[ExI] are all cultures equivalent?

[Stathis Papaioannou]

2009/4/13 Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>:

> ### There has not been a case in history where a nation would become
> wealthy and powerful during peacetime by following anything else but
> the freest market economic path possible under the circumstances.

I don't understand what "freest possible under the circumstances"
means here. Surely the successful countries, even if mostly
capitalist, could have been a little *more* free, and hence be even
more successful. For example, Belgium could stop public health
spending and substantially lower taxes, giving it an advantage over
the Netherlands; then the Dutch, seeing their neighbours prosper,
would do likewise and even more, by shutting down loss-making public
transport systems; whereupon the Belgians would, in a wave of public
euphoria at their ever-increasing prosperity, eliminate all public
spending on schools, saving themselves even more money and also
ridding themselves of a possible source of statist propaganda in the
guise of "education". Of course, people are stupid and gullible and
would resist this at first, but once they saw their neighbours
prospering they would have no choice but to follow or be left behind.
Why isn't it happening? After all, communism fell in Eastern Europe
ultimately because the population could see they were being left
behind, and the barriers to change there were far greater than those
in the West.


-- 
Stathis Papaioannou