HITTING THE LIMITS OF STATE CAPACITY: The Incapable States of America? “Much of the problem, however, is down to incompetence. . . . The whole sorry business was redolent of service in a Sicilian bank just before siesta, right down to the plethora of uniformed officials (some government, some private) with overlapping and contradictory responsibilities.”

Plus: “America’s unusually poor state capacity (given, like Australia and Western Europe, it is a wealthy country) has political, social, and military consequences. I’ve long suspected that the widespread desire for a government small enough to drown in the bathtub reflects the negative experience many Americans have with utterly Byzantine state and private sector bureaucracies plus associated general uselessness.”