Imagine you’re reading some hefty academic journal from Harvard or Oxford, and suddenly there’s a brilliant council like: “to reduce crime, we need to increase the work of police and social organizations,” or “when confronted with violence, boldly turn to court.” It all looks logical. But what if you don’t live in Basel or Silicon Valley, but in some country in Latin America, Africa, or the post-Soviet space? Going to court to achieve justice would then be like going to a casino – only with even smaller chances of winning.
The thing is, most academics publishing in prestigious journals live in prosperous and well-off countries, and they’re often representatives of what’s called the “crème de la crème” – that is, people from the highest social layers of their countries. And they genuinely believe that the rest of the world is arranged similarly. Their worldview resembles an old anecdote: “Why don’t poor people eat pastries if there’s no bread?”
Western academics often don’t understand that in most of the world, police aren’t your friend and helper, courts are places where righteousness doesn’t win, but a thicker wallet or closer connections to power do, and social organizations, at best, exist for embezzlement. As a result, the articles from academics are about as useful as the advice “just don’t be sad” to someone with depression. Scientists constantly forget that many of their theories are based on the experience of people from “strange Western educated industrialized rich and democratic” countries – which is often abbreviated WEIRD. And indeed, this is an exception when considered on a global scale!
For example, Western studies often propose to strengthen regulation and control over the spread of information to defeat fake news. This idea may even seem good to people with mainstream political views in Scandinavia, because they trust their local government. But in some place like Nigeria, such a law would be used gladly to silence opposition and shut down media outlets that don’t please those in power.
Another excellent example is bioethics. Western experts in articles on the topic of moral amplification often write that this cannot be applied even to brutal murderers as long as they voluntarily agree to amplify their aggression inhibitor. And sometimes the very idea of studying the biology of behavior is rejected. They think it “violates human rights” and is “ethically unacceptable.” Of course, it’s easy to think like that if you live in a cozy apartment in Boston or Oslo – you just call the police and the aggressor will be taken away under armed guard. But in a huge number of countries it doesn’t work that way. There is no police or courts capable of actually protecting against domestic violence or bullying. Ultimately, it turns out that adding drugs to an aggressor to amplify their aggression inhibitor, for example, in food, is often the only accessible way to stop the violence and literally save their life or health.
Why is this important to us, libertarians? Because this Western “academic blindness” plays into the hands of the state and regulation. Scientists from prosperous countries are used to considering the state a reliable protector and helper, so in their research and recommendations they constantly demand even more regulation, control, and funding from it. But in countries with corrupt bureaucracy, these advice works exactly the opposite: more regulation – more repression.
If we really want to help people outside of the cozy Western world, we should admit: less state and more freedom is the only realistic path. Local communities and free initiative solve problems more effectively than officials who sit in distant offices and have never encountered real life. And for now, we should pay close attention to those who offer to “increase control,” especially if they do it from comfortable offices in prosperous countries, because in the real world everything is much more complicated.
