Yes its the Mises Institute again. Bob Murphy, and others have argued that because living standards have improved in Somalia, somewhat during its period of relative statelessness that the Anarcho-Capitalists worldview has more credibility than mainstream academia will give them.

The standard of living in world historical context When it comes to the quality of life for humans as a rule of thumb, things tend to get better not worse over the course of history. If for no other reason then improved technology people tend to live better. Take [life expectancy], which improved slightly though all of human history until modern medicine radically improved it. The fact that the standard of living went up doesn't really say much because with the exception of wars or things like environmental, political and economic crisis things get better. Let's look at an extreme example, the USSR.

Calorie intake Consumption per head Life expectancy Ownership of durable goods generally increasing over time

Like I said, this is an extreme example. Just became things got better does't mean this is or isn't a model developing countries should simply emulate because it "worked".

How does ACTUALLY it compare to the other African countries This mostly comes from a user on the Mises institute responding to Bob's article. He points out, correctly, that even compared to other African countries Somalia has performed very poorly. It has been consistently placed near the very bottom of every major life expectancy list. Bob's data shows an increase of 4 years in life expectancy achieved over the course of 20 years. Another website called "government denies knowledge"(no bias there) ironically includes data from the 1985-1990 period when Somalia was a communist country, during that period growth was faster in almost every category.

Infant Mortality went down by about 36 in 5 years compared to a drop of 5 over the course of the 20 years of statelessness.

Life Expectancy improved by about 2 in 5 years compared to an improvement of 4 that took 20.

Somalia finally scores a point because using google's public data I found death rates increase from 19 by just under 1 year from 85-90 then dropped until the present day.

Using google's public data you can see that Somalia has been outperformed by its neighbors Ethiopia and Kenya and that very few African countries have such poor life expectancy, going back to 1985 Ethiopia did worse but have since overtaken it.

Google's public data is a really useful tool for cross compassion's. Looking at death rate's we see a similar trend. Sub-sharan Africa on average outperforms Somalia and only a few extreme cases do worse like South Sudan and Swaziland. Feel free to play around with numerous different charts, you'll find the same pattern of a stagnate Somalia irregardless of public health indicator.

"With the exception of the drop in birth rates (which is ambiguous) and the drop in access to safe water (which is clearly a bad thing), the above chart shows incredible progress on numerous fronts. I daresay that if a UN or World Bank intervention into a state-controlled African country had yielded such results, it would be trumpeted from the hilltops. (To avoid confusion: international aid groups are currently working in Somalia, and they could be partially responsible for the improvements illustrated in the chart.)"

Way to shoot yourself in the foot Bob. He also forgot the decline in adult literacy.

Other things they failed to mention

Somalia suffered a pretty bad famine recently. It killed over 250,000 people.

The CIA is the only organization with an estimate on per capita income for Somalia. They score dead last for the whole planet with only 400$ a year.

Isis is now in Somalia as well for those of you looking for a place to invest without pesky taxes or regulations to impede you. In fairness these articles are a bit older so ISIS wasn't quit the threat it was today.

The pirate mode of production

In 2009 Somalia was declared the "piracy capital of the world". Recently SE Asia has overtaken it but it is still considered to have some of the most dangerous waters in the world. The recent drop was mostly do to increased naval activity and better security measure on private vessels.

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A word on xeer as private law

There are basically two view on law in an anarcho-capitalist world. David Friedman believes in of kind of competitive law where you can choose from a free market of competitive enforcement agencies and courts. Rothbard felt that there would be a general agreement on a basic set of rules to makes things easier for enforcement agencies. If thats sounds like a cartel, it should because thats what it is. Somalia has chosen the Rothbardian model, as there is no free market in courts for you to buy from. The preexisting Islamic culture took over and thats who disputes are settled. A 13 year old rape victim was stoned to death in Somalia by slavic militants. Thats Somalia "private" justice, she didn't get to "voluntarily" choose a law enforcement agency, she got killed. Google "Somalia stoning" and you can find a number of people who get stoned to death there for such crimes like adultery.

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Anything redeemable?

According to both Bob and Government denies knowledge articles Somalia has seen a "boom" in telecommunications. So while you and your illiterate child might not have water, you can use that sweet 400$ a year for a phone call. In all seriousness the best Somalia can often do is not be as bad as other parts of Africa, for instance, they have relatively low rate of HIV/Aids amongst the adult population by Sub-Saharan standards and some counties have problem with burning people to death instead of stoning them.

Conclusion

Somalia has slightly improved a few health indicators over the past 20+ years. Unfortunately growth is painfully slow, even compared to other African countries. Only a few extreme basket cases have done as bad or worse. No-one really wants to invest there, famines are a real threat, the rule of law is religious fanaticism, income is low, and overall there is really nothing salvageable in the Somalian model of development I can find.