United Liberty
Individual Liberty and Local Government
Sat, 02/21/2009 - 7:37am | posted by Matt Wittlief
I have searched for a term to describe my political ideology and have come to use the term “minarchist” as the best descriptor. According to Wikipedia, minarchism is the belief that the only proper role of government is to protect individuals from aggression. I would classify my beliefs to be generally consistent with this view; however, like some minarchists, I do believe that there is a proper role for government to deliver some additional services and infrastructure beyond merely a system of laws and defense. For more on this, please read my previous article on government spending - “To Spend or Not To Spend”.
I bring this subject up for a few reasons. First, I think philosophical essays like this are interesting and I hope you do too. I do not write these frequently enough (lately, I feel like I haven’t been writing enough of anything). Second, the State of Indiana is currently in the midst of significant debate on the subject of local government reform - more on that later. Finally, in a time where government control continues to grow, and Barack Obama makes statements such as “[t]he question we ask today is not whether our government is too big or too small, but whether it works”, I think it is important to get other points of view out there devoid of partisan rhetoric.
You may be surprised to hear me say that government, or more precisely the concept of governance, is not all bad. In fact, I believe it to be natural and fundamental to human life. Governance can be thought of as a method or system which regulates decision-making. I think of government as an entity which is established to provide governance to an individual or group of individuals. From this perspective, I think it can be appreciated that self-governance is naturally the most efficient and natural form of governance. It is the individual who knows what is best for the individual, and we should not underestimate the individual’s ability to recognize and value the need for other individuals.
This is clearly evident in the family unit. I believe that the family unit is a natural extension of the individual. It is not uncommon for anyone to recognize the ability for an individual to value the needs and serve the interests of other members of the family unit. I think it is difficult even for the most hardcore communist to disagree with this fact. And, think about it, there is an implicit structure of governance - a government, if you will - in most households or family units. However, no matter how strong the governance or how much power resides in the head of the household for decision making, it is still the individual who has the greatest authority over oneself. I believe this is even true for young children.
For me, the next logical extension is the community. This is a bit of a nebulous term, but I believe it most accurately describes the next natural layer of governance. The family unit cedes some regulatory authority - often for the purpose of protection or even the “common good” - to the community. I think it is important for this to be a nebulous concept because this is the first significant threat to the destruction of individual liberty (although, there are legitimate arguments that this begins with the family unit). It is my view that a community is best defined as being a bigger family - where there is a strong and consistent commitment to the common good. Also, it is a concept which is independent of geo-political constructs for most people. Consider living in a hypothetical neighborhood where the U.S.-Canadian border divides residents. Who would you feel is more a member of your community… someone from the Canadian side of the neighborhood or someone in Alabama?
This naturally leaves us with the state and its many layers of structured governance, or, more commonly, government. The state ranges from municipalities and towns to states, provinces, nations, and even the United Nations. Generally, authorities in the state are strangers to the individual and, arguably, not members of the same community. It is for this reason that it is least natural for an individual to cede governance to the state. The state aims to model itself after the community to gain authority, but this is and always will be a failure in practice in that it will diminish individual liberty. No matter how much we hope and believe, neither the world nor any state can be one community. For proof, please revisit the hypothetical example above.
So, I’d like to introduce my pyramid of governance:
Now, to the practical section of this essay based upon the philosophy. The State of Indiana conducted a research effort led by former Lt. Governor Joe Kernan and Chief Justice Randall Shepard. The report, known as the Kernan-Shepard report, provides recommendations to streamline Indiana local government. This is a good thing. However, I find myself struggling with one aspect of the consequences. It seems to be that this will serve to consolidate more power at higher levels of government - in particular, the State of Indiana and its county governments. Indiana has a complex and inefficient system of local government which needs reform.
The dilemma is simple. Would I prefer fewer layers of government with power concentrated at higher levels of the state? Or would I prefer the existing system of complexity and higher costs to the taxpayer? Personally, I’d like to see a system which consolidates more power in lower levels of the state, something closer to the communities, where the power of the purse (and thus the potential for tyranny) is more locally accountable.
We have problems with local government here in England, Matt. Now I personally am a great lover of progression and believe big brother could be a good thing if in the right hands, but recently they have started bugging the bins! It would seem local governments worldwide get way too much power then waste funds on technology that could be better used elsewhere!
Giving local government additional power draws additional people who want that power. It’s no different to the business world; the higher you go it seems the less likely they are to actually do anything worthy and with the investigation of Madhoff and Stanford it seems even the most powerful like to play illegal games.
Unfortunately, the pyramid is firmly in place and highly unlikely to be removed, unless by some miracle Mr Obhama pulls this myre out of Hell’s inferno (it sounds dramatic, but I doubt it will happen, sorry).
