one of the articles of faith of my libertarian friends is that capitalism is the natural state of a human being and that the only thing that stops it is government regulation.
yet iraq has had a barely functioning government for a little while, so why are they facing runaway inflation and not prosperity? somalia has not had a functioning government for more than a decade. so shouldn't it be a shiny high-tech paradise by now and not one of the poorest countries in the world? there are plenty more examples; the governments of haiti and afghanistan barely control much of their hinterlands. in many third world cities, the government has basically withdrawn from the slums. so why aren't we all clamoring to move to korogocho or other juicy tax and regulation-free places?
