re: #203 Dark_Falcon

No, it isn’t. The key difference here is that there is a system of laws that enforces property matters such as depicted in that article. The builder who tried to lead an armed band against land-use regulators in the US would find himself in prison and his band dispersed by the police. In Afghanistan, the builders threaten force as a matter of routine and between them they have enough armed men to do the police major damage. Moreover, the idea of the ‘rule of law’ enjoys broad respect here, not so if Afghanistan.

The difference between Somalia, or much of Afghanistan and America is that here law enforcement is socialized. What you call rule of law is really socialism of the justice system, the fact that the government/state has a monopoly on the system of dispute resolution. The profit motive that produces corruption here is the same as there, the difference being that there it incubates in an idealized laissez fair environment.