State capacity is inversely related to state extensiveness

From Keeping up with the FITs, 3/12 by Arnold Kling.  Kling is usually good for an insight or two.  I especially liked this.  The first indent is Kling quotingNoah Smith, a frequently useful bellwether for the received narrative among the mainstream pundits.  That is followed by Kling's insight.8

A modern military is not just a bunch of guys with rifles — it’s a highly complex, specialized force deeply dependent on advanced technology, high-throughput manufacturing, efficient administration, a literate and educated recruitment pool, and many other features of a modern rich industrialized economy. Those things in turn depend crucially on state-provided public goods such as infrastructure, education, bureaucracy, basic research, and potentially even industrial policy. If we are to have the power to safeguard our individual liberties, we need a strong and efficient state to shape our society into one capable of defending itself.

I would argue that this means we need a government that knows its place, and a population that knows the place for government. Not a government that intervenes everywhere Noah Smith thinks it should. State capacity is inversely related to state extensiveness.