Travelling the world, I've noticed something: people in "poor" countries often live surprisingly "free" from the state.
They build houses however they want, open businesses without licenses, ignore r...
This is very insightful, it made me think of something like a two-dimensional graph with one axis as "compliance cost" and the other axis being "enforcement credibility."
Most of the US is low compliance costs (relative to the rest of the world), but also relatively high enforcement credibility. Taxes and business registration aren't really huge burdens in most contexts, but you will probably be shut down if you're not complying.
In contrast a lot of the global South, particularly postcolonial nations, exist with high compliance costs / low enforcement credibility. That is, if you actually wanted to set up a business the "right" way, you have a labyrinthine network of official and unofficial hoops to jump through, forms to fill out, palms to grease, etc.
So people just set up a corner taco stand and nobody cares...
Most of the US is low compliance costs (relative to the rest of the world), but also relatively high enforcement credibility. Taxes and business registration aren't really huge burdens in most contexts, but you will probably be shut down if you're not complying.
In contrast a lot of the global South, particularly postcolonial nations, exist with high compliance costs / low enforcement credibility. That is, if you actually wanted to set up a business the "right" way, you have a labyrinthine network of official and unofficial hoops to jump through, forms to fill out, palms to grease, etc.
So people just set up a corner taco stand and nobody cares...
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