Consider the following example:
– When you go to war, make it total war or avoid it entirely.
The war provision is currently honored by no one, whether the Russo-Iranian alliance, the American Empire, or the Desert Alliance. Consequently none of these countries consistently manage to achieve the desired outcomes in the conflicts they enter. (The Iranians are the best, but the Middle East still is a wreck and so is Persia.) Contrast with the American Empire’s Persian Gulf I and World War II.
This is suboptimal in that a series of skillfully executed (counter-)insurgencies could achieve an empire’s geopolitical objectives in far more places at lesser cost (and indeed some of the 2010s actions by Iran and Russia would demonstrate the validity).
– Limit debt to 20% of GDP outside of war.
Not only do countries like Greece and Argentina go bankrupt and/or have massive inflation, but even countries like Japan have a huge debt overhang that affects their macroeconomic performance.
This is suboptimal in that investments in R&D and capital build-out get stretched out over time instead of front-loaded. However, generational opportunities for massive investment only come up relatively rarely (~40 years). Also, it makes it harder to implement certain forms of social welfare, particularly in petro-states; but comparable smoothing effects can be achieved by creating sovereign wealth funds.
– Either you are in prison or outside. In prison you have to bust your butt; outside you enjoy all the liberty of ordinary citizens.
Even relatively great countries like the 48 states of the American Empire can’t manage this properly. Americans often use catch-and-release for drug offenders, as well as insufficient mental health crisis treatment facilities and services. This winds up putting the bulk of the citizenry in danger. Meanwhile, in prison you get fed; elderly Japanese will “hold up” convenience stores so they can get the meals and places to stay.
This could be suboptimal in that having people on parole/under surveillance could save money by causing them to be employed in the normal economy. However, convict labor has been heavily devalued in modern industrial/information society, with an overall surplus of global labor, especially in low-skilled and semi-skilled occupations.
– Don’t regulate anything that goes on in houses, but give safe houses and charity.
The laughable “drug wars” waged by various countries, which consume billions of dollars and create countries in chaos, and don’t achieve the goal. People chasing down sodomites when they can’t feed their neighbors or maintain the social order.
This is suboptimal in that family-beating and unlawful imprisonment can go on for a long time.
– Have only a flat tax that starts above the poverty level with no exemptions for any type of income.
The inefficiency of tax administration alone in industrialized countries winds up being on the order of tens of billions of dollars. Plus you have regressive sales taxes that wind up counteracting poverty-alleviation programs.
This is suboptimal in that you wind up taxing middle class people at a higher rate than optimal, since they would typically spend the money on either useful things or on marginally high-value entertainment (i.e. that gives good bang for the buck).
No one would say that the above 5 statements would be an optimal strategy, but they are already far better than many actual governments’ performance. Consequently, we should not write off ideology as a next step when the results of adherence would be far better than our normal performance.