
Speaker 11 (27:46):
Rocket that size or any size that would go up,
and who knows what might happen. It might start tipping
the wrong direction. Who knows if something happened to the
engines and explodes. That's cool when you're talking about there's
lives here that's a mile and a half.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Kane's words were prophetic in subsequent years. Musks rockets did
blow up, such as in April twenty twenty three, when
a SpaceX special obliterated the concrete launch pad, leaving behind
a massive crater. As Scientific American reported, quote, particulate debris,
as well as concrete and steel shrapnel from the botched
launch scattered far and wide across the surrounding landscape, igniting
(28:25):
fires and slamming into protected habitats and public beaches. Ash
dust and sand grains hurled aloft by this first Starship
test rained down as far as Port Isabelle, about five
miles from the launch site end quote. Another Musk rocket launch,
this time from Bocachica, exploded again this past June nineteenth,
(28:45):
as reported by WTHR.
Speaker 12 (28:47):
Whoa in the skies over South Texas overnight a massive
fireball after a SpaceX rocket exploded during a static rocket test,
a ground test for an upcoming launch.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Tenty six ers Blue Up Ship thirty six is Blue.
Speaker 13 (29:02):
Up SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, said the Starship rocket
experienced a major anomaly while preparing for its tenth flight test,
adding that all personnel are safe and there are no
hazards to residents in surrounding communities. The explosion rattled nearby
residents who posted videos on social media, one telling my
(29:23):
San Antonio News quote, our whole neighborhood felt it.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
It shook all of our houses.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
In spite of this record at Mayhem, on Saturday, May third,
Bokachika Village held an election on whether to incorporate as
the city of Starbase. The proposal to create the state's
newest city carried by a vote of two hundred and
twelve to six. Nearly two thirds of the electorate lived
near SpaceX's launch site. Overwhelmingly the voters were Musk employees.
(29:52):
All three candidates elected to Starbas's new City Commission ran unopposed,
and one without putting up a single campaign sign or
hosting a single candidate forum. All three were employees of
Musk and SpaceX.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
As The Texas Tribune has reported, the new city government
increased control over the nearby public beach, revered by local
Indigenous people. Some local residents feel the creation of the
company town gives them even less power to protect what's
seen as a local treasure.
Speaker 14 (30:21):
Starbase is only about one and a half square miles. It's,
of course, the home of SpaceX, and the main goal
is sending humans to Mars. According to the FAA, Starbas
is aiming for twenty five rocket launches a year. But
this is all coming with a bit of controversy, especially
over access to the popular Boca Chica Beach. Any SpaceX
(30:42):
rocket launcher engine test requires closing a local highway to
the beach, and some say starbas is giving Musk too
much control. People gathered at the beach Saturday night to protest.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
They're just tearing it up.
Speaker 9 (30:54):
And doing whatever they want because they want to gentrify.
They want to be a city by themselves. When you
gentify the land to gentrifying the soul of the people.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
One Mussius, the protester you just heard is the chair
of the Carazou, called me crudo tribe of Texas. He
told the Texas Tribune, quote, these hills are sacred to us.
They don't know the history of the land, and they're
trying to erase that. Of course, Musk has a history
as well, and is one characterized by labor abuses.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Like the robber barons who ruled as emperors over their
Gilded Age company towns. Musk has been accused of firing
union organizers at his Austin gigafactory workers claim Musk either
didn't pay them for overtime or short change them. Those
same workers charged that records were faked to document their
safety training, and according to the Texas Observer of publication
(31:47):
I'm glad to contribute to, one worker said he was
forced to work in a flooded part of the factory
and had to work on a metal roof at night
without lights. These are clear BOSHA violations.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Is highly unlikely that the state of Texas will require Musk
to provide any transparency about his business practices. Governor Abbott
recently refused the request of a media outlet, the Texas
and Newsroom, to release emails between him and Musk, claiming
the extensive communication between the pair was quote intimate and
potentially quote embarrassing and therefore not a public interest. With
(32:23):
so much a Musk enterprise in the state, operating in
company towns he politically controls on county land with little oversight,
Musk has become the lone star state's modern, unchecked robber
baron extraordinaire, and with the aid of his on again
off again allied Donald Trump, he has blazed a trail
for other tech billionaires.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
When Trump ran for president last year, he floated a
proposal to build what he called quote freedom cities across
the country, pushed by oligarchs like Peter Thiel, Mark Andresen
and Sam Altman, who ironically now has a bit of
a fit in a fight with Elon Musk. They hate
each other, and it's really funny. These proposed fiefdoms would
(33:04):
function as libertarian oasis. Coal miners were once paid in script,
and the federal government banned script in nineteen thirty eight.
