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I also focused in on this sentence. How difficult it becomes for an average person to start new things on his/her own nowadays! The only solution to the diminis

I also focused in on this sentence. How difficult it becomes for an average person to start new things on his/her own nowadays! The only solution to the diminishing of widespread bureaucracy i can think of is war - but is costly, can take a long time, and most societies don't make it past a civil war. Like a forest fire, it clears away the hubris and overgrowth of process that accumulates over time.

RandomLensman 4y ago
I don't think war is necessary (and looking at things like the "war on terror" that spawned a lot of rules, it might even do the opposite). Societies can do "de-sprawling" of rules, but it isn't a frequent thing (the German civil code is kind of a reduction of lots of several codes into one, for example). There is probably also an element of aging societies becoming more risk averse, hence more rules and regulations.
- _alxk 4y ago
  The "war on terror", like the "war on drugs", is a misnomer though; it's not really a war (although a couple of wars were waged as part of it, or alongside it).
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    Fair enough. WW1 spawned things like DORA in the UK, for example. Edit: And WW2 saw another massive increase of the "state", so not sure war does generally shrink administrative systems.
    - inglor_cz 4y ago
      If you lose the war decisively, you have a chance to rebuild the state from scratch, including the legal system. As a winner, though, you face the task of trying to shrink an administrative system that just won a war.
      - WalterBright 4y ago
        Obvious examples are Germany and Japan after WW2.
        inglor_cz 4y ago
        Another interesting point is Switzerland after 1848. They had a very small-scale civil war which made them rethink their political structure. Or the Austrian empire in 1866, which lost a major war against Prussia and was forced to reform itself into a dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Which was somewhat more competitive and liberal than its predecessor and if it avoided other wars, it might in some form survive until today.
        wizofaus 4y ago
        Neither Germany or Japan stand out as being societies with minimal bureaucracy and unnecessary/intrusive regulation. Singapore (as a state that had to rebuild considerably after war) is arguably an even more extreme example.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        The point is that any such bureaucracy is recently formed and not a legacy of pre-1945 statutes.
        wizofaus 4y ago
        Perhaps but war was posited of a method of "clearing the books" and allowing significant reform. If that were true you'd expect such societies to be less weighed down by bureaucracy than others that had no such opportunity.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        Clearing of books has no bearing whatsover on subsequent re-writing of them. However if the present legislative burden is excessively oppressive, a war, revolution, or reconstitution might address same. Your argument is a non sequitur.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  Notionally the "wars" on drugs and terror are more akin to the Islamic principle of jihad, in the sense of a struggle, rather than of military domination, occupation, and conquest. In the case of World War II, numerous governments were created from whole cloth following the war, amongst conquored territories, in newly-created states, and even amongst some of the winners. Notably, Japan had a constitution imposed on it by the United States, which largely exists to the present day. Some traditional institutions were preserved (e.g., the emperor), but in almost entirely symbolic form. Germany likewise was reconstituted under a new government, as was Italy. Even France saw a new government formed (the Fifth Republic) in 1958. The states of the Eastern bloc were reconstituted under Communist rule as Soviet satellites. India, Indonesia, the Phillipines, and several Arabic states received independence. The state of Israel was formed. Much of Africa decolonised in the 1950s and 1960s. There was of course some continuity through all of this, but in large part, new governments emerged and old laws were often voided.
  - RandomLensman 4y ago
    But through all of that the German civil code after WW2 still looked quite similar to the one pre-WW1, e.g, rules on how people transact or private property had huge continuity. Isn't the question not that laws etc. change but if there is true reduction of the total?
Spooky23 4y ago
Huh? I started a company for a small project on Tuesday. It took me 30 minutes and I never left my chair.
- paganel 4y ago
  Maybe the OP hadn't in mind the actual process of incorporating a company per se, but the process of "starting" a company as in getting it off the ground in terms of money coming in/revenues. And, imo, it's more difficult now to do that compared to 10, 20 years ago, and not only because of increased competition.
- recyclelater 4y ago
  Get some employees, have some of them turn out to be pain in the ass, then find out how annoying west coast labor laws are. Hire some employees, spread them across multiple states, find out the complexities of employment law in multiple states. Start up a health plan, same thing. There a million examples, none of them are bad by themselves, but every aspect of a multi employee business has rules and regulations that if you run afoul of, there are consequences. No one gives you a manual of these, you find them out along the way and it costs you money and time.
  - Spooky23 4y ago
    I was an exec at a small company in a union building in Manhattan. I’m familiar with annoyances. That’s life. It’s full of annoyances. Our forebearers had a lot more.
avidphantasm 4y ago
What people arguing against accretion of regulations tend to miss is that this accretion (as currently experienced in the US at least) goes hand-in-hand with accumulation of capital and consolidation of industries. The large corporations can afford to comply with complex regulations. For them, maintaining complex regulatory regimes (through legalized bribery and regulatory capture) is part of the defensive fortifications that maintain their monopoly/oligopoly positions. As an optimist, I believe we can reform the system (e.g., through antitrust enforcement, which the FTC under Ms. Khan is doing more of than in recent decades), rather than burn it down.
- starkd 4y ago
  I applaud your optimism, but don't let optimism cloud realism. There's comes a point when war is the only path that can relieve the accumulated stresses.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > comes a point when war is the only path that can relieve the accumulated stresses This is historically untrue. When complex societies civil war, they tend to fall apart. (Wars of unification being an exception.) Their citizens’ living conditions permanently fell, often for generations, until an outside power subsumed them. This trend looks to be strengthening as time goes on, probably on account of increasing species-wide firepower and mobility. Instead, peaceful (if politically violent) “revolutions” reboot the society from time to time. One could argue the Great Depression was the last such restructuring of the American system.
    - jdkee 4y ago
      "One could argue the Great Depression was the last such restructuring of the American system." A better argument would be the case that American involvement in WWII resulted in a larger restructuring of American lives. Women entering the workforce. The U.S. military fighting racial segregation. The resultant boomer generation and the rise of labor until 1980. Lowered income inequality. The GI bill providing affordable higher-ed to a broad swatch of the populace.
jollybean 4y ago
There are more opportunities for 'regular folks' to do something on a 'grand scale' than at any time in history, but not everyone can do it. Paradoxically, starting your own business in the 'old time' way, i.e. plumbing or roofing contractors ... it's like guaranteed work for great income. Plumbers are the new Dentists. That said, there are areas in which regulatory issues are obviously a problem. This talk of 'war' is hyperbolic.

