The IBM 3850 Mass Storage System (MSS), announced in 1974, held, in its largest configuration, some 472GB of data and cost $51,200 a month to rent or $2.3 million to buy. Data was held on tape which was wound onto cartridges which were stowed in the hexagonal rack (left). As data was needed the mechanical arm would pick the appropriate cartridge and read the tape. I never (knowingly) used one, but seek times must have been measured in 10s of seconds rather than milliseconds.    

That's a little less capacity than this Seagate drive (right), which costs $44.99 free and clear. Interestingly however, that's a price performance gain of just 33% a year. Of course, for an R&D team looking into the future, that's a fairly aggressive stretch goal for one year, let alone thirty seven.

One cartridge in the 3850 (left) holds 50 MB of data - on tape!

Man is not free unless government is limited

True. But Reagan didn't say "Man is not free unless government ceases to exist". Reagan wasn't a libertarian. He understood (Tea Party take note) that government did have some role to play in ensuring we didn't live in a Hobbsian  anarchy where the powerful exploited the weak.
   

What price freedom?

China, it was argued 20 years ago, could not become an industrialised country without democracy. History has yet to prove this conjecture. For the moment an alternative proposition seems plausible. Freedom can be bought with a rise in living standards. People may tolerate constraints on free speech and a lack of political influence in exchange for a growing economy and increasing prosperity.

Should growth in China falter, this implicit bargain may collapse and democracy may yet arrive. But for the moment, China is reaping the advantages of an autocratic regime in terms of coherent public policy oriented towards investment in the future; at the same time, Europe and the US seem unable to muster the equivalent political will. 

Democracy and leadership - short-termism

I argued below that leadership and democracy are at odds when everyone votes on all matters of importance. This leads to a lack of leadership which in turn tends to support high discount rates which means future costs are undervalued relative to present sacrifice.

Representative democracy (in which elected representatives make particular policy choices, rather than the voters show choose only between representatives) helps but doesn't fix this problem. Career politicians may take a longer term view but when, as has happened recently, they are turfed out by a disgruntled electorate, and replaced by representatives who have little desire to spend their lives in politics, short term solutions dominate since the shadow of the future has disappeared, at least for those newly elected.

If I stand for election knowing I will not be standing again in 2 years time, I have no extrinsic incentive to ensure that my decisions work for those I represent in the longer term.

Democracy and leadership - a tradoff

"Democracy and leadership are antithetical".

If democracy is conceived of as everyone having a vote on every major issue, then the statement is defensible.

First, the more complicated decision people are asked to make the less attention they can pay and the lower the quality of their analysis.

Second, one sacrifices vertical specialization in Herb Simon's terms. That is by refusing to delegate decision making to elected representatives who have both the time and (supposedly) the cognitive chops to deal handle these kinds of questions, we further reduce the quality of decision making.

Finally, there is the problem of collective action when decisions are difficult and require sacrifice is exacerbated. Most of us will gladly accept collective sacrifice if someone else is paying, but balk when it's our turn to pay.

An elected representative should in theory balance the wishes of all those she represents and arrive at a compromise that is less skewed than a solution voted on by all, which is generally the "lowest common denominator" and therefore likely to be insufficient in scope.

When everyone has a vote, no one wants to lead in making a sacrifice (the collective action problem). Another way of thinking about this is as a big prisoner's dilemma with 34 million players (i.e. voters); the equilibrium is "defect".

And that's the problem with California's ballot measure procedure and by extension with the state's finances.