Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan

Re:Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan by ken on Saturday January 03, 2009 @05:00PM (#418716)

I agree with your first point, but I'm having trouble seeing the "advantages to size" you speak of, at least on that scale. Things like "setting the global agenda" or "military is twice as good" sound like advantages to the bureaucracy itself, not to the people it consists of. (Per your examples: at no point during my lifetime did I feel that any President spoke for me, nor did I feel our gigantic military made me any safer.)

I've seen this commercially, too: large company buys small-medium company because it's good for both companies, even though it's demonstrably bad for employees and products of both. It's a tail-wags-dog situation.

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Re:Philip Greenspun's Economy Recovery Plan by mixmax on Saturday January 03, 2009 @06:59PM (#418788)

Sorry, rereading the comment I see that it could have been clearer.

What I was talking about is what economists call a true public service. This is a service that doesn't diminish in value when you add more users - a light tower is the classic example: The lighttower is as good a service to a ship whether it is the only one using it or there are a thousand others. Webpages are another good example.

Large countries have an advantage here: It costs the same to build a lighttower whether you are the US or Lichtenstein.

The military might have been a bad example though...

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