The Breakdown of Nations

by Leopold Kohr, Richard Body (Foreword), Neil Ascherson (Foreword)

A fascinating manifesto, proposing that the world should be split into smaller regions to distribute power more evenly.

Written by one of the most original political thinkers of the 20th century, in The Breakdown of Nations , Leopold Kohr shows that throughout history people living in small states are happier, more peaceful, more creative and more prosperous. He argues that virtually all our political and social problems would be greatly diminished if the world's major countries were to dissolve back into the small states from which they sprang. Rather than making even larger political unions, in the mistaken belief that this will bring peace and security, we should minimise the aggregation of power by returning to a patchwork of small, relatively powerless states where leaders are accessible to and responsive to the people.

Originally published in 1957, this new edition features forewords by Neal Ascherson and Richard Body. The material has been noted for its striking relevance to the current political situation, with globalisation, war, nuclear weapons and the rise of electronic gadgets leading to concern over whether we should re-examine the implications of the size of political groupings, whether they be states, nations or federations.

In these turbulent times, recognise the beauty and potential in small political nations with this inspiring read.

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Economics, History, Philosophy, Society, Sociology

256 pages, Paperback

First published October 24, 1978

About the author

Leopold Kohr was an economist, jurist and political scientist known both for his opposition to the "cult of bigness" in social organization and as one of those who inspired the Small Is Beautiful movement. For almost twenty years, he was Professor of Economics and Public Administration at the University of Puerto Rico. He described himself as a "philosophical anarchist." His most influential work was The Breakdown of Nations. In 1983, he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "for his early inspiration of the movement for a human scale."

Reviews

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

ok, this guy had a five-star idea, and he started writing a five-star book, and then he got lazy or distracted or lost his nerve or something. but pretty good thinking for a book written in the 1950s, as long as you skip most of the middle of the book.

Ch 1-3 are fabulous. the idea is ultra-simple: the worst problem in the world is bigness. bigness ruins everything, in at least 3 ways:

(1) if the socio-political unit we live in is too big, the individual loses any chance to influence or even understand the workings of the beast. in 1790, each member of the US House of Reps represented 33,000 citizens. now it's well over half a million. do you understand exactly where the money goes that you pay in taxes? no, no one does. it's impossible. and so, of course, the waste is colossal, and the citizen becomes bitter and cynical and all the rest. (2) if one tries to UNIFY a number of nations together, bigness can cause it to fail in either of two ways:
(a) if there are just a few great powers, they will struggle for control and eventually they will go to war, or all but one of them will quit or be expelled (as austria was expelled from the german federation in 1866 after a struggle with prussia). (b)if there is just one great power, the "unification" really amounts to tyranny, as the one great power can veto any decision or law made by the central authority.

you want to have the structure [largest single unit << central authority << total of all units]

in order for this to work, you don't want the largest unit to be any bigger than, say, around 10% of the total. then your central govt can be maybe 15-20% of the total (or twice the size of the biggest unit). thus even the biggest unit can never run amok and try to take over its neighbors, since the central govt is much bigger and can overpower it. but likewise, the central govt can't run amok, since all the individual states can join together to resist any tyranny from the center. this is why the US and Switzerland work so well. the darkest episode in american history was of course when the state-by-state division collapsed and was replaced by two huge opposed blocs, resulting in horrific civil war.

this is why the United Nations will never amount to anything (he predicted in the 1950's). because there are only two great powers (US and Russia), there is no way the united nations will ever be powerful enough to enforce anything against either of them. giant waste of time. doomed.

so that's the good stuff. chapter 4 starts the decline. 5-7 are HORRIBLE, all the moreso because there are actually some good ideas here and there, which he then "supports" with "arguments" of the most pathetic ilk. 8 is so-so. 9-11 are fine but add nothing new.

finally, chapter 12 is actually interesting. it addresses the fact that even in the 1950s, America was already effectively an empire. Kohr first makes a good case for this claim, then says that we need to stop being hypocrites and accept it. it's TRUE that we were founded on the ideals of ANTI-empire, and we want everyone to live in freedom. but this CORRECT philosophy of life allowed us to be so successful that we have ended up kicking the world's ass in spite of ourselves, and now we are an empire. maybe, just maybe, if we recognize this, we can reverse the current mania for UNITY and instead help the world disintegrate into a loose federation of small, independent, states. but he is NOT optimistic.

