4 ms·

Maybe, but at the same time, a bigger country is always better. Splitting Italy into two would be worse long term for both halfs. You have the same talk in US,

by 21 8y ago

Maybe, but at the same time, a bigger country is always better. Splitting Italy into two would be worse long term for both halfs. You have the same talk in US, that California and New York pay all the taxes and carry on their back other "unproductive" states.

Udik 8y ago
> at the same time, a bigger country is always better Why so? And for whom, exactly? Do you think the US would fare better overall if they joined with southern countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Colombia? Also, Italy is inside the EU. I'm not sure that inside a supra-national entity as the EU the reasons for building bigger nation-states- reasons that were surely valid in the 19th century- still stand.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  Induction gives a hood answer. Would your country be better off balkanized with many small territories feuding and redundant administration on every new level? While there are occasional scaling issues there is a synergistic effect to larger unified territories - as opposed to actively occupied ones. Joining together would be a long term investment for the US. Given how well trade matches as size of neighbors attenuated by distance roughly it would pay off long term. Short term at least a significant minority would probably be discontent about it given what happened just with German reunification and they weren't even apart for a century.
  - Udik 8y ago
    As I said, Italy is already in the EU. Why would the small territories of Italy be "feuding" if they were all part of the EU? And I'm not sure that the administration would be much more redundant than it is now. On the other hand, you seem to be taking in account only the economic aspects of a unification. Yes, a unification process with poorer countries would be expensive, but maybe that's not the major issue with it. The issue I'm more worried about is that in a democracy the prevalent culture shapes the administration and, of course, the society. Unifying the US with, say, Venezuela, doesn't mean turning 31 million Venezuelans into Americans; it means making the US 10% more like Venezuela. It changes the identity of the country, and you might like the current identity better than the new one.
  - bobthechef 8y ago
    Redundant administration? By that logic, you might as well create a one world government, but it's a piss poor idea. Consider that redundancy is good in that it creates multiple points of failure. Consider that bureaucracy will scale with the size of the country and not necessarily in the efficient way you think it would. Consider that regional needs and cultures vary dramatically. Even in individual countries, subsidiarian governance is good in that it best matches law and policy with the particularities of each region because local authorities have better grasp of local issues (and where matters are escalated only as necessary). Blanket statements about bigger being better are flatly wrong. And where the US is concerned, the US benefits greatly from a very fortuitous combination of geopolitical factors. Russia, on the other hand, expanded eastward with no such commensurate benefits.
  - djrogers 8y ago
    Language and culture both matter when dlooking at a country - the US joining with several countries with a culture of corruption and massive distrust of the government would not likely end up well for the US.
- Spooky23 8y ago
  Only if being part of the whole raises everyone up. If the smaller county is a colony like Puerto Rico, than no. Even a primitive US State like Mississippi both benefits from and benefits the greater nation.
MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
> a bigger country is always better Tell that to Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Monaco, they're not far away. Tyrol is already an autonomous region.
- 21 8y ago
  You're German. Do you think that the reunification was a mistake? It cost the west side a trillion.
  - MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
    It was very expensive, but IMHO still the right choice. What were they supposed to do? The east is still weak (except maybe Berlin), mainly due to a lack of big corporations, chased away into the western parts by the soviets. At least the gap is not widening, but its also not really closing either. It will take many decades. Luckily we have some federalism to counteract some of Big Country malaise (unlike FR or UK).
  - te_chris 8y ago
    In an article in the new statesman recently they talked about western hesitation to unification, both for cost reasons and due to Western resentment against Prussia et al. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2017/09/what-britain-needs-understand-about-profound-and-ancient-divisions-germany https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2017/09/what-brita...
  - bobthechef 8y ago
    It was a mistake not just for Germany, but for Europe in general. Frankly, the unification of Germany in 1871 was a mistake. Prussia, Prussianism, and its antecedent Teutonic Order are some of the worst things inflicted on that part of Europe, including Germany.
    - MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
      Given the military realities of that time, I‘d say it was both smart and inevitable. But definitely disastrous.
adventured 8y ago
> a bigger country is always better Only if they're very compatible, harmonious and voluntarily operating under a superior system together, along with countless other prerequisites. The USSR satellites were radically better off apart from Soviet Russia. Czech and Slovakia were better off apart from each other and have thrived individually since the split. South Korea was just slightly ... better off separate from North Korea. The US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India were all better off separating from the British Empire. It's plausible that Iraq would be better off split into pieces in some manner, rather than remaining the forced-together entity that it is today. A bigger country is clearly not inherently better.
- nopriorarrests 8y ago
  >The USSR satellites were radically better off apart from Soviet Russia. Well, no. Latvia is experiencing huge population drain and is being called "disappearing nation" [0], Estonia is not much better, and different -stans are slowly going back to the middle ages (I personally visited Uzbekistan for 2 weeks and witnessed it with my own eyes. It's not pretty). I'm not saying that they were thriving under Soviet Union, obviously not, but you can hardly find a former USSR republic which shows stable growth in GDP per capita, population, and, say, ease of doing business. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/latvia-a-disappearing-nation-migration-population-decline/ https://www.politico.eu/article/latvia-a-disappearing-nation... EDIT: oh, i'm stupid. you were speaking about sattelites meaning not parts of former USSR, but Eastern Block. Your point stands.

by 21 8y ago

Udik 8y ago

> at the same time, a bigger country is always better Why so? And for whom, exactly? Do you think the US would fare better overall if they joined with southern countries like Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Venezuela and Colombia? Also, Italy is inside the EU. I'm not sure that inside a supra-national entity as the EU the reasons for building bigger nation-states- reasons that were surely valid in the 19th century- still stand.

