I’d imagine anybody online, and of the political nature, has run across the claim that Somalia is the Libertarian Paradise of the world. Well, no, it isn’t. The place is run by warlords, or religious groups, and what have you. It’s a mess. They don’t have a functional government, not even by Libertarian standards.
What got me thinking about this is I went though Ron Paul’s book End The Fed which got me to finally reading some stuff from Ludwig von Mises. Somewhere in the book he starts calling the Swiss monetary system “bad” (by our government’s standards, not his) because they have incredibly low inflation and that’s not what governments really want. So I went to digging around Wikipedia while I put my daughter to bed tonight on my phone.
Yep, the Swiss Franc was the last currency to get off the gold standard. Their inflation rate is something like 0.7% a year right now, and that’s after they dumped gold and threatened the EU with buying “unlimited” numbers of Euros to keep themselves tracking with their currency.
Now, I’m not a Big-L Libertarian, I’m a libertarian minded yahoo. There’s a difference. At a glance here’s Switzerland from my perspective:
- Low corporate tax rate
- Nearly every home has an assault rifle in it, with a good shooting culture to go along with all that
- Sound money policy (hardly any inflation)
- Mandatory health insurance
Works for me. Why aren’t we trying to mirror those folks?
There are plenty of people looking to install a culture of marksmanship, low corporate taxes and a sound monetary policy.
There are also plenty of people whose lust for control prohibits them from advocating for sane policies. Why “they” (not “we”) are incapable of advocating for freedom must have to do with defective parenting IMO.
Forced health care is common to a great many lousy countries. I wouldn’t presume it to be a factor in Swiss prosperity although I am willing to consider the possibility. I would rather presume that due to other factors (such as a low corporate tax rate and a government that serves the people instead of ruling the people by and large) that the Swiss manage to overcome or ignore a socialized medical system much like the US manages to have a better health care system in spite of 50% of payments coming from the government and likely 20%+ coming from insurance companies.