[Saif AL Jahwari · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not easy to read but the book presents strong arguments for the theory of size, which suggests that all our political, economic, and social problems are related to one cause; “bigness” of countries and communities.

Quotation:
“Wherever something is wrong, something is too big.”

[Knut · Rating 4 out of 5]

Abstract: This essay reviews Leopold Kohr’s book The Breakdown of Nations and asks which organizational principles a global 3rd millennium society should be governed by. While Kohr suggest the organization around political parties grouped around cultural territories, the author suggests an organization in communities around the instincts of work and survival paired with the concept of bioregions and made scalable by appropriate blockchain technology.
*
Leopold Kohr was the originator of the concept of “the human scale”, an idea later popularized by his friend E.F. Schumacher, notably in the best-selling book Small is Beautiful. Born near Salzburg in 1909, Kohr was an economist by profession, holding academic positions at many universities.

As the physicists of our time have tried to elaborate an integrated single theory, capable of explaining not only some but all phenomena of the physical universe, so I have tried on a different plane to develop a single theory through which not only some but all phenomena of the social universe can be reduced to a common denominator. The result is a new and unified political philosophy centering in the theory of size. It suggests that there seems only one cause behind all forms of social misery: bigness. [p.22]

In “The Breakdown of Nations” Leopold Kohr shows that, throughout history, people who have lived in small states are happier, more peaceful, more creative and more prosperous. He argues that virtually all our political and social problems would be greatly diminished if the world’s major countries were to dissolve back into the small states from which they sprang. Rather than making ever-larger political unions, in the mistaken belief that this will bring peace and security, we should minimize the aggregation of power by returning to a patchwork of small, relatively powerless states, where leaders are accessible and responsive to the people.

Thus, the greater the aggregation, the more dwarfish becomes man. But this is not all, for along with the decline of a person’s share in sovereignty goes a decline in his share in government. [p. 118]

The political scientist Kohr does not argue for a return to exploitative feudalism, petty kingdoms or pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherer tribes. Instead he separates the economic realm from the political one and envisions a global economic system paired with local political units.

Would it not be truly reactionary to erect again the countless barriers separating countless regions from each other, impeding traffic and trade, and undoing the gigantic economic progress which the existence of large-area states and the resultant big-plant and mass-production facilities have made possible? If union has sense anywhere, it certainly has in the economic sphere considering that without it our living standards would in all likelihood still be at the low level that characterized the Middle Ages. [p. 143]

Kohr concludes his socio-economical deliberations by suggesting a union through division and quotes Henry C. Simons: These monsters of nationalism and mercantilism must be dismantled. It is interesting that Kohr’s political-administrative model of a global society echoes the ideas of visionary paleontologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, who wrote about the concept of a noosphere, i.e. a global spiritual sphere, which unites the multitude of human entities on planet Earth. When I missed solid economic thinking in Chardin’s writing, I do miss the spiritual and natural scientific perspective in Kohr’s work. They make though a great complimentary reading.

