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Great points for decentralization of power
Posted on: December 11, 2017 at 20:18:09 CT
ummmm MU
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from Jeff Deist:
1. US politics now takes place in an era of assumed bad faith, what Tom Wolfe’s character Wismer Stroock in A Man in Full called “post-goodwill.” Both sides, to the extent left and right have meaning, believe the other actively seeks to harm them and make them worse off (this may be nothing new in American history, but social media intensifies it and reinforces our preconceived perspectives). The 2020 presidential election, therefore, will create an atmosphere of antipathy, division, and vengefulness not seen in our lifetimes.
2. Trump’s election produced two salutary developments. First, millions of American progressives suddenly recognized what libertarians have argued for decades: democratic elections, even when fairly held, do not confer legitimacy on victorious political candidates or the governments they subsequently control. Second, millions of Americans on all political sides now fully recognize that democracy does not create a compromise between two sides, both getting some but not all of their preferred goals.
3. Simply allowing real federalism, and following the Swiss system of pushing all government decisions down to the smallest possible political subdivision, would greatly reduce culture wars. The Swiss federal website explicitly states that federalism is designed to improve social cohesion in their multilingual society.
4. The 11 counties and 8 million people of the San Francisco Bay area, for example, could enact the whole panoply of progressive legislative goals here and now — for example, single-payer health care. Yes, some liberty-minded people in the area would be worse off politically (and otherwise, as progressive programs inevitably failed). But it is easier to leave northern California than to leave the US.
5. The 2020 election will be an all-out offensive by progressives to oust Trump. Female candidates will dominate both the narrative and the candidate slates across local, state, and national contests. To the extent any third party presidential candidate is seen to “take” votes from Trump, progressives will vigorously support him/her. But if they appear to split votes away from the Democratic nominee — a charge leveled at both Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2016 — expect savage attacks and attempts to rig debate qualifications.
6. Virtually every aspect of human life — from business organizations to trade to food to communications to travel to shopping to money to education — becomes more and more decentralized every day. Hub and spoke networks are dying; replaced by nimbler webs and networks. Only government, in its hubris, bucks this dominant trend of the digital age. Somehow governance continues to go in the wrong direction: from local to regional, from regional to national, from national to supra-national, and from supra-national to global. And it’s not just DC: bodies like the UN, EU, and IMF work every day to centralize the management of human affairs. Why do we put up with this, even as we demand decentralized efficiency in everything else?
1. US politics now takes place in an era of assumed bad faith, what Tom Wolfe’s character Wismer Stroock in A Man in Full called “post-goodwill.” Both sides, to the extent left and right have meaning, believe the other actively seeks to harm them and make them worse off (this may be nothing new in American history, but social media intensifies it and reinforces our preconceived perspectives). The 2020 presidential election, therefore, will create an atmosphere of antipathy, division, and vengefulness not seen in our lifetimes.
2. Trump’s election produced two salutary developments. First, millions of American progressives suddenly recognized what libertarians have argued for decades: democratic elections, even when fairly held, do not confer legitimacy on victorious political candidates or the governments they subsequently control. Second, millions of Americans on all political sides now fully recognize that democracy does not create a compromise between two sides, both getting some but not all of their preferred goals.
3. Simply allowing real federalism, and following the Swiss system of pushing all government decisions down to the smallest possible political subdivision, would greatly reduce culture wars. The Swiss federal website explicitly states that federalism is designed to improve social cohesion in their multilingual society.
4. The 11 counties and 8 million people of the San Francisco Bay area, for example, could enact the whole panoply of progressive legislative goals here and now — for example, single-payer health care. Yes, some liberty-minded people in the area would be worse off politically (and otherwise, as progressive programs inevitably failed). But it is easier to leave northern California than to leave the US.
5. The 2020 election will be an all-out offensive by progressives to oust Trump. Female candidates will dominate both the narrative and the candidate slates across local, state, and national contests. To the extent any third party presidential candidate is seen to “take” votes from Trump, progressives will vigorously support him/her. But if they appear to split votes away from the Democratic nominee — a charge leveled at both Jill Stein and Gary Johnson in 2016 — expect savage attacks and attempts to rig debate qualifications.
6. Virtually every aspect of human life — from business organizations to trade to food to communications to travel to shopping to money to education — becomes more and more decentralized every day. Hub and spoke networks are dying; replaced by nimbler webs and networks. Only government, in its hubris, bucks this dominant trend of the digital age. Somehow governance continues to go in the wrong direction: from local to regional, from regional to national, from national to supra-national, and from supra-national to global. And it’s not just DC: bodies like the UN, EU, and IMF work every day to centralize the management of human affairs. Why do we put up with this, even as we demand decentralized efficiency in everything else?
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Great points for decentralization of power - ummmm MU - 12/11 20:18:09
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