The Size of Nations

Book Description

The authors of this timely and provocative book use the tools of economic analysis to examine the formation and change of political borders. They argue that while these issues have always been at the core of historical analysis, international economists have tended to regard the size of a country as "exogenous," or no more subject to explanation than the location of a mountain range or the course of a river. Alesina and Spolaore consider a country's borders to be subject to the same analysis as any other man-made institution. In The Size of Nations, they argue that the optimal size of a country is determined by a cost-benefit trade-off between the benefits of size and the costs of heterogeneity. In a large country, per capita costs may be low, but the heterogeneous preferences of a large population make it hard to deliver services and formulate policy. Smaller countries may find it easier to respond to citizen preferences in a democratic way.

Alesina and Spolaore substantiate their analysis with simple analytical models that show how the patterns of globalization, international conflict, and democratization of the last two hundred years can explain patterns of state formation. Their aim is not only "normative" but also "positive" -- that is, not only to compute the optimal size of a state in theory but also to explain the phenomenon of country size in reality. They argue that the complexity of real world conditions does not preclude a systematic analysis, and that such an analysis, synthesizing economics, political science, and history, can help us understand real world events.

Customer Reviews:

very stimulating book.......2004-02-09

This is an original and stimulating book. The authors's main point is that the size of nations is determined by a trade-off between the costs and benefits of size. Among the costs of large countries there is the difficulty of satisfying the preferences of a more diverse population. However, as they point out, some of these preferences can be accommodated through decentralization and federalism. That is the case in the US. I think that the reviewer below here who mentions Washington and Hawaii is not right. Public amenities are as good in Hawaii as in Washington these days because most public goods are chosen locally in the US (if you go to France things are still pretty different). But the real costs of joining the US for the Hawaians was loss of political independence. The original Hawaians had a very distinct language, culture, etc. and they would have chosen very different policies if they had been independent rather than a part of the US. And that, I understand, is the authors' main point: by expanding a country, you may end up with many people who have preferences that are far from the average preferences. That is a very good and general point, although the authors may have overstressed the link geography-preferences in order to get neat mathematical models, as economists always do. My overall impression from reading this fascinating book is that their story holds pretty well and explains a lot of what actually happened - and is still happening - in the real world.

Stimulating, but centrally flawed........2004-02-03

The book raises two interesting questions and attempts to answer them; What determines the size of nations, and what effect country size has on economic success? The discussions that follow are thought provoking and I recommend the book to anyone that finds the questions fascinating.
The central flaw is one that comes up early and has far too much influence in subsequent chapters. A principle assumption is that public services are localized and that the further the distance from the those services, the less benefit a citizen will derive from them. Distance therefore becomes a key factor in determining the populations loyalty to the center. Providing those services, or compensating for the lack of them, is progressively more expensive the further from the center. This may have once been true in earlier, more centralized times when capital cities were lavished with amenities that other cities lacked. The same argument now would imply one of the following:

1) that people living in Washington DC have far better public utilities than those living in Honolulu and the central government gives substantial tax breaks to those living in Hawaii to compensate.

or 2) Honolulu has public amenities comparable to DC, but that the cost to the center to provide it to Hawaii is prohibitive and far outweighs taxes collected in Hawaii.

Customer Reviews:

On Target, Informed Literature Supports This Early Understanding.......2006-10-04

This book, first published in the 1950's and re-issued in the 1980's, is making a comeback today because it continues to be relevant. It inspired the book "Human Scale" by Kirkpatrick Sale (see my review of the latter book) and is consistent with an entire literature on limits to growth, "The Pathologies of Power" (see my review of the book by that name by Norman Cousins), "The Manufacture of Evil," and other more recent erudite works such as Philip Alott's "The Health of Nations: Society and Law Beyond the State."

WIRED Magazine is rediscovering the fundamental truth that small is beautiful, and localized energy and agriculture are sustainable. Herman Daly's works on ecological economics, and the newly emerging work on performance economies where every product is evaluated not on its low-cost in cash, but its high cost in energy and water (one T-shirt consumes 4000 liters of water in the making).

This is a foundation reading. If you are interested in this and do not have the time or money for a full library, the Amazon reviews are now a literature in their own right. Simply bookmaking "see my other reviews" and exploring those ten a night, will keep one gainfully educated for the 180 days, and offer a Master's level appreciation for the complexities of reality and the insufficiency of our federal government that will frighten and stimulate.

Who would benefit? Not me!.......2004-01-02

Kohr is trying to sell the masses on the idea that breaking up larger countries and forming a global federal government would be a good thing for all. In Europe he advocates breaking things up on the basis of ethnicity or language and that produces small, homogeneous states. In the USA a European-american ethnostate would be too powerful so he would unite non-whites in their own ethnostates and break up European-Americans into states with conflicting economic interests so that they will be easier to dominate. Above the ethnostates would be a world federal government run by elites.

