1069 sats \ 9 replies \ @Undisciplined 23 Jan \ on: Do You Trust Your Government? culture
Switzerland has a relatively small and very decentralized government. That might be relevant.
In my experience, Ticanos are extremely sycophantic towards their government. Probably because it's not nearly as terrible as its neighbors.
What I most want to know is who the 31% of Americans are who trust the national government. That's full on insanity.
reply
True, but increasingly it's out of fear of the other, rather than affinity for one's own side. I doubt many from team red would have answered that they trust the national government.
reply
Thought of this as well. I believe one of the biggest issues with all governance and structure is size. Large states have issues that smaller states do not have. Large companies have issues that small companies do not have. Everything does not scale and outside of my moral problems with the state I see functional issues with the size of states.
reply
Good point. Even if a large state functioned better (for efficiency reasons or whatever), there would likely be a tradeoff with trust. By necessity the rulers of a large state will be further removed from the average person.
That seems to be the case with companies, at least.
reply
Exactly. This is how I have attempted to explain my issues with the functionality of states to people that have no moral issues with the monopoly on violence. What many capitalists and social conservatives fail to recognize is that large companies often suffer from many of the same issues with government bodies. The primary difference though is companies don't have a money printer and will fail unless they are to big to fail. Ala banks and airlines to name two.
reply
The socialist calculation problem applies to firms' internal operations in exactly the same way it applies to governments. The difference, as you say, is the external profit and loss signals that most companies face.
Switzerland has a relatively small and very decentralized government. That might be relevant.
Yep, afaik, they also have regular referendums. Not saying that would work everywhere but seems to work for them. I think their population is pretty involved with politics in a good way.
reply
Every citizen has the opportunity to start an initiative (100k signatures). The people can then vote on this. Only 50k signatures are required for referendums.
reply