Why (do) we hate us(?)

In response to the author, Dick Meyer, of Why We Hate Us: American Discontent in the New Millennium:

The root cause of mass discontentment in modern society is the Centralization (or de-localization) of political power. As the Federal Government grows, the political leverage of the individual decreases. This is obvious proportionally (individual:state vs. individual:nation). The individual has less political power in a larger population. The ideal, then, is complete localization (however impossible this may be).

As Aristotle recognized in the fourth century BC, Athens was too large to be a socially stable polis.