Manifest Destiny Ventures’ Florida Experiment: The Corporate Takeover of a State and the Death of Democracy
A satirical “Financial Times” article envisions Florida’s future as a private equity dystopia, setting the stage for a serious analysis of how housing, education, and governance are being financialised—turning Florida into a test case for nationwide control.
Financial Times – April 3, 2028
“Manifest Destiny Ventures Finalises Florida Acquisition: A Bold New Era of Corporate Governance”
By Jonathan P. Kingsley, Senior Correspondent
TALLAHASSEE—Following years of strategic restructuring, Manifest Destiny Ventures (MDV) has officially absorbed the last remaining vestiges of Florida’s state government, finalising its historic acquisition of the territory and ushering in a new era of optimised governance.
CEO and High Chancellor of Corporate Affairs Barrett C. Wilmington III hailed the move as “the inevitable next step in Florida’s transformation from a stagnating democracy into a dynamic, high-efficiency corporate territory.” Addressing an audience of MDV stakeholders from the balcony of the newly repurposed Capitol Markets Building (formerly the Florida State Capitol), Wilmington praised the firm’s “brilliant 2025 restructuring strategy,” which, he reminded investors, had been set into motion mere months after securing regulatory exemptions via the landmark People’s Choice Representation Act.
“That pivotal reform allowed us to align Florida’s electoral system with originalist intent,” Wilmington noted, referencing MDV’s successful 2025 initiative to update the state’s constitution, ensuring that only white, landowning males could vote. “By removing democratic inefficiencies, we were able to streamline governance, cut waste, and reallocate resources toward priority sectors—namely, shareholder value enhancement.”
AI-Driven Efficiency
Under MDV’s stewardship, Florida has seen a 65% reduction in bureaucratic overhead, thanks to the proprietary EternaGov AI, which has replaced traditional state functions with an algorithm-driven governance model.
Taxation: Now limited exclusively to corporations, ensuring fiscal stability.
Law Enforcement: Fully privatised under the Neighborhood Order & Optimisation Programme (NOOP), a predictive AI-driven policing system designed to preemptively neutralise potential economic inefficiencies.
Education: Public schooling phased out entirely, replaced by Self-Directed Learning Pods® featuring immersive gamification tools to prepare young tenants for careers in the burgeoning gig-rental economy.
The transition has not been without its challenges. Wilmington acknowledged the brief “public acclimation period” (formerly known as the mass protests of 2026) but reassured stakeholders that MDV’s state-of-the-art crowd mitigation division had successfully converted those disruptions into “constructive workforce reallocation opportunities.”
The Last Vestiges of Private Property
MDV executives confirmed that the Emperor’s Summer Estate at Mar-a-Lago, the final piece of privately owned real estate in the state, remains “under long-term review” as the firm works toward securing its eventual incorporation into the MDV portfolio.
“Of course, the estate remains in personal possession of His Excellency, the Eternal President,” Wilmington noted, referring to the current U.S. head of state, whose indefinite tenure was secured following the repeal of the 22nd Amendment in 2025. “But as we continue to refine our model of full-spectrum asset consolidation, we are confident that—upon his eventual demise—this historic property will be seamlessly transitioned into our portfolio for the benefit of our long-term investors.”
Insiders suggest that, following MDV’s full consolidation of Florida, plans are already underway to expand the model nationwide by 2040, with preliminary discussions regarding the rebranding of the United States already in progress.
“Of course, we will need to align our branding with market expectations,” Wilmington mused. “There’s an internal debate between United Holdings of America and The Liberty Corporation, but we’re confident EternaGov’s Marketing Algorithm will generate a compelling new identity for our great corporate nation.”
Quarter-Over-Quarter Growth Remains Strong
Despite the elimination of homeownership, infrastructure investment, and most government services, MDV reported a record-breaking Q1 performance, with rental revenue increasing by 312% and workforce retention stabilising after the 2026 Tenant Obligation & Mobility Act required all residents to maintain a positive net worth-to-rent ratio or face immediate deportation.
“We remain bullish on the Florida model,” Wilmington concluded. “The future is bright—at least for those who have the privilege of participating in our optimised shareholder-driven society.”