Many layers of government would separate "citizens" from the global meta-government and that would help the rulers override objections to redistributing the wealth created by people of European ancestry and using it to buy the votes of the backward peoples of the world. If the world government didn't redistribute the wealth in this way Marxists would overthrow it. Probably an "economically dominant" minority (as described in "World on Fire" by Amy Chua) would allow a leader of the backward "colonized" peoples to come to power democratically and then bribe him for protection while he stays in power as a dictator (like Ferdinand Marcos, according to Chua). Marxists would favor Kohr's plan because it would produce a highly unstable world government that they could take over. "Economically dominant minorities" would favor it because it provides a pseudo-altruistic cover story for a bid for world power. They could manipulate such a government even more easily and safely than the existing democracies. Hard-core capitalists would favor Kohr's plan because it would create a global free market with no obstacles to the race to the bottom.

I think that both parties in USA favor massive immigration because they are controlled by economically dominant minorities, hard core capitalists and Marxists. When USA breaks up Kohr's plan will influence where the new borders are drawn.

Sometimes I think some intellectuals are trying to create a meta-religion to bolster a world federal government. Read "Explorations at the Edge of Time" by Richard Falk and decide for yourself.

Yussuf Kly has written a book, "A Popular Guide to Minority Rights," where he advocates non-territorial (portable) ethnic autonomy enforced by the United Nations. That would be just the ticket for an economically dominant minority that is dispersed across many countries. They could use this newly minted civil right to get protection from the global federal government when there is a backlash from the indigenous people. Few would argue that "group rights" are not a major factor in USA even though they have nothing to do with the individual rights of classical liberalism. We are moving closer to Kly's proposal all the time.

According to Amy Chua the ethnic Chinese make up 1% of the population of the Philippines and control 70% of the economy. The whole world could end up like that with an economically dominant minority ruling through a dictator drawn from one of the backward groups, like Ferdinand Marcos.

I would prefer a world of nearly homogeneous nation-states that are as economically independent as possible. Ethno-nationalism isn't evil. I think an ethnic bond is the best way, in the long run, to bridge class differences and avoid putting all humanity's eggs in one basket.

I'm glad to see this back in print.......2002-04-25

I fully agree with the earlier reviewer. "Breakdown" is one of the seminal pieces of economic & political theory of the 20th century.

And perhaps one of the most prophetic. Originally published in 1957, Kohr draws a map of a "broken down" Europe -- that is, a Europe composed of much smaller units than the then-Great Powers -- that would be easier to unify. Much of that map, particularly in Eastern Europe, has come true. Many of the parts that aren't yet independent have growing independence movements. Still, even as these movements re-draw the map, Europe has indeed crept closer and closer to unification, just as Kohr predicted.

From the depths of the Cold War, this was an extraordinarily uncommon leap of analysis to make.

Recommended in the highest possible terms.

This Book Will Change Your World View.......2001-08-05

Kohr calls for peaceful dissolution of nation states into smaller independent entities which can network or confederate as they choose. His book is a bible of the radical decentralist movement and applauded by anarchists, libertarians, greens alike. It's a fascinating read and will make you realize how much you yearn to belong to a real community and not just be an anoymous cipher in a giant nation state. Quote from Kohr, to give you a flavor: There seems to be only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. Oversimplified as this may seem, we shall find the idea more easily acceptable if we consider that bigness, or oversize, is really much more than just a social problem. It appears to be the one and only problem permeating all creation.Whenever something is wrong, something is too big. And if the body of a people becomes diseased with the fever of aggression, brutality, collectivism, or massive idiocy, it is not because it has fallen victim to bad leadership or mental derangement. It is because human beings, so charming as individuals or in small aggregations have been welded onto overconcentrated social units. That is when they begin to slide into uncontrollable catastrophe. For social problems, to paraphrase the population doctrine of Thomas Malthus, have the unfortunate tendency to grow at a geometric ratio with the growth of the organism of which they are part, while the ability of man to cope with them, if it can be extended at all, grows only at an arithmetic ratio. Which means that, if a society grows beyond its optimum size, its problems must eventually outrun the growth of those human faculties which are necessary for dealing with them. Hence it is always bigness, and only bigness, which is the problem of existence. The problem is not to grow but to stop growing; the answer: not union but division.

Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations (International Economic Association)

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Economic Consequences of the Size of Nations (International Economic Association)

Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Popular Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0333406354

Economic implications of the size of nations;: With special reference to Lebanon

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Economic implications of the size of nations;: With special reference to Lebanon
Nadim G Khalaf
Manufacturer: Brill
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Binding: Unknown Binding

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ASIN: B0006E0YPQ

Formas Geometriques (1 Eres Nations/Action Math)

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Formas Geometriques (1 Eres Nations/Action Math)
Ivan Bulloch
Manufacturer: Two-Can Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 1587281465

I Know Big And Small/grande Y Pequeno (I'm Ready for Math/Ya Puedo Aprender Matematicas)

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I Know Big And Small/grande Y Pequeno (I'm Ready for Math/Ya Puedo Aprender Matematicas)
Susan Nations
Manufacturer: Gareth Stevens Publishing
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Binding: Library Binding

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Little Lost Fatherland A Short Plausible History of an Admirable Miniature Nation of Full-size People

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Little Lost Fatherland A Short Plausible History of an Admirable Miniature Nation of Full-size People
George T.T. Polk
Manufacturer: The Galewood Press
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Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000JERQUO

On Remaking the World Cut Nations Down to Size

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On Remaking the World Cut Nations Down to Size
Harry Schultz
Manufacturer: International Commission for the de-Centraliz
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Overdeveloped Nations
Leopold Kohr
Manufacturer: Schocken
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Binding: Hardcover

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Sitting on the lawn with a lady twice my size

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Sitting on the lawn with a lady twice my size
Opal L Nations
Manufacturer: Intermedia Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Book Description

Providing a comprehensive review of the major behavior patterns that effective leaders use to influence followers, this book keys in on what effective leaders really do and emphasizes how leaders can diagnose and modify situations and followers to make their leadership a more positive and productive endeavor. Organized into an easy-to-follow four-part structure: Part I introduces the concept of leadership, the approach of the book, and descriptions and evaluations of several currently popular situational leadership theories. Part II describes the five core leadership behavior patterns (supportiveness, directiveness, participation, reward/punishment, and charismatic behavior). Part III examines less-researched leader behavior patterns such as boundary-spanning, building social exchanges, and followership. Part IV describes the current leadership issues of ethics, diversity, leadership development, and change, with a concluding chapter that integrates findings from earlier chapters and describes popular leadership styles that are combinations of the specific leader behaviors described earlier. For leadership roles found in business, nursing, military science, criminal justice, education, government or agriculture.

Instructor Resource Center on CD-ROM-Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership, 2nd

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Instructor Resource Center on CD-ROM-Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership, 2nd
Howell
Manufacturer: Pearson Education
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: CD-ROM
ASIN: 0131484540

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Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership
Jon P., Costley, Dan L. Howell
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OIMH3Q

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Understanding Behaviors for Effective Leadership
Howell
Manufacturer: Prentice Hall
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OHDZF6

Book Description

Insect pest control continues to be a challenge for agricultural producers and researchers. Insect resistance to commonly used pesticides and the removal of toxic pesticides from the market have taken their toll on the ability of agricultural producers to produce high quality, pest-free crops within economical means. In addition to this, they must not endanger their workers or the environment. We depend on agriculture for food, feed, and fiber, making it an essential part of our economy. Many people take agriculture for granted while voicing concern over adverse effects of agricultural production practices on the environment. Insect Pest Management presents a balanced overview of environmentally safe and ecologically sound practices for managing insects. This book covers specific ecological measures, environmentally acceptable physical control measures, use of chemical pesticides, and a detailed account of agronomic and other cultural practices. It also includes a chapter on state-of-the-art integrated pest management based, a section on biological control, and lastly a section devoted to legal and legislative issues. Insect Pest Management approaches its subject in a systematic and comprehensive manner. It serves as a useful resource for professionals in the fields of entomology, agronomy, horticulture, ecology, and environmental sciences, as well as to agricultural producers, industrial chemists, and people concerned with regulatory and legislative issues.

Amazon.com

While Jung is known mainly for his theories on the nature of the unconscious mind, he did have an interest in the paranormal. In this essay, Jung applies his analytical skills to the UFO phenomenon. Rather than assuming that the modern prevalence of UFO sightings are due to extraterrestrial craft, Jung reserves judgment on their origin and connects UFOs with archetypal imagery, concluding that they have become a "living myth." This essay is intriguing in its methodology and implications as to the nature of UFOs and their relation to the human psyche.

