Article Principality of New Utopia
Type: Fictitious country.
Summary: Howard Turney (AKA Lazarus Long) founded a “country” called New Utopia, supposedly based on the libertarian philosophy of novelist Ayn Rand. Unfortunately it became a center for offshore banking scams.
Posted by: Elliot Feldman
The Principality of New Utopia was an island country in the Caribbean near the Cayman Islands. Like its neighbors, New Utopia was set up as a center for offshore banking. The leader of this new “nation” was Lazarus Long (AKA Howard Turney). Note that Lazarus Long is also the name of a Robert Heinlein science fiction character.
Howard Turney
Before establishing New Utopia, Tulsa, Oklahoma businessman Howard Turney had made a large chunk of his fortune from a controversial alternative medical clinic in Mexico that practiced a radical form of hormone replacement therapy.
In 1999, after establishing New Utopia, the US Securities and Exchange Commission charged Long/Turney with selling unregistered securities to finance his offshore banking center, an uninhabited island formerly called Misteriosa Bank.
The Principality of New Utopia
Long/Turney defended his so-called planned development. New Utopia would be a pillar-mounted series of platforms that would include 1,200 apartments, five hotels, a super-mall, a convention center, and a university that offered scholarships to students from around the world. His nation would also have no taxes and no welfare system.
To some, Long/Turney’s development sounds like today’s Dubai. To Long/Turney, his development is the realization of the Ayn Rand philosophy.
Note that the actual headquarters of the Principality of New Utopia is located in Long/Turney’s actual home in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
New Utopia Today
On The Principality of New Utopia’s web site, “HSH Prince Lazarus” claims that the SEC’s charges that the Principality sold $350 million worth of unregistered bonds were unfounded. According to Long/Turney, “we had not sold even one dollars worth.”
References
- “Strange—But Not True”, Brad Reagan, Wall Street Journal
- “Libertarian Paradiso”, Alex Heard, New York Times
