Centralization vs. decentralization: Not a "liberal-conservative" issue

[BrainGlutton]

In the U.S., conservatives seem to own the idea of “states’ rights,” local autonomy, limited federal government. My opinion is that that is not an essentially conservative position; it has only worked out that way because, in the U.S., conservatives have often found themselves on the side of things such as segregation that had solid local support but were opposed by a national majority. It’s not really a “small-government” issue: Consistent Libertarians would be indifferent as to the level at which government power is exercised; their concern is with its scope and reach, and the “local bully” or the “courthouse ring” can be just as oppressive of liberty as any national megastate.

Consider the perennial American question of the allocation of power between the presidency and Congress. Is a strong executive or a weak executive a “liberal” or “conservative” interpretation of the Constitution? Generally it seems to be that the parties favor a weak executive when the other party has the WH and a strong executive when their own does.

I think the centralization-decentralization question is, well, not quite free of ideology in that sense, but free of ideology in the usual liberal-vs.-conservative sense. Many on the right support decentralization – but so do the lefty Greens; “decentralization” (of government power and corporate/business power) is one of their “Ten Key Values.” If we were constructing a multidimensional chart that gave complete expression to all differences in political ideology (see the Nolan Chart and Pournelle Chart for two-dimensional attempts), I think centralization-vs.-decentralization would have to be an axis independent of any other.

Anyone think different?

[mswas]

Disagree. The local bully is easier to confront so therefore Libertarians should support giving as much power to the locality as possible.

[ITR_champion]

The CNN/Faux News types will rapidly switch from pro-centralization to pro-decentralization and back based on political expediency. That goes without saying, since they’ll abandon any supposed principle for the sake of political expediency.

I prefer decentralization, not because it’s liberal or conservative but rather because it’s a common sense response to the fact that we’re a nation of three hundred million people with a wide variety of views in different places. Suppose that people in my town in Virginia want pornography to be illegal while people in San Francisco want it to be legal. Allowing us to have two different sets of laws is the only approach that makes any sense. Say people in Alaska want marijuana to be legal while those in Kansas don’t. Give them both what they want. If people in California want tougher pollution controls than the rest of the country, they should get it.

[BrainGlutton]

@ITR_champion

The CNN/Faux News types . . .

I’ve never seen those two things associated before (except in the sense that CNN and Fox News are both media outlets).

[Llama_Llogophile]

@BrainGlutton

In the U.S., conservatives seem to own the idea of “states’ rights,” local autonomy, limited federal government.

Only when it suits them. Don’t recall a big conservative outcry when Bush wanted the Justice Department to invoke federal law to prosecute medical marijuana users who used the drug legally under state laws.

[RickJay]

@mswas

Disagree. The local bully is easier to confront so therefore Libertarians should support giving as much power to the locality as possible.

Leaving aside the liberal/conservative issue, I cannot imagine why you’d think this particular claim to be true.

Certainly in my experience, higher levels of government are MUCH easier to deal with and, to be honest, seem less arbitrary and insane. The federal govenrment has more power than my local municipality but the feds also seem much easier to deal with and far more capable of comprehending and dealing with problems. And it’s not just me saying it, it’s a common complaint.

Why that is I’m not sure - I suspect it’s simply that the federal government enjoys larger economies of scale in some regards, and tends to be able to attract better employees and has better systems for dealing with things. The feds also seem more systemic and rules-based, whereas in muncipal affairs the powers that be can get away with acting like petty tyrants towards individual consituents in ways that would get a federal politician thrown out of office. I’ve witnessed behaviour in municipal politicians that seems to be accepted as normal for them that, if a federal politician tried it, would be a front page scandal.

[mswas]

I am not talking about whether or not they do better business. I am talking about whether or not you can get an audience to meet the politician that is making law for you. You can get a petty tyrant locally but it’s also easier to overthrow him. Whereas at the Federal level your congressman might not even be aware that you exist.

[ITR_champion]

Obviously everyone has to deal with local government more than federal government. You only get parking tickets and zoning ordinances from the locals. But if there’s an issue such as marijuana, you’re much more likely to be able to influence the lawmakers in your state or county than in Congress.

I’ve never seen those two things associated before (except in the sense that CNN and Fox News are both media outlets).

Personally I’ve always had trouble telling the two apart. They’re both right-leaning outfits where white guys in suits rant and rave about topics that are, for the most part, designed or chosen to keep the electorate distracted from what’s really happening in Washington. Just over a year ago, Glenn Beck worked for CNN.