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Deeper Analysis: The Strategic Evolution of Florida’s Governance
2025: Laying the Legal Foundations for a Corporate Renaissance
The transformation of Florida into a fully optimised corporate territory did not happen overnight. The groundwork was meticulously laid in 2025, when visionary market leaders at Manifest Destiny Ventures identified inefficiencies in the existing democratic model and proposed a more sustainable, market-driven alternative.
Recognising the pressing need to streamline governance, MDV-backed representatives swiftly enacted the People’s Choice Representation Act, a bold regulatory innovation that ensured only those with a demonstrated commitment to economic productivity—specifically, landowners and shareholders—were able to participate in the electoral process.
This was soon followed by the much-celebrated Constitutional Originalism Initiative, which successfully aligned Florida’s governance model with the founding principles of limited enfranchisement. By restoring voting rights to white landowning males, the state was able to eliminate the costly unpredictability of broad-based electoral participation, leading to historic gains in investor confidence and regulatory efficiency.
2027: The Dissolution of Redundant Government Functions
By 2027, it became clear that traditional government structures were largely redundant. Legacy public institutions, burdened by inefficiencies and outdated accountability mechanisms, were seamlessly replaced by the proprietary EternaGov AI. This cutting-edge governance system, developed by MDV’s Advanced Markets Division, introduced a data-driven approach to policy implementation, resulting in historic efficiency gains:
Tax Collection: Corporate tax obligations were further refined to ensure that capital remained in the hands of value creators, while regressive taxation models were applied to tenants and gig-service participants to incentivise market participation.
Law Enforcement: Public policing was transitioned to the highly successful Neighborhood Order & Optimization Programme (NOOP), which leverages predictive analytics to preemptively neutralise economic inefficiencies in designated investment zones.
Education & Workforce Development: The public school system was phased out in favour of Self-Directed Learning Pods®, which allow future tenants to develop skills directly relevant to their socioeconomic tier. This revolutionary shift has significantly reduced unnecessary intellectual redundancy in the workforce.
The introduction of these efficiencies allowed MDV to redirect resources toward high-yield investment areas such as premium rental conversions, gated leisure zones, and enhanced compliance enforcement services.
Optimising the Social Landscape: Key Adjustments in Tenant Mobility
As Florida transitioned to a fully integrated corporate governance model, the traditional concept of homeownership was identified as a legacy inefficiency. Through a strategic process of incremental pricing adjustments, MDV successfully streamlined the market:
Tenant Exclusivity Expansion: By 2028, 98% of Florida residents were fully integrated into MDV’s Exclusive Tenancy Program™, eliminating property tax volatility and stabilising asset values across the board.
Anti-Trespassing Standardisation: The highly effective NOOP framework introduced an adaptive anti-trespassing protocol, ensuring that non-compliant individuals were redirected toward value-aligned relocation opportunities outside of designated market zones.
Subscription-Based Housing™: The introduction of lifetime tenancy subscriptions has provided residents with predictable housing costs while generating sustainable, recurring revenue for stakeholders.
These strategic adjustments have contributed to record-setting returns in Florida’s rental market, reaffirming the state’s status as a global leader in high-yield tenancy solutions.
2028 and Beyond: Expansion of the Florida Model
Following the successful completion of Florida’s transition to fully optimised corporate governance, MDV has announced its intention to scale this model across additional territories by 2040. The firm has already secured preliminary agreements with policymakers in several key states, with negotiations currently underway regarding the rebranding of the former United States.
A Strategic National Rebranding Committee has been formed to oversee this transition, with working proposals including:
United Holdings of America™ – A streamlined identity designed to reflect the nation’s new shareholder-centric governance model.
The Liberty Corporation™ – Emphasising the market-driven freedoms enjoyed under the new paradigm.
OmniAmerica™ – A visionary brand positioning the nation as a fully integrated investment vehicle.
Additionally, MDV has confirmed its commitment to implementing further efficiencies in the financial sector through the phased introduction of Corporate Loyalty Credits (CLCs), a dynamic alternative to traditional wages that allows individuals to earn, save, and transact within MDV-approved economic ecosystems.
