How Big is Too Big?

There may be a certain community size where a pure governmental system can exist. Maybe 100 people could live together in a perfect socialist society, or a perfectly democratic society. But when the community gets large, they necessarily live under a mix of several governmental types. I believe that America is still predominantly a representational democracy living under a free market system. There is a good bit of socialism going on, some egalitarianism, and a bit of libertarianism and anarchy thrown in for good measure.

Accepting that the government needs to be a certain size to govern this people, it is important to ask how big it needs to be. And, how big is too big. CATO has an article on their website today discussing a study about the optimum size of government. The study shows that the optimum size of government is about 25% of GDP. The bad news is that the U.S. Government today is about 36% of GDP, and getting larger by the day. To read the article, click here.