Astral Codex Ten

Monaco

3 min read

Monaco

Article

Monaco is a recurring place in the Astral Codex Ten archive, appearing 2 times across 2 issues between June 28, 2021 and October 28, 2025. The archive places it in contexts such as “as if Switzerland or Monaco had been granted a seat”; “crypto connections, and ambition to be “the Monaco-Dubai of the Caribbean”“. It most often appears alongside China, Dubai, Honduras.

Metadata

  • Category: Places
  • Mention count: 2
  • Issue count: 2
  • First seen: June 28, 2021
  • Last seen: October 28, 2025

Appears In

Source Context

Recovered passages from the original issue text. When the raw archive preserved outbound links inside the source passage, they are listed directly under the quote.

Book Review: How Asia Works
June 28, 2021 · Original source
South-east Asia (like India) is a region in which serious land reform is off the political agenda, even if the farce that is the Philippine reform programme continues. Given this, can the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand do anything else to improve their economic performance? Most obviously they could make the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) work as a vehicle for effective industrial policy. There is no reason why the four core economies of ASEAN (and indeed Vietnam, the important economy omitted from this book) could not run an effective manufacturing infant industry policy in what is a market of 500 million people. But there is no sign of this happening. Rather than raising barriers and promoting exports to nurture local manufacturing enterprise, ASEAN is engaged in signing free trade agreements with industrially more developed states, including China. There is very little cohesion, or substantive dialogue, between the political leaders of the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam. And the considerable influence of the offshore financial centre of Singapore in ASEAN is developmentally deeply unhelpful. It is as if Switzerland or Monaco had been granted a seat at the table when post-war European industrial policy was being planned in the 1950s. South-east Asia remains a beacon for what not to do if you want economic transformation. Allow landlordism and scale farming despite the presence of vast numbers of underemployed peasants capable of growing more. Do not worry too much about export-oriented manufacturing, which can happily be undertaken by multinational enterprises. Leave entrepreneurs to their own devices. And proceed quickly to deregulated banking, stock markets and international capital flows, the true symbols of a modern state. That is how its politicians constructed the south-east Asian region’s relative failure.
25
October 28, 2025 · Original source
4: New special economic zone in Nevis called Destiny, with the usual breathtaking renders, crypto connections, and ambition to be “the Monaco-Dubai of the Caribbean”. But why not “Monaco-Dubai-Singapore”? Come on, be ambitious!
Inline links: Destiny