Compound Interest

[nyuanshin]

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

Comments

[vyraes]

That's frightening.

[smandal]

Democracy scales well if it is in fact scale-free. The 16th amendment and liberal readings of the General Welfare Clause have greatly damaged subsidiarity in the US. And, a change in presidential vote counting may restore this principle to elections despite the population growth.

[mananath]

The 31st Congress, meeting in 1850, contained 233 members in the House and 62 members in the Senate. The 31st state, CA, joined the US on Sept 9th of 1850.*

*source: Wikipedia

[nyuanshin]

Thanks for the congress estimate. The census I got the number from was completed in June, before Cali joined.