The US Federal "Cash for Clunkers" Program

[Selden]

...I have lived in places where an area had a neighborhood road maintenance association and a community well. It works at that scale.

The problem is that few societies are at that scale. A couple of weeks ago I was reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, and the following quote from a chapter titled "From Egalitarianism to Kleptocracy" was so memorable that I took the time to write it down:

 

Page 277:

 

1. Disarm the populace, and arm the elite.

2. Make the masses happy by redistributing much of the tribute received, in popular ways.

3. Use the monopoly of force to promote happiness, by maintaining public order and curbing violence.

4. ...Construct an ideology or religion justifying kleptocracy.

 

This was written in what seemed to me to be an apolitical context; Diamond was arguing that more stratified societies are by definition less egalitarian, but more efficient and thus able to eradicate or conquer more egalitarian, less stratified societies. Thus, all “advanced” societies are complex and hierarchical, and kleptocracy is a necessary evil.