decentralization

Secession, Small States, and Decentralization: A Rejoinder to Dr. Ayittey

Brandon Christensen Current Events, History , , , , , , , , ,

Dr Ayittey has kindly responded to my rebuttal.

You can’t mix secession with decentralization of power; oranges and apples. Your statements that “Smaller states would be much better for Africa than the large ones in place” and “The more “Little Djiboutis” there are, the better” are ridiculous. At a time when small countries are coming together to form larger economic blocs – EU, AU, ASEAN, Mercosur, etc. – you recommend going in the other direction: The creation of more little states that are not economically viable. Would you recommend the break-up of the US into 50 little states? Check your own history.

The original US Constitution was inspired by the Iroquois Confederacy. Under that Constitution, the South elected to secede, which led to the Civil War (1861-1865). Why didn’t the US allow the South to secede? It would have led to GREATER decentralization of power.

Now, I want to let everybody know that this exchange is happening over Twitter, so be sure to take Dr. Ayittey’s response in stride and in context.

First up are his first and last statements: Continue reading →

African Political Structures: A Debate

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty , , , , , , , , , ,

I just hooked a big fish on the end of my line when I tweeted about my support for secession of Azawad to Dr. George Ayittey, an economist at American University and one of Africa’s leading lights of classical liberalism.  I have a talent for ribbing people in just the right place at just the right time, and the following response I got from Dr. Ayittey confirms my magnificent talent (some may disagree with the label ‘talent’, but I digress).

In response to my support for Azawad, Dr. Ayittey tweeted the following: Continue reading →

Mali: Let It Collapse, Duh! Part 2

Brandon Christensen Current Events, Liberty, Links, Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I just came across an article in the New York Times via Bill Easterly, and it is very discouraging. The article is, of course, about the aspirations of Azawad, the breakaway region of Mali that just declared its independence. The article outlines the slim-to-none chances Azawad has of breaking free from the shackles of colonial legacy and African despotism:

“[…] there is little likelihood that anyone will defeat the Tuaregs on the battlefield anytime soon.

Still, they face slim odds of establishing a nation. Just ask Ahmed Abdi Habsade, a government minister in Africa’s other unrecognized state, Somaliland. ‘We have many problems,’ Mr. Habsade said in a telephone interview from Somaliland’s capital, Hargeysa. ‘The country cannot get donations from the U.N. or other governments. We are not having a budget to develop our country.’

Somaliland, which sits in the northwestern corner of Somalia, has been a de-facto independent nation for the better part of two decades, and an oasis of calm in the chaos that has swept up Somalia. Its claims to independence date from the colonial era, when it was a British protectorate while Somalia was controlled by Italy. The two states merged after independence, but the Somalilanders had almost immediate regrets, and have been trying to break free ever since.

Somaliland has had successes, including holding peaceful elections, yet it has struggled without an international stamp of Continue reading →

Mali: Let It Collapse, Duh!

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , , , ,

Mali is a landlocked state created by imperialist France in the late 19th century. Due to the Western intervention in Libya, in which NATO bombed the brutal dictator Moammar Ghaddafi out of power, a large wave of unrest has reached the Saharan states of Mali, Chad, and Niger.

Recently, a coup overthrew the democratically elected head of the Malian state, and an insurgency in the north just declared its independence from Bamako. This is a good thing, and I will get to why this event is a good thing, but first I want to lament the way in which the West is handling this secession. The West seems intent on keeping its creation alive and propped up, regardless of the incessant pulls away from these structures that post-colonial states often face. I have criticized this aspect of Western foreign policy before, in regards to Somalia, Nigeria, and Libya, but it appears that the West is much more open to the idea of its creations falling apart than it used to be. Indeed, the Daily Star, a Lebanese daily newspaper, reports: Continue reading →

Some Great Links From Around the Web

Brandon Christensen Economics, Links , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

A fascinating blog post on Indian domestic politics and foreign policy by a Ph.D. student living in New Delhi and studying at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

Alex Warren, a journalist with extensive experience in the Middle East, writes about Libya’s decentralization.

“The Current Models Have Nothing to Say.” That is economist Robert Higgs’s analysis of modern, orthodox economics.

Might regionalism help solve Central America’s woes?  Be sure to check out the rest of the blog, by Seth Kaplan, too.

Conor Friedersdorf of the Atlantic has a penetrating look at the logic of a drug warrior (h/t Brian Aitken)

Co-editor Fred Foldvary, writing in the Progress Report, explains that value is subjective.  This is an important concept when it comes to understanding economics.

