The Tyranny of Localism?
According to a recent survey, those who are happy value community involvement.[1] A mere 12% of Americans now claim to be very happy, the lowest reported number since the survey was first conducted in 1972. Here is yet another piece of anecdotal evidence in favor of invigorating popular sovereignty, especially at the local level, and a sign that this need is becoming urgent. Perhaps, as this survey suggests, the development of popular sovereignty through local communities might provide us with the spirit needed to keep our republic. In this setting, I was offered the chance to review Trevor Latimer’s Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism. Latimer makes a thorough argument against localism, arguing that local (or more local) sovereignty would provide no remediation to the woes hobbling our society today.
He defines localism as “prioritizing the local by making decisions, exercising authority, or implementing policy locally or more locally.”[2] The crux of his argument is that a community is a difficult concept to identify, and, therefore, locales which are better off should altruistically participate in large-scale government in which they find themselves a minority faction because doing so is a way to improve locales which are not as well off and thereby to improve the overall polity writ large. Latimer makes clear in his introduction that he is not critiquing local government per se, but the fundamental argument that diminishing the size of the polity would make politics better. He writes, “I am not arguing that localism has drawbacks, that it has failed to work in some cases, or that it is inappropriate for certain issues. I am arguing that its drawbacks are endemic, it fails to work in most cases, and it is inappropriate most of the time.”[3] Latimer develops this argument by identifying several concepts which localism has been touted to facilitate (like belonging, nature, democracy, knowledge, and efficiency) or to prevent (like tyranny), and by then relying on a selection of modern and usually liberal sources to develop his position. His work is well researched, citing both political theorists, like David Hume and John Stuart Mill, as well as more contemporary social science theories from anthropology, sociology, and psychology to underpin the importance of altruism when submitting oneself to political rule. Given the ostensible urgency cited above, I was provoked by Latimer’s thesis – thinking that perhaps I might sigh in relief – but ultimately unpersuaded by his argument. He did a more persuasive job of showing that the real size of today’s polities is large, that this is reasonable given the size of our populations and complex technological interdependencies, and that this reality frustrates the factional distribution of power but that we must live with this reality nonetheless, than that localism is endemically dangerous.
Amongst the virtues of Latimer’s work is the organizational scheme. Latimer identifies arguments for localism stemming from our commitments to ourselves and our communities, and arguments that stem from the consequences of localism. Three arguments emerge from the commitments we make to ourselves and to each other: that localism prevents tyranny, foments belonging, and is more natural than large-scale polities.
Localists would argue that smaller polities prevent tyranny. Latimer, by contrast, argues that separation of powers solves problems of tyranny posed through centralization. Federalism, or preventing the concentration of power, is unnecessary. Centralization is not a precondition of uniformity, and scholars have shown that centralized governance can indeed produce diverse policies for different geographical areas. Latimer even seems to argue against America’s federal structure, positing that Madison’s arguments in Federalist 51 for federalism were “post hoc rationalizations” (perhaps true) that were “borne needlessly” (certainly untrue).[4] He argues this because, in his view, separation of powers (horizontal separation) is all that is necessary to forestall tyranny, therefore federalism (vertical separation) is unnecessary.[5] Latimer argues (incorrectly in the latter two cases) that “the traditional separation of powers argument advanced by Montesquieu, Publius, and Jefferson recommends distribution of power among functional nodes rather than spatial or scalar notes.”[6] Latimer rebuts arguments that the U.S. is too centralized today by referring to transfer payments; though our government has grown substantially and is quite centralized, some 13% of the federal budget in 2020 went to state and local governments.[7] Though this may seem tyrannical to the libertarian or devotee of limited government, Latimer reminds: “if a substantial majority of the people want a generous welfare state … and if centralization is required to get it … is that really tyranny?”[8] I will return to this argument in my concluding remarks.
Localists would also argue for localism due to belonging. One belongs to one’s community and therefore should value it and serve it because its condition affects their own condition. Latimer rejects this, arguing that communities are inchoate – “community is a vexing concept … I avoid the topic.”[9] He does, however, doubt that community is a reasonable synonym for “a locale.”[10] As a result, and we should not be focused on belonging within a small geographical area. Indeed, building off utilitarian theory, he argues that we should not preference our friends and neighbors over strangers, and argues that preferencing co-locals “is going to be much harder to justify than prioritizing friends.”[11] Thus, whatever a community might be, the reader is left to consider that the most important communities are not location derived. There are exceptions, and he hedges this claim by arguing that “communities understood as locales that contribute to human flourishing are intrinsically valuable.”[12] For instance, “social justice might then require that residents of flourishing communities disfavor their own communities and instead favor struggling locales” to avoid what he calls “opportunity hoarding.”[13] Thus, he concludes that “community might be intrinsically valuable, but that does not mean we are permitted to prioritize our locales.”[14] Arguing for a broader sense of community, Latimer also rebuts the localist argument that smaller communities are more natural than larger ones. Esteemed thinkers from Aristotle to Jefferson and Tocqueville have argued as much.[15] Yet, Hitler also argued that polities should be naturally construed.[16] Latimer relies on contemporary anthropology to move away from such speculations. This evidence shows that nature seems to be pressing us into larger, federated communities.[17]
Latimer also questions the consequences of localism. The most important consequence of the size of the polity concerns the efficacy of democracy. Localists argue that localism is needed to give individuals a reasonable share of power within a polity and to encourage participation within it; both would be advantaged through a system of direct democracy. Latimer rebuts all three claims. Republicanism is an effective redress for direct democracy in today’s larger-scale polities.[18] While localism might improve the efficacy of democracy (meaning one’s beliefs would be more likely to manifest as a result of one’s participation), Latimer cautions against this because of the limits on system capacity.[19] If we were to form small polities that could employ direct democracy, they would be capable of doing very little and would be incompetent at, for instance, “redistribution.”[20] Though he does not make the argument, the need to federate to successfully wage war in today’s world makes this view more than tenable. Finally, he points out that participation might not even be improved through localism, citing an abundance of recent empirical evidence to the contrary.[21]
A second argument for localism based on the consequences of it is that localism would improve the knowledge of affairs pertinent to the life of the polity. F.A. Hayek is used to develop this argument, which essentially runs that first, people have access to different knowledge based on their locales, and second, those with knowledge of “the particulars of time and place” should be making the decisions based off this knowledge.[22] Though Hayek was making an argument for capitalism, not localism, Latimer reasons that the connection can be reasonably made. Latimer rejects this argument, believing that information can indeed be reliably transmitted to central planners through statistical information. Indeed, the problem with communism is that it has not been tried correctly yet, and Latimer concludes that “a vibrant scientific literature dedicated to these kinds of problems [reveals that] some progress has been made.”[23] “Officials can ask people questions,” and if they cannot glean the information from them, “it’s not obvious that those kinds of information matter.”[24] I will also return to this argument in my conclusion.
