
Ask HN: Would America be better off as 50 separate countries? - gremlinsinc
What if we de-evolved into 50 states.<p>Each state is very different from other states in the way they vote, and demographics.<p>If we could peaceably devolve into separate countries, retaining current borders - with no federal taxes, 
 or government other than the state&#x27;s own elected government&#x2F;taxes.<p>Where each state is free to choose and setup it&#x27;s own constitution.<p>Yet keep a small &#x27;union&#x27; body to manage things like inter-state policing&#x2F;extradition, and travel.<p>Would that be such a bad thing?
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Broken_Hippo
It might work well for some states and be horrible for others.

The Dakotas and Montana, for example, would probably be keen to have some sort
of better access to shipping ports - as would somewhere like Kansas and
Oklahoma. Some states just don't have much to offer themselves: Rhode Island,
for example, is small, but they'd survive. Hawaii and alaska might not notice
as much change, though their tax rates would probably go up. Both need to
import a great deal of food, for example: Alaska has a vast area to cover with
infrastructure. Out West there are water issues. And a lot can go wrong
getting what the states need since there wouldn't be the federal government to
smooth things over.

Not only that, but travel suddenly becomes an issue. Each state needs a
passport and to secure borders or to have something akin to EU-style borders.
Things that used to be shipped across the country now would be going
international. Some businesses would have to reorganize and add some more
layers just to deal with the added regulation differences.

States would have to petition other countries to recognize all the different
countries.

And even more large would be trying to divide up the military into the
different states. How do you decide who gets an aircraft carrier? Are small
states just doomed to be weakish?

The closest I can work out to something resembling 'working' would be to
divide into regions instead of states - at least it would solve some of the
issues, anyway. The military issue really gets to be a pickle no matter how I
look at it, though, and would probably be based more on where existing bases
are.

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bavcyc
KS and OK both have access to shipping ports, at least at the barge level.

~~~
Broken_Hippo
Sure, through a river, at the mercy of whoever controls the shipping where the
Mississippi River meets the Gulf.

Which isn't so bad if it is handled much like the path from the atlantic
inland through the great lakes, though regulations change depending on where
you are docking - the recent viking ship had some issues with regulation
trying to get to lake michigan/Chicago for example.

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GFischer
I don't think it would work well economically. It's a libertarian utopia, but
unfortunately, the moment some of the 50 states decide to do stuff like taxing
out of state purchases or something like that, it would become very annoying.

I currently live in Uruguay, which is a small country which should have been a
part of either Argentina or Brazil if you consider things geographically.
Political considerations and Britain's foreign policy turned us into an
independent country instead.

Being a small country (we're what states like Montana or North Dakota would be
as a country) has quite a lot of economic disadvantages - smaller internal
market, lots of friction when buying and selling, some bureaucracy doesn't get
economies of scale and becomes bloated.

It does have several advantages if you disagree with neighbouring countries'
politics and policies though, which is why Britain voted for Brexit and what
you're mentioning.

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Mz
Given the trend towards multinational unions, such as the European Union
andvits Euro currency, I think "devolve" is the right description of this
idea. I think this is a terrible idea. I believe we are moving gradually
towards a world government via an emergence pathway.

Though I would not be at all surprised if current politics lead to an attempt
to secede, as such talk has increased in recent months:
[http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/us-state-secession-brexit-
elec...](http://fortune.com/2016/07/25/us-state-secession-brexit-election/)

Alaska seems the most likely candidate for a serious attempt and potentially
viable position. Alaska is radically different from the rest of the US and my
understanding is its oil is a big deal, financially speaking.

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BjoernKW
It's hard to predict with some being less viable alone than others. Over time
some sort of reorganisation of states and state borders (perhaps involving
war) would ensue.

Best case, you'd have something like the EU. Worst case, something more akin
to medieval Europe.

That said I like that Trump having been elected President seems to have gotten
people thinking about alternative ways of organising the world.

It seems like we've more or less been coasting along before because things
were running kind of smoothly for us.

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bmuursh
When California realised just how much they'd be spending on water if they had
to pay a fair market price for it without the fed helping them out I'm sure
they'd decide life is better as a state.

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ksherlock
That sounds a lot like the US, before events like the Civil War, 16th
Amendment, Great Depression, etc increased the size and scope of the federal
government.

