Any system designed for gridlock will lead to increasing anger and pressure that will eventually break out in bad ways. If people see the results of their own actions then they are not going to end up so extreme.

I'm not sure why Americans think that the creation of agencies is the problem when other well governed countries do the same. The idea that a legislative body could possible create appropriate regulation in a modern complex world is crazy. That's what a parliamentary system solves. It keeps the executive accountable to the legislative at all times.

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AnthonyMouse 5 hours ago | parent [-]

> Any system designed for gridlock will lead to increasing anger and pressure that will eventually break out in bad ways.

Only if there is no other way to address the issues, but the system provides one. You adopt the policy at the state level instead.

> I'm not sure why Americans think that the creation of agencies is the problem when other well governed countries do the same.

The US at the federal level is larger than nearly all other countries. North Carolina has more people and a higher GDP than Sweden. California has almost as many people as Canada and a higher GDP. The US has the same order of magnitude in size and population as the whole EU.

Bureaucracies have diseconomies of scale. There is a point past which "larger" is no longer getting you significantly better amortization of fixed costs and is instead just increasing communication costs, adding layers of middle management, exacerbating the principal-agent problem and making you a more attractive target for corruption.

The US federal government is well past the optimal size for solving most problems; probably even California is too big.

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lhopki01 4 hours ago | parent [-]

>Bureaucracies have diseconomies of scale. There is a point past which "larger" is no longer getting you significantly better amortization of fixed costs and is instead just increasing communication costs, adding layers of middle management, exacerbating the principal-agent problem and making you a more attractive target for corruption.

You write this as a self evident truth but it isn't. In what way is having a single trucking standard for the entire country less efficient than having 50? In what way is having a single currency across the entire country less efficient than having 50? In what way is having a single standard for approval of medication less efficient than having 50?

The US's advantage is precisely because of it's scale. It provides a massive addressable market allowing companies to scale rapidly.

	▲	AnthonyMouse 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> In what way is having a single trucking standard for the entire country less efficient than having 50? In what way is having a single currency across the entire country less efficient than having 50? This is why issuing currency and interstate commerce (meaning actually crossing state lines, not the modern interpretation of anything that affects commerce anywhere) are among the explicitly enumerated powers of the federal government. > In what way is having a single standard for approval of medication less efficient than having 50? It allows large states to set their own standards and smaller states to choose which of the standards to apply, e.g. Arizona says you can sell anything in Arizona that you can sell in Texas, without requiring everyone to agree on how the trade offs should be made, e.g. California can have more stringent rules than Texas. Meanwhile people in Texas could still choose not to consume anything if it hasn't been approved in California and people in California could go to Arizona to get things they think California is being too reserved by prohibiting. > The US's advantage is precisely because of it's scale. It provides a massive addressable market allowing companies to scale rapidly. Which in itself has the tendency to promote megacorps and market consolidation over competitive markets with larger numbers of smaller companies, and consolidated markets themselves have significant inefficiencies and costs. Meanwhile why would that require the federal government to insert itself into local education policy or be issuing subsidies to oil companies etc.?