Just got finished reading this, as I’d heard it was some time traveler book that seemed to foretell what we were about to see very shortly.
No. It’s basically a doomer story of how, just prior to 1900, after a populist president is elected and does away with usury and returns us to the gold/silver standard, our country erupts into chaos, collapses, and divides back into 50 states as a last resort.
So…any reason people here keep touting this thing?
Well you can make a good argument that we don't need a central government, especially when it's detrimental to the freedom of the people. The Founders considered central government a "necessary evil". But I can't see any scenario where evil would ever be necessary. That's almost an oxymoron. In the past a person's loyalty was to his state, not the country. America was created as a "loose union of States".
Agreed. When the US was first formed, every state was almost its own separate country. The central government was so weak that it was pretty much completely useless. This did cause some problems in terms of national defense, interstate commerce for land-locked states, etc.
However, the evil scumbags always push for centralization of power in every way possible. Decentralization is a natural deterrent to their ability to corrupt those who control centralized power.
Personally, I don't see anything wrong with much more powerful states and a weak central government. The same is true for counties within the states as well.