The State vs. The Rule of Law

My latest at the Partial Observer. Excerpt:

The State is a military-police-bureaucratic apparatus in which its employees coerces and taxes other men in order to raise revenue. The people of the developed world accept this because the State promises we can have fair access to an impartial system of justice. The State takes advantage of our trust to increase its power, but as long as it gives us our day in court when we need it, we go along. With some semblance of the rule of law, respect for rights, and enforcement of contracts, there is still opportunity in the developed world for the entrepreneur to prosper.

In Haiti, the State has been effective at exactly one thing: destroying the economy with oppressive laws combined with corrupt and arbitrary enforcement so as to make business growth nearly impossible.