[BrainGlutton]

From “A Horde of Lilliputian Governments,” by Michael Lind, published in The New Leader, May 5, 1997:

The proliferation of dinky government has been defended on grounds of both efficiency and democracy. The efficiency argument posits a “market” in government. By pitting jurisdictions against one another, the consumers of government services can reward good governments and punish bad. This is fine if you are IBM, hunting for the best tax exemptions. But if you are an individual living in the typical suburb, to say nothing of the average inner city, you are in no position to get a better deal for yourself by pitting one governmental unit against another. Even affluent professionals who reside in bedroom communities ultimately pay a price for metropolitcan incoherence if they commute to and work in dysfunctional urban centers.

Anyone who imagines that local governments are efficient has never worked for one. On the basis of employment experience in local, state, and federal governments, I long ago formulated Lind’s Law: The lower the level of government, the more crooked and inefficient the public employees. If you think Washington is full of sleazy, back-slapping good old boys, you should get to know the members of a county commission. And the typical state driver’s license bureau makes the Federal postal workers look like models of Prussian discipline and Singaporean competence. The revolt against the Federal government would quickly fade if C-SPAN turned its cameras for a few years on state legislatures, school boards and county councils.

Then there is the democratic argument for consolidation. Advocates of decentralization on both the Right and the Left claim that the best governments are those that are closest to the people, who can exercise their civic muscles by participated. Sounds good – but in the real world the multiplication of elections, by baffling voters, contributes to low voter turnout. Turnout is always highest in contests where national candidates are on the ballot, for the good reason that the issues are clearer and far more is at stake. (When was the last time you found yourself in a shouting match over a county election?)

According to indices like voter turnout, many European democracies tend to be healthier and more vibrant than ours. Why? Partly it has to do with a proportional-representation electoral system that tends to maximize voter choice. But another reason is that European government structures are more streamlined than ours, and therefore easier for voters to understand. In most European countries, democracy has meant grafting elections onto rational state structures created by the likes of Napoleon and Bismarck. In the United States, which has lacked such state-builders (Alexander Hamilton having failed), democratization has meant the multiplication of little electorates like coral polyps, which pile together in reefs that lack any ordering principle but that of propinquity.

[mswas]

He lost me at ‘Alexander having failed’. What pseudo-intellectual masturbation.

[Umbriel2]

Decentralization is nominally a “conservative” stance because the US Constitution as originally framed devoted a lot of verbiage to mechanisms meant to preserve the soverignty of state governments and limit the power of the Federal government. Those mechanisms have been so eroded over time (through the efforts of both major parties) that arguably now the curtailment of Federal authority would constitute “radical change”, rather than conservatism.

I agree with Lind regarding the corruption of local governments, but with little else. After noting that the reason for higher turnouts in national elections is that “more is at stake”, he claims that higher turnouts make European democracies “healthier and more vibrant” than ours. No. It just means that with fewer Constitutional constraints on authority, the stakes are that much higher in Europe. I’d personally prefer to drastically lower the stakes, and the ability for political victors to feather their own nests and engage in ham-handed social experimentation (of the “left” or “right” wing variety).

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

He lost me at ‘Alexander having failed’. What pseudo-intellectual masturbation.

[RTFirefly]

I can’t remember a time when conservatives paid more than lip service to the idea of local government. States’ rights, absolutely, though their flexibility on this has been discussed already. But local government? I’d like to see a time when conservatives generally argued for more autonomy for Los Angeles and San Francisco to run their own affairs, unencumbered by the insanity in Sacramento.

Or, closer to (my) home, for Alexandria, Arlington, and Fairfax County, VA to have more authority to set their own tax rates to raise money for the services their residents want but the rest of the state might not. I was a Virginia resident for most of the years from 1960 to 1998, and still keep an eye on what’s going on across the Potomac now that I’m in Maryland. For almost all of that time, the state legislature has been a pretty conservative place - but it’s kept all the power at the state level, ceding very little to the localities. Virginia’s cities and counties have less ability to control their own destinies than all but a few other states, it appears, and yet the conservatives who have run Virginia for most of my lifetime were never particularly perturbed by this.

This is particularly important for a couple of reasons I can think of. One is that, as Matt Yglesias pointed out in a fine essay recently, very few problems of the sorts that governments deal with lend themselves naturally to state level solutions. Some would be best dealt with at the national level, and many would be best addressed at the city, county, or metro area level. But it’s hard to think of issues that a state is naturally the most interested geographical region.

Another is that of the different levels of government, it appears that most people have the poorest idea of what’s going on at the state level. News from the state capitol tends to get poorly reported unless you live there, and last I heard, most Americans couldn’t name the state legislators from their districts. We know a certain amount about the Federal government because it’s always in the news, and we may be somewhat familiar with our local government because of its sheer closeness and directness. But state governments fall in between - too big and distant (and obscure) for most of us to have a personal connection to, but too small to make the news to any great extent.

