martedì 25 ottobre 2016

Does Technology Drive the Growth of Government? Tyler Cowen

Notebook per
Does Technology Drive the Growth of Government?
Tyler Cowen Bryan Caplan
Citation (APA): Caplan, T. C. B. (2013). Does Technology Drive the Growth of Government? [Kindle Android version]. Retrieved from Amazon.com

Parte introduttiva
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 1
Highlights from "Does Technology Drive the Growth of Government?" Bryan Caplan
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 5
start with what Gordon Tullock (1994) has cal ed the paradox of government growth. Before the late nineteenth century, government was a very smal percentage of gross domestic product in most Western countries, typical y no more than five percent. In most cases this state of affairs had persisted for wel over a century, often for many centuries. The twentieth century, however, saw the growth of governments, across the Western world, to forty or fifty percent of gross domestic product... I'd like to address the key question of why limited government and free markets have so fal en out of favor.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 9
Inadequacies of public choice theories of government growth: Public choice analysis has generated many theories of why government grows and why that growth is inevitable. Special interest groups, voter ignorance, and the pressures of war al are cited in this context. Those theories, however, at best explain the twentieth century, rather than the historical pattern more general y. Until the late nineteenth century, governments were not growing very rapidly.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 14
Inadequacies of ideological theories of government growth: According to this claim, the philosophy of classical liberalism declined in the mid- to late nineteenth century. This may be attributed to the rise of socialist doctrine, internal contradictions in the classical liberal position, the rise of democracy, or perhaps the rise of a professional intel ectual class. While the ideology hypothesis has merit, it is unlikely to provide a final answer to the Tullock paradox.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 54
Does Technology Drive The Growth of Government? Tyler Cowen
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 59
I. Introduction
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Why is government so large in the Western world?
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start with what Gordon Tullock (1994) has called the paradox of government growth.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 61
Before the late nineteenth century, government was a very small percentage of gross domestic product
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 62
no more than five percent.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 63
The twentieth century, however, saw the growth of governments,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 63
to forty or fifty percent
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 64
regulatory burden,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 68
Extant hypotheses
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historically contingent explanations fail
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Western
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Japan.
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complements, not substitutes.
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Public choice analysis
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Special interest groups, voter ignorance,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 73
Those theories, however, at best explain the twentieth 2 century, rather than the historical pattern more generally. Until the late nineteenth century, governments were not growing very rapidly. The standard public choice accounts do not contain enough institutional differentiation to account for no government growth in one period and rapid government growth in another period. Some structural shift occurred in the late nineteenth
Nota - Posizione 74
CARENZA PC
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inquiry focuses on ideology
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intellectual climate.
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philosophy of classical liberalism declined
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rise of socialist doctrine,
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rise of a professional intellectual class.
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Ideologies changed, in part, because intellectuals perceived a benefit to promoting ideas of larger government, rather than promoting classical liberalism. It remains necessary to identify the change in social conditions that drove this trend.1
Nota - Posizione 83
INADEGUATEZZA IP. IDEOLOGIA: XCHÈ SI AFFERMANO NUOVE IDEOLOGIE
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Some authors attribute the rapid governmental growth of the twentieth century to war,
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international conflict,
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crisis more generally.
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Robert Higgs
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Crisis in Leviathan,
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ratchet effect.
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For instance, state activity invariably expands in wartime, if only to fight the war. Taxes increase, resources are conscripted, and economic controls are implemented. When the war is over, some of these extensions of state power remain in place. The twentieth century, of course, has seen the two bloodiest and most costly wars in history, the two World Wars.
Nota - Posizione 86
ESEMPIO
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intellectuals
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Many changed their minds sincerely,
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objective conditions caused socialists to win larger audiences
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The example of Sweden is instructive. Sweden avoided both World Wars, and had a relatively mild depression in the 1930s, but has one of the largest governments, relative to the size of its economy, in the developed world. The war hypothesis also does not explain all of the chronology of observed growth. Many Western countries were well on a path towards larger government before the First World War. And the 1970s were a significant period for government growth in many nations, despite the prosperity and relative calm of the 1960s.
Nota - Posizione 96
SVEZIA E CRONOLOGIA. I PUNTI DEBOLI
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third answer
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expansion of the voter franchise.
