There's an article in today's Wall Street Journal about the financially troubled ship The World, essentially a posh gated community at sea where you can buy a $2 million apartment aboard a luxury cruise ship and just, well, live there for the rest of your life. The ship's web site is pretty intoxicating:

Take your favorite home and place it on a private yacht. Then sail to the most exotic places on earth. Take all your favorite stores and restaurants, and locate them within 300 feet of your front door. Add a staff of 300, daily maid service, a dry-cleaning service that picks up and delivers, good friends, adventure and 24-hour room service. Now, you get a feel for what life is like on The World.

As the site puts it, "Join or leave The World at any port you please, at any point along her continuing circumnavigation. Stay onboard for a month…three months…a year…or an entire lifetime." Unfortunately, things aren't quite as rosy as they seem. Residents were particularly annoyed by the fact that the ship's owners, desperate to make ends meet, began inviting unwashed tourists aboard for $300 dollars a day, which was "as if a Rolls-Royce had morphed into a taxicab." In the end, the residents bought out the owners of the ship, and are currently attempting to rent more apartments to a higher class of clientele.

Studio residences with verandas start at $850,000, which, frankly, isn't a bad deal, when you consider that you're also buying designer furniture, a maid service, lifetime health club membership, a nonstop vacation, and daily meals for two, forever, not to mention all kinds of upper class intrigue and incestuousness, I imagine. It's a tempting investment. When the revolution comes, and the capitals of the world are burning, this little ship might end up being the last stand of the bourgeoise. (Now there's an idea for a novel...)