I've lived in a few places around the world. By far the best-run one was the Isle of Man, which (when I lived there) had a population of around 30K. It has an independent parliament (Tynwald, the oldest continuous parliament in the world), and it makes its own laws.
The government has very little graft. Politicians seemed to genuinely work for the benefit of their constituents [0]. I always attributed this to the fact that they lived in the communities they served, and the people they socialised with were affected by the decisions they made.
The UK has the problem that the politicians are insulated from the people they ostensibly serve. Especially the Tories. They have displayed contempt and arrogance beyond belief.
This is all, as you say, a problem of scale.
[0] One illustration of this is the Manx implementation of social security vs the UK. When the Manx government set up national insurance contributions, they paid them into a separate fund (https://www.gov.im/about-the-government/departments/the-trea...) which is under control of the treasury. The UK just poured the national insurance contributions into the general taxation pool.
The Manx fund (and by extension their health service) is rolling in money. The UK NHS is broke. The Manx system is proof that there were more than enough contributions to the NHS to keep it adequately funded. But the UK politicians spent the contributions on other things, because they could.
Isle of Man does have the benefit that its economy is based on international tax evasion, money laundering, online gambling etc sleazy stuff that essentially siphon off money from places where the actual labor is conducted.
How do you distinguish this from, say, the US which runs a trade deficit of around $1 trillion?
Is your problem with Isle of Man the specific industries or businesses that drive revenue there, or the siphoning off of money/labor from other places?
US does the siphoning with quite a different method, mostly by enforcing the petrodollar using the huge military. It could probably use this money a lot better if wellbeing of the citizens is the benchmark.
Sleazeball havens like Isle of Man (and many others) by the merit of creating international legal loopholes.
West in general siphons off money/labor from other places.
Not a fan of these, but this wasn't really the point. The point was that Isle of Man has the advantage of not having to do much work of their own to keep the economy rolling so it's not necessarily comparable.
They literally just charge a flat tax rate and no corporation tax. It's not really a legal loophole.
There are hoops they make people jump through - if you're a company wanting to relocate then you must have one Manx director. If you're a person then you must actually live there.
The Manx used to make their money from smuggling. This is cleaner.
"The country has a long history of sociopathic ideation on its socioeconomic participation within a larger global economy, typically as a parasite to vice."
It is not just this. There are many small municipalities around the world where mayor/local council does not act like this. Most of things come down to voters. Their culture and breadth of views.
Or is there a source of funds in the Isle of Man that is not applicable to the rest of the world? Like, if it was applied to the rest of the world the funds would stop going to the Isle of Man?
Is there also something not present in the Isle of Man that elsewhere is a sink for money?
Something you would have to stop incentivising in other places if you want to have them "rolling in money", but that many people can't bring themselves to do?
The main thing is that when you impose a tax on people in order to achieve a goal, that income is not then put into the general taxation pool for politicians to spend as they wish, but kept in a separate fund that can only be used to fund the thing it was levied for. If we had more of that we'd have less problems like the NHS.
Thomas Paine in Common Sense also describes that is preferable to have constituents from the places and with work in the community they live in. Congress only has 2 years for this reason as well, to be a reflection of the community they live in.
The government has very little graft. Politicians seemed to genuinely work for the benefit of their constituents [0]. I always attributed this to the fact that they lived in the communities they served, and the people they socialised with were affected by the decisions they made.
The UK has the problem that the politicians are insulated from the people they ostensibly serve. Especially the Tories. They have displayed contempt and arrogance beyond belief.
This is all, as you say, a problem of scale.
[0] One illustration of this is the Manx implementation of social security vs the UK. When the Manx government set up national insurance contributions, they paid them into a separate fund (https://www.gov.im/about-the-government/departments/the-trea...) which is under control of the treasury. The UK just poured the national insurance contributions into the general taxation pool.
The Manx fund (and by extension their health service) is rolling in money. The UK NHS is broke. The Manx system is proof that there were more than enough contributions to the NHS to keep it adequately funded. But the UK politicians spent the contributions on other things, because they could.