Except measures (and measurements) and all of this stuff just don't seem to work. In the abstract they sound good, but in implementation they always look incred

Except measures (and measurements) and all of this stuff just don't seem to work. In the abstract they sound good, but in implementation they always look incredibly lacking and seem to just further perversify incentives. It's not that we shouldn't try to improve these things, but in my opinion your position is a forlorn hope that is destined to be disappointed. The times when nations have worked better and more efficiently are times when there have been other sources of unity and a combined sense of national value which the modern world, and perhaps historical distance from the reckonings of the past (in particular world war 2) have been inexorably weakening.