Summarizing, we may thus say that even economics refuses to yield arguments against a small-state world. For, even in the field of economics, the only problem of significance seems to be the problem of excessive size, suggesting as its solution not growth, no union, but division. We have found that high living standards in large states seem a macro-economic illusion while they appear to be a micro-economic reality in mature small ones. We have found that, as the size of the productive unit grows, its productivity ultimately begins to decline until, instead of giving off energy, it puts on fat. We have found that the reason for this is the law of diminishing productivity which puts limits to the size of everything. [p. 174]

The author continues to describe the ideal form of administration and paves the road for what is the central pillar of the post-modern management paradigm: teamwork. Considering that Leopold Kohr published The Breakdown of Nations in 1957, when the orange modern management paradigm of big business, large corporations and rigid top-down hierarchies was probably at its climax, we can understand why he was named one of the most original political thinkers of the 20th century.

Thus, wherever we look in the political universe, we find that successful social organisms, be they empires, federations, states, counties, or cities, have in all their diversity of language, custom, tradition, and system, one, and only one, common feature – the small-cell pattern. Permeating everything, it is applied and reapplied in unending processes of division and sub-division. The fascinating secret of a well-functioning social organism seems thus to lie not in its overall unity but in its structure, maintained in health by the life-preserving mechanism of division operating through myriads of cell-splittings and rejuvenations taking place under the smooth skin of an apparently unchanging body. Wherever, because of age or bad design, this rejuvenating process of subdivision gives way to the calcifying process of cell unification, the cells, now growing behind the protection of their hardened frames beyond their divinely allotted limits, begin, as in cancer, to develop those hostile, arrogant great-power complexes which cannot be brought to an end until the infested organism is either devoured, or a forceful operation succeeds in restoring the small-cell pattern. [p. 191]

It is probably in this paragraph that Kohr and Chardin move closest to each other. The economist and political scientist Kohr draws on a biological metaphor and describes large political entities with the osmotic model as calcified organisms which have developed political cancer. Chardin interprets increasing complexity as the axis of evolution of matter into a geosphere, a biosphere, and finally into consciousness and then to supreme consciousness (the Omega Point). He explains that evolution shifted from the realm of physics into chemistry from chemistry into biology, and from biology into culture. He describes the omega point, i.e. the breakdown of nations in Kohr’s or singularity in Ray Kurzweil’s terminology, as a final destination of consciousness evolution and explains the turmoil in the physical world thereby.

The great powers, those monsters of nationalism, must be broken up and replaced by small states; for as perhaps even our diplomats will eventually be able to understand, only small states are wise, modest and, above all, weak enough, to accept an authority higher than their own.

While Kohr is not outspoken what higher authority small state governments will accept – it could be both the authority of the democratic body of small state citizens or a transcendental entity, it becomes rather clear that his vision is very much aligned with Chardin’s. Two thinkers who have started in their own academic field, far apart from each other, recognize human power concentration as the central problem in social evolution. One draws on osmotic modelling and develops a theory of a decentralized organization, the other provides a metaphysical explanation for why creation moves through culture into organizations of increased complexity.

The Breakdown of Nations – Can it be done?

Division of great powers is essential. Question is not: Can it be done, but how can it be done? Division by war. Division by proportional representation. Federalization of great powers. Prevention of reunification of small states. Can the great powers be divided? Will Soviet Russia and the United States accept their dissolution merely to save the United Nations? Will France, Italy, Great Britain, or Germany ever give their consent to their own liquidation merely because this would be wise? [p. 193]



When I read Kohr the first time in 2013, Frederick Laloux had not yet published Reinventing Organizations. Without doubt, both Leopold Kohr and Peter Drucker have influenced Laloux deeply, and I am inclined to see a scholarly heritage trickling down from Kohr’s political theory into Drucker’s management philosophy and further down into Laloux’s Teal organization paradigm of self-management.

It is striking that both authors conclude their writing with the dissolution of organizations. Laloux predicts the possibility of corporate organizational evolution to a stage where even Teal organizations dissolve into a global network of a liquid work force. Kohr envisions the dissolution of political entities, which are by all means the largest human organizations existing. He offers two avenues to liquidate political organizations: war and division through proportional representation.