Finally, individuals and businesses whose bottom lines are affected by the dealings of state government are familiar with the workings of the government, the names, positions, likes, and dislikes of the legislators, and so forth. Making government responsive to the people rather than businesses is always an uphill battle, but the field is surely tilted most sharply at the state level.

IMHO, anything that disempowers states in favor of either the Federal government or the localities is probably a good thing.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

Alexander Hamilton.

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

Alexander Hamilton.

Yes, I know. I don’t understand the “lost me” and “pseudo-intellectual masturbation.” It’s a matter of historical record that Hamilton was a frustrated centralizer/rationalizer; see his plan for the Constitution.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

Yes, I know. I don’t understand the “lost me” and “pseudo-intellectual masturbation.” It’s a matter of historical record that Hamilton was a frustrated centralizer/rationalizer; see his plan for the Constitution.

He may have been frustrated that not everything went his way, but the Federal Government is hardly a failure at central planning.

[BrainGlutton]

@mswas

He may have been frustrated that not everything went his way, but the Federal Government is hardly a failure at central planning.

Perhaps not, but what Lind is writing about is very real: The confusing swarm of tiny local governments and special-district governments in America, with overlapping territorial and subject jurisdiction. In most industrialized democracies, the national government puts through a systematic restructuring of local governments every few decades, to eliminate redundant units, consolidate metro areas, etc. In America, the federal government can’t do that, constitutionally; the state governments can, but don’t.

[mswas]

@BrainGlutton

Perhaps not, but what Lind is writing about is very real: The confusing swarm of tiny local governments and special-district governments in America, with overlapping territorial and subject jurisdiction. In most industrialized democracies, the national government puts through a systematic restructuring of local governments every few decades, to eliminate redundant units, consolidate metro areas, etc. In America, the federal government can’t do that, constitutionally; the state governments can, but don’t.

Fair enough. That’s one issue that greater engagement wouldn’t solve, but I do believe that a lot of the problems locally exist due to poor engagement.

[RTFirefly]

@BrainGlutton

Perhaps not, but what Lind is writing about is very real: The confusing swarm of tiny local governments and special-district governments in America, with overlapping territorial and subject jurisdiction.

And along with that, we Americans cast votes on far more elective ofices than we can possibly be knowledgeable about. Not just for President, one representative to each house of the Federal legislature, governor, lt.gov, attorney general, and one representative to each house of the state legislature, plus mayor, city or county council, and the like, but also a whole bunch of things like judges, recorders of deeds, and all sorts of other odd offices.

I consider myself to be a small-d democrat, but democracy just isn’t furthered by this plethora of elective offices. Thank goodness that, at the Federal level, we don’t vote for a host of offices besides President and two Congresscritters, who will see to those numerous other Federal offices.

[smiling_bandit]

@RTFirefly

And along with that, we Americans cast votes on far more elective ofices than we can possibly be knowledgeable about. Not just for President, one representative to each house of the Federal legislature, governor, lt.gov, attorney general, and one representative to each house of the state legislature, plus mayor, city or county council, and the like, but also a whole bunch of things like judges, recorders of deeds, and all sorts of other odd offices.

I consider myself to be a small-d democrat, but democracy just isn’t furthered by this plethora of elective offices. Thank goodness that, at the Federal level, we don’t vote for a host of offices besides President and two Congresscritters, who will see to those numerous other Federal offices.

And yet, somehow, the years of the greatest growth and success (relative to existing developments) were in those years when people voted most clearly for their locality and not some far-off national ideal.

No, people should be more worried about their locality. I’d like to reduce the number of Reps in the House a good deal, but overall to increase its power. I also want to go back to the older form of electing Senators via State Congresses. Voters should be able to see to their needs with perhaps four or five votes: local councillar/executive, state congressman & maybe Senator, national congressman, and Presidential Elector. other offices, of course, may be locally important (Sheriff, etc.) but not require a great deal of work.

And focus should NOT be on some half-baked “issues”, but the individual candidate. Frankly, Presidents get elected for few of their own virtues, but rather, on how much they can get away with pretending they are omnipotent and able to control events they cannot actually control. This isn’t really helpful, and a good step back would help us regain some perspective and perhaps choose another, better pathway to success.

I say this because I agree with you: people usually dont’ have a good concept of national issues. I think the solution is to make things more state/local and to link those to the national government. This necessarily tends to unite the nation, btu also makes it less tempting for the national government to try and trample the states. Because, after all, it runs both ways: the national government generaly knows jack squat about local issues and causes as much harm as good.