Why is this form of self-reliance a virtue? To me, it looks pathological; certainly not something we should collectively be working towards.
The "distributism" described above is the dream of virtually every rural community. People choose to live in rural communities because it's a little piece of heaven for them: they are surrounded by people they know, they have clean air, the earth is right beneath their feet, the stars are bright, the pace is slow, and so on. They want to serve their neighbors and receive services from their neighbors. How is that mindset pathological?
I am always encouraged by innovations that help rural folks be more self-reliant so they can work toward their dream of self-sustaining, independent communities.
So, you either choose total independence and low technology or interdependence with other groups and advanced tech.
Although that independence would be like a group of proto humans that knew about fire and how to use it, but not how to make it, and thus carefully guarded it and kept it fed, lest it go out.
I don’t see a way around this, since you always have to start from the same raw materials.
1: https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-06-20/rural-ame...
1) Our general trend is towards urbanization, humanity is now more urban than rural, and every quality of life index shows cities give more good to more people better.
2) Millennials, hipsters in particular, in American markets with crushing real estate prices have recently begun reverse-migrating away from the cities and to more rural areas with romanticized lifestyles creating some new demographic, and real estate, trends.
In terms of pure statistics we're looking at a sub-group with a different trend than the overall group. Most potatos aren't from my backyard, but those potatoes are only getting prettier while the many thousands at the market are getting uglier ;)
However, I will agree that my initial response was lacking and would have been better if not stated at all.
I suspect that you also have more corruption and/or abuse of power because (a) the previous entries all empower sociopathic individuals, (b) you have a larger pool from which to find such sociopaths, and (c) you have more positions of power for said sociopaths to fill.
You have all of these problems in small groups, but many of our policing/accountability systems don't function well in very large groups.
I could just as easily argue that smaller, more insular groups promote distrust of outsiders and lack of empathy, which might lead to more wars. I have no idea if that's true, but it sounds plausible to me.
In the end, actually examining data is what's needed. Until there are facts to assess, we're just spouting wild conjecture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunbar%27s_number has a decent collection of the research I know of. There is a little hand-waving involved when it comes to "why", but it's notable that multiple researchers over decades disagree about the number, not the base concept. Likewise, studies related to the base concept of the non-technical Brooks Law support the non-linear impact on communication as a group grows (off hand I can't find a study on that, but I know I've read of multiple).
Edit: Also https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/how-risky-is-it-really/... points out some research about the distance/abstractness I mentioned.
Anecdotally, plenty of governing and/or economic systems (e.g. communism) have historical success in small groups and no examples of success in large groups, but that's a completely different kind of evidence.
The corruption/abuse item is not part of the research, which is why I separated that as "I suspect" Given the above, and what we know about leaders (executives, politicians) and how sociopathic tendencies are an asset to personal success I find it very plausible but I have no actual evidence, thus "I suspect".
> I could just as easily argue that smaller, more insular groups promote distrust of outsiders and lack of empathy
You could, and I'd actually be interested to see any research on the topic because I've not thought about that one but it does match our general experiences about exposure and tolerance to social differences. That's orthogonal to my point though, as I was only addressing internal workings, not interactions between groups.
My main point was that the theory was labeled as something you suspect, but the evidence you listed to back up that theory sounded like it was being presented as fact. You've provided resources to back up the claim, at least to some degree (as you note), which is what I was looking for, so thanks. :)
> You could, and I'd actually be interested to see any research on the topic because I've not thought about that one but it does match our general experiences about exposure and tolerance to social differences.
I don't have any, but I also would be interested to see it. I was using it as an example of something that sounded true and that I suspected was true that I had no real evidence of, and thus should be hesitant to assert as true. Unfortunately, by its nature that makes it interesting to a certain type of person, so it ends up teasing us. :/