Somalia is supposedly the only current example of anarchism in the world, so why is it still a fourth-world country even without any government hindering it?
Several decades of destructive Marxist dictatorship followed by a civil war caused by the international community's insistence that a new government be formed and no tribe wishing to be ruled over by another. Then, after the civil war ended with a stalemate of anarchy, we've seen years of imperialist military interventions which have systematically destroyed any chances for stability in Somalia. To defend against this, and the continual threat of a new government being instituted, Somalis have had to invest in significant security forces ("warlords" if you will), putting an additional restraint on investment and progress.
Yet, in spite of all this, Somalia has been positively improving in standard of living, and is doing better than many African nations which have suffered far fewer external assaults. It is the absolute miracle of the marketplace that the Somali people have survived through this much adversity and still come out stronger.
The free market is not an instant creation of paradise. It does not make the sky rain down amenities, it does not make roasted fowl fly onto the plates of the people, it does not instantly put a roof over everyone's head and a car in every driveway. What it does is allocate resources to their most efficient uses and put a society on the path to prosperity, no matter what their starting conditions.
So, if the United States and the United Nations stopped interfering in Somalia, do you think that they would start to see economic progress?
They've already seen economic progress. See here and here. If imperialist intervention was ended, and the Somalis knew it was not coming back, I would expect a decline in warlord activity and an even more rapid improvement of economic conditions.
Two friends of mine went to Somalia in 2002 and again in 2006. In 2002 they said that Mogadishu was impassable in many areas with tolls collected by militias in many checkpoints. The cost of going from one end of Mog to the other was more expensive than flying there.
In 2006 they went back and found a much more relaxed city with the militias agreeing to allow free passage of traffic on the roads that they controlled. There were roadblocks but they did not block anything. It was still not paradise by any means but Somalia was sorting itself out without government.
When the CIA bribed some warlords to fight the local muslim council there and the warlords lost...which lead to an Ethiopian invasion, then it went back to presumably worse chaos than it experienced in 2002.
Anarchy doesn't mean instant peace and prosperity, but in the case of Somalia it is clear that interventions by states tend to make life worse there than if there was no intervention at all.
But in his own words and not mine here is his story:
http://polosbastards.com/pb/somalia-back-in-club-mog/
Sean is a very interesting dinner guest as well.
http://www.comebackalive.com/phpBB2 Travel, Adventure Travel, Arguments, Recipes.
Just wondering, would Afghanistan from 1992-1996 be considered anarchy, or was that mislabeled by Wikipedia?
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