Kid Nation

This new reality show puts 40 kids, ages 8-15, in an abandoned New Mexico mining town for 40 days. With “no parents” and “no teachers” they have to build a town that works, electing a city council, assigning chores, and running a “kid economy” (trading by kids, not trading in kids).

It combines the lack of supervision of Lord of the Flies with the lawlessness of the Wild West with the tantalizing prospect that grade-schoolers might run a nation on sounder moral principals than career politicians.

Totally exploitative? We’re trying to figure that out. But congratulations to reality TV (again) for raising serious ethical questions like no other format.