Governments, and government organizations/departments/bureaucracies, are a major contributor to a kind of “astronomical waste”.
Reducing both the size of governments, i.e., unloading more government functions onto the private sector, and the sizes of countries, i.e., breaking up large countries into several smaller ones, (if not completely eliminating governments but I’m not quite sure what to replace them with) would yield greater individual prosperity.
One piece of evidence for the second is to notice how nations with small populations tend to cluster near the top of lists of countries by per-capita-GDP.
One piece of evidence for the second is to notice how nations with small
populations tend to cluster near the top of lists of countries by per-capita-GDP.
1) So do nations with very high taxes, i.e. Nordic countries (or most of Western Europe for that matter).
One of the outliers (Ireland) has probably been knocked down a few places recently, as a result of a worldwide crisis that might well be the result of excessive deregulation.
2) In very small countries, one single insanely rich individual will make a lot of difference to average wealth, even if the rest of the population is very poor. I think Brunei illustrates the point. So I’m not sure the supposedly high rank of small countries is indicative of anything (median GDP would be more useful).
3) There are many small-population countries at the bottom of the chart too.
One piece of evidence for the second is to notice how nations with small populations tend to cluster near the top of lists of countries by per-capita-GDP.
That’s probably mostly a statistical artifact of small nations being more numerous and having greater variance in conditions rather than a significant governance difference. There are also many non-statistical confounding factors, such as nations which allow/promote immigration (slightly) tending to more “average” GDP per capitas, and higher populations; small nations having more homogeneous populations which increases social stability (and which may not be possible to replicate by a breakup of large nations); some small nations perhaps undergoing a sort of “gentrification”, wherein poorer inhabitants choose to leave due to high prices, while wealthier ones move there (not as sure this one is valid).
The obligatory libertarian counterpart to this.
Governments, and government organizations/departments/bureaucracies, are a major contributor to a kind of “astronomical waste”.
Reducing both the size of governments, i.e., unloading more government functions onto the private sector, and the sizes of countries, i.e., breaking up large countries into several smaller ones, (if not completely eliminating governments but I’m not quite sure what to replace them with) would yield greater individual prosperity.
One piece of evidence for the second is to notice how nations with small populations tend to cluster near the top of lists of countries by per-capita-GDP.
75%
1) So do nations with very high taxes, i.e. Nordic countries (or most of Western Europe for that matter).
One of the outliers (Ireland) has probably been knocked down a few places recently, as a result of a worldwide crisis that might well be the result of excessive deregulation.
2) In very small countries, one single insanely rich individual will make a lot of difference to average wealth, even if the rest of the population is very poor. I think Brunei illustrates the point. So I’m not sure the supposedly high rank of small countries is indicative of anything (median GDP would be more useful).
3) There are many small-population countries at the bottom of the chart too.
Upvoted.
That’s probably mostly a statistical artifact of small nations being more numerous and having greater variance in conditions rather than a significant governance difference. There are also many non-statistical confounding factors, such as nations which allow/promote immigration (slightly) tending to more “average” GDP per capitas, and higher populations; small nations having more homogeneous populations which increases social stability (and which may not be possible to replicate by a breakup of large nations); some small nations perhaps undergoing a sort of “gentrification”, wherein poorer inhabitants choose to leave due to high prices, while wealthier ones move there (not as sure this one is valid).
Overall still downvoted for general agreement.