Book Description

"In the threatening situation of the world today, when people are beginning to see that everything is at stake, the projection-creating fantasy soars beyond the realm of earthly organizations and powers into the heavens, into interstellar space, where the rulers of human fate, the gods, once had their abode in the planets.... Even people who would never have thought that a religious problem could be a serious matter that concerned them personally are beginning to ask themselves fundamental questions. Under these circumstances it would not be at all surprising if those sections of the community who ask themselves nothing were visited by `visions,' by a widespread myth seriously believed in by some and rejected as absurd by others."--C. G. Jung, in Flying Saucers

Jung's primary concern in Flying Saucers is not with the reality or unreality of UFOs but with their psychic aspect. Rather than speculate about their possible nature and extraterrestrial origin as alleged spacecraft, he asks what it may signify that these phenomena, whether real or imagined, are seen in such numbers just at a time when humankind is menaced as never before in history. The UFOs represent, in Jung's phrase, "a modern myth."

Customer Reviews:

UFO'S AS MANDALAS.......2006-11-30

Though we can come pretty close to taking it for granted that intelligent life exists somewhere out there in the universe, I also take it for granted that this has nothing to do with the UFO phenomenon. However, since so-called UFO's have been sighted by thousands of reputable people, and have been caught on radar, it is clear that they are something. In the 1950's, when FLYING SAUCERS was written, humanity felt itself to be on the brink of self destruction with nuclear weapons. Today, that menace is not only compounded by archaic religious fanaticism, but we also face the even greater threat of global warming. Dr. Jung's notion is that such tensions in the psyche create a potential which expresses itself as manifestation of psychic energy so that a "uniting symbol" is created in the unconscious. Though the idea that UFO's are psychic projections capable of being picked up by radar is hard to take seriously, it is less so than the idea that FTL alien spacecraft have been buzzing around Earth for hundreds of years.

Even is there should turn out to be some physical explanation for UFO's, it is the meaning of the rumor that is of importance. Most alien abductions might well be delusions induced during hypnogogic states of mind, but that explanation does not eliminate the importance of the fact that thousands of people are experiencing such a delusion. Mass-mindedness -- Communism, Corporationism, Nazism, and Christian and Moslem fanaticism -- has proven itself to be the greatest danger facing modern man. So Dr. Jung postulates that the psyche projects a symbol of wholeness, a mandala, in response to this danger. Of course, if mankind ignores this symbolic warning by interpreting it as alien spacecraft, it does us no good.
(Peter Payne, author of CAPTAIN CALIFORNIA: A YOUNG MAN'S ENCOUNTER WITH THE EVIL WITHIN HIMSELF)

Aberations in the Collective Unconscious........2001-08-02

In a world of black helicopters flying overhead, cattle mutilations, and Y2K bugs, these cogent remarks by Jung are all the more relevant. The post-modern era is plagued by millenial hysteria, doomsday cults, and "alien visitations". What does this all mean for modern man? Psychical aberations manifest themselves in mass delusions. What else lurks in the depths of man's soul? And, what else is waiting to rise to the surface? We can only speculate.

imaginal symbols of wholeness.......2000-06-02

Jung's interpretation of flying saucers as compensatory Self symbols of wholeness required by an era of psychological fragmentation is both brilliant and well-developed in this fine little book.

THE BASIS FOR UFOs PSYCHO-SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION.......1999-08-24

What Jung did with this book is, fundamentally, setting the honest basis for UFO intereptation from a psychological point of view. That's why the open postulates he gained from this inquiry have generated many controversies and strumentalization among the ufologists' field. UFOs - says Jung - may be psycho-sociological phenomena which come from both the inner symbolic human subconscious AND from our technological era's imaginism. However, those hardly conventionally explainable episode may even - in Jung's own opinion - be a HARD and MATERIAL phenomenon, which may be explained with extraterrestrial visits. From this point of view, the sociological redutionism slips towards a postume status, leaving the question as open as ever. Definitely, the book you should be starting with if you like the subject.

Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies

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Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies
C. G. Jung
Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0000CK6KD

Flying Saucers - A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky

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Flying Saucers - A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky
C.G. Jung
Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace and Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MU82YO

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Flying Saucers, A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies
C.G. Jung
Manufacturer: New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co, 1959
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000O3PXGY

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Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies

Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HLUJY4

Flying saucers;: A modern myth of things seen in the skies (A Mentor book)

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Flying saucers;: A modern myth of things seen in the skies (A Mentor book)
C. G Jung
Manufacturer: New American Library
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Engineering | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007DZR5S

FLYING SAUCERS. A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Translated from the German by R.F.C. Hull.

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FLYING SAUCERS. A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Translated from the German by R.F.C. Hull.
C.G.: Jung
Manufacturer: Pan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000W2NTW2

Flying saucers: A modern myth of things seen in the skies (Bollingen series)

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Flying saucers: A modern myth of things seen in the skies (Bollingen series)
C. G Jung
Manufacturer: Princeton University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0006QM4LQ

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Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Skies. Translated from the German by R. F. C. Hull.
C. G. JUNG
Manufacturer: Harcourt, Brace
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000U8VORU

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