A mismatch of scale?

0Ross • 12th Jul 2009 • Learning • academic, politics, public administration

Much of the core reading for my ongoing Master’s degree is dry. Some is painful. Occasionally, however, you get a gem of a paragraph, such as this:

The common problem, I believe, is this: the nation-state is becoming too small for the big problems of life and too big for the small problems of life. It is too small for the big problems because there are no effective international mechanisms to deal with such things as capital flows, commodity imbalances, the loss of jobs, and the several demographic tidal waves that will be developing in the next twenty years. It is too big for the small problems because the flow of power to a national political center [sic] means that the center [sic] becomes increasingly unresponsive to the variety and diversity of local needs. In short, there is a mismatch of scale.

That’s Daniel Bell “previewing Planet Earth in 2013″ in The Washington Post in 1988. I think his core focus is on the US government. I have heard that this (with a UK/EU spin) is somewhat the theme of the Douglas Carswell and Daniel Hannan book, The Plan: Twelve Months to Renew Britain, which I have not read, but plan to.