|
I think an essential reason why people believe in the need for government is to guarantee certain liberties and rights. I know I've argued for this in the past -- recently, actually. But from what I know about China, that may not be necessary or optimal. As we all know, the improvement in China is rapid to an unprecedented degree, but something we don't talk about is that this improvement has nothing to do with the Chinese state guaranteeing liberties. The government has simply loosened some of its authoritarian controls and opened aspects of commerce. This has created a nation where liberties as well as economic status of the people are improving. It's all non-coercion as well. All the factory workers that we hear about on the news are doing so by choice, because their only other options are even poorer lives in the countryside. I think the news about this we get in the West tends to focus exclusively on circumstances that have no greater significance than average. What I mean is that when the suicide rate is a certain percentage, you can't claim a particular circumstance leads somebody to suicide when that circumstance doesn't have a statistically significant suicide rate. As far as I know, no reports have shown any statistical significance with regards to Chinese factory worker suicide rates, yet when it happens, we hear about it and the media declares causality
My overarching point is that it appears markets improve "inherent" liberties without state involvement. If this is true, it's probably one of the last straws for me personally, as my main support for the state is to guarantee certain rights. My other main objection to a stateless society would begin to crumble if I could construct a sound theory for how the free markets could account for all areas that need welfare like disability and old age. But I have yet to see the anti-regulation types I look up to figure out a way for the markets to deal with outliers like that
|