Subsidiarity

Today's "Saturday Chat" in The Lowell Sun has a long discussion of a family leaving Florida for Ohio, for economic reasons.  Chairman Kendall Wallace spends some time talking about the Okies and Arkies of The Grapes of Wrath era.  Having gone to high school with the children of those people who moved to California for a better life, I can tell you that while there was nostalgia for back East (every summer there were hugh picnics as people from each of the Midwestern states gathered to talk about old times), but folks were very happy to be in California.

But, the end of the column was what caught my eye.  It was a discussion of a column by New York Times columnist and recovering Democrat, David Brooks.♠  The subject was British writer Phillip Blond's idea that we need to downscale Government and get it closer to the people.  Mr Blond's web site is here.

As encapsulated by Mr Brooks, the problem statement is:

Blond argues that over the past generation we have witnessed two revolutions, both of which liberated the individual and decimated local associations.  First, there was a revolution from the left: a cultural revolution that displaced traditional manners and mores; a legal revolution that emphasized individual rights instead of responsibilities; a welfare revolution in which social workers displaced mutual aid societies and self-organized associations.

Then there was the market revolution from the right. In the age of deregulation, giant chains like Wal-Mart decimated local shop owners.  Global financial markets took over small banks, so that the local knowledge of a town banker was replaced by a manic herd of traders thousands of miles away.  Unions withered.

The two revolutions talked the language of individual freedom, but they perversely ended up creating greater centralization. They created an atomized, segmented society and then the state had to come in and attempt to repair the damage.

And, the solution is:

Economically, Blond lays out three big areas of reform: remoralize the market, relocalize the economy and recapitalize the poor.  This would mean passing zoning legislation to give small shopkeepers a shot against the retail giants, reducing barriers to entry for new businesses, revitalizing local banks, encouraging employee share ownership, setting up local capital funds so community associations could invest in local enterprises, rewarding savings, cutting regulations that socialize risk and privatize profit, and reducing the subsidies that flow from big government and big business.

To create a civil state, Blond would reduce the power of senior government officials and widen the discretion of front-line civil servants, the people actually working in neighborhoods. He would decentralize power, giving more budget authority to the smallest units of government.  He would funnel more services through charities.  He would increase investments in infrastructure, so that more places could be vibrant economic hubs.  He would rebuild the “village college” so that universities would be more intertwined with the towns around them.

But, to get the full flavor, you have to buy the book.

Alas, the book, Red Tory:  How Left and Right Have Broken Britain and How We Can Fix it, is not yet available in the United States, at least not on Amazon.

Interesting.

Regards  —  Cliff

♠  You would think The Sun would spring for a link to the URL in The New York Times, if not to Mr Blond's own web site.