More on Socialism and Libertarianism

A few days ago I wrote a post about government that I thought was moderately decent. An online buddy, Jon Robinson, pointed me to the following article that I consider to be most excellent.

[ Libertarianism and Cultural Differences ]

Here’s an excerpt:

Whatever the cultural conditions and preferences of a people, no matter how strong the tendency toward conquest and graft, regardless of whether contract and fairness are respected or not, there is nothing the state can do to improve the situation.

A society might be warlike and poor without the state; that is true. It might be brutal and impoverished. But imposing a state on that society will only exacerbate its worst tendencies and crowd out its best tendencies.

The state offers no benefit to any society under any cultural conditions anywhere in the world. The state institutionalizes and entrenches bad things and forestalls the emergence of good things. Thus the focus on the state in libertarian doctrine.

I’m not sure I agree with this, but I like where it’s taking me.

Definitely check out the comments, but be warned: they’ll require Wikipedia.

[ Libertarianism and Cultural Differences ]