Self-regulating systems are small
Systems that do not exceed a certain size retain the ability to self-regulate:
This means that smallness is not an accidental whim of creation. It fulfils a most profound purpose. It is the basis of stability and duration, of a graceful harmonious existence that needs no master. For little bodies, countless in number and for ever moving, for ever rearrange themselves in the incalculable pattern of a mobile balance whose function in a dynamic universe is to create orderly systems and organisms without the necessity of interfering with the anarchic freedom of movement granted to their component particles.[1]
Once the limits are outgrown, a system begins to experience the problem of “unmanageable proportions”—the problems pertaining to the business of growing will increase faster than the growth of the system itself.
As has already been indicated, it is not any particular economic system that seems at fault, but economic size. Whatever outgrows certain limits begins to suffer from the irrepressible problem of unmanageable proportions. When this happens to a community, its problems will not only increase faster than its growth; they will be of a new order, arising no longer from the business of living but from the business of growing. Instead of growth serving life, life must now serve growth, perverting the very purpose of existence.[2]
See also:
The Breakdown of Nations – Kohr (2016), ch. 5, § “2. Unity versus Balance.” ↩︎
Ibid., § “4. The Size Theory of Business Cycles.” ↩︎