Sure, one person can do something stupid, but for sheer idiocracy and tyranny, you need to get a few hundred people together
How it started: Protecting individual privacy by not having a national ID. It’s less convenient, but freer.
How it’s going: Insurance companies, credit report agencies, and the IRS all just use the SSN. It’s close enough for the despot’s purposes, but not good enough to serve as a credential all on its own, so that banking and voting are still inconvenient. Worst of both worlds.
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How it started: States are responsible for most of their own affairs, except when something crosses state borders.
How it’s going: Most people work for big companies instead of small ones, and those companies will shop around for the best regulatory environment. Or, if you prefer to think of it from an efficiency perspective, since most people buy from big companies, they wind up bearing the cost of complying with California regulations even when they don’t live there, because the logistics of separate manufacturing make no sense.
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How it started: Schools are run by the state, or even by the local board, so the community had meaningful input into what their children are taught.
How it’s going: Even before No Child Left Behind, there were national tests like the SAT, and the big three textbook publishers, setting de facto educational standards. But poor neighborhoods still get poor schools.
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The point I’m trying to make is that empowering individuals is hard. So often, the result is that other organizations, just as bad or worse than the government, rush in to fill the power vacuum.