And when we mark the progress already accomplished in that direction, in spite of and against the State, which tries by all means to maintain its supremacy of recent origin; when we see how voluntary societies invade everything and are only impeded in their development by the State, we are forced to recognize a powerful tendency, a latent force in modern society.
– Peter Kropotkin
Before I get started, I want to emphasize that while the ideas in this three-part series focus on the U.S. and its particular structure of governance, the basic concepts can and should be applied throughout the world. If I believe in anything at all, it’s the idea that concentrations of power, whether government or corporate, represent the greatest threat to human freedom and liberty, and this must be understood and resisted by all of us. Let’s get started.
Although many crucial functions are centralized, the U.S. still provides its citizens with various ways to exercise local power and we’ve already started to see a resurgence of such efforts across the nation. Whether or not we agree with the various state proposals out there trying to shake things up, we should all encourage the efforts. We all win from local populations experimenting with different ideas. Some will fail spectacularly, while others will pave the way for more reasonable policies across the nation.
Perhaps the greatest success of localized action in my lifetime was initiated by my adopted home state of Colorado, as its residents led the way with cannabis legalization in 2012, following the passage of Amendment 64. If we had continued to wait for the feds to do something we would have ended up waiting forever. Instead, Coloradans put the measure on the ballot and the public overwhelmingly supported it (it passed with a wider margin than Obama won against Romney). The enormous success of the initiative led to a cascade of other states adopting similar measures. Local action led to national change and will result in far more humane drug polices across massive swaths of the country, as D.C. fossils like Jeff Sessions continue to spew clownish and failed drug war narratives.
The success of Amendment 64 should be repeated on a variety of issues across the nation. We can then see what works and what doesn’t. People end up responding more rationally when they’re allowed to try things out for themselves.
Minimum wage laws are another great example. This can be a very divisive issue, understandably so, given that what might make sense in NYC does not work in Clarksdale, Mississippi. As such, it’s the perfect local issue and we can all learn from the proposals of various cities. The Seattle law has gotten the most attention as of late, partly because it set the highest minimum wage rate in the nation. Conflicting reports regarding the success of the law have recently come into the public debate, with one study claiming that it pushed too high and caused more harm than good, while others disagree. I don’t know what the answer is, but I know that if local people want to do it, then the experiment is worthwhile. Small experiments at the local level are preferable to gigantic experiments at the federal level.
Moving along, the Trump era is propelling local action in unexpected ways. While decentralization is often seen as something promoted by libertarian types, many of Trump’s most vocal opponents on the left are the ones encouraging local action following Trump’s election. This is a silver-lining to his victory and we should encourage such movements whether we agree with the specific policies or not. The more people become accustomed to local governance and community empowerment the better. We should encourage this in all aspects of life, not just when we agree with the actual policies. Freedom means the freedom for people to make mistakes and do things that we might think are dumb.
I wrote on this angle a few months ago in the post, How Donald Trump’s Presidency Could Inadvertently Lead to a Far Less Powerful Washington D.C. Here are a few excerpts:
When it comes to climate change, the views of Americans are very much divided by political party, which in turn tends to divide at the state level, which then divides even further at the local level. The point is, there are pockets of communities within the country overwhelmingly in favor of renewable energy mandates, and pockets vehemently opposed to them.
Communities can have a lot to say on the subject, so having the Federal government decide one way or the other should not be seen as the end all be all for this issue (or most others), but a starting point. Indeed, it is far more empowering to have grassroots movements take action at the local level on a range of issues as opposed to expecting the corrupt and unrepresentative federal government to do anything useful.
For proponents of clean energy, the best action is to stop hyperventilating about Trump and get off your ass and do something. This is particularly important if you think the ocean is about to swallow up half the world’s landmass. If you really expect this, there’s a better use for your time than lecturing Republicans who aren’t listening anyway about how they’re “anti-science.”
Interestingly enough, that’s exactly what some communities are doing and I applaud them for it. I applaud them for the type of action being taken, and the lessons we can learn in order to apply the tactic with regard to other issues. Rather than endlessly lecturing others on why they’re stupid and dumb, go ahead and walk the walk yourself. Lead by example, not by coercion. If you want more renewables, rally your community and build more renewables. Stop obsessing so much about the UN, Donald Trump and red states.
