From: Kent Crispin <kent@songbird.com>
Date: Fri, 2 May 1997 13:55:33 +0800
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
Subject: Re: Rejecting Dialog with Government Vermin
In-Reply-To: <199705010328.UAA19126@mail.pacifier.com>
Message-ID: <19970501224320.48220@bywater.songbird.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


On Wed, Apr 30, 1997 at 08:24:27PM -0800, Jim Bell wrote:
> At 23:07 4/29/97 -0700, Kent Crispin wrote:
> 
> >3) There is no serious flaw -- the current government isn't as
> >bad as we claim.  Or, put another way, the evils we see are a function
> >of size of government, and size of government is more a function of
> >population than anything else -- the larger the population, the 
> >larger the government.
> >
> >I think that strong arguments could be made for any of these, though #3 
> >would be shouted down in this forum.
> 
> I disagree that a "strong argument" could be made for item #3.  Sure, some
> people would strenuously ATTEMPT to make that argument, but they would fail
> miserably.  
> 
> I feel confident that a statistical analysis of various countries'
> governments would reveal a wide scatter in the relationship between
> population and government size.  One of the main factors in this scatter is
> simply the amount that government has decided to butt into activities that
> could (and should) be privatized.   Another is the amount that the
> government steals from one group in order to reliably receive the votes of
> some other group.

> Population size would end up being a very poor determinant of government 
> size.  

Yes, there would be scatter, but it is not important.  Population size
is *obviously* a strong determinant of government size.  Clearly, China
(population 1,000,000,000) is going to have a *far* larger government than
Dominica (population 100,000).  This difference far overshadows 
the fact that governments for similar sized countries may vary 
considerably in size -- Dominica will *never* have a government larger 
than China.

You are thinking of the *ratio* of population to government size.  That
is a factor, but, relatively, an inconsequential one.  Country
populations vary by orders of magnitude, whereas the scatter you 
describe might be by one order of magnitude.

So, having clearly established that larger countries will on balance 
have larger governments, we can then just look at organizational 
dynamics.  *Any* large organization requires more infrastructure to 
function.  *Any* large organization will develop bureaucracy.  This 
is true for governments, this is true for businesses, this is true 
for schools, this is true for militias.  A big city police department 
will have many different precints, with multiple layers of 
management, a small town will have a chief of police and a few 
deputies.

-- 
Kent Crispin				"No reason to get excited",
kent@songbird.com			the thief he kindly spoke...
PGP fingerprint:   B1 8B 72 ED 55 21 5E 44  61 F4 58 0F 72 10 65 55
http://songbird.com/kent/pgp_key.html