But nevertheless, Jeff Bezos already uses something he calls quote
swag bucks that are redeemable at Amazon to reward those
in the company he deems his most productive workers. Workers
in the freedom cities under discussion would not earn US
(33:27):
legal tender, but would get cryptocurrency instead, the historically stable
store of value that has never ripped off thousands, maybe
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people any municipal
monstrosities imagined in the scheme. Workers would be paid not
in US currency, but, as I just said, this insane,
(33:48):
highly volatile cryptocurrency. These corporate havens would operate with the
barest nods to workplace safety, environmental protections, and job security,
and god forbid, might even scam their workers by trading
in that same highly voutal cryptocurrency that they're paying them in.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Back in bash Stop. Chap Ambrose thinks we can still
embrace the future with that surrendering a more old fashioned
concept of community. He hopes that must one day sees
the light.
Speaker 9 (34:20):
I truly hope the boring company succeeds in its efforts.
I think tunneling makes sense, and if they can improve
traffic into Austin and around it, that'd be great.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
But you have to be better neighbors.
Speaker 9 (34:32):
Texas has strong landowner rights and you can do pretty
much what you want on your land. However, Texas law
also says that we share the air and you share
the groundwater with me and my one year old son.
So if you're going to come to my neighborhood and
build the fastest and most efficient tunneling operation, then I
expect the most innovative and transparent safety systems to go
(34:55):
alongside it.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The struggle against the absolute power wielded by the rulers
of the Gilded Ages company towns led to actual battles
with literal casualties on American soil. Doctor Pearson reminded us
that the hard life and the Gilded Era, the era
of company towns, represented an American norm rather than an exception.
(35:18):
And because of musk Heeal and other modern robber barons,
the battles fought in Pullman, Illinois and Ludlow, Colorado might
have to be fought once again.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Some of you folks may be aware of Jefferson Cowie
and Nick Salvatory's book, which he calls the Great Exception,
and they argue that, you know, most of American histories
like the Gilded Age. Yeah, we had a forty fifty
year period from don't know, the thirties to the seventies when
things were kind of better, right, you know what Blue
magas and red magas alike like to celebrate. But the
(35:47):
fact is, you know, things were pretty exploitated then as well.
And so what kind of lessons can we learn from
resistance to capitalism in its various forms? And I think
the key one is to trust one another. There's no
substitute for working class solidarity. Stop having illusions in the
Democratic Party. They're not going to save you. And so
to see, you know, where where there are victories when
(36:11):
when workers are are United, and we see a little
bit of that, you know, kicking ice agents out of towns, right.
I mean, that's politicians aren't helping us there. That's you know,
collective action of working class people. It's off formal unions,
but it's something, you know, I see hope.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
I see hope.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
In the mass mobilization of working class people irrespective of race, gender, class,
and any other identity.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I'm Michael Phillips, so you can find me on substack
at doctor m Phillips two thousand and one, on Blue
Sky and Facebook, Google my name and quote White Metropolis.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
And I'm Stephen Wanaceelli. You can find me on Blue skuy,
and I've got a Patreon and all those other things.
Thank you for listening, and we hope that you found
this delightful topic about Elon Musk's desire to bring back
company towns informative. Thanks for listening. It Could Happen Here
(37:05):
is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,
Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
I'm Michael Phillips, an historian and the author of a
book about racism in Dallas called White Metropolis, and the
co author of a recently published book about the eugenics
movement in Texas called The Purifying Knife.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
And I'm Stephen Monticelli. I'm an investigator reporter in Dallas,
where I contribute to a variety of publications. As well
as Cool Zone Media. I cover political extremism in Texas
and beyond. Elon Musk has dominated the news since the
twenty twenty four presidential campaign, and for a lot of reasons.
There's a billionaire's flirtation with neo Nazi politics. There's his
(00:43):
gutting of the social safety net through Doge. His soap
opera estrangement from President Trump also grabbed much of the spotlight.
In the past two years, Musk has resuscitated in two
Texas communities, one of the worst ideas from the robber
baron age. In an effort to control roll his workers'
lives on and off the clock, Musk is bringing the
(01:03):
company town back to life.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
On May third of this year, on the South Texas
coast of the Gulf of Mexico, people went to the
voting booth on a peninsula called Boca Chica. They voted to
turn their one and a half square mile patch of
unincorporated land into a city called Starbase. Almost all of
the voters were employees of Musk SpaceX Rocket Company. So
(01:29):
are the candidates elected to govern Texas newest city. But
Musk is clearly the power behind the throne.
Speaker 3 (01:35):
Meanwhile, in Bastrop County near Austin in central Texas, Musk
gobbled up local real estate in loosely governed unincorporated lands.
That's where, in addition to Starbase, he's working to create
another company town he calls Snailbrook. Many bast Re presidents
say Musk's businesses are poisoning the water, air, and soil
(01:57):
in their community. On this episodis of it could happen here,
we'll discuss the unfortunate history of company towns in the
United States, how company towns have always undermined democracy and workers' rights,
and what these elon Musk company towns may mean for
the future of United States capitalism. Speaking of capitalism will
(02:18):
be back after a few words from our sponsors.
Speaker 2 (02:31):
Roughly between eighteen eighty and the mid nineteen thirties, an
astounding twenty five hundred company towns dotted the American landscape.