Obhama seems like a good man, but it will take all of us to solve this current problem, and i mean that literally. Local governments in England are terrible for arguing the toss about their duties (you may have seen the ‘chaos’ created with our recent weather, excuse me for rolling up laughing); how are they in the States?
Oh well, no one seems to be talking so I’ll tell you, via me, some more about England to see if their are similarities. Speaking from my own viewpoint, a politician, regardless of how high they are in the ranks, is supposedly the voice of his constituents.
A recent episode involving our local councils (I don’t know what you call them) breached what you might call a built in principle. I have, since youth, supported the majority of the people. Even on the occasions that I haven’t voted, it has never been for reasons of not caring or believing in; I worked an average of 90 hours per week and barely understood the ever changing system.
In recent times, due to medical reasons, I swapped places with my girlfriend to look after our kids. I am hyperactive and I burn with nervous energy at times so I set my mind to tasks of learning all I’d missed; the first was to vote for the local parties in the council elections. Two days after I hear the news that only 45% of the voting population turned out.
With this I decided to investigate a few of these figures and I began to realise how few turn out to make their mark, but more importantly that the voting count didn’t reach beyond ten million for the winning party, less than a fifth of the population. Presidential faith is easier to accept than local government’s. Democracy in this country is a farce, but I am not talking dictatorships; I think they know a big ugly emotionless beast called finance is about to show them all who is in charge.
Well, I’d much prefer that any form of state government (local or national or whatever) have less power than they have today. There will always be men who seek to gain more power over others - this is why state governments must be curtailed as they are the only ones who can define their aggression as legal. This is different than the business world where power and greed should be effectively checked by risk and punishment. Unfortunately, we have allowed the state to allow powerful businessmen to go unpunished and operate without proper risks.
Obama will not do anything to change this. He will continue to push for more state control with the power continually increasing in the Executive Branch.
The state and local governments here are likely no more efficient here than on your side of the Atlantic.
It’s the irony of life wherever you are; the same people chirping the same promises, but always falling short of their agendas. We are being robbed blind by our councils for the environmental lark as well, yet we hear of our rubbish being dumped off poorer countries so the councils can make profit, and it turned out to be deadly to the locals.
My reference to the business world is the structure in which it is built, it’s resemblence of the pyramid of power. However, you are quite correct, a lack of control, odd though it is our governments didn’t flex their muscles to stamp it out because it was blatantly obvious; Black Wednesday is a page in our financial history that saw the pound stirling bought on the stock market by one man. We knew in this country that this was coming years ago, but they allowed the business world to shape society.
Things have gone so heywire in this country that people with degrees sit out of work whilst uneducated people fill their jobs, all to save money. Surely doing it the right way is hard enough, they don’t have to make it any more complex.
Speaking of ineffecient and over-powering goverment, I live in the state of North Carolina, a state which seems forever doomed to scrap and rehash the very same ideas. Our idea of state goverment is big, burdensome goverment, which plays the part of ‘parent knows best’ ( we the citizens are merely unruly children that need guidance, in the form of an ever-increasing ammount of laws). The county and municipality I live in is worse:the goverment is bloated, its operation ineffecient,its attitude is that we are idiot children,and taxes are ridiculously high with little to show for it. I beleive in the doctrine of self-goverment and self-reliance of and in one self as an individual, then as a family, then as a community, then as a state;in fact, the more self-goverment there is at the individual and family levels, the more there is apt to be in the community, and the more communities that are so, the more self-reliant and self-governing the state is apt to be. The goverment’s role is to be an organizer and executioner of all the combined affairs of those in its “provencial community’, which includes, at times, aiding local communities when absolutley needed. THAT is the scope of their operation. I agree fully with Ralph Waldo Emerson and H.D. Thoreau in this doctrine, and the doctrine of civil disobedience (to the degree that appropriately calls attention to the need of redress of whatever wrong has or is occuring). I only wish more people thought this way.
Admitting that I generally tend to oversimplify many things, but it has always been my belief (since Civics classes in high school anyway) that …
In the whole scope of things, the federal government has grown too large for ‘the people’ to control. There is realistically little or no way to fight it.
At state level, it would be possible for Americans to have more control over their government and their states’ finances.
Therefore … simple (to me) solution. Take the authority of the federal government back to what it was meant to be … primarily in charge of the military/defense of our country. Won’t ever happen, because too many people would be afraid that they might lose a lot of their government ‘help,’ (not necessarily meaning ‘welfare’ help) even though that ‘help’ costs taxpayers much more than it’s worth in the long run.
Think of it … no overbloated federal employee base (including all office help, all the ‘cabinet’ positions, all the employees most of us don’t even know we have), fewer office buildings necessary, less government-sponsored health care and retirement benefits.
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