Some Musings on China: Why We Need Not Fear Beijing

Brandon Christensen History, Politics , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The recent ouster of Bo Xilai from the Communist Party can provide an interesting glimpse into the political mechanisms of the Chinese state. The fact that Mr. Bo was dismissed for “corruption” charges means that he was probably doing something right, or that he was too sloppy with his privileges and embarrassed the wrong people. We all know that socialism, in all its forms, leads to benefits for the few at the expense of the many (remember the bailouts of Western financial institutions?), but Mr. Bo’s ouster deserves a closer look, because he was a fairly prominent politician, and was actually slated as a possible successor to Hu Jintao, the Communist party’s current boss.

What I want to focus on is the fact that Mr. Bo was ousted at all. This move means that Beijing is becoming increasingly responsive to the demands of its citizens. Indeed, as China continues to liberalize its markets, democratic initiatives, whether real or appeasing, will continue to bubble up throughout the fascist state. This is because democracy is the natural political order that arises out of market-based institutions (private property, international trade, etc.). The world will have to be careful with China’s democratic transition though. Democracy is not a good thing in itself, especially democracy that is based upon an allegiance to a state. I am thinking of France in the 19th century and Germany in the 20th, although the democracies that sprung up during the post-colonial revolutions can also be good examples.

The main ideas behind the post-colonial revolutions were state sovereignty and democracy – not liberty – and the results, I think, speak for themselves. Continue reading →

Hillary Clinton on Somalia: More of the Same

Brandon Christensen Current Events , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hillary Clinton has recently called for more effort on the part of the West in the War on Terror’s Horn of Africa region by issuing threats of sanctions and more military troops in the region recently (ht John Glaser).

The threats of sanction, which libertarians consider an act of war, have been issued to states who don’t cooperate with the West in their efforts to eradicate al Shabaab, an Islamic group linked to al Qaeda that controls much of the southern territory of Somalia and, until recently, sections of Mogadishu as well.

The underlying argument put forth by the West is that the Somali state itself, a creation of the West, needs to be upheld and maintained by an inclusive, democratic regime in order for stability, prosperity and an end to terrorist activities to take place in the Horn of Africa.

This is tactic is incredibly wrong, and instead of accomplishing the West’s stated aims, actually contributes to its continued failure. Continue reading →

Cannibalism and the Imperial Urge

Brandon Christensen History, Liberty , , , , , , ,

I am writing this from my phone during lecture, so if my grammar or my tone seems hasty, you have been warned! (Update: I found a computer to sit down at and write)

The lecture I am enjoying at this very moment has to do with the readings I was assigned over the holiday weekend, and I am a careful reader so I am not too worried about missing out on a key insight. What I would like to do is hearken back the early 15th century and the time of the Spanish attempt to conquer the major polity of the Mexico Valley: the Triple Alliance aka the Aztecs (I don’t want to get in to the specifics of why I think that the term Aztec sucks, but I will just quickly note that it sucks and has been an extremely detrimental title to the memes associated with pre-Columbian New World polities).

One of the major justifications for the Conquest was the need to rid the New World of cannibalism, which all nations practiced in the New World. The extent of this practice varied from nation to nation, of course. The Triple Alliance was perhaps the worst of the worst in this regard.  The people of the Inca Empire did not indulge very often, and the decentralized polities associated with much of the New World rarely had the elaborate practices associated with the Triple Alliance (the Mayans are an exception to this, but at the time of the Spanish arrival, the Mayans were extremely decentralized, and thus much, much harder to conquer, but that is another blog subject for another day).

Cannibalism in the New World was largely associated with war and the State, and the elaborate ceremonies of human sacrifices practiced by the priests of the Triple Alliance were loathed as much as they were feared.  So when the Spanish arrived upon the continent of the New World, cannibalism was widely being practiced not only by a not-yet-known-but-definitely-heard-about Triple Alliance, but also by the neighboring peoples of the Triple Alliance.

Now, to be fair to the Spanish (and Europeans in general), the practice of cannibalism had largely disappeared from their culture, and from the cultures surrounding European society (think of the Turks and the Barbary polities; do you think Islam permits the eating of human flesh?), so when the Spanish saw this practice they were rightly horrified as well as disgusted.

Yet, was cannibalism itself a justification for the inevitable slaughter and slavery that was to be the Indians’ lot? Continue reading →