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SUFFRAGIO UNIVERSALE
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In the early nineteenth century,
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rights typically were restricted
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wealthy male landowners.
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Under this hypothesis, widespread voting was the central force behind the move to larger government. The small governments of the early nineteenth century are portrayed as the tools of ruling elites. But once the franchise was extended, the new voters demanded welfare state programs, which account for the bulk of government expenditure.2
Nota - Posizione 102
L IPOTESI DEL SUFFRAGIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 103
First, non-democratic regimes, such as Franco's Spain, illustrate similar patterns of government 2 Along these lines, Husted and Kenny (1997a), looking at data from state governments, find that the elimination of poll taxes and literacy tests leads to higher turnout and higher welfare spending. Lott and Kenny (1999) find that women’s suffrage had some role in promoting greater government expenditures.
Nota - Posizione 106
IPOTESI VON PROBLEMI
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 108
Second, much of the Western world was fully democratized by the 1920s. Most governmental growth comes well after that date, and some of it, such as Bismarck’s Germany, comes well before that time. Third, and most fundamentally, white male property owners today do not favor extremely small government, though they do tend to be more economically conservative than female voters.
Nota - Posizione 110
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 112
there clearly must be something to the voter hypothesis.
Nota - Posizione 113
IL VOLERE DEL POPOLO CMQ CONTA
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If all or most voters, circa 2009, wanted their government to be five percent of gross domestic product, some candidate would run on that platform and win.
Nota - Posizione 114
SE LO VUOI LO FAI
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Democratic government cannot grow large, and stay large, against the express wishes of a substantial majority of the population.
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c
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I therefore start with the notion of an ongoing demand for big government,
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I then consider why twentieth century technology might have changed supply-side factors
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I do not consider this technology hypothesis to be a monocausal theory
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the missing element
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II. The Role of Technology
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T
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The late nineteenth century and early twentieth century saw a fundamental change in the production technology for large government,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 124
communications, organization, and coordination.
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Western countries all have had access to (roughly) the same technologies, and at roughly the same points in time.
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Which technology?
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T
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period from 1880 to 1940
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electricity, automobiles, airplanes, household appliances, the telephone, vastly cheaper power, industrialism, mass production, and radio,
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LISTA
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railroad was not new but expanded greatly
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A bit later the 1950s brought television
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The historian S.E. Finer (1997a, 1997b) first suggested that technology was behind the rise of big government, though he did not consider this claim in the context of public choice issues. Bradford DeLong’s unpublished manuscript, “Slouching Towards Utopia,” sometimes available on the web in various parts, appears to cover related themes.
Nota - Posizione 137
PRECURSORI
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T
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Transportation
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Transportation has made it possible to extend the reach of modern bureaucracy across geographic space. The railroad allowed the North to defeat the South in the Civil War. More generally, cheap transportation increased the reach and power of a central Federal government. Federal employees, police, and armies can travel to all parts of the country with relative ease. Transportation allows published bureaucratic dictates to be distributed and shipped at relatively low expense.
Nota - Posizione 141
TRASPORTI
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organized groups to lobby Washington more easily.
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Individuals could now go to Washington,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 147
increased national consciousness
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think in terms of a large national government
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Telegraphs and Telephones
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T
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possible for a political center to communicate with a periphery at much lower cost,
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"knit the nation together,"
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Industrial capital and mass production
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T
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Factories, smokestacks, power plants, and assembly lines are difficult to move,
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large and immobile assets provided a tempting target for taxation and regulation.
Nota - Posizione 154
TASSE E REGOLE
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When most of the population lives from small-scale subsistence farming, and takes income in-kind, it is much harder both to levy taxes and put the in-kind revenue to good use.
Nota - Posizione 156
AUTONOMI
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Radio and television
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T
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opportunity to hear their leaders
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tap into the human desire for stories and myths.
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt
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totalitarian movements of the twentieth century could not have mobilized
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Television entered American homes in the 1950s.
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consumer protection movement,
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environmental movement.
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politics based around simple and emotional issues
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discourages analysis, and discourages an emphasis on unseen “opportunity costs”
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focus on national rather than local
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Communications and management
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T
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large-scale bureaucracy
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advances in recording, processing, manipulating, and communicating
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Welfare states could not have arisen unless central governments had means of identifying, tracking, and monitoring potential recipients.
