Re:Advanced economies are so sick we need a new way to think...
by vidarh on Tuesday November 03, 2015 @01:47PM
(#10501612)
It's the favourite argument against anything and everything the US isn't doing. It has the benefit that it pretty much only falls flat when China or India is doing something successfully.
Of course, the problem is that almost everything it gets applied to can be decomposed neatly into, independently operated geographic regions - whether states, or counties or groups of such - if the scale becomes a challenge.
Arguably scale rather creates great opportunities. Subdivision coupled with looser coordination and knowledge exchange means systemic failure at the top of each system can be contained by leaning on the others. E.g. the UK National Health Service is split into many "trusts" and failing trusts are often either put under the control - temporarily or long term - of successful ones, or given more focused support from surrounding trusts to get back on track. Any number of trusts can be badly mismanaged without creating existential threats to the health service as a whole.
The larger the overall system, the more such trusts can be run at whatever the ideal scale is for optimizing system cost rather than having to scale them down to spread the risk; and the more such trusts, the easier it becomes to absorb individual failures without too big effects on surrounding ones.
Of course, the problem is that almost everything it gets applied to can be decomposed neatly into, independently operated geographic regions - whether states, or counties or groups of such - if the scale becomes a challenge.
Arguably scale rather creates great opportunities. Subdivision coupled with looser coordination and knowledge exchange means systemic failure at the top of each system can be contained by leaning on the others. E.g. the UK National Health Service is split into many "trusts" and failing trusts are often either put under the control - temporarily or long term - of successful ones, or given more focused support from surrounding trusts to get back on track. Any number of trusts can be badly mismanaged without creating existential threats to the health service as a whole.
The larger the overall system, the more such trusts can be run at whatever the ideal scale is for optimizing system cost rather than having to scale them down to spread the risk; and the more such trusts, the easier it becomes to absorb individual failures without too big effects on surrounding ones.