Government and the Concentration of Decision Making

There is a trend we have noticed in the past: in the course of Depressions, a Federal or Republican Government will attempt to usurp various regulatory and legislative powers from its constituent nations (be they States, Provinces, Territories, et cetera). This can be seen in the efforts of the Hoover and Roosevelt Administrations during the 1929 Depression; many of Roosevelt's social programmes were so heavy-handed in their scope, they were struck down as unconstitutional.

The justification for this centralisation (in the U.S., as well as elsewhere) is simple: a single, cohesive approach to 'solving' a Depression has a higher chance for success than numerous, uncoordinated approaches. Logically this can make sense, as it would seem that, if a recovery programme (or programmes) are based on a Federal/Republic level, it would be less mired in regional politics.

In practise, we feel such a top-down approach simply does not work. One only needs to look at the American super-huge banks to see how a top-heavy administrative technique will inevitably pan out. Simply put, it concentrates the decision-making powers into too few hands... and those hands will make many mistakes. One person given the decision-making powers of ten thousand will eventually make one bad choice with the power of ten thousand bad choices.

It is a serious fallacy to assume that Government, somehow, is bereft of this concern, when it is just as mired by the problems of the concentration of decision-making. As a Federal/Republican Government works to gather-up the power of decision-making in various sectors - ostensibly to alleviate an economic problem - it increases the destructiveness of its bad decisions. Such concentration seems more efficient, but in actuality it is a very large problem.

That is why it is important for members (States and Provinces, cities and municipalities, et cetera) of a Federal or Republican Government to defend their decision-making powers. At the very least, this is to avoid the concentration of decision-making and the damaging actions which come from this concentration. Beyond that, though, the only feasible way to craft a regional recovery programme at the regional level; the best place of the Federal/Republican Government is to coordinate these various lower-level programmes, rather than usurp them.

If the sub-Federal/Republic level is gutted to such a degree that they are effectively rendered non-functional, this creates an even bigger problem: lack of resiliency. That is a serious concern in the 2007 Depression, as it is placing an unbelievable amount of stress upon the Federal/Republican Governments of the world. If such a Government were to collapse (or suffer 'interruptions'), having gutted the powers of its constituent entities, there would be no effective system of law-enforcement beneath it to ensure some degree of social order. Without State or municipal governments, it is not outside of the realm of possibility to see the rise of another Somalia, and the many problems which that non-nation experiences.