Libertarianism in Morocco

[MassNssen]

For the most part of the Moroccan contemporary history, you could either be a leftist or a government agent. Meaning that up until the eighties, the label 'political activist' was given exclusively to folks with socialist leanings. Anyone who didn't have such leaning was automatically declared "enemy of the people" or, in spirit of our crippling conspiracy theory problem, an agent of the "Makhzen".

During the sixties and the seventies, leftists had complete monopoly on political life in the country, especially in universities. In student gatherings, you could say whatever you want about the king or Islam, you could call for the abolishment of religion or the massacre of anyone who isn't poor, but the moment you dare to wonder out loud what's the all the fuzz about with that Guevara fellow, you should be ready for a beating of a life time.

During the eighties things changed a little. Now we have Islamists. Social liberalism no longer had the same monopoly, but fiscal leftism lingered on as the unchallenged dispot of Moroccan intellectual life. There were very few Islamist communists, but almost all Islamists opposed free market and laissez faire economics, strongly favoring heavy involvement of the government in the economy through regulation and redistribution of wealth.

Things haven't changed much since the eighties, except that leftists kept losing ground to Islamists. Being a fiscal rightist, a free market capitalist, is still something of a taboo.

I personally would like to see a Morocco where individual independence and economic freedom prevail. One where the government has no business to intervene if two people or more agreed consensually to exchange goods or services. One where tax payers are not treated as children or idiots who would stay illiterate and die if the government didn't provide them with education and health care, where individuals can't do something as simple as charity, so the government has to take it on its own (though it's not charity when you're giving away money you got at gun point, i.e. taxes).

For this purpose, we have a little thing going on on Facebook right know, and I'd be very interested to hear what you guys think about it:

‫المعقول و المسؤولية | Facebook‬

[Arwen]

Interesting post. Thanks.