Looking Forward: Sustainable Prosperity Under Market-Driven Governance
As the Florida experiment continues to yield record-breaking returns, analysts remain bullish on the long-term viability of corporate-led governance. MDV’s strategic foresight, combined with the unparalleled efficiency of its AI-driven administrative framework, has positioned Florida as a model of 21st-century innovation—proving that with the right market incentives, a fully monetised social landscape is not just possible, but inevitable.
MDV executives have reaffirmed their commitment to long-term optimisation strategies, including ongoing discussions regarding the eventual acquisition of the Emperor’s Summer Estate at Mar-a-Lago. While this property remains under the stewardship of His Excellency, the Eternal President, MDV is confident that a strategic portfolio expansion will ensure its seamless integration into the corporate landscape upon his eventual passing.
With all key economic indicators pointing toward continued quarter-over-quarter growth, the outlook for Florida—and the future of optimised corporate governance—remains exceedingly strong.
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Reality Check: How Florida is Laying the Groundwork for This Future
Florida has long been a petri dish for neoliberal experimentation, but recent developments suggest it is rapidly becoming a case study in the full financialisation of everyday life. As an autistic person, I tend to see patterns—dots that others might not immediately connect but which, once drawn together, paint an undeniable picture. Watching the news over the past few months, I’ve seen these threads weaving into something sinister: the private equity takeover of housing, the dismantling of public education, the collapse of infrastructure, and the long-term consequences of a deliberately transient population. The imagined dystopian news story wasn’t just a bit of speculative satire—it was my way of making sense of what’s already happening, of processing the accelerating enshittification of a place that, for decades, was sold as a paradise.
The private equity land grab is already well underway. AI-driven rent optimisation tools allow corporate landlords to extract the maximum possible value from tenants whilst systematically locking out individual buyers. Shell companies bid against each other to inflate property values, ensuring that only institutional investors can afford to purchase homes—always in cash, meaning they bypass the insurance requirements that keep regular people from being financially ruined by hurricanes or flooding. For private equity, climate change isn’t an existential threat; it’s an accounting exercise. When homes are wiped out by a storm, they can absorb the losses as tax write-offs, using the destruction to justify further consolidation. This isn’t a housing market anymore; it’s a controlled asset class, one where ownership is disappearing for anyone who isn’t a corporate entity.
At the same time, Florida is gutting its public education system under the guise of “school choice.” Universal voucher schemes redirect public money into private schools, many of which are unregulated, religious institutions with dubious academic standards. The state has fully embraced the idea that education isn’t about learning but about reinforcing a prescribed set of values. This mirrors historical patterns of elite-controlled schooling—where education isn’t meant to create critical thinkers but compliant workers and ideologically aligned citizens. And as public schools lose funding, outcomes worsen, reinforcing the very cycle that voucher proponents claim to be solving. The reality is that none of this is about improving education; it’s about withdrawing the state from any responsibility for public goods and handing control over to private interests.
As these changes accelerate, the infrastructure and public services that once made Florida livable are collapsing. The tax base is shrinking, not only because of relentless corporate tax avoidance but because the state is deliberately structured to serve landlords over residents. With so few people actually owning property, local governments have no revenue to maintain roads, water systems, or power grids. Hurricane recovery, once a state and federal priority, is increasingly left to private insurers, who have no interest in rebuilding homes for people who can barely afford their skyrocketing premiums. Meanwhile, law enforcement is shifting away from public policing and toward private security firms that exist primarily to enforce evictions and protect landlord assets. It’s not hard to see where this is going: a state where survival depends on how much you can afford to pay, where even access to clean water or functioning electricity will be determined by private contracts rather than public obligation.
The long-term consequences are staggering. As homeownership disappears and renters become little more than extractable revenue streams, the entire nature of Florida’s communities is changing. The state is becoming fully transitory, a place where no one puts down roots because no one can afford to. Businesses already struggle to attract skilled workers because Florida’s collapsing public services make it an unappealing place to live. The ultra-wealthy, safe behind their gated communities, will still enjoy Florida’s beaches and golf courses, but just outside their walls will be sprawling poverty, growing homelessness, and a workforce trapped in a cycle of permanent precarity. The things that once drew people to Florida—affordable homeownership, strong local communities, even a sense of retirement security—are vanishing, replaced by a high-rent, low-quality landscape designed for maximum extraction and minimum investment.
