Eris Burped

What’s this?  Anarchy kinda works?  Whoda thunk?

It seems that despite droughts, poverty, and the lack of any recognizable government, the Somalis have actually done pretty well for themselves.  Better, in some ways, than their neighbors.  It’s not utopia, not by a long shot;  but the lack of any State to speak of for over ten years hasn’t resulted in the abject disaster many would predict.  Things are getting better, not worse.  And – surprise, surprise – wherever government has tried to make a reappearance, things have gone downhill.

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7 Comments

  1. hmm.. not so sure about those conclusions..

    I don’t think the article actually paints a picture of “somalis doing well for themselves..” but rather, without a real government, Somalis did not all end up dead–but rather only illiterate, with less clean drinking water, and with a standard of living half that of their next door neighbors…
    Oh.. but they do have more telephones than other Africans…

    Of course, something that needs to be here is the state of affairs that existed in somalia before the government collapsed–both by itself and comparisons to other African countries… Without this information, it is hard to tell whether the Somalis are doing “well” in any sense… maybe they are doing better now than with a repressive marxist regime–or maybe much worse…

    1. Re: hmm.. not so sure about those conclusions..

      There were several examples of improvement over how they were doing before in that article. As a matter of fact, most of the successes cited were as compared to their previous standard of living.

      Where do you get that they have less clean drinking water than their neighbors? Lack of drinkable water was an endemic problem in Africa, last I heard. I’m not disputing that there’s a serious problem; but is it really worse than any other dirt-poor African nation? Or worse than it was when they had a government?

      1. Re: hmm.. not so sure about those conclusions..

        A couple of things…

        1. From what I got.. the improvement was never really compared to any other point than from 1991–which was at the end of a bunch of civil war.. We didn’t really have a standard from before the war–like in the early 80’s…
        This would be important..

        2. As for the drinking water–look at the little chart thingy that was in that report.. only 21% of somalis had access to clean water, whereas the African averate was 59% and that of their neighbors was 60%.. This is a substantial problem–and it was outlined pretty clearly in the report–which basically stated that private control of water had actually exacerbated the problem–because in droughts water prices went so high that the poor couldn’t afford it at all–and that nothing, not even market forces, had managed to get private water firms to purify their water–thus decreasing the quantities of unsafe water..

        Thus.. Yes.. Somalia was actually worse than the other Dirt-Poor African nations… Whether it was worse than it was under the repressive dictatorship that we supported before the end of the cold war is unclear from the report.. (that’s why I wanted more data…)

        1. oops… and a few other points..

          That should be “decreasing the quantities of safe water..” in point 2…

          also.. note some of the dates on the chart.. The closer you get to 2002, the worse it gets…

          While in 1998–the percentage of somalis living under $1/day was actually less than the african average,–which would imply a per capita household income of AT LEAST $365/year–by 2002, the average per capita income in Somalia was only $226 compared to an average of $501 in west africa and $438 for Somalia’s neighbors…

          This does not seem to imply that things are getting better…

        2. Re: hmm.. not so sure about those conclusions..

          I confess that, typically for me, I didn’t even see the accompanying charts. There’s one innaccuracy in your statement though:

          because in droughts water prices went so high that the poor couldn’t afford it at all

          That’s actually the opposite of what the article said, which was: “Traditionally, destitute families have not had to pay for water, while the slightly better-off borrow funds from relatives”.

    2. Re: hmm.. not so sure about those conclusions..

      Regardless “not all dead” would qualify as a shocking success to most of the skeptics of anarchism I know (e.g. pretty much everyone I know). The conventional wisdom seems to equate anarchy with a disastrous unraveling of the social fabric, in which entropy reigns supreme. The simple fact that some spontaneous order appears be emerging is completely counter to that point of view.

      1. Re: hmm.. not so sure about those conclusions..

        I hope you don’t count me amongst those skeptics…

        Although I am a skeptic of anarchy.. what I think will happen is pretty much what we see in Somalia–i.e. Anarchy–when it isn’t in the form of all out war (which is only a subset in the Venn diagram of anarchic states of affairs)–basically leads to a situation where the powerful can fuck over the poor and there is very little that the poor can do about this…

        Also–as the report notes–despite some “tentative successes”–when it came to things like basic infrastructure–water, roads, etc–anarchy with private industry doesn’t help in the slightest–without the ability to control/make a clear profit off of such things–corporations have no incentive to give a shit…

        Basically… It’s not that anarchy is the opposite of good–but rather, that I think it is a far less efficient system for producing well-being in humans… i.e. when it comes to increasing the well-being to the greatest extent for the greatest number of people using the least amount of resources (relatively) for this job–it pales in comparison to other systems… not the worst, mind you, but far from the best..

        My Inner TA, in other words, gives it a “D”…

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