I have been reading Fukuyama’s tome (“The Origins of Political Order”) this summer. I came across his criticism of the frequently heard libertarian sentiment of “Get government out of the way!” It’s quite thought-engaging: “Indeed, the kinds of minimal or no-government societies envisioned by dreamers of the Left and Right [in the U.S.] are not fantasies; they actually exist in the contemporary developing world. Many parts of sub-Saharan Africa are a libertarian’s paradise. The region as a whole is a low-tax utopia, with governments often unable to collect more than about 10% of GDP in taxes, compared to more than 30% in the United States and 50% in parts of Europe. Rather than unleashing entrepreneurship, this low rate of taxation means that basic public services like health, education, and pothole filling are starved of funding. The physical infrastructure on which a modern economy rests, like roads, court systems, and police, are missing. In Somalia, where a strong central government has not existed since the late 1980s, ordinary individuals may own not just assault rifles but also rocket-propelled grenades, anti-aircraft missiles, and tanks. People are free to protect their families, and indeed are forced to do so. Nigeria has a film industry that produces as many titles as India’s famed Bollywood, but films have to earn a quick return because government is incapable of guaranteeing intellectual property right and preventing products from being copied illegally… A market economy and high levels of wealth don’t magically appear when you “get government out of the way”; they rest on a hidden institutional foundation of property rights, rule of law, and basic political order.” -Francis Fukuyama, The Origins of Political Order: From Pre-Human Times to the French Revolution (pg. 13), FSG Press.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Jul 2013 04:13:19 +0000