Post Hurricane Sandy: Signs of Spontaneous Order in New York City

Observes Jaltcoh (hat tip Econolog’s Professor David Henderson)

The traffic in the blackout areas of Manhattan is lawless in the most literal sense: the traffic lights aren't working, so the law cannot be applied as usual. But "lawless" doesn't seem to be a fitting description; the driving seems better-behaved than usual. We're so used to seeing people act under a system of government rules that it's easy to assume that without the rules, everything would descend into chaos. But perhaps free people are generally capable of acting decently on their own. Of course, that's never going to be universal; but then, people break the law too. In fact, a dense set of rules tempts people to see how close to (or how far across) the borderline of legality they can go without being penalized. In the absence of governmental laws, people might focus more on other kinds of laws: social norms and ethics.

Contra Hobbes, these serve as anecdotal evidence that people are hardly endemically nihilistic.

Video: Ron Paul on Iran: Our Policy Actually Do The Opposite Of What We Intend Them To Do

The common view is that meddling with the political economy of other nations has neutral effects to the nation which is being interfered with. And that they further think that whatever evil or criminal or militant behavior seen represents as internally driven dynamics.

This view misreads or downplays or ignores the causal influences of foreign interventions.

Ron Paul addresses this popular error here on the Iran issue.

[2:15] [bold emphasis added]

You know they are a very week nation, they are responding in a natural way. But they don’t want trouble because they can be annihilated in about 40 minutes. You know even by Israel or the United States, this idea that they are looking for a fight I think that they are a concoction of the West to prepare people for a war that is likely to come when there is a policy like this. I think it makes a perfect argument for my non-intervention foreign policy that we shouldn’t be engaged in stirring up trouble, and all these things we try to do to get rid of the regime in Iran right now actually plays into their hands because once we interfere to put on sanctions this brings the Iran people together.

They are having an election in a few months, Ahmadinejad is not strong politically, but when we interfere as an outsider, those dissidents who are struggling to get control of their country and their government and have a more sensible government, we have to drive them into the arms of the government. Just as we were brought together after 9-11, we were no dissenters, we all came together, they were republicans and democrats, we have to try to understand how our policy actually do the opposite of what we intend them to do.

When we impose restrictions or culture/religion or anything else to foreigners who resist, then the expected outcome would be conflict or trouble.