Nota - Posizione 175
WELFARE
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doctrines of "scientific management"
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We take the practices of modern bureaucracy for granted, but most of them are quite recent.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 179
British government did not organize its paper records in terms of "files" until 1868 (Finer 1997b, p.1617).
Nota - Posizione 180
GB GOV
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Tax-collecting technologies
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T
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Most of the technological advances described above make it easier for governments to collect taxes,
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a wealthier economy will have many citizens working at legitimate, regular businesses with a distinct physical locale.
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methods of accounting and reporting.
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The growth of the publicly owned, limited liability corporation, also helped create the systematic records that make corporate taxation possible. Collecting taxes is easier in an economically advanced environment.
Nota - Posizione 187
SOC ANONIME
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Growing wealth
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T
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Government is to some extent a luxury good.
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Wealth above subsistence allows people to vote to assuage their consciences, even if the collective result of such votes destroys wealth and opportunity (Brennan and Lomasky 1993).
Nota - Posizione 190
ILLUSIONE DI VONTRIBUIRE. OGNUNO VUOL DIRE LA SUA
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disproportionately greater demand for government
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because they can afford them.
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thought experiment.
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Assume that we had no cars, no trucks, no planes, no telephones, no TV or radio, and no rail network. Of course we would all be much poorer. But how large could government be? Government might take on more characteristics of a petty tyrant, but we would not expect to find the modern administrative state, commanding forty to fifty percent of gross domestic product in the developed nations, and reaching into the lives of every individual daily.
Nota - Posizione 196
ESPERIMENTO. ZERO TECH
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timing of these innovations.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 196
The lag between technology and governmental growth is not a very long one. The technologies discussed above all had 10 slightly different rates of arrival and dissemination, but came clustered in the same general period. With the exception of the railroads and the telegraph (both coming into widespread use in the mid-nineteenth century), none predated the late nineteenth century, exactly the time when governmental growth gets underway in most parts of the West.
Nota - Posizione 200
TIMING
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 200
1920s and 1930s,
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The corporate analogy
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T
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hypothesis predicts that other organizations
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comparable expansion
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This is exactly what we observe. Prior to the American railroads, which arose in the middle of the nineteenth century, private business corporations were not typically very large. The costs of control and large-scale organization were simply too high and no single business had a truly national reach.
Nota - Posizione 207
CORP
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Following the railroads, large corporations arose in steel, oil, and later automobiles, to name a few examples. The United States Steel Corporation was the largest of the new behemoths. The J.P. Morgan banking syndicate created the company in 1901, through a 4 On the rail numbers, see Warren (1996, p.2). On the growth of large rail companies, see Chandler (1965). 11 merger of numerous smaller firms. The new company owned 156 major factories and employed 168,000 workers. The capitalization was $1.4 billion, an immense sum for the time,
Nota - Posizione 214
c
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Merger waves
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Other very large companies followed, including General Electric, National Biscuit Company (Nabisco), American Can Company, Eastman Kodak, U.S. Rubber (later Uniroyal), and AT&T, among others.
Nota - Posizione 219
FUSIONI
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Large corporations and large governments have common technological roots.
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corporations grow large before government
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private firms are more adept at adopting new technologies
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History of governments
Nota - Posizione 227
T
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The technology hypothesis also finds support from a broader swathe of human history.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 230
Consider a society of hunter-gatherers, as we still find in the Pygmies of Central Africa. Under some interpretations Pygmy society has a kind of anarchy. The reason for this state of affairs is obvious. It is not due to the Pygmy electoral system, Pygmy ideology, or the infrequency of Pygmy war. The Pygmies simply do not have any large-scale formal institutions of any kind. A typical Pygmy family (at least those who continue to live a traditional Pygmy existence; there are migrants to other cultures) will not own any more than its members can carry on their collective backs, when moving from hunting camp to hunting camp. Given this low level of technology, big government, for the Pygmies, simply is not an option.
Nota - Posizione 235
PIGMEI. NO TECH NO GOV
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advent of writing, arithmetic,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 236
large-scale cities
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Sumerians,
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3500 B.C.
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Bureaucracy suddenly became possible,
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Sumerian bureaucracy made extensive use of files, records, and archives,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 240
The Persian Empire
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Herodotus cited it as an example of tyranny, relative to the liberty of the Greek city-states.
