Quote · Modern Wisdom
Who You Meet Down America’s Forgotten Backroads - Peter Santenello - #1132
Where this was said
Company Towns, Appalachian History & American Economic Control
At 1:11:00 · chapter starts 1:06:15
Peter traces the history of company towns, explaining how workers were historically paid in scrip — proprietary currency redeemable only at company stores — which effectively made leaving impossible. If a miner's husband died, the widow had days to either put her children in the mines or leave everything behind, because the company owned all the housing. Peter then reveals this system hasn't entirely disappeared: Baghdad, Arizona, a copper-mining community owned by Freeport-McMoRan, still functions as a company town. Average wages are around $90,000; rent is $350 for a 3-bedroom house; there's a pool, daycare, and no crime — because committing a crime means immediate eviction. The trade-off is total dependency: retire, and you're out. Chris draws parallels to medieval serfdom and notes that the psychological cost of losing not just your home but your entire social world upon retirement makes the arrangement more complex than it first appears.
Baghdad, Arizona is a fully functioning modern company town where copper giant Freeport-McMoRan owns all the real estate. Average wages hit $90K, rent is $350 for a 3-bedroom. But if you get fired or retire, you're out. The trade-off between security and autonomy has never been so stark.
In Baghdad, Arizona — a modern copper-mining company town owned by Freeport-McMoRan — the average wage was approximately $90,000, with rent at only $350 for a 3-bedroom home.
