Anarchy, actually

Sandeep

“…for many LDCs with these limited options anarchy may very well be the best feasible choice.”

From Peter T. Leeson’s excellent Cato Unbound article. I think we would live in a much better world if the industrialized nations hadn’t drawn states into Africa and Asia after WWII.

The Highest Degree of Disorder

Sandeep
From the LA Times, “Illegal Immigrant crackdown looms”:

In the coming days, the Department of Homeland Security is expected to issue a rule outlining how businesses must respond when they receive notice that there are discrepancies in a worker’s tax records. Many businesses simply ignore such notices now. Under the new rules, employees would have a limited time to contact the Social Security Administration to correct the information, or face termination. The rule would transfer more responsibility for enforcement to companies — part of a Homeland Security effort to break through the complacency that some officials say the corporate world has about illegal workers. The initiative follows warnings by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff that his department would toughen enforcement if efforts to overhaul the flawed immigration system failed.

Michael Chertoff is, naturally, a man of system. He believes he can arrange the several parts of a dynamic society with the same rational, determined method as one designs movement of chess pieces. To himself he appears brave and honorable, willingly shouldering the great burden of relieving us of the illegal menace. In actuality, Chertoff is neither brave nor honorable, but rather, a greater menace than what could ever be dreamed up by people living and working in peace, regardless of their belonging to a particular government.

The very existence of an immigration “system” is a flaw, as is its reform apart from nullification. Society has evolved in such a manner that the decision to hire a worker leaves little room for a consideration of her bondage to a state. The game of human society will be successful when politicians and statesmen understand that attempting to impress upon humans legislation that is thoroughly irreconcilable with evolved norms will always lead to the highest degree of disorder.