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technology limited its daily control over the lives
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It took a traveler 67.5 days to cross the empire,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 244
The Persians therefore governed through a simple formula, as explained by Finer (1997a, pp.297-8): “[They] set themselves the most limited objectives possible, short of losing control: in brief, to 13 provide an overarching structure of authority throughout the entire territory which confined itself to two aims only: tribute and obedience. Otherwise nothing.”
Nota - Posizione 246
COME TIRANNEGGIARE SENZA TECH
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Egyptian
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most totalitarian
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relied heavily on bureaucracy, formal taxation, and centralized record keeping.
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Nile ran through most of the Egyptian kingdoms and served as a highway,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 250
the best communications system of the ancient world,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 251
strongest tyrannies.6
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 252
"For thousands of years mankind had no large-scale empires or bureaucracies. Suddenly government became much larger in Sumeria, Egypt, and other locales, and has stayed large." While our historical understanding of this period is incomplete, new technologies appear to have been central to the growth of empire in that time. The same advances that boosted living standards also boosted centralized rule.
Nota - Posizione 255
SOMMARIO
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centuries to follow
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many tyrannies
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none of these regimes had the technology
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Historian Jean Dunbabin
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"nobody was governed before the late nineteenth Century."
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 258
Imperial China
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ideology was highly statist
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 259
Finer (1997a, pp.73-4)
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 259
“In principle the emperor knew no substantive or procedural limits to his authority, and the localities, down to the 14 villages, were supposedly completely controlled and directed from his palace.” In reality, however, the reach of the emperor was quite modest. Finer (1997a, p.73) tells us that in Imperial China “the scope of the central government was, of course, very much narrower than in our own day.”
Nota - Posizione 260
TIRANNI SENZA POTERE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 263
Greek city-states, were small-scale tyrannies.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 264
The ruling party or parties would control many aspects of city life, political, economic, or otherwise, but only on a small scale. In other words, the rule of government could be highly intensive, but it was not typically very extensive.
Nota - Posizione 265
VOTARE COI PIEDI
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Larger-scale empires were mechanisms for extracting tribute rather than well-honed sources of detailed rule.
Nota - Posizione 266
TASSE PIÙ CHE REGOLE
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central set of rulers
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Mongol or Aztec
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the reach of those central rulers was limited by modern standards.
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Troops were sent when tribute was not paid,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 270
They could not issue, communicate, and enforce the kind of detailed laws and regulations that emanate from Western governments today. So for much of recorded human history we had a combination of oppressive local governments, on a small scale geographically, combined with the payment of tribute to an external central ruler.7
Nota - Posizione 271
LIMITI
Nota - Posizione 272
SOMMARIO
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 273
American
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slavery is the greatest tyranny we find,
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This institution came before the advent of big government.
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primary enforcement mechanism was local,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 276
Government sanctioned a system of private violence and oppression, but the government of that time did not have the reach or the machinery to run a full-scale slave economy.
Nota - Posizione 277
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 278
Today’s low-technology countries, the poorer ones,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 278
These governments may be highly corrupt and destructive, but they do not typically command
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 279
do not exercise direct and daily control
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 280
Haiti,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 281
Per capita income ranges around $400, literacy rates run about fifteen percent, and life expectancy barely exceeds forty. The rate of malaria infection is almost one hundred percent.
Nota - Posizione 282
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 282
Haitian government, if that word can even be used, is little more than a group of thugs.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 283
twenty percentage
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Haitian politicians are brutal and corrupt, but they do not have the power to control most of the country.
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low level of technology.
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Most parts of the country have neither electricity nor running water.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 286
Few people have cars.
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“oral culture,”
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 287
relies very little on newspapers
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 287
Haitian countryside lives in a state of virtual anarchy
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 288
Botswana
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 288
Unlike most African polities, which stand closer to Haiti, Botswana has democratic government, a semblance of rule of law, and a developed market economy.
Nota - Posizione 289
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 289
government that stands at about forty percent of measured gross domestic product,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 294
III. Implications for reform
Nota - Posizione 294
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 295
Is large government inevitable in the developed countries?
