What’s the best political, social and economic system according to your beliefs and values? Why so?

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A2A, hi Narinder!

In my opinion, political, social and economic systems morph over time to meet the needs of the people living under and using them. Each system usually turns out to be the best possible one for those people.

The classic exception to this rule is colonialism, but even there, the moral value of the systems introduced wasn’t clearly “good” or “evil.” In the early days of colonies, settler communities were very fragile and relied upon the assistance of surrounding peoples to survive. They had to play nice with the locals.

You see maps like these:

…and get a picture of evil overlords in Europe carving up local kingdoms to suit their nefarious aims. And sure, they did that and it looked like that, in Europe. But in Africa, colonialism really looked like this:

Those port cities were where colonial influence concentrated. The railways extended into the interior but only so far, and then only really to move goods rather than people. The rest of Africa was, and is still, the rest of Africa.

The systems that Europe built had to interface with the locals in some way that made the locals better off. Humans are not stupid and if you rip them off once, they work out ways to not get ripped off again.

The way empire traditionally worked throughout history was that the ruling classes generally left the peripheries alone to govern themselves, taking only tribute. It had to be this way because armies are small and populations are big.

The colonies were no different. Settlers eventually formed a de facto ruling class that had to leave existing power bases in place. That doesn’t mean they didn’t pull shenanigans like cutting off the heads of governments and installing puppets, but again, the amount of direct control you can have over a people is limited, and as soon as they’re out of your clutches, they will do whatever they want and to hell with you.

The power differential between Europe and Africa never really went away, but just the slightest amount of advancement on the part of African technology and institutions and states made colonialism completely unworkable in the long run and that’s why it ended.

So when you ask me what systems I think are the best, I can only say that because I live in the US, obviously US systems are the best. I may not know all the particulars and surely I could think of some ways they could be better, but they’ve evolved to fit the needs of my whole country, I wouldn’t want to do anything rash and buck two centuries of steady, solid growth.

I’d like to think that if I hadn’t been born here, I’d have done like Elon Musk and begged, stealed, and borrowed my way over here. But who knows, really?