Compound Interest
reverend_kate says democracy doesn't scale well. She's right, but this gives me the number-crunching itch.
In 1850, the population of the US was about 23 million, spread over 30 states, which averages to about 767K people per state. In 2000, the US population about 281 million. Holding population per state constant from 1850 to 2000 and varying the population would correspond to 366 states instead of 50.
In that same amount of time, the federal budget (adjusted for inflation) has grown from less than a billion dollars to nearly three trillion. That corresponds to a growth from about $43 per person per year to about $10,676 per person per year.
There were 233 congressmen in the House in 1850. If you divide the budget by the number of representatives, in 1850 $4.3 million would be a reasonable upper bound for the amount of money controlled by each rep. Today, that number is about $5.6 billion. This corresponds to a 1300-fold increase in what we might call the "political power" index.
In 1850 the ratio of House representatives to citizens was about 1:99,000; in 2000 it would be about 1:525,000, corresponding to an attenuation in what we might call the "accountability ratio" of about 5.3-fold.
If democracy equals power divided by accountability, then the United States has become less democratic by a factor of roughly 6900x since 1850. Good morning, America.
The moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of demography and exponential growth.
(Note: This has been edited down slightly thanks to a correction by mananath.)
In 1850, the population of the US was about 23 million, spread over 30 states, which averages to about 767K people per state. In 2000, the US population about 281 million. Holding population per state constant from 1850 to 2000 and varying the population would correspond to 366 states instead of 50.
In that same amount of time, the federal budget (adjusted for inflation) has grown from less than a billion dollars to nearly three trillion. That corresponds to a growth from about $43 per person per year to about $10,676 per person per year.
There were 233 congressmen in the House in 1850. If you divide the budget by the number of representatives, in 1850 $4.3 million would be a reasonable upper bound for the amount of money controlled by each rep. Today, that number is about $5.6 billion. This corresponds to a 1300-fold increase in what we might call the "political power" index.
In 1850 the ratio of House representatives to citizens was about 1:99,000; in 2000 it would be about 1:525,000, corresponding to an attenuation in what we might call the "accountability ratio" of about 5.3-fold.
If democracy equals power divided by accountability, then the United States has become less democratic by a factor of roughly 6900x since 1850. Good morning, America.
The moral of the story: Never underestimate the power of demography and exponential growth.
(Note: This has been edited down slightly thanks to a correction by mananath.)