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 296
immediate reasons why big government is hard to reverse,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 297
We could make government smaller by throwing away modern technology, but that is hardly a desirable
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 298
technology hypothesis
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 299
necessary conditions rather than sufficient conditions.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 314
Those technologies made mass culture possible and in the realm of politics that mass culture translated into fascism. Only after bitter experience did fascist ideas become less popular and social and political norms subsequently evolved to protect electorates against the fascist temptation. In any case, these examples raise the question of whether we might see a subsequent evolution of institutions today, reversing how mass media and technology have shaped our politics.
Nota - Posizione 317
COSÌ COME SIAMO ARRETRATI DASL FASC COSÌ POSSIAMO ARRETRARE DA BIG SAM
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 318
Earlier times probably had no greater love of liberty than does the present.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 320
we should be skeptical of plans to recreate the historical or intellectual conditions behind "classical liberalism,"
Nota - Posizione 321
NN TORNRRANNO I BEI TEMPI. LA GENTE NN LI VIOLE
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 324
when we examine the broader historical picture, big government has been one result of a more general increase in wealth and freedom.
Nota - Posizione 325
BIG GOV E LIBRRTÀ VGANNO INSIEME
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 325
a simplistic “liberty vs. power” story is unlikely to mirror reality
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 326
brought us both more liberty and more power
Nota - Posizione 327
TECH
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 328
recent job growth has been concentrated in the sectors of health care, education, and government itself.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 329
“government-intensive”
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 332
Future technologies?
Nota - Posizione 332
T
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 332
often hear it argued that new technologies will bring about greater possibilities for freedom.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 333
on-line anonymity,
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 333
genetic engineering
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 335
Others argue that greater competition across governments has brought greater freedom
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 338
how freer capital movements impose discipline on governments and force them to institute better policies.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 340
Such hypotheses, however, do not find support in the data.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 340
small open economies tend to be more interventionist rather than freer (Rodrik 1998).
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 341
The more open the economy, the more risk that individuals face from the perturbations of larger world markets. These citizens then tend to favor more government intervention, not less, to protect themselves against those risks.
Nota - Posizione 343
x
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 343
Global markets have punished many poorer countries, such as Argentina or Indonesia, for their bad interventionist policies. Often the end result is more government intervention, not less.
Nota - Posizione 344
c
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 345
Canada is a more “open” economy than is the United States, yet it typically has greater government intervention and higher levels of government spending.
Evidenzia (giallo) - Posizione 346
Nordic economies are both very open and have lots of government spending,

In difesa delle frustate

Nel suo “In defense of flogging” Peter Moskos affronta il tema seriamente, le provocazioni non gli interessano.
Ci sono un mucchio di persone in carcere e la crudeltà del sistema va ridotta: le frustate sono una soluzione.
L’ introspezione è sempre il miglior punto di partenza per ogni analisi…
… Given the choice between five years in prison and ten brutal lashes, which would you choose?…
Non so se avete presente cosa sia una prigione
… Taking away a large portion of somebody’s life through incarceration is a strange concept, especially if it’s rooted not in actual punishment but rather in some hogwash about making you a better person (more on that later). But what about prison itself? Prison is first and foremost a home of involuntary confinement, a “total institution” of complete dominance and regulation…
E poi soppesate bene il fatto che la scelta è al centro dell’esperimento mentale…
… even if you’re adamant that flogging is a barbaric, inhuman form of punishment, how can offering the choice be so bad? If flogging were really worse than prison, nobody would choose it. So what’s the harm in offering corporal punishment as an alternative to incarceration?…
Sullo sfondo di questa scelta campeggia la brutta notizia – da tenere nel debito conto - che se la prigione non funziona, non funzionano nemmeno le alternative alla prigione… 
… Prisons don’t work, but unfortunately neither does traditional opposition to them. Without more radical debate, preachers for prison reform will never be heard beyond the choir. There is no shortage of ideas on such things as rehab, job training, indeterminate sentencing, restorative justice, prison survival, and reentry…
Frustare è un metodo barbarico ma forse alcune barbarie hanno una cattiva reputazione che non meritano.
