The biggest error of the hippies was seeing the system as the root of all wrong and nothing else as such. In fact the system is one out of many things that can go wrong. Relationships can go wrong. Marriage can go wrong. Adaptations outside the system can go wrong. There are many things that can go wrong, and the system is only one of them.

Are people within the system better or worse than people outside the system? I do not see why either one would be the case. In both cases we see human phenomena – that, being human, can go right, wrong or in any number of ways. The libertarians that see the government as the single root of tyranny and corruption are as wrong as the Hobbesian fascists who think that the state is the solution to every problem. Neither people within the state nor people outside the state are better or worse than one another. Both are human. And that means, capable of both right and wrong.

I’ve known many people working in the private sector, and I’ve known many people working for the government. I did not find either one to be better or worse than the other. I’ve seen the good and the bad in both situations. My grandmother was a teacher in the Soviet Union and a card-carrying member of the Communist Party. My mother wanted to immigrate all her life to America, and she became a well-off computer programmer in America. Both were good enough people.

Can the system go wrong? Of course it can. But it is in no way the only thing that can go wrong. Families can go wrong. Communities can go wrong. Business can go wrong. Anything human can go wrong; and that is the case both with people inside the system and people outside the system.

So that while the system can most certainly go wrong, in no way is it the only thing that can. All sorts of terrible things are being done by people who aren’t a part of the system. As for the people inside the system, some are good and some are bad. I see no reason why the two would correlate with one another. There will be good and bad people inside the system, and there will be good and bad people outside the system. I have known both, and I heartily recommend for other people to do the same.