A product of Gilded Age greed. At best, these corporate
planned communities represented paternalistic experiments of mind control. At their worst,
they became miniature police states. In Steinway Village in New York,
(02:54):
where not surprisingly, workers manufactured Steinway pianos, Paulman, Illinois, where
employees made train cars, and Hershey's Pennsylvania, which was, of
course a chocolate manufacturing center. Employers built the houses that
the workers lived in, the stores where they shopped, the
saloons where they drank, and the schools where their children learned.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
Chad Pearson is an historian of American labor at the
University of North Texas, and he's the author of a
noted book called Capitalism's Terrorists, Klansmen, Lawmen, and Employers in
the Long nineteenth Century. We talked to him about the
rise and fall of company towns from the mid eighteen
hundreds to the early twentieth century.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Could you explain how company towns got started in the
United States and the motives of the businessmen who started them?
Speaker 4 (03:42):
Certainly so, really, I think we can identify three periods
three phases. So the first phase would be we might
associate with the so called Lowell Girls in Lowell, Massachusetts,
which began in the eighteen twenties and continued into the
subsequent decades. These were young women, men and girls, and basically,
you know, they lived on the campus the town. The
(04:05):
boss would decide when they would work and when they
would eat and that sort of thing. After that, we
have another phase which we could identify with George Pullman
and the Pullman Company just outside of Chicago in the
late nineteenth century, really in the eighteen eighties. Again, these
were very controlling environments in which you know, the employer
had all to say. Workers would live in company housing. Again,
(04:29):
they'd go to the company church, and you know, we're
really controlled both during and after the workday.
Speaker 5 (04:35):
And then we have a whole bunch of.
Speaker 4 (04:36):
Them, mostly mining and textile lumber communities.
Speaker 5 (04:40):
By nineteen thirty nine.
Speaker 4 (04:41):
There were seventy planned industrial settlements built after nineteen hundred.
Speaker 5 (04:46):
So quite a few.
Speaker 4 (04:47):
So whatever period we're talking about, these places where infamous
for management's use of surveillance and power. This is designed
really to fundamentally control folks, which round expression again and
homes workplaces, churches.
Speaker 5 (05:01):
You would have to sign contracts.
Speaker 6 (05:02):
So in a place like mining towns in West Virginia,
you'd have to sign a contract that gave the boss
the authority to evict labor activists or people, you know,
workers who might be involved in trying to improve their
conditions by fighting back, or they would be evicted for
so called undesirable behavior, again that generally involved things like
(05:22):
union organizing.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
Pearson described these company towns as many dictatorships in which
fighting for better conditions could result in harsh retaliation, and
in which ministers that were hired by the company and
a church built by the company bosses fed workers a
steady stream of propaganda.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
This happened in places like New England textile mills to
coal mining areas in Alabama and West Virginia.
Speaker 5 (05:48):
Well might happen.
Speaker 4 (05:48):
You'll say you're you're active in a union, or you're
resisting your boss. Right, the boss or his underlings might
send in mind guards and say you and your family
get out, throw the stuff, their furniture on the street,
and there would be no no accountability.
Speaker 5 (06:04):
No way to address that problem.
Speaker 4 (06:08):
You'd also have company towns, you'd have a religious you'd
have preachers who would preach the company line as well. Right,
so that kind of pro business, pro capitalist and doctrination
was expressed both in the workplace and from the pulpit.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
A key way that company towns control workers was by
not paying them an actual American dollars, but paper certificates
called script They can only be spent in company owned stores.
This gave the company monopoly power of what their workforce bought.
Speaker 4 (06:44):
A twenty five pounds sack of flower costs two fifty
at the company store, it costs only.
Speaker 5 (06:48):
One ninety elsewhere.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
Right, So this was a way for companies to sort
of corner the market. If you will, right, they could
jack up prices. You're basically a slave to the system.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
George Pullman, who established the company that made luxury railroad cars,
created a company town in Illinois in eighteen eighty one.
Pullman presented his experiment to the world as a utopia.
The workers' houses there had natural gas and running water,
which was not the norm at the time. Some even
had indoor plumbing. The town had retail shops and well
(07:25):
supplied markets, and tourists visited it as a supposed ideal
community of the future.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
In spite of the apparent shininess of Pullman, Illinois. The
relationship between Pullman and his employees turned violent in eighteen
ninety four. As doctor Pearson explains.
Speaker 4 (07:41):
So Pullman, George Pullman, began creating this utopian community in
eighteen eighty. Okay, that's shortly after this massive nationwide strike
in eighteen seventy seven of railroad workers. So a lot
of bosses in the aftermath of these massive confrontations were like, Okay,
we got to do something. We got to do something
to solve what they called the labor problem, the labor question.
(08:03):
And one way they did that was through welfare work,
trying to be more benevolent right parents as opposed to
only stix. And so Pullman was established in eighteen eighty
four just outside of Chicago, had about twelve thousand residents,
and it was at the time the largest, most famous.