Qui, ad ogni modo, si parla di sostituzione non di integrazione
… I don’t want to add caning to an already brutal system of prison; instead, I propose an alternative to incarceration, what might be called “flog-and-release.”…
Ma di cosa parliamo quando parliamo di frustate?…
… Ten lashes, a little rubbing alcohol, a few bandages, and you’d be free to go home and sleep in your own bed… Consider the case of Aaron Cohen, a New Zealander arrested with his drug-addicted mother for possessing heroin in Malaysia… It’s just incredible pain. More like a burning—like someone sticking an iron on your bum. . . . Afterwards my bum looked like a side of beef. There was three lines of raw skin with blood oozing out. . . . . You can’t sleep and can only walk like a duck. Your whole backside is three or four times bigger—swollen, black and blue. I made a full recovery within a month and am left with only slight scarring. Emotionally, I’m okay. I haven’t had any nightmares about that day, although I’m starting to dream about the prison… you’d be led into a room where an attending physician would conduct an examination to make sure you’re physically fit enough to be flogged, that you won’t die under the intense shock of the cane… The punishment would not be a public spectacle but would not be closed to the public. There would be perhaps a dozen spectators, including bailiffs and other representatives of the court, a lawyer, a doctor, perhaps a court reporter, and maybe a few relatives of both parties, including the victim… the guard takes down your pants and adds a layer of padding over your back (to protect vital organs from errant strokes), the flogging would begin… the skin at the point of contact is usually split open and, after three strokes, the buttocks will be covered with blood. All the strokes prescribed by the court . . . are given at one and the same time, at half minute intervals. . . . . The stroke follows the count, and the succeeding count is usually made about half a minute after the stroke has landed. Most of the prisoners put up a violent struggle after each of the first three strokes. Mr. Quek [the prison director] said: “After that, their struggles lessen as they become weaker. At the end of the caning, those who receive more than three strokes will be in a state of shock. Many will collapse, but the medical officer and his team of assistants are on hand to revive them and apply antiseptic on the caning wound.”…
Il compenso delle frustate:
… once they’ve patched you up, you’d be allowed to leave the courthouse a free man—no striped pajamas, no gangs, no learning from other criminals, no fear. You’d never have to find out what the inside of a prison is like
Per valutare questa soluzione si tenga presente che oggi il movimento anti-carcere è in stato fallimentare…
… The prison-abolition movement seems to have died right after a 1973 Presidential Advisory Commission said, “No new institutions for adults should be built, and existing institutions for juveniles should be closed,” and concluded, “The prison, the reformatory and the jail have achieved only a shocking level of failure.” Since then, even though violent crime in America has gone down, the incarceration rate has increased a whopping 500 percent…
Ma il carcere è utile? Non sembra proprio…
… To understand the uselessness of incarceration—to appreciate just how specious the connection between increased incarceration and decreased crime really is—consider New York City. Not only did New York drastically cut crime, it did so while incarcerating fewer people… Better policing and massive immigration—not increased incarceration—contributed to New York’s crime drop. In the 1990s the NYPD got back in the crime prevention game: Drug dealers were pushed indoors, and crack receded in general. Also, police focused on quality-of-life issues, the so-called “broken windows.” At the same time more than one million foreign immigrants moved to New York City. Whether due to a strong work ethic, fear of deportation, traditional family values, or having the desire and means to emigrate in the first place, immigrants (nationwide and in New York City) have lower rates of crime and incarceration than native-born Americans. Astoundingly, today more than one in three New Yorkers are foreign born. Although policing in New York City deservedly received a lot of credit for the city’s crime drop, strangely, few people credit immigrants and almost nobody seemed to notice the winning strategy of “decarceration.”…  From 1970 to 1991 crime rose while we locked up a million more people…
Ma perché il carcere non riduce il crimine?
… One reason prison doesn’t reduce crime is that many prison-worthy offenses—especially drug crimes—are economically demand-motivated. This doesn’t change when a drug dealer is locked up… The war on drugs may have started as a response to a drug problem, but it’s created an even larger and entirely preventable prohibition problem… Prison reformers—and I wish them well—tinker at the edges of a massive failed system…
Il problema nella sua essenza:
… To bring our incarceration back to a civilized level—one we used to have and much more befitting a rich, modern nation—we would have to reduce the number of prisoners by 85 percent. Without alternative punishments, this will not happen anytime soon. Even the most optimistically progressive opponent of prison has no plan to release two million prisoners…
Depenalizzare? Forse, ad ogni modo questa soluzione richiede tempo, bisogna agire subito.
