The idea isn’t monumentally bad by necessity, but it’s not based on a sufficiently accurate model of what humans would do once they get in such a situation.
1) People migrating to the best governments available. Probably a textbook example of the kind of “theory” that looks good only “on paper”. People don’t migrate much on the basis of good governance, per se; oh, sure, they migrate because of one of the spillover effects of good governance, which is the attraction of wealth and of opportunities to get rich. There’s a lot of inertia involved in people’s decisions of where to move to, and most of it is for social reasons. Moving to a geographically different location usually implies severing or weakening some social ties that exist by virtue of seeing those people on a regular basis. People just want to be close to their family and friends. No designer of political system and policies should overlook this simple fact. When it comes to choosing a roommate or a neighbor, you wouldn’t trade your much-loved but slightly-too-conservative father for a random stranger with whom you have nothing in common save for an uncanny similarity in your political outlook.
Besides, moving out is a hassle. Putting all your stuff in boxes. Having transportation firms move your furniture, maybe gift you with a scratch or two in a highly visible spot on your coffeetable. Feeling that pang of sadness when you leave your old home behind. What if the old kitchen furniture doesn’t fit into the new kitchen? If you think that’s not one heckuva lot weightier consideration for the random person on the street than something big “on paper” like, oh I don’t know, the choice between common and civil law, or the presence or absence of a death penalty, I beg of you to think again.
These concerns are overridden only by large disparities in wages or individual freedom between countries. People migrate to escape a murderous government, or to add an extra digit to their income. Otherwise, not much.
2) The stability of decentralization. Even granting that you could manage large-scale decentralization, this state of affairs may not persist for too long. You’re probably not a deliriously power-hungry guy, and that may be why lots of mini-states or city-states once part of the same nation-state doesn’t look to you like a massive untapped opportunity. Shortly after you implement the decentralization, you’re going to see a lot of talk about “uniting with our brothers over there” spring up. People are more easily swayed to support centralization rather than decentralization; heck, I come from a country where the biggest and happiest events in the history books consist of unifications of provinces.
3) Successful states despite tiny territory and no resources. Their existence wouldn’t be sustainable if there weren’t for lots of states that are very much not that. After all, someone has to farm the wheat and grow the bananas. City-states and the like exist because they can make crazy amounts of money in very space-efficient trades that eliminate the need for sprawling. Which money they spend on imported food.
4) Obtaining decentralization in the first place. Institutions whose members act as one, for the same common purpose (the best interests of the institution), and are given the freedom to pursue their goals from other, bigger institutions, don’t cede power. That’s stupid. No one does. The central government won’t do it unless the people in the decision-making bodies of the central government, personally, would find themselves in much more comfortable places as the big fishes in small ponds. If being a local baron pays off more than being one of the many rulers of the entire country, that’s when you’ll start seeing decentralization.
Most importantly, it is not clear how people from fundamentally different political camps (e.g., socialists and libertarians) can be convinced to work together for a common purpose.
Survey your co-workers for political opinions. You tell me.
Political ideologies occupy, in actuality, a very small niche that usually doesn’t get in the way of getting business done. Not at the microeconomic production level, and not in the parliament. (A politician is a very different thing from an ideologue, and usually being an ideologue prevents one from being very efficient at politics.) Socialists, capitalists, liberals, conservatives, all are alike in that they respond to incentives. Heck, you get your occasional anarchist who, after seeing that all the bartending jobs in the local anti-establishment pub scene are already taken, sucks it up, shaves off that green mohawk, and begrudgingly prepares for an interview with some large and faceless money-grubbing corporation. He might grit his teeth and bitch and moan about it all along. But he does it nonetheless. Because humans respond to incentives.
Political ideologies occupy, in actuality, a very small niche that usually doesn’t get in the way of getting business done.
That, um, very much depends. Compare, e.g. Washington, DC in 2015 (where it’s mostly true) to, say, St.Petersburg, Russia in 1917 (where it’s not true at all). Or, say, Donetsk, Ukraine in 2015 if you want a contemporary example.
Political ideology doesn’t matter only where politics don’t matter (usually because they are stable, inoffensive, and the society has a general consensus on how things should be done). Otherwise all bets are off—look e.g. at your own point 2.
I said usually. Of course there are some events in which ideology plays a big part that are going to go down in history. (Strange how the most salient ones, to me at least, seem to come from the totalitarian side of the spectrum.) The quote I was responding to expressed doubts about the possibility of people with different ideologies to work together at all.
The point is, “some events in which ideology plays a big part” often turn out to be hugely consequential, while the state of “politics don’t matter” frequently turns out to be just a temporary holding pattern. Nassim Taleb in particular is very fond of pointing out that extreme black swan events actually account for much of observed variation in many fields.