Speaker 5 (08:22):
Company town in the nation.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
And he did, I mean, let's give credit where credits
to some things that did improve the conditions for employees.
Speaker 5 (08:30):
So he had a company doctor.
Speaker 4 (08:32):
He oversaw a good school system, funded athletic programs a
company banned, and he modeled this on a company town
outside of Bradford, England, so what we see is, you know,
the company towns do not.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
Originate in the United States.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
They are sort of a phenomenon that we see across
the industrialized world.
Speaker 5 (08:49):
But of course there was also a darker side.
Speaker 4 (08:51):
He banned alcohol, he restricted tobacco use, He imposed a curfew. Right,
so you want to go out, you know, it's five
o'clock somewhere.
Speaker 5 (08:59):
No, it's not right. And so it was also pretty
expensive to live there.
Speaker 4 (09:04):
Residents had to spend something like thirty percent of their
money on rent, and when they saved enough money an
impossible thing to do. Often when they did save that money,
they would they would get out.
Speaker 3 (09:15):
Pullman's experiment in welfare capitalism came crashing down when the
United States sank into an economic depression that lasted from
eighteen ninety three to eighteen ninety seven. At one point
three million people, or about twenty percent of the country's workforce,
could not find jobs. Hunger and suicide became rampant as
(09:36):
hard times dragged on, and Pullman laid off hundreds of
workers and slashed wages by thirty three percent.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
During this time, residents of the company town in Illinois
struggled to pay rent at the Pullman owned housing where
management refused the lower prices. Eugene Debs, who would soon
emerge as the leader of the Socialist Party of America
and would serve five times as that party's presidential nominee,
led one hundred and fifty thousand member American Railway Union
(10:05):
there u stage a strike calling for a rollback in
pay cuts and a reduction rents at the company housing.
The strike spread nationwide, with railroad workers refusing to handle
trains carrying Pullman cars.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
President Grover Cleveland dispatched twelve thousand troops to crush the
uprising and reopen the rail lines. Federal marshalls shot two
strikers to death in Kensington, Illinois, not far from Chicago,
while authorities arrested Debs and put him in prison for
defying the court order by continuing the strike. In a
stop to workers, the House and Senate unanimously passed a
(10:42):
bill creating what we now know today as Labor Day.
Speaker 4 (10:46):
Later on, in jail, using deaths becomes radicalized, reading marks.
Speaker 5 (10:51):
Runs for president.
Speaker 4 (10:52):
A few times after that, bottom line workers lost a strike,
but Pullman's experiments soon ended. The Illinois Supreme Court rule
that George Pullman's ownership of the community was in violation
of its charter and dismantled the town in eighteen ninety eight.
So a dramatic period in US history, one of the
most important struggles in US labor history, and really showed
(11:16):
the way in which bosses the state came together to
really fight labor.
Speaker 3 (11:23):
By around the end of the eighteen hundreds, about three
percent of the American population lived under the almost complete
control of their corporate masters. Meanwhile, an extensive network of
spies filled company towns. These corporate agents posed as fellow workers, bartenders, mailmen,
or just another customer at the store. They reported to
(11:44):
management any e mail content who complained about working hours
or wages. Fired workers were often placed on a blacklist
that was widely distributed among corporations and made landing a
new job even more difficult.
Speaker 2 (11:58):
Some mining towns resemble prison camps. Armed guards surrounded the
towns to keep out union organizers in the corporate overlords
in company towns used violent means to maintain tyrannical control.
We asked doctor Pearson to explain this. Now, Doctor Pearson,
you titled one of your books Capitalism's Terrorists, and you
(12:20):
were referring basically to the fact that corporations, including the
ones that own company towns, often used private armies, armed militias,
or they basically hired outside violent groups to control labor.
Could you go into that a little bit.
Speaker 4 (12:33):
More, Let me read you an anecdote from Vandergriff, Pennsylvania. Vandergrift,
Pennsylvania is a company town not far from Pittsburgh. It's
a steel town. And in July nineteen oh nine, during
a strike against the American Sheet and Tinplay Company, the
company's superintendent was a guy named Oscar Lindquist. He led
a mob of hundreds to a hotel in the nearby
(12:55):
town of Apollo, where the union organizers were staying. So
there's an effort to build union membership in this company town.
And Linquist was so pissed about their presence, so he
informed the organizers that they had an hour to leave
town and that he would burn the building down if
they refused to comply. When they protested, insisting that they
(13:16):
had free speech and assembly rights, Linquists claimed that quote
his word was the law. A local town official, reinforcing
linquist demand, gave the men until.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
The next morning to leave.
Speaker 4 (13:26):
So we have threats of like burning places down, killing
people right, and ultimately no accountability.
Speaker 5 (13:35):
I think it's fair to call these people terrorists.