But war is fortunately not the only means by which great powers can be divided. Engulfed in a swamp of infantile emotionalism and attaching phenomenal value to the fact that they are big and mighty, they cannot be persuaded to execute their own dissolution. But, being infantile and emotional, they can be tricked into it. While they would reject their division, if it were presented to them as a demand, they might be quite willing to accept it, if offered to them in the guise of a gift. This gift would be: proportional representation in the bodies governing the federal union of which they form part. The acceptance of this offer would cause nothing less than their eventual disappearance. [p. 194]

It is at this point that Kohr’s brilliant analysis turns into a vision which at least back in the 1950s had no possibility of becoming reality. Kohr knew this and titles chapter eleven: But will it be done? And preempts the answer to his question in self-irony with a brief: no. Chapter eleven consists of this single word. He goes though in chapters ten and twelve at great length to discuss how a federation of states could look like in Europe or the US, a federation which consists of small states which emerge along cultural borders instead of national interests. He portrays Switzerland as a successful federation which has succeeded to break the large language blocks into small cantons which in turn champion direct democracy and connectedness between political representatives and citizens.

The provincial delegates from Normandy, Picardy, or Pau would no longer meet in Paris but in a new federal capital city that may develop in Strasbourg or elsewhere. Being the capital of a larger are than France, they would meet there the delegates from the other federally dissolved regions of the union. While there might still be a lingering of traditional unity amongst the groups of French-, German-, Italian-, or English-speaking delegates at the beginning, the groundswell of regional particularism and individualistic difference would soon break down the last vestiges of the present great-power blocks. […] With the transfer of the basic state powers from the nation to the district, the districts would automatically become the true sovereign members of the European federation. [p. 197, 198]



Leopold Kohr’s vision, as ingenious it might have looked in 1957 after the horrors of WWI and WWII and in the outlook of the US becoming a gigantic Empire, lacks the perspective of a social psychologist and thus like Karl Marx’s concept on wealth re-distribution sufficient grounding in the mechanics of human nature. The last chapter also makes clear that Kohr’s focus on political organization did blind him to the transformation of labor markets which other contemporaries have observed.

The model Switzerland has proofed itself successful by all means of economic measurement, but it has done so to a large extent by hosting a significant number of MNC which exploit natural and human resources. It is also highly questionable if the small-scale administrative organization of Swiss cantons has alienated the population less from their ecosystems than in other countries. A simple survey would most likely confirm that the average Swiss person does not know more about its natural environment than an American citizen. This assumption is to be explained with the transformation of labor markets and the resulting breakdown of communities.

Full review on mingong.org

[Klaus Kühnhammer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent and highly recommended. Half a century after its initial publication, this is still an extremely relevant analysis of the political and economical problems we face now

[Markus · Rating 5 out of 5]

I took notice of the philosophy of Leopold Kohr after attending a lecture organised by the Leopold Kohr Akademie at the University of Salzburg (- Leopold Kohr was born 1909 in the city of Obendorf near Salzburg, most famous for being the home town of "Silent Night").
Published in 1957, "The Breakdown of Nations" was the first time Kohr laid his ideas down in the form of a monography after publishing it in shorter articles. At first his theory (often shortend as "Small is Beautiful") wasn't taking very seriously in academic cicles (even being called "fairy tale" by a "Times" critic), but began to gain popularity over the last centuries. Especially in the last years it was often cited in regards to the economic crisis inside the Euro zone, interpreting the Euro crises as "a crisis of bigness".

