Great interview with Nassim Nicholas Taleb:
One aspect why city states are antifragile resp. more stable than big countries with big government:
"The idea of Singapore, someone invaded — let’s say Malaysia decides to take over Singapore. What are they going to do with that? They’ve got nothing. It’s much better for you to go to Singapore, tell them, “We want 2 percent.” Or “We want 10 percent.” And then they will break it down to 3 percent."