"The degree of a country's freedom is the degree of its prosperity." This quote is from the book CAPITALISM: The Unknown Ideal by Ayn Rand. I think this book is a MUST READ for everyone.
I fear many states are going to go down the path Detroit and Michigan has. If you look at the rusted out frames of buildings, and unmaintained streets in Detroit, the city looks like all of the old Warsaw pact used to look like. And for exactly the same reasons.
Now a bunch of blue states are heading down the same path, like California. The really amazing thing is that they are heading down that path AFTER the Soviet Union fell apart.