StatistFallacies/Somalia

Fallacy:

"Why don't you go to the libertarian paradise of Somalia?"

Response:

"Somalia" is almost the Godwin of anti-libertarian arguments. It indicates a poor understanding of, well, everything—libertarianism, anarchy, and Somalia.

Kevin Carson addresses most of the issues in Somalia—Is That Really All You Got?

The major problems with claims that Somalia is a "libertarian utopia" is that it's actually a failed third-world state. Government or no, it's not going to magically acquire the resources, education, and technology to become a first-world nation; and those of us in first-world nations like the technology that even a semi-free market can produce. Nor will its citizens necessarily be ready for freedom and individual responsibility; much like the fizzled "Arab spring", they may instead cry for a new (religious) dictator. Second, the fallout of a failed state doesn't mean a peaceful voluntaryist nation. In fact, new distributed states—warlords—sprang up quickly, hardly libertarian followers of the NonAggressionPrinciple. There is definitely variance across the nation, and apparently more freedom outside the larger cities (Mogadishu).

Somalia also does not protect property rights, which is what libertarians and right-anarchists demand of a society to be considered liberty-oriented to begin with.

But it's interesting that measurably, even with those problems, Somalia is in some ways better off then when it had a centralized state: see videos True News 18: Somalia and True News 19: Somalia part 2 and paper Better Off Stateless. For example (from Anarchy in Somalia, although it is more of a distributed state with some anarchic regions):

(DBR)