As to the totalitarian side of the spectrum, it’s just the bloodiest side in recent history...
It’s cynicism o’clock!
The idea isn’t monumentally bad by necessity, but it’s not based on a sufficiently accurate model of what humans would do once they get in such a situation.
1) People migrating to the best governments available. Probably a textbook example of the kind of “theory” that looks good only “on paper”. People don’t migrate much on the basis of good governance, per se; oh, sure, they migrate because of one of the spillover effects of good governance, which is the attraction of wealth and of opportunities to get rich. There’s a lot of inertia involved in people’s decisions of where to move to, and most of it is for social reasons. Moving to a geographically different location usually implies severing or weakening some social ties that exist by virtue of seeing those people on a regular basis. People just want to be close to their family and friends. No designer of political system and policies should overlook this simple fact. When it comes to choosing a roommate or a neighbor, you wouldn’t trade your much-loved but slightly-too-conservative father for a random stranger with whom you have nothing in common save for an uncanny similarity in your political outlook.
Besides, moving out is a hassle. Putting all your stuff in boxes. Having transportation firms move your furniture, maybe gift you with a scratch or two in a highly visible spot on your coffeetable. Feeling that pang of sadness when you leave your old home behind. What if the old kitchen furniture doesn’t fit into the new kitchen? If you think that’s not one heckuva lot weightier consideration for the random person on the street than something big “on paper” like, oh I don’t know, the choice between common and civil law, or the presence or absence of a death penalty, I beg of you to think again.
These concerns are overridden only by large disparities in wages or individual freedom between countries. People migrate to escape a murderous government, or to add an extra digit to their income. Otherwise, not much.
2) The stability of decentralization. Even granting that you could manage large-scale decentralization, this state of affairs may not persist for too long. You’re probably not a deliriously power-hungry guy, and that may be why lots of mini-states or city-states once part of the same nation-state doesn’t look to you like a massive untapped opportunity. Shortly after you implement the decentralization, you’re going to see a lot of talk about “uniting with our brothers over there” spring up. People are more easily swayed to support centralization rather than decentralization; heck, I come from a country where the biggest and happiest events in the history books consist of unifications of provinces.
3) Successful states despite tiny territory and no resources. Their existence wouldn’t be sustainable if there weren’t for lots of states that are very much not that. After all, someone has to farm the wheat and grow the bananas. City-states and the like exist because they can make crazy amounts of money in very space-efficient trades that eliminate the need for sprawling. Which money they spend on imported food.
4) Obtaining decentralization in the first place. Institutions whose members act as one, for the same common purpose (the best interests of the institution), and are given the freedom to pursue their goals from other, bigger institutions, don’t cede power. That’s stupid. No one does. The central government won’t do it unless the people in the decision-making bodies of the central government, personally, would find themselves in much more comfortable places as the big fishes in small ponds. If being a local baron pays off more than being one of the many rulers of the entire country, that’s when you’ll start seeing decentralization.
Survey your co-workers for political opinions. You tell me.
Political ideologies occupy, in actuality, a very small niche that usually doesn’t get in the way of getting business done. Not at the microeconomic production level, and not in the parliament. (A politician is a very different thing from an ideologue, and usually being an ideologue prevents one from being very efficient at politics.) Socialists, capitalists, liberals, conservatives, all are alike in that they respond to incentives. Heck, you get your occasional anarchist who, after seeing that all the bartending jobs in the local anti-establishment pub scene are already taken, sucks it up, shaves off that green mohawk, and begrudgingly prepares for an interview with some large and faceless money-grubbing corporation. He might grit his teeth and bitch and moan about it all along. But he does it nonetheless. Because humans respond to incentives.
That, um, very much depends. Compare, e.g. Washington, DC in 2015 (where it’s mostly true) to, say, St.Petersburg, Russia in 1917 (where it’s not true at all). Or, say, Donetsk, Ukraine in 2015 if you want a contemporary example.
Political ideology doesn’t matter only where politics don’t matter (usually because they are stable, inoffensive, and the society has a general consensus on how things should be done). Otherwise all bets are off—look e.g. at your own point 2.
I said usually. Of course there are some events in which ideology plays a big part that are going to go down in history. (Strange how the most salient ones, to me at least, seem to come from the totalitarian side of the spectrum.) The quote I was responding to expressed doubts about the possibility of people with different ideologies to work together at all.
The point is, “some events in which ideology plays a big part” often turn out to be hugely consequential, while the state of “politics don’t matter” frequently turns out to be just a temporary holding pattern. Nassim Taleb in particular is very fond of pointing out that extreme black swan events actually account for much of observed variation in many fields.
As to the totalitarian side of the spectrum, it’s just the bloodiest side in recent history...
About one million people emigrated from Canada to the US.
Not in peaceful times. Take present-day Europe as an example.