Editor’s Pick. Written by Max Borders and Jeffrey Tucker.
State management of society is not only contrary to human liberty; it is also unworkable. It cannot achieve what it seeks to achieve, which is often all-round control of some sector of economic and social life. The attempt provokes a social backlash. People find loopholes and workarounds or just invent new ways to make progress possible. This is because people will not be caged. They struggle to be free and sometimes they succeed.
Over the last century-plus, the Leviathan State has gained the upper hand, sometimes through big periods of upheaval but mostly through a million daily nicks and cuts. What if this process is being reversed in our time? What if the apparatus of control is being undermined with a million acts of entrepreneurship that evade the State’s attempt to plan and command? There is a fundamental asymmetry between the structure of government and the structure of a networked people.
