Market v. Government: Real v. Real

Peter Leeson argues, on the evidence, that Somalia is better off under anarchy than it was under government (link). Max Sawicky is—actually, I’m not quite sure what he is, but I guess he is not impressed (link). But I think Sawicky may be too defensive. Fact is Leeson, who bears the clangorous title of “Professor of the Study of Capitalism at the Mercatus Center,” has made a critical tactical concession—he has (implicitly) acknowledged that the superiority of the market is actually a testable hypothesis—not just an article of faith.

At any Mercatus Center worthy of the name, this ought to be enough to get him drummed out of the faculty lunch room. The customary market-libertarian approach is to compare actual governments with hypothetical markets in which case, inevitably, markets win—this is the market-libertarian analog to “under socialism vy all have egg in our beer!”

To prove that the actual, living government of a real nation, is so bad that not even a market economy can be worse—that’s an interesting proposition, if not perhaps exactly what Professor Leeson believes it to be. To argue that government is a cultural artifact and that a market is a cultural artifact—and that it is rational to compare real with real—now that strikes me as a blazing re-entry into the world of reason and good sense.

Of course, it may be that pigs will fly before Professor Leeson ever comes up with a set of data that actually contradicts his hypothesis, but this would hardly distinguish him from a lot of other economics, many of whose lives must be greyed by the lack of surprise in their results.

I look forward to his paper demonstrating that we will be better off when we abolish West Point and supplant it with citizen militias.

Idle afterthought: When Professor Leeson attends a faculty meeting, is he packin’ heat?

Inquisitive Afterthought: I wonder--and this time, I'm not even being sarcastic, or not really--how Professor Leeson would apply this lesson to Iraq? Should we get out now so the country will fall apart and everyone will be better off?