Kohrs theory, in short, is that the cause behind all social misery is bigness or oversize. In the first part of the book he tries to analyse the roots of abusive power and comes to the essentiell thesis that neither culture nor ideologies or political systems are at the radix of the problem but too much power. Kohr calls this the "critical dimension ": the size accumulated by any kind of ideology or person that leads inevitable to violence and war. This idea is premised on the logic that one "power pool" tries to overcome the other "power pool" - no matter what - as soon as it realizes that it can overcome it without resistance.
Thus Kohr assesses that the only conclusion for no power to reach its "critical dimension" is to split it apart - therby, even if it reaches it's full potential, it will have no way to get bigger than other powers. In the wake of this conclusion Kohr pledges for disunion of big nations so that no state can at its critically peak of power be stronger than any other state. By that, nations can interact in the form of equal federalism.
Unfortunately, at the end Kohr comes to the conclusion that, while such a disunion would be possible, it won't happen voluntarily because (a) no nation will freely give up its power and (b) we are living at times were unificaton was chosen as the right way (UNO, NATO, EU,...)

"Breakdown of Nations" is an easy readabile book. I think Kohr wanted to spread his ideas as far as he could without hampering its distribution by technical vocabulary. That's why some parts of the book, especially the middle part, seem almost naiv. The book is also full of vivid metaphors to convey his ideas, which however sometimes interrupt the course of reading.
Nevertheless the core idea is what counts and I think Kohrs thesis layed down in this book is now more important and accurate than ever.

[Alan Hughes · Rating 5 out of 5]

I would wager that while many people are aware of the phrase ”Small is Beautiful” most, as I was, would be unaware of the originator of the phrase. E.F. Schumacher’s book “Small is Beautiful (1973)” took its title from the principle promoted by his teacher Leopold Kohr. Leopold Kohr had led a movement opposing the ‘cult of bigness’ for some time before Schumacher’s book brought ideas of anti-globalisation, appropriate technologies, and sustainable development to the general public’s attention.

Kohr, born in Austria, trained in Law, Economics and Political Science. He fled Austria, when it was annexed by Nazi Germany, and later became an American citizen. He taught in Rutger’s University in New Jersey, the University of Puerto Rico and latterly at Aberystwyth University here in Wales. I am rather ashamed to admit that a man who was friends with George Orwell, Herbert Read, and Ivan Illych, and who received the Right Livelihood Award (an alternative Nobel Prize) in 1983, lived and worked in my nearest big town and I knew nothing about him. It was only when he was mentioned in a SDP political meeting (held by zoom in these difficult times) that I discovered him and his book “The Deterioration of Nations” published in 1957.

This is an interesting book and one that is difficult to characterise. It is a book with a very broad sweep concerning economics, politics, philosophy, history and sociology. Unlike books on political or economic theory there are no tables and charts just pages of lucid, easy to read text. There is a huge breadth of knowledge on display here and many historical examples which illuminate his thesis well. He presents the case for philosophical anarchy and the case for small scale living; living in communities whose scale best fits the human experience.

As mentioned above his over-riding principle is that “small is beautiful”, or perhaps more simply that “bigness” is the perennial problem. He shows examples to support his contention “Wherever something is wrong, something is too big“. Reading this book during the coronavirus pandemic brought a new example of this problem as we discover that high intensity farming (birds previously, mink this time) is a major risk for pathogens jumping species to start pandemics. He discusses size in relation to political and economic systems, nations and states, and shows strong evidence for the benefits of small scale living. He presciently wrote “The Global Paradox. [is]The more people feel themselves enfolded in one global economy, the more they strive for self-determination in any cultural homogeneity of which they are a part.” and wrote of the dangers European union and the likely return of nationalist policies well before these became hot political topics.

In addition to political and economic arguments he writes a great deal about the cultural and social aspects of his thesis. Anarchists will recognise this aspect of his writings :-

“The real conflict of today is between Man and Mass, the Individual and Society, the Citizen and the State, the Big and Small Community, between David and Goliath.”

“This is why in a small state he will never be floored by the glamour of government. He is physically too close to forget the purpose of its existence: that it is here to serve him, the individual, and has no other function whatever.“

chimes with their sentiments. Although libertarians may have more difficulty with his support for communitarianism.

