by Doug Casey, International Man:

The sign above is located in the state of Chiapas in Mexico. In English, it says, “You are in the territory of Zapatista in Rebellion. Here, the people give the orders and the government obeys.”

Well, of course, what that really means is that the Zapatistas give the orders, not the people as a whole. Still, the people generally regard the Zapatistas as being more representative of their wishes (and less parasitical) than the government.

Mexicans are further along than, say, Europeans or Americans in understanding the true role of government. The mask has been off for some time and the people understand that the government does notexist to serve them; it exists to enslave them – that is, to rob them of the fruits of their labour through taxation, whilst doing as little as possible to benefit them.

They understand that this is the norm for all governments and elections do little more than remove one parasite and replace it with another.

The Zapatistas have been more successful than they would have been, had they been operating in, say, the US. This is partly due to the fact that the Federal government in Mexico is not as well-funded as in the US and is therefore not as powerful. This, in addition to the contempt in which the Federales are held by Mexicans in general, particularly the campesinos – the poor, assures greater success for the Zapatistas. Since 1994, their strength and breadth have grown steadily.

At present, they dominate Guerrero, Oaxaca and Chiapas states, shown below in purple. But, recently, it is in Michoacán (the easternmost yellow state) that the most interesting development has occurred.

The people of the town of Cherán became fed up with the struggle as to who rules over them and decided to take charge of their town themselves. In 2011, led by local women (including one granny), the population of 20,000 removed the bureaucrats, the police, the talamontes (the local mafia) and the rebels, and are now running their town themselves with volunteer citizens.

They’re not professing to be libertarian and yet, through common sense, they’ve established a form of rule that is remarkably libertarian.

The basic principle is that they make no laws. The citizens may do whatever they wish, as long as they do not aggress against other citizens or their property. Political parties have been banned.

Like a mediaeval European town, the three entrance roads are guarded by a militia, who stop anyone seeking to re-establish dominance over the town.

Pedro Chavez, a teacher and community leader commented, “To defend ourselves, we had to change the whole system — out with the political parties, out with City Hall, out with the police and everything. We had to organize our own way of living to survive.”

Not surprisingly, the takeover became a national issue. There was massive political opposition in Mexico City. But, in 2014, Cherán’s provisional self-government was declared legal. The town remains part of Mexico but is self-determining.

Of course, we’re forever being told by the academics of the world that the result of a libertarian system would be chaos, as there’s no powerful government to constrain people from their natural lawless tendencies.

So, what we have here is a litmus test to view a libertarian community in a Petri dish.

What do we see?

To begin, crime is down dramatically. With organised crime removed, along with the police whom the gangsters paid off, capital crime in particular, has ceased to exist. (Most remaining crime has to do with alcohol abuse.)

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