Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The global market for good governance seems to be heating up

Small, open countries, because they face more competition tend to govern better.  Large insular countries tend to do much worse.  Historically the US did well because we let most governance devolve to the states.  Now with our wonderful Federal Government and it's magic money machine, we are firmly in the Insular category.  To paraphrase Adam Smith:  "There's a lot of ruin in a (big, insular) country".


The world is changing more rapidly, so automatic pilot isn’t good enough any more.  “Good governance” and most of all adaptability have become more important.  This will benefit the Nordic countries, the UK, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, and Singapore.  It is mostly bad for India, Russia, and the Mediterranean countries, plus other countries with lots of corruption.  It remains to be seen which category the United States and China will fall into.

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