Speaker 3 (13:40):
The harshness of company towns inspired worker resistance, including what
came to be known as the Colorado Coalfield War. We'll
hear more about that, and a tragedy that came to
be known as the Ludlow Massacre. After this break sponsored
by some companies, one of the bloodiest confrontations between a
(14:10):
company militia and striking workers in American history took place
in Ludlow, Colorado, in the early twentieth century. The Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company controlled several coal mines, and it
was owned by the world's richest man, John D. Rockefeller,
who also owned the Standard Oil Company. The coal workers
were unhappy with several things.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
They were working twelve hour days, six days a week,
sometimes seven. Through their union, the United Mine Workers, they
asked for a rays and for their workday to be
no more than eight hours. They also demanded the right
to live in housing that wasn't part of the company
town controlled by Rockefeller, and to spend their hard earned
money in stores that he didn't control.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
The relationship between the United mineworkers and Rockefeller broke down
when he refused to negotiate with them. Between September nineteen
thirteen and December nineteen fourteen, the coal miners and Ludlow
stage strikes against the richest man on the planet at
the time.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
Instead of negotiating, Rockefeller assembled a private army of local
sheriff's deputies and private detectives. The militia armed itself with
a motorized gatling gun that Rockefeller's goons named De Death Special.
The nation recoiled in horror when on April twentieth, nineteen fourteen,
militia troops attacked a company miner's tent colony. They were
(15:33):
living in the tent colony because that had been kicked
out of company housing. During the armed assault, Rockefeller's troops
killed sixty six men, women, and children. They doused the
tents with kerosene, incinerating eleven hiding in a pit, including
a pregnant woman.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
The folk singer Woody Guthrie immortalized the horrific scene at
Ludlow in his ballad The Ludlow Massacre.
Speaker 7 (15:58):
You struck a man, Jim the blaze it started. You
pulled the triggers of your gathering guns. I made her
round for the children, for the farwell stuff. The thirteen
children died from your guns.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
About two hundred people and all died in what came
to be called the Colorado Coalfield War. So we asked
doctor Pearson about the long term impact of the Ludlow
massacre and what happened to company towns in the subsequent years.
Speaker 4 (16:29):
So basically, on the morning of April twenty ath nineteen fourteen,
National guards and men who were aligned with the Colorado
Fuel and Iron Company, which is owned.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
By John D.
Speaker 4 (16:38):
Rockefeller, attacked this camp of strikers, mineworkers, strikers, ultimately killing
twenty one people, including eleven children. This brutality, this brutality
lasted for fourteen hours. The guards torched the colony. And
this came in the midst of a strike that had
been going on for months, which started in September nineteenth thirteen.
(17:01):
And so this was a real struggle. It was a
terrible public relations disaster. From the vantage point of a
Rockefeller in the company, the pressure to do.
Speaker 5 (17:13):
Something was great.
Speaker 4 (17:14):
And so what we see as we see government officials
meeting and discussing this event, they are these various gatherings
of business people and labor unions trying to resolve it.
Speaker 5 (17:25):
And in the aftermath of this.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Rockefeller worked closely with what we might call industrial relations specialists,
and he became a champion of welfare capitalism. Welfare capitalism,
like company unions, these sort of top down initiatives designed
to win, as I pointed out, factory solidarity instead of
class solidarity, and so how successful that was.
Speaker 5 (17:50):
Probably not.
Speaker 4 (17:51):
These bosses continued to exploit, but they did so with
smiley faces.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
As we mentioned at the beginning of the episode, company
towns never completely died, and they're making a bit of
a disturbing comeback via Rockefeller's successor as the world's richest man.
South African native and Texas transplant Elon Musk. Texas Governor
Greg Abbott has been a big ally of Musk, at
least until his nasti split with Trump over the president's
(18:17):
tax and spending policies. But nonetheless, Musk is still popular
in Texas and the state and local governments, for instance,
have given Musk sixty four million dollars worth of tax
breaks to establish his Tesla factory called Giga Texas in
Travis County, not far from the state capitol.
Speaker 2 (18:35):
COVID nineteen restrictions in California during the pandemic and rage Musk,
who for a time defied state law. He derided California
as defined by quote overregulation, over litigation, and over taxation,
poop on the sidewalk, and scorn. In contrast, Texas stood
out for its lax environmental and labor standards. As Abbot
(18:57):
bragged to the Fox Business Channel.
Speaker 8 (19:00):
A need that Elon had was speed. He does everything fast,
and this would have taken five, maybe ten years to
accomplish in California. I told him that Texas moves at
the speed of business. He was able to complete a
mal long gigafactory in a year and a half that
is unheard of, probably not replicable in any other state.
Speaker 3 (19:22):
Whether Bastard residents liked Musk or not, it soon became
clear that he was making a very large local footprint.
Bastrip County has always been famous for its beauty. This
is how bast sold itself to tourists, businesses, and potential
residents in the early two thousands.
Speaker 1 (19:40):
Next time you're on the way between Houston and Austin
or points in between, you want to stop here in Bastro.
