“Big Government” isn't the problem – we should be talking about complexity

It amazes me as a software engineer, that we build our economic system in such a tightly coupled and complex manner that as soon as anything bad happens anywhere in the world, it seems to affect everyone (just look at the oil price fall - you would think that is good for everyone - oil getting cheaper, but apparently not). It seems exactly the opposite of what we aim to achieve with good software, yet the people building it this way seem to encourage it.

I loved this post. It truly is sad that entrenched powers are using complexity to keep the status quo.

I've always thought that governance and legislation had a lot of parallels with code. It truly is not the size of the codebase that is the problem, it's the complexity underlying it. We can understand a program if everything is laid out common-sensically.

Maybe it wouldn't be a stretch to say that it goes the same for government.

Big Government is a symptom of the problem: No Accountability.

Introduce accountability, and you'll see government shrink to a more reasonable and efficient size. You'll also see less complexity: when government employees and civil servants are held accountable for their actions, they will be a) more interested in clear job/task descriptions and b) less inclined to engage in the kind of self-serving obfuscation that takes place now.

Now whether or not this can be accomplished is another question entirely...