Un altro vantaggio delle frustate…
… we could offer the lash in exchange for sentence years, after the approval of some parole board designed to keep the truly dangerous behind bars. As a result, our prison population would plummet. This would not only save money but save prisons for those who truly deserve to be there: the uncontrollably dangerous…
C’è gente che non ripeterà mai il crimine che ha commesso: una volta creata la deterrenza con le frustate, tenerla in gabbia è inutile…
… Bernard Madoff, famously convicted in 2009 for running a massive Ponzi scheme, is being incarcerated and costing the public even more money. Why? He’s no threat to society. Nobody would give him a penny to invest. But Madoff did wrong and deserves to be punished. Better to cane him and let him go…
Le frustate assolvono anche alla funzione retributiva della pena, un compito essenziale…
…  imagine being the victim of a violent mugging. The last thing you remember before slipping into unconsciousness is the mugger pissing on you and laughing. Such things happen. Luckily, police catch the bastard, and he is quickly convicted. What should happen next? What if there were some way to reform this violent criminal without punishing him? In Sleeper, Woody Allen’s futuristic movie from the 1970s, there’s a device like a small walk-in closet called the “orgasmatron.” A person goes in and closes the door, lights flash, and three seconds later, well . . . that’s why they call it the orgasmatron. Now imagine, if you will, a device similar to the orgasmatron called the “reformatron.” It’s the perfect rehabilitation machine for criminals… The cured criminal thanks God, kisses his baby’s mother, and walks out of the courtroom a free man to go home, relax, and think about job possibilities… the concept is disturbingly lacking in justice…
Non è un caso che molti sostengono la pena di morte ammettendo anche se convinti che non abbia un effetto deterrente.
Insomma, le frustate: 1) sono meno costose per la vittima e per la comunità, 2) producono un identico se non maggiore effetto deterrente, 3) producono un identico se non maggiore effetto retributivo, 4) producono un minore effetto diseducativo, 5) riducono la popolazione carceraria riservando spazi agli individui più pericolosi, 6) rendono inutili le difficili riforme e le improbabili depenalizzazioni, 7) sono meno crudeli in quanto somministrate solo dietro scelta volontaria.
flogging

Il giornalista come nemico pubblico numero uno.

Se getto la maschera e metto al bando ogni forma di cerchiobottismo ipocrita, non posso limitarmi a dire che il mondo dei media e dell’ informazione politica sia inquinato da evidenti faziosità, devo andare fino in fondo e precisare che è fazioso perché pencola vistosamente “a sinistra”.
Qui, da noi, come ovunque nel mondo occidentale.
Ora, come sempre. (*)
E penso che la sensazione sia condivisa da qualsiasi liberale degno di questo nome, nonché da qualsiasi persona di buon senso che si sottoponga ad un minimo di introspezione credibile.
Senonché, quantificare lo sbilanciamento è alquanto difficile, come si fa?
Il tentativo più articolato di procedere a una misurazione lo si deve a Tim Groseclose, i risultati di un lavoro durato anni sono in parte prevedibili: la distorsione esiste; e in parte sorprendenti: è molto più ampia di quel che ci si dava per scontato.
Nel fuoco della lente c’ è l’ informazione a stelle e strisce: per farsi un’ idea su come siano messe le socialdemocrazie europee basta moltiplicare le distorsioni rilevate per tre o per quattro (ciascuno scelga il fattore amplificante che preferisce).
Inutile entrare qui in noiosi particolari, mi limito ad un indizio che parla da sé:
… the bias shouldn’t be surprising given the political views of reporters… Surveys show that Washington correspondents vote for the Democratic candidate at a rate of 85 percent or more… Studies of contributions to presidential campaigns have found that more than 90 percent, and as many as 98.9 percent, of journalists who contribute to a  presidential campaign give to the Democratic candidate…  that mean residents of left-wing academic communities like Cambridge, Mass. and Berkeley, Calif. are, on average, much more conservative than Washington media correspondents…
Sembra incredibile ma è così: in fatto di predisposizione alla partigianeria si puo’ persino far peggio rispetto all’ accademia saldamente in ostaggio dal politically correct. E sono proprio i giornalisti a riuscire nell’ improba impresa.