This is in fact happening, as reported by The New York Times:
Representatives of American cities, states and companies are preparing to submit a plan to the United Nations pledging to meet the United States’ greenhouse gas emissions targets under the Paris climate accord, despite President Trump’s decision to withdraw from the agreement.
The unnamed group — which, so far, includes 30 mayors, three governors, more than 80 university presidents and more than 100 businesses — is negotiating with the United Nations to have its submission accepted alongside contributions to the Paris climate deal by other nations.
By redoubling their climate efforts, he said, cities, states and corporations could achieve, or even surpass, the pledge of the administration of former President Barack Obama to reduce America’s planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions 26 percent by 2025, from their levels in 2005.
Just so this post isn’t overly U.S. centric, I want to flag a recent post by VC Fred Wilson about how global communities are responding to the challenges of crypto-currency regulation in a world filled with clueless bureaucrats who love to legislate against innovation and liberty. From the interesting post, Jurisdictional Competition:
The economist Paul Romer introduced me to the idea of jurisdictional competition about ten years ago and I’ve been fascinated with it since. His TED Talk about charter cities from 2009 is a good primer on the concept.
The basic idea of jurisdictional competition is countries, cities, and regions can compete economically with each other by adopting more favorable laws and social norms.
We are actually seeing this play out right now in the crypto sector with the Swiss Canton of Zug becoming the preferred location to domicile a crypto-currency business.
Zug has even taken to calling itself Crypto Valley.
We have watched the blockchain companies in our portfolio struggle to adapt their business models, financing approaches, and more to US laws. We have been working with them to come up with creative ways that they can continue to operate in the US while executing the crypto playbook. It has been quite challenging. Many have advocated just moving the businesses to Zug, like so many others have done. And that may happen. We are for whatever is best for the founder and the business they create and have no preference for US domiciled companies. We have invested in Canadian companies, Estonian companies, French companies, Dutch companies, German companies, and likely a lot more. Investing in a Swiss domiciled company or foundation would not be a big deal for us.
To conclude, it’s absolutely critical to read everything I wrote above within the context of my view that the U.S. empire is currently within the throes of what I believe to be an irreversible decline. This is why it’s so important to decentralize now, before total imperial collapse. If we wait, an overly centralized government ruling over disempowered, disconnected serfs will be what everyone turns to for all their “solutions” when the ship goes down. These solutions are likely to draconian and anti-freedom, so we need to plant the seeds of self-government right here, right now. We need to take charge and empower our local communities as much as possible before things get worse. If our response to imperial decline is to try to grasp onto its last remaining vestiges, the aftermath will be a hundred times worse. There are many ways to respond to adversity, and I hope we can choose the more conscious path. I will expand on this tomorrow.
Finally, I want to send out a special thanks to the 29 people who have become patrons of Liberty Blitzkrieg over the past week or so. Turning this website into a reader-supported project is a major priority for me, and I appreciate your willingness to help me demonstrate the potential power of such a model. If 1,000 people simply gave $1 a month, I would reach my goal immediately.
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Here’s the first part of the series, published yesterday, in case you missed it: The Center Cannot Hold – Decentralize or Die (Part 1)
In Liberty,
Michael Krieger
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I believe it goes without saying that the smaller the jurisdiction the greater the input a person can have if they wish to voice their opinion.
I have lived in a very large metropolis, about 2 million souls, and now live in a large town, about 9 thousand souls. The difference in the effect one can have between the two jurisdictions is enormous. But make no mistake if you just hang at home others will be making the decisions for you.
What I have found that is concerning is the reach of national and international policy at the civic level. I have seen the climate warming meme insinuate itself through such corporate funded NGOs as ICLEI – International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives and the Growing Smart Planning Guide that all city planning departments have as their bible, as the installation driver of the financial and corporate ‘there is no alternative’ Agenda 2030 or Paris Accord. With the environmental catastrophic climate change zealots one can have their hands full. They are pushing for a solar panel farm that will sell the electricity produced to the town at quite an expensive price and the town owns a half share in a large hydro electric dam which has kept local rates less than the going rate for the large utility corporation. On getting financial reform at the local level you are really up against it and forget about getting your opinion published in the local paper that dares mention the absurdity of private – public – partnerships or pushing for a local public bank.
All in all M.K. is very correct when he writes of decentralizing, if you can keep the centralizers at bay as just like rust they never sleep.
