Re: Weaving the Strands: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 2.0
I'd be willing to move to Scandinavia or pretty much any other western European country if I knew there was a similar job for me over there and barring any other logistical hurdles. I'm happy where I am, but I'd be equally happy there.
Is there a libertarian paradise for which you could make a similar claim?
The plan was, under our federal system, you wouldn't
need to leave the US to escape an intrusive and over-bearing federal government.
Ideally, the 10[SUP]th[/SUP] Amendment granted to the states the primary authority to regulate our daily lives (the constitution in theory forbids the federal government from regulating people, which power the states have; the federal government is only supposed to be involved managing interstate activity).
So, if you want to live in a place with lots of state regulations and lots of state-sponsored social welfare programs, you could move to CA or NY or CT; and if you wanted to live in a state that did a good job in providing basic services, where you had the people themselves running the social welfare programs and the people themselves had enough maturity to comport themselves like responsible civic-minded adults, you could move to Wyoming.
There is a huge gaping logical hole in progressive thinking, which (erroneously) assumes that if the government doesn't do it, it doesn't get done. There are situations in which such an assumption may very well be warranted, I do agree (see last paragraph). However, making that blanket assumption to apply to everyone everywhere quickly becomes problematic, because you are forcing one person's idea of right and wrong onto everyone else, whether they agree or not. The more they disagree, the more forcefullly you try to compel them. Now, is that any way to persuade people you are right? or do you breed additional resentment that way?
Yet in Wyoming there are lots of poor people, yet few go wanting, because the people band together on their own initiative to take care of each other voluntarily. There are good schools, good libraries, the roads are well taken care of, the police, fire fighters, and court system all do their jobs well. You get as good or better social services but don't pay taxes to finance them, and the money not taken in taxes is voluntarily shared. People who have a little left over willingly share that with those people in times of duress, no one has to force them.
I remember once, sitting in a local watering hole there, listening to some long-time residents talking. "Do you remember the murder?" -- yeah, when was that, anyway, 1983?
If you are driving and notice someone coming up behind you, you just pull over, let them through, then continue on your way. You figure they have their reasons and who are you to second-guess them? the exact opposite driving behavior dominates in the east: "oh, he's going to tailgate me, eh? I'll show him by refusing to let him pass!"
It seems to me that the core element here is how much in-migration you have.
Wyoming was a pretty settled place; people knew each other from years of association together. Newcomers arrived in small batches over time and assimilated to the local culture. In NY or CA, lots of people would arrive all together, you couldn't rely so much on a stable and settled local culture to absorb them all at once, and so more government involvement was necessary, not because it was somehow "right" or "more noble" but merely because you needed an impartial arbiter to standardize the situation among a group of strangers to each other.
