Questions States and Small Countries Should Ask Theirself

Author Simon Harris | November 1st, 2022

1. What do we have in abundance? What do we have that is in short supply?

2. How can we promote continuity in a place? Does our youth stay or go? Do our seniors stay or go? Could they stay even if they wanted to?

3. When was the last time (what year) we built a new shopping center? When was the last time we built a new town? And a new city?

4. What is in the budget right now that will last 5 years? What is its value in 5 years? Is it an asset or a liability? Is it only an asset if we assume population growth?

5. When new people come and stay, why do they stay? The same goes for those who leave. We should know the answers.

6. Another way of asking question 5: What gives our citizens long-lasting satisfaction?

7. What is the profitability of our schools? Who are they for? For fathers and mothers? For children and adolescents? After schooling, do the youth stay in the state/country? If not, shouldn't we be alarmed that we spend a lot just to export them? (Especially New Hampshire, where I live, you have to wonder: Why don't they stay?)

8. What can we export more? How can we increase the wealth and fame of our State? Entrepreneurs and celebrities ask. Good families wonder. Why don't states ask them out loud? Why don't we have a clear answer? Why doesn't it come up in political discussions or campaigns?

9. Why do people do things in life? Why do they do new things? Why do they create families? Do they create wealth? Why don't they do those things here? What is it that prevents them, that perhaps did not prevent them 100 years ago, or that does not prevent them today in other places? What are the essential differences between there and here?

10. How do we build the culture, or the spirit of a place? How do we make sure that people in the citizenry know each other? How do we make sure that entrepreneurial people know those who finance? How do we make sure people meet new friends and lovers? How do we get people to meet, literally cross each other, and feel like they are part of a place?

11. How can we make our people feel that their "home" is bigger than their house? How do we make people... identify with where they live?

12. What works do we create with our hands? What is our culture? Is it...Netflix? Is our culture something determined in distant film studios? What is the strongest unit of culture that keeps the profit, or the people, in the state? What makes people want to be here and travel here? Where is our pride?

13. What are the town/city committees for? For each committee, get a list of the things they have decided to do in the last 10 years. What does it consist on? Are they progressing or not? Find a way to find out. For each committee, should it disappear? Or make it more powerful? Is it clear? On the committees I've been on, progress is slow, and power is scant. Some committees seem to have the same function as the constant medicalization of people's lives with respect to human motivation. If it can be medicalized, it can be ignored. It's not your ruinous diet, it's (let's say) "diabetes" or "gout" etc. This acquits people of most actions. The way of life becomes something that is treated with medicine. Just like in human health, we should be resisting this at the state level. How do we get people in political office to care about issues like this?