“I have seen the climate warming meme insinuate itself through such corporate funded NGOs as ICLEI – International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives and the Growing Smart Planning Guide that all city planning departments have as their bible, as the installation driver of the financial and corporate ‘there is no alternative’ Agenda 2030 or Paris Accord.”
BRF- They’re called “Statists”, and you’re right in that they never sleep.
Personally, I’m all for using a “scourge of small cords” on them if that’s what it takes to drive them out.
“These solutions are likely to draconian and anti-freedom”.
Just want to point out that those “solutions” are already firmly in place courtesy of 16 years of Bush II and Obama. 43 million people on food stamps is extremely scary.
Which is why in my opinion the core of any and all decentralization efforts has to address the FEW (Food Energy Water) problem first and foremost. Otherwise you’re pissing up a rope.You can’t drink and eat rhetoric.
Perhaps a way to get decentralization going is to continue full force on states insisting on their rights. Many issues should be decided and handled at state level. 10th amendment is a vastly underrated tool.
I think what has been missing from the cryptocurrency space is an actual gressroots effort to implement an alternative currency at a local/small business/craftsperson level.This would be especially impactful in small, rural communities, the exact places that are getting hit the hardest by poverty, drug use, and lack of positive social roles. So if someone cans their own vegetables from their garden, or makes home made jelly or wine or a small craft or does carpentry work or cleans houses or mends curtains or whatever, but the people in the area often lack the means to pay them and their skills wither on the vine, use the alternative currency to pay them. The codes can be printed out for those that lack access to smartphones. Needed work will get done in the community, positive social roles are filled, and I think the currency would quickly have an organic demand. In fact if the area specifically avoided using it for any top down type of system and instead kept it peer to peer only, the alternative would build up alongside the traditional without conflict. Right now crypto is sadly resembling everything else: an investment bubble in far away Silicon Valley. So when does the rubber meet the road?
About Climate – CO2 is not causing any warming and is greatly beneficial for the nature. Even 300% of current levels will not cause any warming and all plants and all plant-based food production would thrive. The enormous scale of climatologic propaganda is astounding and we are so much thankful to Trump to stop that Paris Climate Fraud hysteria in spite of all governmental and NGO liars.
What is causing warming is: urban heat islands – concrete and asphalt not shaded by trees. Airborne dust and aerosols. Cloud structure – most notably cirrus clouds seeded by aviation…
If you aim at climate improvement: plant trees arround your houses and streets and make ponds arround your villages, stop driving cars and flying planes.
And please stop whining about CO2 produced somewhere far from you. No, carbon tax does not help climate, it helps to transfer dollars to (((some))) pockets via “clean” industry building somewhere in third world, paid for by taxes in rich part of world, while actually ultimately _not_ helping the poor regions, but the (((producers))) of non-CO2 energy technologies…
——
About localization: There already were communistic, community-based societies: ancient slavic nations, and amer-indians. There is almost no record of them, because they did not develop any culture or even a script, no writings, nothing that surpasses them. Small community cannot afford to feed a “boondoggle”, that wastes time writing and copying books or doing other vain academics instead of collective harvest gathering. Small community without centralized taxation cannot feed a university, it cannot feed an army, it cannot feed much artists or even larger hospitals. And these communities were and always will be swept out by a first state-like entity, that collects sufficiently strong army, supported by it’s peasant’s taxes.
Most great achievements of humanity were managed by the large states, which could collect most intelligent people and give them enough means paid for by taxes of a sufficiently large group of peasants…
Consider space travel – USSR, USA and China, the largest states, are ultimately leading this effort. Consider many other similar areas…
The small local community cannot afford to do anything, that transcends them…
—–
Then you are surprised, that liberals are heading this effort, while you would expect libertarians instead ? There is almost no difference between these groups, the difference is negligible. These are both fanatic individualists aiming at killing the Nations and Ethnic Beings in the false name of single-human superiority. Even the “Human” is a deception of these individualists, there are more _species_ under this single roof, more competing geno-types.
But what is only worth from the perspective of The History, are the super-beings: Nation, Ethnos, Region, Church, which live for millenia, like a bee-hive they are not dependent of it’s individual constituent’s short lifetimes…
And all these Liberasts with their bigoted individualism are trying to deny these super-being, deny God and anything supperior to their Human ant level, putting their own selfish “Liberty” onto piedestal as their new god…
—–
Then your “Crypto-valley”… We do not like your “tax heavens”, actually “dens of tax thugs”.