RandomLensman 4y ago

I don't think war is necessary (and looking at things like the "war on terror" that spawned a lot of rules, it might even do the opposite). Societies can do "de-sprawling" of rules, but it isn't a frequent thing (the German civil code is kind of a reduction of lots of several codes into one, for example). There is probably also an element of aging societies becoming more risk averse, hence more rules and regulations.

_alxk 4y ago
The "war on terror", like the "war on drugs", is a misnomer though; it's not really a war (although a couple of wars were waged as part of it, or alongside it).
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  Fair enough. WW1 spawned things like DORA in the UK, for example. Edit: And WW2 saw another massive increase of the "state", so not sure war does generally shrink administrative systems.
  - inglor_cz 4y ago
    If you lose the war decisively, you have a chance to rebuild the state from scratch, including the legal system. As a winner, though, you face the task of trying to shrink an administrative system that just won a war.
    - WalterBright 4y ago
      Obvious examples are Germany and Japan after WW2.
      - inglor_cz 4y ago
        Another interesting point is Switzerland after 1848. They had a very small-scale civil war which made them rethink their political structure. Or the Austrian empire in 1866, which lost a major war against Prussia and was forced to reform itself into a dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Which was somewhat more competitive and liberal than its predecessor and if it avoided other wars, it might in some form survive until today.
      - wizofaus 4y ago
        Neither Germany or Japan stand out as being societies with minimal bureaucracy and unnecessary/intrusive regulation. Singapore (as a state that had to rebuild considerably after war) is arguably an even more extreme example.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        The point is that any such bureaucracy is recently formed and not a legacy of pre-1945 statutes.
        wizofaus 4y ago
        Perhaps but war was posited of a method of "clearing the books" and allowing significant reform. If that were true you'd expect such societies to be less weighed down by bureaucracy than others that had no such opportunity.
        dredmorbius 4y ago
        Clearing of books has no bearing whatsover on subsequent re-writing of them. However if the present legislative burden is excessively oppressive, a war, revolution, or reconstitution might address same. Your argument is a non sequitur.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Notionally the "wars" on drugs and terror are more akin to the Islamic principle of jihad, in the sense of a struggle, rather than of military domination, occupation, and conquest. In the case of World War II, numerous governments were created from whole cloth following the war, amongst conquored territories, in newly-created states, and even amongst some of the winners. Notably, Japan had a constitution imposed on it by the United States, which largely exists to the present day. Some traditional institutions were preserved (e.g., the emperor), but in almost entirely symbolic form. Germany likewise was reconstituted under a new government, as was Italy. Even France saw a new government formed (the Fifth Republic) in 1958. The states of the Eastern bloc were reconstituted under Communist rule as Soviet satellites. India, Indonesia, the Phillipines, and several Arabic states received independence. The state of Israel was formed. Much of Africa decolonised in the 1950s and 1960s. There was of course some continuity through all of this, but in large part, new governments emerged and old laws were often voided.
- RandomLensman 4y ago
  But through all of that the German civil code after WW2 still looked quite similar to the one pre-WW1, e.g, rules on how people transact or private property had huge continuity. Isn't the question not that laws etc. change but if there is true reduction of the total?

