"Eat the Rich" has always struck me as an odd slogan to use given that it was literally true in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge had a thing for murdering people and eating their livers.
It was not even true capitalism, but more of a anarchy/libertarian place, where anything goes... and in almost naively way people invested in things that didn't make sense...
I have 'libertarian' friends that just never lived in a true libertarian society. Albania was a libertarian/anarchic place, because coming out of Communism, the government was too inept to apply the laws... and it ended up becoming a 'anything goes' type of society.
Want to build in a place without a permit? Sure.. go ahead... roads, infrasturcutre be damned... want to open a TV station, go ahead. That other guy is using the samme frequenncy? Just by a bigger transmitter to drown out the competitionl..
Pirated moves on TV, all the time. Cinemas just couldn't functionn. Why pay for a movie, while the local TV is just showing it right now....
Things settled by 'strong men', where the biggest gangster usually wins.... for while, until the competition settles scores and he ends up killed.
The country is still suffering with the urban mess that period left... where things were built with no regard of urban development whatsoever.
Libertarism... just like Communnism, are naive ideas that ultimately don't work. They always end up with few people gaining power over everybody else (either the communist elite, or oligarcic rich)
I used to think it was primarily Objectivism that was giving libertarianism a bad name, but the older I get the less hope I have that a libertarian government can succeed at the core mission: protecting its people.
> Albania was a libertarian/anarchic place, because coming out of Communism, the government was too inept to apply the laws. Libertarism... just like Communnism, are naive ideas that ultimately don't work.
Libertarianism is not the same thing as anarchism or the total lack of government. It means a government that's restricted to enforcing natural rights and fairly resolving disputes via courts.
He described the primary means of law enforcement as blood feuds, which were “pyramid schemes of death.”
The chapter’s title is “Bad Capitalism.”