This is where my brain goes when I watch the news. It connects these policies and trends, maps them out to their logical conclusion, and sees something bleak forming on the horizon. I wrote the satirical Financial Times piece not as a far-fetched dystopia but as a processing mechanism—because, at this rate, it’s not so much a question of if this future arrives, but when. And if Florida is the testing ground, how long before the rest of the country follows?
Final thoughts …
I think about Florida and its war on the free public school because, as a public school teacher, I worry about my students and how they’ll fare in the world imagined by big finance. The dismantling of public education isn’t just about siphoning money into private hands—it’s about reshaping the very structure of society, ensuring that the next generation enters adulthood without the tools to question, resist, or change the system being built around them. I see my students, many of whom are already navigating poverty, housing insecurity, and systemic barriers, and I wonder: where do they fit in a world where even the right to stability, to home, to a future that isn’t dictated by corporate landlords and financial algorithms, is being stripped away? And if Florida is the neocolonial proving ground for this experiment, what happens when the rest of the country follows?
Florida is not an anomaly; it is a test case. If we understand capitalism not as a system of free and fair exchange but as a mode of production that seeks to continuously expand the domain of private control over public life, then what is happening in Florida is not a deviation—it is an acceleration. It is capital shedding its last pretenses of serving the public good, openly restructuring society to ensure that wealth flows only in one direction. The state is no longer even trying to balance corporate power with public interest; it is handing over the entire apparatus of governance to financialised capital. In Capital, Marx describes how, under capitalism, the worker is separated from the means of production and forced into wage labour—this is the logic that originally drove feudal landholders off their estates and into factories. But Florida represents an even more extreme phase of this process, where people are now being separated from housing itself. The ability to own a home, to claim a physical stake in the world, is being eliminated. People are no longer even proletarians with a home to rent—they are renters, pure and simple, their entire existence reduced to an extractable revenue stream.
This is not new. History is full of examples of ruling classes using economic control to enforce social domination. Company towns of the late 19th and early 20th centuries operated on similar principles—workers were given just enough wages to pay their landlords (often the same company that employed them), shop in company-owned stores, and remain dependent on the enterprise that controlled their entire lives. Florida is now working towards running this model at the state level, but instead of a mining company or a steelworks owning the land and housing, it will be private equity firms, wielding AI-driven financial instruments to make feudalism more efficient than ever before. The same way enclosures in early capitalist England forced peasants off their communal land and into waged servitude, Florida’s corporate landlords are forcing people out of homeownership and into perpetual tenancy. This isn’t just an economic model—it’s class war. The working class is being made ever more dependent on the financial aristocracy, with no option to accumulate even the most basic form of intergenerational wealth.
The answer to capitalism has always been socialism. The problem is not just rising rents, corporate landlords, or speculative housing markets—it is the very existence of housing as a commodity. The logic of capital will always find ways to circumvent reform, to extract wealth in new and increasingly brutal ways. The only real solution is to end private control over housing altogether. That means not just rent control, but nationalisation. Not just regulating institutional ownership, but abolishing it. Housing should not be a vehicle for profit—it should be publicly owned, collectively managed, and permanently removed from the market.
This is not radical. The radical experiment is what we are living through now: a system where financial conglomerates determine whether people can afford a place to live. The private sector has demonstrated, time and again, that it cannot manage housing in a way that benefits the vast majority. If we want to break free from the dystopian trajectory Florida is setting, we must return to collective ownership—through large-scale state-led social housing, tenant cooperatives, and public stewardship of land. If capitalists are allowed to continue financialising housing, the Florida model will spread, turning entire cities and states into corporate-controlled territories where no one but the ultra-rich holds any claim to stability.
Once people are fully separated from property, from any material stake in their own survival, what stops capital from taking the next step—separating them from citizenship, from legal rights, from even the illusion of democratic participation? The dystopia I imagined is not some far-off possibility; it is a logical endpoint. Florida is the future if we allow it to be. But it is also a warning. The question is: will we seize control of housing as a public good, or will we allow capital to seize control of us?