Will World Government Rot?
This is the kind of political analysis I&#x27;ve come to be very, very critical of lately. It&#x27;s not even that I disagree with everything here; it&#x27;s a truism in anthropology that more complex forms of political organization, like states and empires, are substantially less stable than less complex ones. The author just makes assertions without providing evidence or demonstrating his thought process in any way.<p>And a lot of it is just plain wrong when you take a moment to think it through. For instance:<p>&gt; Over time, legal systems seem to similarly become more complex, interdependent, and resistant to change. Sometimes legal systems are “refactored” to increase flexibility, such as when the Roman emperor Justinian arranged for a restructuring and simplification of the Roman legal code. This Justinian code was later adapted by Napolean [sic], who spread it across Europe, after which European conquests spread it across the world<p>This the kind of generalization you often see from dabblers and rarely see from actual historians or even amateurs with a solid understanding of history. The complexity and rigidity of legal systems in various parts of the world varies greatly depending on the era, the health of the political and socioeconomic systems in that era, whether or not the systems in question are based in civil law or common law, etc. And the idea that there&#x27;s a straight line from Justinian to Napoleon is ludicrous as well. It glosses over 1300 years of legal history showing large fluctuations in the level of legal complexity because it&#x27;s either inconvenient for the author to deal with or because the author is unaware of it. Regardless of the reason for the omission, it&#x27;s a sign of the author&#x27;s laziness.<p>I get that this &quot;paper&quot; (author&#x27;s words, not mine) is just a blog post but IMO this is lazy, reductionist thought and we should demand better when people want to chime in on political or economic issues.