Quote of the Day: Failed and Failing States

Professor Michael S. Rozeff at the lewrockwell.com writes,

I like to use the ammunition provided by the statists themselves (or those who take states for granted) that discredits their own statism. For example, there is the "Failed States Index".

How many states are there in the world, and how many are failures or leaning toward failure, according to the people who devised this index? They assess 177 states. Of these, 124 are in the troubled categories (ALERT and WARNING). That's 70 percent! Here we have a great experiment at one point in time. We have 177 trials of the state as a way to organize, and we have 124 failed or failing or approaching failure. Among the Moderate and Sustainable categories (non-failed states) we have such wonderful states as Greece and Spain.

If instead we look at the performance of states across time, a century or two, we find huge and endemic failures almost everywhere we look in major countries: Russia, Japan, Germany, Italy, France, China, many eastern European countries, and even the United States (if we count, for example, the civil war as evidence of a gigantic failure). The U.S. has held together by force, not law. Is that what a non-failed state is supposed to mean? Many European states have failed time and again, as several world wars and hyperinflations demonstrate. Their current financial manipulations are new evidence of their failure, as are their high rates of unemployment.

70% of the world nations are considered as at the risk of becoming a ‘failed state’. That’s a great measure of political success.

Prof. Rozeff rightly points out that the today’s crisis affected EU nations have been categorized as moderate (non-failed states) which has not accurately reflect been on the failed state index (as this was based on 2011)

Yet, the increasingly dysfunctional political institutions of Greece would almost qualify her as a ‘failed state’.

As I recently wrote,

Instead, what a “failed state” means is that there is no standing government or that imposed government will mostly likely be ignored by society or what could be called “stateless society”.

I am not sure if Greece will technically become a failed state.

What is certain is that we are witnessing the accelerating collapse of a parasitical relationship anchored upon the spendthrift welfare and bureaucratic state.

Nonetheless this should be good news as Greece’s political economy would be compelled by nature to face economic realities; regardless of the outcome of today’s elections.

Oh by the way, despite all the cheering, drum beating and exaltation by media over the supposed political progress in the Philippines, the nation remains a candidate of becoming a failed state.

The Philippines has been ranked 51^st and classified as in “warning” conditions.

I’d say that the Philippines has more characteristics of a failed state: 40+% of the domestic economy are considered as informal. OFWs, whom has been labeled as heroes, are in reality symptoms government failure due to the lack of economic opportunities and depressed standards of living. Yet these combined forces which operates outside of government spectrum, has been delivering the real progress, but whose credit has been usurped by politicians and by mainstream media and institutions.

Yes, there have marginal improvements from 2010, but this could be seen on a relative perspective—perhaps more states have been performing far worst than the Philippines than the Philippines doing better.