The premier example in practice is of course the Nordic countries, which have nearly a century of consistent freedom and prosperity outcomes alongside large governments. These examples have been a consistent thorn in the side of small government advocates, who uniformly pursue the wrong variable at the expense of freedom and prosperity for all. The empirical record speaks for itself—the deciding factor is QGOV, not size.
The operative point for the “do not conquer what you cannot defend” principle is then, do not expect to defend what you have conquered without high quality institutions.
Specifically on the question of “small vs. large government”, the empirical record provides a little recognized answer—by all of the empirical measures of liberty defined, gathered, and curated by libertarians, large governments consistently outperform small governments on measures of freedom and prosperity. Large government does not in itself drive liberty outcomes—rather, the high quality institutions that comprise Dolan’s QGOV metric require high levels of investment, coordination, and oversight. The deciding factor in terms of liberty, prosperity, and general welfare outcomes is quality of institutions, not size of government.
The premier example in practice is of course the Nordic countries, which have nearly a century of consistent freedom and prosperity outcomes alongside large governments. These examples have been a consistent thorn in the side of small government advocates, who uniformly pursue the wrong variable at the expense of freedom and prosperity for all. The empirical record speaks for itself—the deciding factor is QGOV, not size.
The operative point for the “do not conquer what you cannot defend” principle is then, do not expect to defend what you have conquered without high quality institutions.