When a government has 300 million+ people to represent, it needs to have very limited responsibilities and powers, because the common interests of so many peopl

When a government has 300 million+ people to represent, it needs to have very limited responsibilities and powers, because the common interests of so many people are very limited. I'm not sure I agree with that. The common interests of people are basically the same - education, health, housing ... There are over 80 million people in Germany. Not in the same league as the US, but still a huge country. And I don't think (obviously this is not data) that people here feel the government don't work for their interests. In a very small country like Ireland (where I'm actually from) the government seem to me to be much less 'representative' of the people, due to cronyism and corruption (see current Irish gov scandal expected to bring down the government within weeks - http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-the-maurice-mccabe-affair-is-our-worst-scandal-yet-1.2979195?mode=sample&auth-failed=1&pw-origin=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.irishtimes.com%2Fopinion%2Ffintan-o-toole-the-maurice-mccabe-affair-is-our-worst-scandal-yet-1.2979195 http://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-the-maurice...)