We've got a pretty little place here along the Colorado River,
the place with charm and great natural beauty. We're the
home of the lost times. So crossed the bridge into
the old town and have a look. We've been growing
(20:02):
here since eighteen thirty two and growing in a good way,
a way that looks to the future and that preserves
the landmarks of the past. Bastrop has more than one
hundred and twenty homes and other commercial and public buildings
on the National Register of Historic Places. Some people come
(20:24):
here just to drive around town and see the pretty houses.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
There's a heavy price for moving at Greg Abbott's speed
of business. However, Chap Ambrose, a landowner in Bastrop County,
thirty three miles southeast of Austin, said that he admired
Musk for being a high tech titan. He was excited
when the billionaire announced he was going to move part
of his business empire to the small, mostly agricultural county.
(20:52):
Ambrose describes his feelings about musk arrival in his YouTube
series Keep Bastrop Boring.
Speaker 9 (21:04):
The weird part here is I'm actually an Elon Musk fan.
I have my Tesla Cybertruck reservation here from November of
twenty nineteen, and SpaceX's Starlink, their satellite service I've also
signed up for last year.
Speaker 2 (21:22):
All of Bashtrop's natural and architectural splendor, however, is in danger.
Since Musk came to town in Texas, counties have even
less ability to protect the environment than do cities, and
Musk strategically places operation on land, we'll face lax local oversight.
He used his fortune to buy about thirty five thousand
(21:43):
acres of what was once farmland in Bastrop County, which
is now headquarters for the Boring Company. The Boring Company
plans to build tunnels. Musk Hope's one Day will provide
high speed underground alternatives to our current web of inner States.
Musk has secured permits to dig six test tunnels in
(22:04):
Bachtrap County, which is now also officially the headquarters of
his social media platform X formerly known as Twitter. The
Musk Industrial complex also includes a five hundred thousand square
foot warehouse where the Space Exploration Technologies Corporation more commonly
known as SpaceX, builds terminals for another Musk business venture,
(22:25):
the satellite company Starlink Neuralink, which manufactures computer chips that
have been experimentally implanted in test subjects brains and resulted
in the deaths of many chimpanzees. Is also nearby.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
The Tesla Gigafactory, which produces electronic cars, is just thirteen
miles west on an unincorporated land neighboring Travis County. I've
seen it driving down the highway. It's an abomination.
Speaker 2 (22:51):
Construction has also begun on a company town Musk has
named Snailbrook. Plans for Snailbrook eventually include one hundred and
ten single family rental homes actually owned by Musk. So far,
fewer than twenty modular homes have been completed. According to
teen Vogue, plans are that rent for these houses will
(23:12):
start at about eight hundred a month for a two
or three bedroom dwelling, which is well below the nineteen
hundred and twenty five dollars median rent in Bashtrop County.
A Montessori school called ad Astra, which from the Latin
which means too the Stars, is open, along with the
boring bodega, which the Austin American Statesman notes offers snacks, soda, coffee, beer, wine,
(23:37):
a children's playground, lounge space complete with video games and
beanbag toss, a pickleball court that can be rented for
a dollar an hour, and of course, a variety of
Boring Company merchandise, such as a T shirt that says
Tunnel Mars.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
This purported worker utopia already has a Gilded Age style catch.
If workers get fired by Musk long Amos for his
volatility and mass layoffs at his companies, they will only
have a month to vacate their homes. And as with
the Gilded Age, much under the Snailbrook glitter is not gold.
The town's playground, for instance, lack shade from the broiling
(24:14):
summertime Central Texas heat, and much of the equipment is
broken and made of inferior materials. The Monastery school initially
admitted fifty students, but the campus wasn't big enough. Only
sixteen actually attended when classes first opened because the facilities
were too small.
Speaker 2 (24:30):
Musk once marketed himself as an environmental savior. His electric
cars would supposedly save the planet from climate change. However,
in Bashtrop County, he's a major polluter. The Boring company
petitioned Texas for the right to pour one hundred and
forty three thousand gallons of treated wastewater into the Colorado
River every single day. Meanwhile, the Texas Commission on Environmental
(24:54):
Quality to date has cited SpaceX and the boring company
thirteen times because the unauthorized discharge of water used to
clean concrete trucks. The company also failed to meet state
standards regarding erosion control and the release of toxic chemicals
in the soil, As Team Vague reported. However, the resulting
(25:15):
fines represent mere pocket chaine for a man who earns
an estimated one thousand dollars a second.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
The self professed musk fan Chap Ambrose, who he heard
from earlier, study's disappointed about all this.
Speaker 9 (25:29):
There's a culture of secrecy, and it seems they're actively
trying to obscure the truth, not just from neighbors, but
also are county officials. If you're going to prototype the
world's fastest tunneling machine in minderborhood, then I expect the
most innovative and transparent safety systems to go alongside it.
Why do they refuse to give direct answers and why
(25:51):
won't they put their promises in writing?
Speaker 5 (25:53):
Why do they refuse to.
Speaker 9 (25:54):
Follow the very minimal restrictions we have in Texas for
development and why do I have to go to Commissioner
Court so that they put in a legal septic system.
