When a small factory in a small town goes belly up, though, it does cause a local recession, yes? Because, isn't that what we are talking about? The same system, only writ small? By definition a small business is limited, but it's only a small business _relative_ to what is considered a norm, the big business.
Tully's talking about creating a world in which there are no big businesses. In which case, what is small would actually be quite influential within the lifestyle enclave itself. I'm curious, not being an economist, how you'd examine the economic impact of a small 100 employee factory in a small town of, say, 1000. What was the typical size of the Greek polis? Or, rather, what do people think a small enclave might look like in this utopia? Is the economy extremely local, with everything being produced and distributed within a geographic region with as little dependency on the rest of the world as possible?
Would crop failure be a problem under those conditions? What if a few individuals mismanaged things so badly that the whole community was sent into a spiral of recession? What if they were actually cooking the books, robbing the utopian polis?
Why would another utopian polis rush to the aid of another utopian polis? If they're merely eking out a living themselves, would they have surplus to give to the freeloaders? Would they want to establish rules as to whether or not the other failing community was truly worthy of their aid? what about natural disasters? What costs go up in the absence of the economies of scale? Wouldn't the tax burden increase?
Rambling q's.
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