And that's why we need to move away from centralized heavy controls and toward a decentralized "lighter touch" ways of doing things.

Have you noticed that socialism and communism appear to work better when you are dealing with fewer people, or smaller nations? When I was in college, and asked the guys behind the political tables for an example of a working communist system, most of them would say, "a kibbutz."

When we ask ourselves "how do we run a society of 300 million people?" the sentence itself shows one of the problem assumptions.

Of course, that doesn't mean everybody is living in their own compound out in the woods.

For decades, Hong Kong, one of the least-regulated and most-successful economies in the world, was up to its penthouses in people. The entire city gave the impression of barely-controlled chaos. Just the sight of a typical Hong Kong street would probably kill a typical city planner in his tracks.

I don't know how China has affected Hong Kong in recent years. I think they're still leaving it mostly alone, but I haven't researched it in detail.

Keep in mind that the people who are selling us on how essential large governments are to civilization are mostly large governments, or those working with them. If McDonalds kept telling you how great french fries were for your health, you'd laugh in their face. Why isn't this skepticism applied everywhere self-interest is involved?