Readers coming from a largely secular society may find parts of the book rather less accessible as he also considers the problem from a spiritual aspect. Readers, like I, without much experience of discussing spiritual matters might initially baulk at this. However, in doing so he does manage to also consider the individual’s basic needs and character and it is refreshing to see these actually considered rather than conveniently ignored.

“This is no accident, for smallness is not only a convenience. It is the design of God. The entire universe is built on it. We live in a microcosmos, not in a macrocosmos. Perfection has been granted only to the little.”

“There is no crowd on earth that could not in an instant turn into a wolf pack, however saintly its original dedication,”

Often the argument made against considering alternative ways of living is the success of our present path to supply our increased standard of living. Our current wealth and consumption is taken as proof of our progress and all future planning is said to require continued onward growth and expansion. Kohr would argue against this believing ” that the question was no longer how to expand but how to contract; not how to grow but how to put limits to growth,” or “as Welsh anthropologist Alwyn Rees used to put it: ‘When you have reached the edge of the abyss, the only thing that makes sense is to step back.’”.

Indeed he questions whether our growth in consumption has actually made us any better off. There is little evidence that we are proportionately happier with our increasing pile of consumer goods. He argues that our needs for these goods, and the ability to own them, now drives us into lifestyles which trap us in spirals of ever increasing consumption.

“But since when is the creation of new necessities a sign of progress? Our fantastic media of communication and transportation, which we take for a token of higher living standards, are nothing but the symptom of our increasing enslavement.”

For example : we own cars now and this is seen as a sign of progress and wealth and that our standard of living has increased. But we need cars now as we live far from our families and workplaces and need to travel for hours each day. We are now increasingly isolated and have lost the bonds of family and community that closer living used to afford. Our towns and villages are damaged by our car ownership as commerce is no longer local but global – villages don’t have a village store as our transport systems allow a lonely click in your bedroom sufficient to organise your shopping. In our bigger cities it is likely that our high car ownership is actually damaging our physical health. The calculus that car ownership, for example, has a simple relationship to our standard of living is one that can be questioned. Even as car ownership affords us travel, he notes, :-

“What we want from travel is adventure, not cars. The small-state world, being also a small-scale world, gave us all the excitement of vast space travel with the difference that we could find it all near by.“

“We may race up and down the entire North American continent and see nothing but Main Street all over again, filled with the same kind of people, following the same kind of business, reading the same kind of funnies and columnists, sharing the same movie stars, the same thoughts, the same laws, the same morals, the same convictions.”

A short review like this can’t do justice to the book. I think anyone who is willing to ignore some of the dated language and persevere will find something of interest in its pages. Like all great books it might help the reader change their opinions and see the world in a different light.

As befits a book extolling the virtues of smallness, this book probably has the smallest chapter ever written. The chapter “The Elimination of Great Powers: Can It Be Done?” is followed by one called “Will It Be Done?”. This chapter contains one single word “No”.

[Damned Snake · Rating 2 out of 5]

I agree with statement, disagree with argumentations. He's advocating generally a patchwork later introduced by Moldbug, but from different reasons, like low crime because he's applying physics to human science, that density creates tension, forgetting that New York has crime but Tokyo does not, because of racial reasons, not density. Also with war, he's resentimental, as these small city states did also waged gruesome wars, while states could be reasonable, it's more of a systemic issue, rather than purely geographical, especially that how one to measure states like Mongolia, which are large geographically, but scarcely inhabited. Generally, poor one, good for boomers.

[Remy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Raakt de kern van allerlei vooronderstellingen van onze moderne cultuur. Briljant qua controversiële stellingname en rijke onderbouwing met historische feiten. Op het hoofdstuk The Physics of Politics na dan. But will it be done? No!

[Rhys · Rating 4 out of 5]

"If an engineer knows a philosopher, be is suspected of being a spy" (135). Yeeees [chin rub].

[Slavisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Truly insightful. And it looks like it only gets better with time.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Relevant to our times in 2020

Great read. Applicable in light of globalist vs nationalist challenges. The term “Break-down” is used in the positive sense, not the negative.

[Terry · Rating 5 out of 5]

I will try to write more later, but seems important to note for people unfamiliar with Kohr, that EF Schumacher esteemed Kohr as “the person who taught me more than anyone else.”

[Logan Streondj · Rating 5 out of 5]

A fairly excellent book on how humans work better in smaller groups. And how it may be possible to have small groups as basis of decision making again to create a more peaceful and kind world.

[Rashad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Idea is good and broads your view but not criticising America itself

[Lauri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely brilliant! Kohr was truly fortelling the history of the future, that is now past, by writing this book, which proves more revealing of the current history at the ever moving passage of time.

It opened my eyes and finally unified the threads of history i've picked up of the past decades from world war II till present day. It also got me thinking how, set from the collapse of soviet union, the tables are again turning ever so discreetly and yet in the plain view of the international altair as new powers rise and spheres of influences gravitate toward their new contemporary equiliribums.

And remember when reading this book that even though first chapters and some of the middle will seem at times sloggish, dull and somewhat outdated in for example when he points to a god or rambles a bit too much, coming to the end the jorney is what makes the destination worth it, i.e. it's worth sticking in.

------------------------------------------

Now, excuse my passionate review, being mostly just my own thought rised by reading this book and not so much of its contents. I have also wrote this right in the after glow of turning the last page so that has it's effects too.
I however believe this is my true opinion since one so fast forgets what he has red and the thoughts it did raise. Atleast in their most coherent formations in one's mind.

This is also my first review, first post in english and first post of anykind for that matter into the realms of internet. So grammar and review may both be a bit weird. Sorry =)

[Joel Blunt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't find any of Kohr's arguments convincing, while I agree with the author's final conclusion that a decentralised federalism is the best means of organising a state, his arguments have holes big enough to drive a truck through. If one is interested in a defense of federalism, the federalist papers are a better choice.

First, his economic argument is easy to dismiss. Humanity is better off materially now than it was in the middle ages. Kohr confuses the issue by equating economic effectiveness with utility. Kohr may be correct in stating that people were more satisfyed in the middle ages than they are currently. However, I am not convinced that making people poorer will make them happier. Even Kohr seems to realise this since he admits that the chief problem is that the modern man's appetites for goods and services have greatly expanded. Make the modern man poor and he will drown himself in tears.

Politically, weak states seem to have just as bad problems as strong states. (Africa? anyone?)He overidealises the middle ages.

Culturally, his arguments seem to be attacking urbanization, not "big" states. The problems he names would exist even in some small states such as singapore. His arguments are non-unique.

There are good reasons for federalism. (cultural diversity, greater efficiency,) This book just gives none of them.

[Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a manifesto, not a detached and dry academic treatise. Perhaps this is why readers either treasure it or despise it. I would recommend this to anyone who wishes to know more about the concepts of devolution (seen in practice in the United Kingdom since 1997; the 'Scotland Question' is not settled, and may not ever be answered to the satisfaction of everyone involved), 'localvore' food practices, fair trade, anti-corporate dissent. I find it can be summarized in a phrase: political biodiversity through 'heirloom variety' sovereignty and statecraft. To quote Lisa Simpson: "UK out of Cornwall!"

[Alasdair Martin · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fairly decent read for most parts, first and last thirds are well written and make many good arguments, although some elements are dated and rendered obsolete by latter day events, much remains relevant and pertinent.

The conclusions were ... sounding much like the realization that the authors musings would never come to fruition and a manifesto for processing US imperialism. Slightly precognitive in some respects, and galling as a non-US citizen. I advise caution amongst US readers who should take much here with a pinch of salt. :)

[kimberly blake · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good read for these times

Somewhat difficult for me but I finished it for a friend bill joy who challenged me with this share. Incredibly mind opening?!