Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Authoritarianism and Organizational Size

All for freedom and of pleasure
Nothing ever lasts forever
Everybody wants to rule the world
--Tears for Fears

Authoritarian regimes prefer large organizations. A few large organizations are easier to influence and control that are many small organizations.

Stated differently, there are fewer control points.

Free markets promote the opposite. Decisions are decentralized among millions of people voluntarily engaging in cooperative exchange.

Such fragmentation is impossible for bureaucrats to manage. That is why authoritarians despise distributed government designs in which they must share or cede power to many small organizations.

1 comment:

BDub said...

This is also preciely why lobbying works. Each time the government gets involved in an industry or issue, the pool of people that need to be influenced drops from the general population to the size of Congress (in some cases, the size of a comittee or regulatory body). This simultaneously maximizes the efffect of money spent buying a preferred outcome - their money goes farther and carries more weight.