Nasrudith 8y ago
Induction gives a hood answer. Would your country be better off balkanized with many small territories feuding and redundant administration on every new level? While there are occasional scaling issues there is a synergistic effect to larger unified territories - as opposed to actively occupied ones. Joining together would be a long term investment for the US. Given how well trade matches as size of neighbors attenuated by distance roughly it would pay off long term. Short term at least a significant minority would probably be discontent about it given what happened just with German reunification and they weren't even apart for a century.
- Udik 8y ago
  As I said, Italy is already in the EU. Why would the small territories of Italy be "feuding" if they were all part of the EU? And I'm not sure that the administration would be much more redundant than it is now. On the other hand, you seem to be taking in account only the economic aspects of a unification. Yes, a unification process with poorer countries would be expensive, but maybe that's not the major issue with it. The issue I'm more worried about is that in a democracy the prevalent culture shapes the administration and, of course, the society. Unifying the US with, say, Venezuela, doesn't mean turning 31 million Venezuelans into Americans; it means making the US 10% more like Venezuela. It changes the identity of the country, and you might like the current identity better than the new one.
- bobthechef 8y ago
  Redundant administration? By that logic, you might as well create a one world government, but it's a piss poor idea. Consider that redundancy is good in that it creates multiple points of failure. Consider that bureaucracy will scale with the size of the country and not necessarily in the efficient way you think it would. Consider that regional needs and cultures vary dramatically. Even in individual countries, subsidiarian governance is good in that it best matches law and policy with the particularities of each region because local authorities have better grasp of local issues (and where matters are escalated only as necessary). Blanket statements about bigger being better are flatly wrong. And where the US is concerned, the US benefits greatly from a very fortuitous combination of geopolitical factors. Russia, on the other hand, expanded eastward with no such commensurate benefits.
- djrogers 8y ago
  Language and culture both matter when dlooking at a country - the US joining with several countries with a culture of corruption and massive distrust of the government would not likely end up well for the US.
Spooky23 8y ago
Only if being part of the whole raises everyone up. If the smaller county is a colony like Puerto Rico, than no. Even a primitive US State like Mississippi both benefits from and benefits the greater nation.

MrBuddyCasino 8y ago

> a bigger country is always better Tell that to Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Monaco, they're not far away. Tyrol is already an autonomous region.

21 8y ago
You're German. Do you think that the reunification was a mistake? It cost the west side a trillion.
- MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
  It was very expensive, but IMHO still the right choice. What were they supposed to do? The east is still weak (except maybe Berlin), mainly due to a lack of big corporations, chased away into the western parts by the soviets. At least the gap is not widening, but its also not really closing either. It will take many decades. Luckily we have some federalism to counteract some of Big Country malaise (unlike FR or UK).
- te_chris 8y ago
  In an article in the new statesman recently they talked about western hesitation to unification, both for cost reasons and due to Western resentment against Prussia et al. https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2017/09/what-britain-needs-understand-about-profound-and-ancient-divisions-germany https://www.newstatesman.com/world/europe/2017/09/what-brita...
- bobthechef 8y ago
  It was a mistake not just for Germany, but for Europe in general. Frankly, the unification of Germany in 1871 was a mistake. Prussia, Prussianism, and its antecedent Teutonic Order are some of the worst things inflicted on that part of Europe, including Germany.
  - MrBuddyCasino 8y ago
    Given the military realities of that time, I‘d say it was both smart and inevitable. But definitely disastrous.

adventured 8y ago

> a bigger country is always better Only if they're very compatible, harmonious and voluntarily operating under a superior system together, along with countless other prerequisites. The USSR satellites were radically better off apart from Soviet Russia. Czech and Slovakia were better off apart from each other and have thrived individually since the split. South Korea was just slightly ... better off separate from North Korea. The US, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, India were all better off separating from the British Empire. It's plausible that Iraq would be better off split into pieces in some manner, rather than remaining the forced-together entity that it is today. A bigger country is clearly not inherently better.

nopriorarrests 8y ago
>The USSR satellites were radically better off apart from Soviet Russia. Well, no. Latvia is experiencing huge population drain and is being called "disappearing nation" [0], Estonia is not much better, and different -stans are slowly going back to the middle ages (I personally visited Uzbekistan for 2 weeks and witnessed it with my own eyes. It's not pretty). I'm not saying that they were thriving under Soviet Union, obviously not, but you can hardly find a former USSR republic which shows stable growth in GDP per capita, population, and, say, ease of doing business. [0] https://www.politico.eu/article/latvia-a-disappearing-nation-migration-population-decline/ https://www.politico.eu/article/latvia-a-disappearing-nation... EDIT: oh, i'm stupid. you were speaking about sattelites meaning not parts of former USSR, but Eastern Block. Your point stands.