Is the US the most libertarian country in the world? It once was. Now I'm not sure. In some ways other countries are more free, in other ways the US is still more free. Hard to say. Probably is the most libertarian large country and I'd certainly say the most libertarian very large country, considering the alternatives are China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, and Russia if your considering countries over 140 million.
Whether the US is the most libertarian or not, I don't think there is any general trend in the rest of the world between libertarianism and higher level of violence (esp. if you include violence by the governments).
I think the drug trade is more violent in the US then in most other rich countries (although less then in Mexico or then it was for awhile in Columbia, and in some other places), that explains a good part of the difference (of course that could just be considered pushing the question back one level, why is the drug trade in the US more violent. Also it doesn't' explain all of the difference.
Or perhaps that's all looking at it backwards. The murder rates in the countries mentioned in the article you link to are unusually low compared to the rest of the world, and compared to many points in the past, more then the US rate is unusually high. Perhaps we should ask why are they low, more then why the US rate is so high.
mises.org
Also including suicide changes the picture a bit
thetruthaboutguns.com
I think it's the "gun culture", that guns are considered so cool, and so locked into their cultural mystique for some folks.
Then what explains more knife, and blunt object murders in the US? Then in Italy, or Spain, or Denmark? |
