Why do some countries internally
have more inequality in terms of wealth or economic development, whether
between big cities and urban areas, or just from region to region, than do
other countries? I contend that in comparing the internals of one state/country
to those of another, as much “all else equal” should be satisfied as possible.
This can be accomplished to a large extent by resisting the error, or
temptation, to make category mistakes, such as in comparing Singapore with
China—a city to an empire-scale country—or an E.U. state with the entire U.S. Even
European scholars tend to make this category mistake, and scholars from
elsewhere are so used to it that they do not typically point out the category mistake
of treating an Early-modern kingdom state in an empire-scale federal union with
another such union, as if a state in one such union, or a comparable sovereign
state, were itself an empire-scale union. In short, resisting the ideologically-driven
urge to begin with a category mistake would do wonders in making the comparative
work itself more accurate and beneficial.
Illinois, for example, has
fifteen economic regions, yet the one containing Chicago dwarfs the other regions,
with are either rural or sport a medium-sized city like Springfield, Rockford,
and Peoria, none of which is known for its wealth. How does this compare with
Switzerland in contrasting Zurich, and to a certain extent Geneva, which is
half the population of Zurich, to the counties, or cantons, that are mainly rural?
Both in territory and population, Illinois is larger than is Switzerland, and
Chicago relative to the rest of Illinois has a higher population and greater metro-territory
than Zurich has to the rest of Switzerland; perhaps comparing Paris in France
to Chicago in Illinois would be a closer comparison. Unlike Switzerland,
neither Illinois nor France has a federal system, and both are semi-sovereign
states in federal systems, the U.S. and E.U., so in comparing Illinois and
France, a scholar would better able to “hold all else constant,” except in
terms of population, than is the case in comparing Illinois and Switzerland. In
that regard, comparing Arizona and Switzerland would be better, as the
respective populations are around 7 to 8 million people.
Avoiding the temptation to
make category mistakes, such as in claiming that Switzerland is a United States
of Europe, with county-sized cantons be likened to red and blue American states,
is a prerequisite to being able to make accurate comparisons. At a talk at the
Center for European Studies, a Swiss junior scholar acted on the urge during a
talk on this topic in November, 2024, to ignore this point even though it had
been made by a senior scholar and the scholar from MIT visiting to give his
talk that E.U. and U.S. states are comparable with respect to contrasting large
cities with rural areas. Ideology, whether States’ Rights in America or the
Euroskeptic, or “nationalist,” ideology in Europe, can entrap even scholars,
such that their scholarship may be compromised from their decision on an axis
of comparison. Hawaii, Alaska, or Texas becoming a member-state in the U.S. is
not comparable to one of Switzerland’s county-scale cantons.
After avoiding category
mistakes that are based on ideology rather than reason, we can investigate whther
too much power being given by a government to localities and regions increases
the economic inequality from region/locality to region/locality because there tends
to less economic redistribution to less developed regions or urban areas, and
because they tend to compete with each other for direct investment by
companies. How can we reconcile the cities competing against others to economic
equality between regions and cities within a country?
Moreover, there is not only an
economic divide between big cities and rural “left behind” places; there are
social and cultural differences too; for example, anti-urban sentiment can be non-economic
barrier to moving to a big city for school or a job. In some states/countries, the
chasm may be more cultural whereas in other cases the difference may be more
economic. To claim that cultural
differences within a European state are comparable to those between certain
U.S. states, such as Hawaii and Alabama, even ignoring the fact that different
languages are spoken to a considerable extent in those two U.S. states and even
dismissing the non-linguistic differences that can exist between two distant
and large geographical territories, such as Hawaii and Alabama (or Louisiana!),
reflects the convenient imprint of a European ideology.
In short, category mistakes,
whether spuriously using political, economic, or cultural factors, can doom a study
of comparative politics and economics from the start. Much of what is concluded
by reason once such a mistake has been made is likely to be faulty. Perhaps the
largest cost in doing so in many studies may be in the loss of scholarly
reputation of the fields of comparative politics and political economy. Judging
from the talks at Harvard’s Center for European Studies, the ideological motivate
is salient even among scholars, and this prompts me to ask whether the results
of their scholarship is in fact academic in nature or too compromised by the
common instinctual-urge to put one’s own ideology in the driver’s seat. To Nietzsche,
the content of ideas is instinctual urges, and reasoning is the process in a
brain whereby those urges compete with each other for dominance.