Spooky23 4y ago

Huh? I started a company for a small project on Tuesday. It took me 30 minutes and I never left my chair.

paganel 4y ago
Maybe the OP hadn't in mind the actual process of incorporating a company per se, but the process of "starting" a company as in getting it off the ground in terms of money coming in/revenues. And, imo, it's more difficult now to do that compared to 10, 20 years ago, and not only because of increased competition.
recyclelater 4y ago
Get some employees, have some of them turn out to be pain in the ass, then find out how annoying west coast labor laws are. Hire some employees, spread them across multiple states, find out the complexities of employment law in multiple states. Start up a health plan, same thing. There a million examples, none of them are bad by themselves, but every aspect of a multi employee business has rules and regulations that if you run afoul of, there are consequences. No one gives you a manual of these, you find them out along the way and it costs you money and time.
- Spooky23 4y ago
  I was an exec at a small company in a union building in Manhattan. I’m familiar with annoyances. That’s life. It’s full of annoyances. Our forebearers had a lot more.

avidphantasm 4y ago

What people arguing against accretion of regulations tend to miss is that this accretion (as currently experienced in the US at least) goes hand-in-hand with accumulation of capital and consolidation of industries. The large corporations can afford to comply with complex regulations. For them, maintaining complex regulatory regimes (through legalized bribery and regulatory capture) is part of the defensive fortifications that maintain their monopoly/oligopoly positions. As an optimist, I believe we can reform the system (e.g., through antitrust enforcement, which the FTC under Ms. Khan is doing more of than in recent decades), rather than burn it down.

starkd 4y ago
I applaud your optimism, but don't let optimism cloud realism. There's comes a point when war is the only path that can relieve the accumulated stresses.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > comes a point when war is the only path that can relieve the accumulated stresses This is historically untrue. When complex societies civil war, they tend to fall apart. (Wars of unification being an exception.) Their citizens’ living conditions permanently fell, often for generations, until an outside power subsumed them. This trend looks to be strengthening as time goes on, probably on account of increasing species-wide firepower and mobility. Instead, peaceful (if politically violent) “revolutions” reboot the society from time to time. One could argue the Great Depression was the last such restructuring of the American system.
  - jdkee 4y ago
    "One could argue the Great Depression was the last such restructuring of the American system." A better argument would be the case that American involvement in WWII resulted in a larger restructuring of American lives. Women entering the workforce. The U.S. military fighting racial segregation. The resultant boomer generation and the rise of labor until 1980. Lowered income inequality. The GI bill providing affordable higher-ed to a broad swatch of the populace.

jollybean 4y ago

There are more opportunities for 'regular folks' to do something on a 'grand scale' than at any time in history, but not everyone can do it. Paradoxically, starting your own business in the 'old time' way, i.e. plumbing or roofing contractors ... it's like guaranteed work for great income. Plumbers are the new Dentists. That said, there are areas in which regulatory issues are obviously a problem. This talk of 'war' is hyperbolic.