Il “cane da guardia” sembra allora abbaiare a comando:
newspaper
Ok, ma questa potente distorsione alla fin fine conta davvero? Cambia le nostre vite?
Sì, risponde a sorpresa TG: Obama non sarebbe nemmeno stato eletto senza la spinta dei media schierati a suo favore in modo tanto squilibrato.
Francamente, lo ammetto, ero convinto del contrario; mi tocca dunque rettificare la posizione originaria a cui, per altro, ero tanto affezionato? E perché no? In fondo non farei che seguire le orme di TG, il quale si è rivelato su questo punto abbastanza onesto: data changed his mind.
D’ altronde basterebbe l’ acume di un Tolstoj qualsiasi per capire come si formano le opinione politiche nella testa di persone pur sempre consapevoli e persino di una certa levatura:
… si atteneva fermamente alle opinioni a cui si attenevano la maggioranza e il suo giornale, e le cambiava solamente quando la maggioranza e il giornale le cambiava, ovvero, per dir meglio, neppure le cambiava, ma inavvertitamente cambiavano esse in lui
… non sceglieva né le tendenze, né le opinioni, ma queste tendenze e opinioni venivano a lui, esattamente come egli non sceglieva la foggia del cappello o del soprabito, ma prendeva quella che si usava portare…
… avere delle opinioni, per lui che viveva in una certa società, posto il bisogno di una certa attività del pensiero che solitamente si sviluppa negli anni della maturità, era altrettanto necessario che avere un cappello…
… se pur v’era una ragione per cui preferiva la tendenza liberale a quella conservatrice, alla quale pure si attenevano molti del suo ambiente, questa non stava nel fatto che egli trovasse più ragionevole la tendenza liberale, ma perché essa si confaceva di più al suo modo di vivere. Il partito liberale diceva che in Russia tutto andava male ed effettivamente… lui aveva molti debiti e decisamente difettava di denaro… il partito liberale diceva che il matrimonio era un istituto superato e che era necessario riformarlo, ed effettivamente la vita familiare gli procurava poca soddisfazione e lo costringeva a mentire e a fingere, il che repugnava alla sua natura… Il partito liberale diceva, o meglio sottintendeva, che la religione era solo un freno per la parte barbara della popolazione, ed effettivamente lui non poteva sopportare senza aver male alle gambe neppure un breve Te Deum…
Ce n’ è abbastanza per convincersi dei danni potenziali del cosiddetto “media bias”: il principale sovvertitore della vita pubblica – oggi - sarebbe dunque la masnada di Gruber e Costamagna che, circonfuse dall’ hubrys dell’ informazione, ci inseguono come baccanti per “notiziarci” a dovere… e con un Feltri che segue ramingo a distanza.
Mi sembra una posizione degna di essere considerata: la presenza vociferante di una classe di giornalisti consente di barare al gioco democratico in modo socialmente rispettabile. 
Per ora lasciatemi ancora credere che sia il “sindacato politicizzato” la lebbra più tignosa che ammorba la vita politica, ma l’ azione pervertitrice del “giornalismo” non andrebbe comunque sottostimata.
Soluzioni
1. Censura? A un liberale ripugna. Punto.
2. Disclosure? E’ la soluzione per cui simpatizza TG ed è adottata da alcune riviste (Slate, per esempio). Non la vedo molto praticabile.
3. Depotenziare l’ ideologia facendo pesare di più gli interessi. Ci sono molti modi per farlo; per esempio, tanto per stare d’ attualità, azzerando il finanziamento pubblico ai partiti. Chi teme questa via la presenta come il bau bau: “solo i ricchi potranno fare politica”, e invece chissà che non sia un fattore in grado di raddrizzare le storture provocate dall’ informazione. Si coglierebbero due piccioni con una fava.

(*) Lo so che così dicendo vengo a mia volta considerato fazioso; cerco allora di rifarmi una verginità dicendo, per esempio, che, a mio avviso, la corruzione alligna di più a destra. Contenti?
(**) Fonti nobili d’ ispirazione:
- Tim Groseclose – A mesure of media bias.
- Lev Tolstoj – Anna Karenina.
Fonti ignobili d’ ispirazione:
- L’ Infedele di ieri sera (ma uno a caso va bene lo stesso).