You all owe us your fair share of taxes for the common good, and we need to erradicate the globalist’s efforts to remove their responsibility into these “tax-free dens”…
—-
Yes, there still exists in the world a left-wing political direction, that is conservative, authoritarian and anti-liberal…
Consider, that conservative left are workers, unions, blue collars and red-neck peasants. We all want a sufficiently strong state to protect us from gangster oligarchs.
Consider, that liberal left are vandals, loungers and junkies – you could see this human garbage at G20 hellish protests in Hamburg, you can see these traitors welcoming adversary invasion, and they just make a great shame of the true left-wing worker’s movements…
Consider, that international communism and globalistic capitalism are almost same in their final struggle (removing sovereignty of regions and making supranational governing body, either open or concealed, and destroying all Ethnics), and they are directly opposed to a national socialism, which is the only truly left-wing movement favouring the People and future folks, while the democratic capitalism of small competing craftsmans and a free market is long since dead…
… because we are >Homo SocialisImpact factor< ?
Some people are looking too close and over the Trees they do not see the Forest… ("Pro stromy nevidi les.")
—–
//correct 3:55
Consider … conservative left … State to protect us from … gangsters, illness and disaster (with some healthcare), that will keep care about our retirement, that will take care about education of our progeny etc…
—–
The (most loud of) wolves are calling : "Break down the Bariers. Watch-dogs hinder freedom of sheep."
Well, but we the sheep see it another way… While we would appreciate Freedom of the Harmless…
—-
Note for 3:55 : "small local community" that "cannot affford to do anything remarkable" above – it depends, what should be considered "small"… For me, few milion is sufficiently large group to be remarkable, also smaller could count… Large nation with far away "Center" governors is absurd… Is your "Colorado" sufficiently remarkable and or different ?
Then the _small_ groups that bring forward the evolution, but they are usually supported by a larger background hinterland…
And need to note, that nowadays the resources are abundant and even a small group can be very progressive and remarkable…
(Are you "progressing" in a good direction ? Or are you astraying us to depths and futility ? What is an Outcome of your Style ? Are people (becoming) better ? )
—-
As a proponent of Liberty, you should not enforce your Styles onto Others… You may lead as an example, and please let us decide to follow or not, that's our side of the Liberty…
If "Liberals" in the name of liberty prevent telling Truth in order not to Offend someone, there is no more Liberty in it, then it rests just as a stolen Mascot… Why do "Liebearals" prevent us from recording and evaluating statistic facts (more so in EU than US)…
Then also need to note:
Who is asking for "Liberty" of Wolves, and who struggles for "safety" of sheep… ? (And what if watchdogs are playing wolves outside ? Too frightened sheep would easier admit of harder limiting of "freeks" (freaks)…)
—-
There is Order, and there are Exceptions. Order Preserves, while Exceptions cause (bring) Progress. If there were only Exceptions, it would be just a Chaos. If there was only Order, it would be monotone and boring. A good Balance between Order and Exceptions (Chaos) is desirable but laboured…
Francis has mistaken that:
Although it is also necessary to build Gates and Bridges, it is very important to preserve and maintain Walls too, or else the Ruins would remain and Desert, and we are not Bedouins…
"Neighbour" ( πλησιον ) is not an Invader! Even not if he draws near… (You need to Defend, since no one else would do it instead…)
Love for Yours, Respect also for your Opponent. Scorn (spurn) Badness (Wrongness) and Praise Good.
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I'm sorry, maybe it was inappropriate to write it all here… ?
… correction:
… because we are _Homo Socialis_, and our strength is in our Society, which is a Fellowship… Our fellowship, which interacts with many foreigners, but still it keeps it’s own identity. Our fellowship, that contrived to do something, which by far surpases and transcends each individual’s range.
We all well know and recognize, who is Ours, because We Are Different… (our Nation and Ethnicity is still alive… is your’s too ?) The difference, that by which you or your group is different from average and global admixture, is that what counts on you, what really are you worth… Are You Average ?
You also may be valuable as a particle in a large Stream. Most Streams and Movements are made of Particles and sub-streams, and being a part of a larger Whole may be worth too… Usually you are part of some or more larger-level units anyway. Are you obstructing or advancing, or flowing smoothly with the lead ?
Could you boast then of your individual importance – temporary and locally limited? What is your _Impact factor_ ?
Some people are looking too close and over the Trees they do not see the Forest… (“Pro stromy nevidi les.”)
…