It seems to me that they only follow the rules
and behave when they're being watched.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
Transparency may have disappeared forever for residents amost other company town,
one Amos's most lucrative companies, SpaceX, launches its rockets about
twenty miles outside of Brownsville on the Texas Gulf Coast
near the Mexican border. Most of the residents near the
launch site, known as Bokachica Village or Tejanos, and many
(26:31):
struggle economically. The wetlands and beaches are considered sacred by
members of the Carazo Komikrudo tribe of Texas. The area
residents were clearly invisible to mus during a twenty eighteen
press conference when he spoke of how test flights such
as those as the plant at the Bukachica site were
a necessary first step for exploration in the Moon and Mars.
(26:53):
The subsequent controversy was reported by a local TV station KRGV.
Speaker 10 (26:58):
When asked how soon fly would be going to the
Moon or Mars, must talked about the necessary test flights
that would need to take place first.
Speaker 9 (27:06):
Most likely he's going to coach it having enter browns
Feel location, because I've got a lot of land with
nobody around, and so if it was up.
Speaker 5 (27:13):
It's cool.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
People at Brownsville didn't agree that if for rocket ship
blew up in their neighborhood it would be quote cool.
Speaker 10 (27:21):
His comment is not sitting well with Gail McConaughey.
Speaker 11 (27:24):
He's been out here before. He damn sure. I ought
to know that he's seen the village. You gotta know
that it's not a ghost town.
Speaker 10 (27:31):
McConaughey and his wife have been living a book at
Chica Village every winter for the past eleven years. He
says he's offended that he and the other residents are
considered nobody. It also raises questions, he adds, about how
safe the launches will be in a.
Speaker 11 (27:46):
Rocket that size or any size that would go up,
and who knows what might happen. It might start tipping
the wrong direction. Who knows if something happened to the
engines and explodes. That's cool when you're talking about there's
lives here that's a mile and a half.
Speaker 3 (28:01):
Kane's words were prophetic in subsequent years. Musks rockets did
blow up, such as in April twenty twenty three, when
a SpaceX special obliterated the concrete launch pad, leaving behind
a massive crater. As Scientific American reported, quote, particulate debris,
as well as concrete and steel shrapnel from the botched
launch scattered far and wide across the surrounding landscape, igniting
(28:25):
fires and slamming into protected habitats and public beaches. Ash
dust and sand grains hurled aloft by this first Starship
test rained down as far as Port Isabelle, about five
miles from the launch site end quote. Another Musk rocket launch,
this time from Bocachica, exploded again this past June nineteenth,
(28:45):
as reported by WTHR.
Speaker 12 (28:47):
Whoa in the skies over South Texas overnight a massive
fireball after a SpaceX rocket exploded during a static rocket test,
a ground test for an upcoming launch.
Speaker 5 (29:00):
Tenty six ers Blue Up Ship thirty six is Blue.
Speaker 13 (29:02):
Up SpaceX, led by Elon Musk, said the Starship rocket
experienced a major anomaly while preparing for its tenth flight test,
adding that all personnel are safe and there are no
hazards to residents in surrounding communities. The explosion rattled nearby
residents who posted videos on social media, one telling my
(29:23):
San Antonio News quote, our whole neighborhood felt it.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
It shook all of our houses.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
In spite of this record at Mayhem, on Saturday, May third,
Bokachika Village held an election on whether to incorporate as
the city of Starbase. The proposal to create the state's
newest city carried by a vote of two hundred and
twelve to six. Nearly two thirds of the electorate lived
near SpaceX's launch site. Overwhelmingly the voters were Musk employees.
(29:52):
All three candidates elected to Starbas's new City Commission ran unopposed,
and one without putting up a single campaign sign or
hosting a single candidate forum. All three were employees of
Musk and SpaceX.
Speaker 3 (30:06):
As The Texas Tribune has reported, the new city government
increased control over the nearby public beach, revered by local
Indigenous people. Some local residents feel the creation of the
company town gives them even less power to protect what's
seen as a local treasure.
Speaker 14 (30:21):
Starbase is only about one and a half square miles. It's,
of course, the home of SpaceX, and the main goal
is sending humans to Mars. According to the FAA, Starbas
is aiming for twenty five rocket launches a year. But
this is all coming with a bit of controversy, especially
over access to the popular Boca Chica Beach. Any SpaceX
(30:42):
rocket launcher engine test requires closing a local highway to
the beach, and some say starbas is giving Musk too
much control. People gathered at the beach Saturday night to protest.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
They're just tearing it up.
Speaker 9 (30:54):
And doing whatever they want because they want to gentrify.
They want to be a city by themselves. When you
gentify the land to gentrifying the soul of the people.
Speaker 2 (31:03):
One Mussius, the protester you just heard is the chair
of the Carazou, called me crudo tribe of Texas. He
told the Texas Tribune, quote, these hills are sacred to us.
They don't know the history of the land, and they're
trying to erase that. Of course, Musk has a history
as well, and is one characterized by labor abuses.
