To credit democracy for success in the western world is to credit the cancer for the patient’s success in treatment. To say that without democracy we would not have all the comforts of the modern west is to say that without farmers, cattle would never eat. It is to say that without parental abuse and/or neglect, the now adult child would not have overcome the odds that such trauma sets against him. It is to credit the car accident for a man’s hard won achievements in physical therapy.

The most successful diseases in the world tend to be less virulent and while vicious diseases kill the host quickly, they are less successful. This leaves the less fatal diseases as the most successful of all and even more successful when the host does not even realize he or she is sick. What we strive for, however, is disease free living. If statism is the disease, voluntarism is the cure. Let’s give credit where credit is due. The reason why we have these modern comforts in the west is not because the disease is less virulent but rather because a free market and a recognition that like the market, all of our relationships should be voluntary, is a treatment that has a better chance at helping us cope with, and perhaps even curing us of, the disease.

Nathan McKaskle lives in Houston, TX. When he is not delivering new content to the readers of Lost Liberty Café and studying philosophy as well as psychology, he is working as a Citrix Server Administrator at Hewlett-Packard.