In my latest reading of Barack Obama's Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance,
Barack Obama is still in Kenya. On pages 352-353, Obama talks about a
conversation he had with a man named Francis about taxes in Kenya. The
roads were dilapidated, and Kenyans didn't like to pay taxes because
they were reluctant to give their money to somebody else----due to trust
issues. Francis says that this is even true of well-off people whose
trucks use the roads: "They would rather have their equipment break down
than give up some of their profits."
This reminded me of the
controversy that Barack Obama's comments on small businesses set off:
Did entrepreneurs really build their small businesses, or should they be
grateful to the government for giving them the roads and the schools
that made their success possible? I had a discussion with a libertarian
friend recently, and he said that commerce actually came before roads
and allowed for there to be capital and funds for the roads to be
built. In his reasoning, businesses came before roads, and not vice
versa. My friend did acknowledge, however, that there is an upward
spiral----businesses result in roads, yet roads result in more
production and an increase in entrepreneurship.
I wonder, though,
about the well-off in Kenya who clung to their profits even when doing
so resulted in dilapidated roads. Perhaps the roads could give them
more profits, and yet they were somehow making profits without good
roads. How? I mean, if their equipment breaks down, it costs money to
fix that!