Speaker 3 (31:25):
Like the robber barons who ruled as emperors over their
Gilded Age company towns. Musk has been accused of firing
union organizers at his Austin gigafactory workers claim Musk either
didn't pay them for overtime or short change them. Those
same workers charged that records were faked to document their
safety training, and according to the Texas Observer of publication
(31:47):
I'm glad to contribute to, one worker said he was
forced to work in a flooded part of the factory
and had to work on a metal roof at night
without lights. These are clear BOSHA violations.
Speaker 2 (32:00):
Is highly unlikely that the state of Texas will require Musk
to provide any transparency about his business practices. Governor Abbott
recently refused the request of a media outlet, the Texas
and Newsroom, to release emails between him and Musk, claiming
the extensive communication between the pair was quote intimate and
potentially quote embarrassing and therefore not a public interest. With
(32:23):
so much a Musk enterprise in the state, operating in
company towns he politically controls on county land with little oversight,
Musk has become the lone star state's modern, unchecked robber
baron extraordinaire, and with the aid of his on again
off again allied Donald Trump, he has blazed a trail
for other tech billionaires.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
When Trump ran for president last year, he floated a
proposal to build what he called quote freedom cities across
the country, pushed by oligarchs like Peter Thiel, Mark Andresen
and Sam Altman, who ironically now has a bit of
a fit in a fight with Elon Musk. They hate
each other, and it's really funny. These proposed fiefdoms would
(33:04):
function as libertarian oasis. Coal miners were once paid in script,
and the federal government banned script in nineteen thirty eight.
But nevertheless, Jeff Bezos already uses something he calls quote
swag bucks that are redeemable at Amazon to reward those
in the company he deems his most productive workers. Workers
in the freedom cities under discussion would not earn US
(33:27):
legal tender, but would get cryptocurrency instead, the historically stable
store of value that has never ripped off thousands, maybe
hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people any municipal
monstrosities imagined in the scheme. Workers would be paid not
in US currency, but, as I just said, this insane,
(33:48):
highly volatile cryptocurrency. These corporate havens would operate with the
barest nods to workplace safety, environmental protections, and job security,
and god forbid, might even scam their workers by trading
in that same highly voutal cryptocurrency that they're paying them in.
Speaker 2 (34:06):
Back in bash Stop. Chap Ambrose thinks we can still
embrace the future with that surrendering a more old fashioned
concept of community. He hopes that must one day sees
the light.
Speaker 9 (34:20):
I truly hope the boring company succeeds in its efforts.
I think tunneling makes sense, and if they can improve
traffic into Austin and around it, that'd be great.
Speaker 5 (34:29):
But you have to be better neighbors.
Speaker 9 (34:32):
Texas has strong landowner rights and you can do pretty
much what you want on your land. However, Texas law
also says that we share the air and you share
the groundwater with me and my one year old son.
So if you're going to come to my neighborhood and
build the fastest and most efficient tunneling operation, then I
expect the most innovative and transparent safety systems to go
(34:55):
alongside it.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
The struggle against the absolute power wielded by the rulers
of the Gilded Ages company towns led to actual battles
with literal casualties on American soil. Doctor Pearson reminded us
that the hard life and the Gilded Era, the era
of company towns, represented an American norm rather than an exception.
(35:18):
And because of musk Heeal and other modern robber barons,
the battles fought in Pullman, Illinois and Ludlow, Colorado might
have to be fought once again.
Speaker 4 (35:27):
Some of you folks may be aware of Jefferson Cowie
and Nick Salvatory's book, which he calls the Great Exception,
and they argue that, you know, most of American histories
like the Gilded Age. Yeah, we had a forty fifty
year period from don't know, the thirties to the seventies when
things were kind of better, right, you know what Blue
magas and red magas alike like to celebrate. But the
(35:47):
fact is, you know, things were pretty exploitated then as well.
And so what kind of lessons can we learn from
resistance to capitalism in its various forms? And I think
the key one is to trust one another. There's no
substitute for working class solidarity. Stop having illusions in the
Democratic Party. They're not going to save you. And so
to see, you know, where where there are victories when
(36:11):
when workers are are United, and we see a little
bit of that, you know, kicking ice agents out of towns, right.
I mean, that's politicians aren't helping us there. That's you know,
collective action of working class people. It's off formal unions,
but it's something, you know, I see hope.
Speaker 5 (36:25):
I see hope.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
In the mass mobilization of working class people irrespective of race, gender, class,
and any other identity.
Speaker 2 (36:33):
I'm Michael Phillips, so you can find me on substack
at doctor m Phillips two thousand and one, on Blue
Sky and Facebook, Google my name and quote White Metropolis.
Speaker 3 (36:44):
And I'm Stephen Wanaceelli. You can find me on Blue skuy,
and I've got a Patreon and all those other things.
Thank you for listening, and we hope that you found
this delightful topic about Elon Musk's desire to bring back
company towns informative. Thanks for listening. It Could Happen Here
(37:05):
is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 4 (37:07):
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for It Could happen here, listed directly
in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening,
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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