Prominent left-wing radical scholar and pundit Gar Alperovitz has an interesting NY Times article arguing that the United States and other large nations are overly centralized and should devolve more political power to the state or regiona level (hat tip: Ethan Leib). Here's a brief excerpt:
The United States is almost certainly too big to be a meaningful democracy. What does “participatory democracy” mean in a continent? Sooner or later, a profound, probably regional, decentralization of the federal system may be all but inevitable.
A recent study by the economists Alberto Alesina of Harvard and Enrico Spolaore of Tufts demonstrates that the bigger the nation, the harder it becomes for the government to meet the needs of its dispersed population. Regions that don’t feel well served by the government’s distribution of goods and services then have an incentive to take independent action . . .
James Madison, the architect of the United States Constitution, understood these problems all too well. Madison is usually viewed as favoring constructing the nation on a large scale. What he urged, in fact, was that a nation of reasonable size had advantages over a very small one. But writing to Jefferson at a time when the population of the United States was a mere four million, Madison expressed concern that if the nation grew too big, elites at the center would divide and conquer a widely dispersed population, producing “tyranny.”
Given the large ideological differences between us, it is not surprising that Alperovitz's argument for decentralization is in many respects different from mine. For example, I think he is wrong to claim that the US is becoming "ungovernable" (at least in any meaningful sense of the term), and I'm also skeptical of claims that the harms of centralization are to any significant extent caused by the allegedly corporate-dominated media.
But it is noteworthy that there are major similarities as well between our two perspectives on centralization as well. I definitely agree with Alperovitz's argument that a unitary central government will be less able to meet the needs of a large and highly diverse society than a more decentralized one. I also agree that regional compacts between states are a valuable and often superior alternative to federal government intervention. More generally, Alperovitz may be right to predict large states such as California will increasingly challenge federal power. Overall, the similarities between Alperovitz's perspective on this issue and my own probably outweigh the differences - a striking result given that we disagree on almost everything else.
Alperovitz's article is part of a growing recent trend towards left-wing interest in federalism and decentralization that I have noted in the past (see, e.g, here, here, and the last part of this article). The recent Democratic takeover of Congress may to some extent diminish that interest, to the extent that it was the result of the assertion of federal power to serve conservative interests by the Bush Administration and the Republican-controlled Congress of 2003-2006. However, given the narrowness of the Democratic majorities and the likelihood that conservatives will continue to have great influence over the federal government, the new interest in "progressive federalism" is unlikely to just disappear.
Then, it'll be conservative scholars praising federalism again.
Everything old is new again.
Decentralization of a school district is is very different from devolution of federal government power to state and/or local governments - the subject of Alperovitz's article and my post. At least over the last 40 years, most liberals and leftists have opposed the latter, although this consensus has begun to break down.
Have conservative scholars started condemning federalism (or stopped praising it) over the past few years? If so, I haven't noticed.
Gar is at least consistent. Wrong and confused about atomic diplomacy, wrong and confused about American federalism...
I wonder if it might go even farther than that. It occurs to me that the sudden interest in federalism from the Left may be a trial balloon for out-and-out regional separatism, if the Left someday concludes that red-state America is too great an obstacle to lasting power. (Also, keep in mind that currently the only remotely concern-worthy regional separatist movement in the U.S., the Aztlan/La Raza movement which targets the southwestern states, is a creature of the Left.)
Moreover, constitutional federalism has especially little to do with federal imposition of power. The areas that the federal government cannot regulate, even after the federalism cases, are few. The real substantial restriction on local choice lies in preemption cases, for which federalism seems to have little meaning.
As a "blue state liberal" and an ardent supporter of federalism, I have to agree that opposition to federalism--from both sides of the political spectrum--is a function of either party's inability to live with the idea that their conception of justice is the alpha and omega of good policy. Federalism is no more a natural choice for conservatives than it is for liberals; I think the main impetus for either political persuasion to gravitate toward federalism is the perceived success of the other side's policies on a national scale, as Enoch's comment notes:
Probably true. Not my interest, at any rate. But I wouldn't give up on most blue state liberals wanting to impose their values on red states--or on most red state conservatives wanting to impose theirs on blue states.
I can agree to that. I think a large part of red state conservative America would like to impose their views on blue state America. However, I would note that the New Deal was a progressive/liberal movement. Government programs from the federal level require a decline in federalism. This historically links the Democratic party (excluding that old southern seperatist faction) to a lack of support for federalism. The Republicans tend to do the same thing on drug policy.
Would we all be more content with increased federalism? The interesting question to me is whether people would vote with their feet.
Which is to say deferring to states? One highly amusing example of that interest was the willingness of the
leftwingprogressive Justice Stevens willingness to defer to state courts, southern state courts, in voting matters of all things, in Bush v Gore.With a very few exceptions, they are doing that only when observed from the viewpoint of anti-fascist progressives.
Older liberals claim that they are opposed to federalism because that creature allowed Jim Crow to thrive in the South. (Without the wise blue states to impose their will via centralised government, the South would still be living in 1870.) For them, federalism and racism are interchangeable: their issues are with civil rights, not the socialist movement of the 1930s that lead to a radical increase in the function of the federal government.
Being from the Boston area, I've had to defend my (strong) federalist leanings to some very liberal friends. Once I point out that federal powers can (and are) used against medicinal marijuana or right-to-die statutes; the relative ease of making policy on a local level (esp. Mass. vis-a-vis the Republican White House); and, of course, the fact that it's easier to move out of an intolerable state than an intolerable country, they get it.
The rise in socialist programmes has come largely from the Left and has been acheived via a radical increase in the powers of the federal government. That part makes sense. For some reason, liberals seem to be more content in sacrificing one political or civil right for a greater right (i.e. jettisoning freedom of speech to promote non-offensive areas, or Equal Protection for affirmative action, et cetera) - or at least a right perceived to be more important. Conservatives don't seem to care if an optimal end is not acheived because of those pesky civil rights and thus don't seem to like massive centralisation of power in order to promote social ends. I've no idea why methodology splits along party lines.
What's interesting is that the author couldn't bring himself to mention the region with the deepest historical ties to regionalism and regional compacts. At first I attributed that to a liberal's unwillingness to sink his own proposal in the NYT by raising the spectre of Dixie's autonomy, but I wonder if left-wing proposals of this sort implicitly foresee withholding regional or state autonomy from the south? Would progressives find their newfound support for the idea of federalism melting at the prospect of the South rising again?
Progressives would get a lot of agreement from conservatives on that point. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Many people point to the amendment that allowed direct election of Senators as being part of the problem of Federalism. Senators no longer felt beholden to Governors and State Interests. They became populists.
This is a well known and popular theory. I want to postulate a different one.
Congresses cap on the total number of Congressmen. When the Constitution was first set up, there was supposed to be 1 Member of the House for every 30,000 people in a State. That is a small enough number that people know their Congressman personally. A small campaign budget can reach your whole district efficiently. Less travel, less congressional staff, less power. Being a congressman would have less prestige. Corporations would have less influence. Both the Democratic and Republican parties would lose influence. Congressmen would reflect the political bent of their particular region. More 3rd party canidates would get elected.
Coalition building and compromise would become more important in Washington. It would become harder to get bills through Congress (this is a good thing to me).
Congressional salaries and perks would go down. Based on our current population, there would be around 10,000 total congressmen. It would chaos. The legislature would spend so much time trying to get anything done, that States and Regions would be forced to step forward and take ownership of their own problems.
It would be glorious
/Only sort of serious, but it does make interesting dinner conversation.
Just because a policy has progressive goals doesn't mean it will work.
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Indeed, that seems to be the way to bet.