Friday, January 27, 2012

Somalia's lack of government

Somalia is the only country in the world with no government. Only utter chaos exists within the country, as it is divided into a number of separate regions, whose leaders sometimes conflict over territory. Which economic system does Somalia follow? The rare fact that there is no government cancels out a majority of possibilities. Traditional, command, market, and mixed systems all have some form of leadership or government. However, a market system has no government interruption, Somalia is under no leadership, and so a pure market system is followed. A market system can be good because individuals can produce what they want to, however they want to, and for whoever. Disadvantages are that the weak aren’t protected, there aren’t enough public services for retirement, and one doesn’t know whether their product will be popular or not. However, in this situation, disadvantages are a little more extreme, as interests lead to guns and other weaponry. It is not really about producing what one wants and selling it for profit. The leader of each region is looking for power over other regions, and looking for money through stealing, even kidnapping, as piracy is rampant in the country. One can forget about the weak, as a large majority of Somalis are poverty-stricken. A market economy has no government interruption. Somalia’s pure free market system has no government interruption because there is no government in the first place. A market economy that has leadership in place will not end up in anarchy, because although there is no government interruption in the economy, there are still laws that prevent crime. Somalia lacks even this basic necessity, and is literally lawless. Pure market systems do have their pluses and minuses, but the pluses can only come to fruition if there is some kind of order established. Market economy is literally defined to doing whatever you want to, and that can be highly destructive without some kind of superior power in place. Previous Somali leadership was definitely not the best, but was still exponentially better than the current situation. Until Somalia gets some kind of government established, clans will continue fighting each other, kidnappings will continue to occur, and the country will carry on going in the same direction of helplessness that they have been stuck in for the last two decades.

2 comments:

Smith said...

Would you even classify Somalia as a type of economic system or would you call it chaos? I agree that it is falling under a “pure market system” but it could easily fall into the command system if a warlord takes power over the entire country.

Aditya said...

Valid point. It could fall under a command system if one warlord took over the whole country, however, it seems hat each warlord is equal in strength, and will merely engage in constant battle and get nowhere.
If you think about it, the pure free market system in it's most extreme form litrally is chaos. There is no government to regulate what people do, and so people go on doing what they want, taking what they want, stealing, murdering, kidnapping.