Category

Decentralization

• 04.05.10
  Central planning
  Authoritarianism, Books to read, Decentralization (0)

  Fascinating review of Ernest May’s "Strange Victory - Hitler’s Conquest of France", by Alex Harrowell over at A Fistfull of Euros. It turns out that that Hitler's Germany was able to defeat France and Britain because Germany acted more like an egalitarian democracy, while France went in for authoritarian central planning. And then Germany lost the war because, after the first victories, Hitler insisted on tight control and central planning. This story has a sort of tragic duality. The Germans won because they had been able to plan more like a democracy than democratic France or Britain - they constantly ...
  
  
• 08.09.09
  Wanted: Decentralization Skills
  Decentralization (0)

  Seth G. Jones writes in the WSJ ("Going Local: The Key to Afghanistan : The U.S.’s strategy of building a centralized state is doomed to fail in a land of tribes") that the U.S. is making a mistake in Afghanistan by acting as though there is (or should be) a central authority to deal with. The Soviets made the same mistake. It's understandable that a highly centralized government like that of the Soviet Union would do that. But what excuse if there for the U.S., which supposedly is itself much more decentralized -- a federal system with greater levels ...