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It's extremely rare. Ask yourself how many companies from the 20th century are now defunct vs government programs (or governments in general). You can probably

by bhupy 6y ago

It's extremely rare. Ask yourself how many companies from the 20th century are now defunct vs government programs (or governments in general). You can probably count on one hand the number of governments that have "gone out of business" (so to speak), in the last 40-50 years. You'll need several people to tabulate the set of private enterprises that have gone bankrupt, defunct, or M&A'd out of existence over the same timespan, in the US alone.

dukeyukey 6y ago
If you count having lost effective control of a significant part of their country as a government having failed, there are plenty. No-one would say that Syria or Libya have a single functioning government controlling the country at the moment, and you can throw swathes of central Africa in there as well. Other than a coup, civil war, or a foreign takeover, there isn't really a way for a government to definitely 'fail', but no-one would say that these events are unheard of.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > If you count having lost effective control of a significant part of their country as a government having failed, there are plenty. Losing control of a significant part of a country isn't comparable to private enterprise failure, it's more comparable to the CEO of a company being replaced. Imagine what retail would have been like if, instead of Sears being essentially replaced, we just elected a different set of leaders to run the same organization. > No-one would say that Syria or Libya have a single functioning government controlling the country at the moment, and you can throw swathes of central Africa in there as well. Right, and in general we consider that instability to be a bad thing, and a key goal of UNESCO (and adjacent organizations) is to make African nations as stable as Western democracies. That kind of stability just isn't sought out in the private sector. > Other than a coup, civil war, or a foreign takeover, there isn't really a way for a government to definitely 'fail', but no-one would say that these events are unheard of. If you were to ask me to pick a system where change happens through violence and bloodshed (civil wars, coups) vs peaceful financial transactions (M&A, bankruptcy) — I would choose the latter any day of the week.
  - wang_li 6y ago
    An awful lot of this list is less than 100 years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_constitutions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_constitutio...
    - bhupy 6y ago
      Of the items in that list < 100 years old, the vast majority came about through violence via revolution, civil war, genocide, or regime change. That's a bug, and not a feature. Peaceful restructuring of government is rare, and when it happens, it’s noteworthy. In contrast, peaceful restructuring of private enterprise (via startup incorporation, bankruptcy, or M&A) is just a way of life. People didn't die when PanAm, TWA, and Circuit City went out of business. People didn’t die when GM was restructured.
      - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
        This criticism and comparison is ridiculous, there is no such thing as 'violent restructuring of private enterprise' because companies don't have armies, governments do. And 2008 has killed plenty of people, by rendering them homeless, hungy, and unable to afford healthcare.
        bhupy 6y ago
        > This criticism and comparison is ridiculous It's really not. We have more than enough history to corroborate. > And 2008 has killed plenty of people, by rendering them homeless, hungy, and unable to afford healthcare. Right, and these events are rare and noteworthy also — the only other time that had happened before that was during the 1930's. The same cannot be said for structural changes in government. In addition, if you think the scale and severity of economic deaths of despair caused by 2008 can be compared with the civil wars in the Middle East, the Balkan Kosovo War, the World Wars (and Holocaust), or what's going on in Central Africa...I really don't know what to say.
        6y ago
wang_li 6y ago
The last 40-50 years have been pretty stable. But even so I’d guess that 20% of world governments have functionally gone out of business. If you pick the 20th century, then the number of governments that have “failed” is really large as a proportion of total governments. We think of countries like France as having been around for hundreds of years, but their current constitution is only 62 years old. Romania had three different governments in about 50 years. Japan, China, and Vietnam all replaced their governments. Czechoslovakia came into being and disappeared.
inglor_cz 6y ago
Uh, just look at the Arab world. Is the Lebanese government "in business" or no? That is a question with fuzzy answer, but if no government is 0 and competent government is 1, Lebanese government right now may be 0.02 or so. Czechoslovakia, where I was born, disintegrated in 1992. The transition was peaceful, but the federal government simply is no more.

by bhupy 6y ago

dukeyukey 6y ago

If you count having lost effective control of a significant part of their country as a government having failed, there are plenty. No-one would say that Syria or Libya have a single functioning government controlling the country at the moment, and you can throw swathes of central Africa in there as well. Other than a coup, civil war, or a foreign takeover, there isn't really a way for a government to definitely 'fail', but no-one would say that these events are unheard of.

bhupy 6y ago
> If you count having lost effective control of a significant part of their country as a government having failed, there are plenty. Losing control of a significant part of a country isn't comparable to private enterprise failure, it's more comparable to the CEO of a company being replaced. Imagine what retail would have been like if, instead of Sears being essentially replaced, we just elected a different set of leaders to run the same organization. > No-one would say that Syria or Libya have a single functioning government controlling the country at the moment, and you can throw swathes of central Africa in there as well. Right, and in general we consider that instability to be a bad thing, and a key goal of UNESCO (and adjacent organizations) is to make African nations as stable as Western democracies. That kind of stability just isn't sought out in the private sector. > Other than a coup, civil war, or a foreign takeover, there isn't really a way for a government to definitely 'fail', but no-one would say that these events are unheard of. If you were to ask me to pick a system where change happens through violence and bloodshed (civil wars, coups) vs peaceful financial transactions (M&A, bankruptcy) — I would choose the latter any day of the week.
- wang_li 6y ago
  An awful lot of this list is less than 100 years old. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_constitutions https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_national_constitutio...
  - bhupy 6y ago
    Of the items in that list < 100 years old, the vast majority came about through violence via revolution, civil war, genocide, or regime change. That's a bug, and not a feature. Peaceful restructuring of government is rare, and when it happens, it’s noteworthy. In contrast, peaceful restructuring of private enterprise (via startup incorporation, bankruptcy, or M&A) is just a way of life. People didn't die when PanAm, TWA, and Circuit City went out of business. People didn’t die when GM was restructured.
    - ClumsyPilot 6y ago
      This criticism and comparison is ridiculous, there is no such thing as 'violent restructuring of private enterprise' because companies don't have armies, governments do. And 2008 has killed plenty of people, by rendering them homeless, hungy, and unable to afford healthcare.
      - bhupy 6y ago
        > This criticism and comparison is ridiculous It's really not. We have more than enough history to corroborate. > And 2008 has killed plenty of people, by rendering them homeless, hungy, and unable to afford healthcare. Right, and these events are rare and noteworthy also — the only other time that had happened before that was during the 1930's. The same cannot be said for structural changes in government. In addition, if you think the scale and severity of economic deaths of despair caused by 2008 can be compared with the civil wars in the Middle East, the Balkan Kosovo War, the World Wars (and Holocaust), or what's going on in Central Africa...I really don't know what to say.
        6y ago

wang_li 6y ago

The last 40-50 years have been pretty stable. But even so I’d guess that 20% of world governments have functionally gone out of business. If you pick the 20th century, then the number of governments that have “failed” is really large as a proportion of total governments. We think of countries like France as having been around for hundreds of years, but their current constitution is only 62 years old. Romania had three different governments in about 50 years. Japan, China, and Vietnam all replaced their governments. Czechoslovakia came into being and disappeared.

inglor_cz 6y ago

Uh, just look at the Arab world. Is the Lebanese government "in business" or no? That is a question with fuzzy answer, but if no government is 0 and competent government is 1, Lebanese government right now may be 0.02 or so. Czechoslovakia, where I was born, disintegrated in 1992. The transition was peaceful, but the federal government simply is no more.