The final argument for localism based on its consequences regards efficiency. The localist argument in this chapter is simple: local government would increase the efficiency of governments to both allocate goods to their citizens and to produce goods needed by their citizens. Latimer contends that neither outcome would result from local or more local rule.
A few critical remarks were solicited by Small Isn’t Beautiful. Throughout the book, Latimer makes a strawman of the arguments for local power within a federated system built upon popular sovereignty. Advocacy for power at the local level is morphed into an “ism” where localists demand all power to be exercised and all forms of identity reconciled at the local (or more local) level. At one point, for instance, he presents the localism argument in this way: “once …authority was transferred from higher-level to lower-level government” participation would then improve.[25] He counters that “now we find that to get the promised benefits of participation we must make sweeping changes to the political order … it requires that we take a leap of faith.”[26] I recoiled at this presentation: sweeping changes to the order? But what about federalism? Aren’t most communitarians – a term I prefer to localist – simply advocates for constitutionally sincere federalism? They are not radical ideologues wishing to reconstitute political order at the township level, as if a nation of 350 million had not grown up around Plymouth Rock. Latimer acknowledges the virtues of federalism in his nature chapter, noting that human societies are always federating into larger groups as our population grows.[27] But he also sees it as merely a way to “transmit” successful policies discovered in a laboratory of democracy “to other places.”[28] Thus, federalism is not a way to preserve culturally distinct values and autonomy within our smaller groups in the areas appropriate for small scale rule, as Madison argued in Federalist 10 and in the Vices of the Political System of the United States; it is a way to discover which of the panoply of values should be preferred and then imposed on other places who might rather prefer some different way of life. With this said, I am aware that my rebuttal to Latimer is based on a federalist bend of localism – a tacit acknowledgment that his argument against localism is on solid ground, though localists as he construes them must constitute a very small minority.
Though he points to the arguments for local sovereignty made by the likes of Aristotle, Tocqueville, and Jefferson, they are not developed deeply, as if he were hiding from them. For instance, Latimer argues that tyranny would obtain if power were local. A simple reading of the Federalist and Anti-Federalist Papers or the record of Debates at the Federal Convention reveals a more complicated picture, but also sympathy for this position; it was well understood that cities can also experience tyranny if the rich and poor become too factional, and Latimer is correct that Madison supports this view. But, on the other hand, tyranny was the result for the English colonies in America regarding Great Britain’s preferencing of their West Indies colonies over their North American colonies during the Stamp Act crisis – a concentrated government that possessed at least a basic degree of separation of powers (the recipe which Latimer suggests would adequately prevent tyranny). So, communitarians working from the Aristotelian-Tocquevillian lens have long understood that though there are virtues associated with direct and small democracy, it is subject to factional strife, all the same as large polities. Arguments for federalism and especially for a compound and extended republic in which power is distributed to states and cities in areas not of national concern (anything but national security and commerce) are therefore integral to the viability of communitarianism in today’s world.
Latimer does not cite nor refer to Federalist 10 nor to the Vices when crafting his argument. The Madisonian Model, of course, argues that to prevent the tyranny of the majority, power must not only be decentralized (as Latimer notes) but it also must be properly distributed throughout a large population amongst a large and diverse territory. One way the crafters of the Constitution facilitated this was by limiting the federal government to issues pertinent to the entire nation. This is achieved through the balancing of geographical factions into districts and states across a large territory, and residing sovereignty over issues of welfare, morality, and safety within these smaller, geographically derived units. Thus, specific powers in the federal legislature are limited to big picture issues – commerce and national security – which assures that the specific geographic entities (states and cities) retain sovereignty over most of the issues which animate politics in a day-to-day basis – things like criminal punishment, gun control, abortion, or the legality of marijuana. The Founders did not envision that the federal government would legislate on everything under the sun, precisely because the nature of factions means that tyranny must result for someone somewhere if this were to occur.
Yet, whole-sale changes to the polity constructed by the American Founders have been made over the past two hundred plus years. Some of these changes have been constitutional in nature. The 14th amendment and the ancillary principle of selective incorporation have provided a springboard for the concentration of powers that were once state-run, in many areas. The 17th amendment, removing the state legislatures from the selection of Senators, removed an important check to the concentration of power within the federal government. Some of these changes have been merely interpretive, but consequential, nonetheless. Even early cases altered this balance, as exemplified by Martin’s Lessee and Fletcher v. Peck. Nationalizing interpretations of the Commerce Clause (i.e., Heart of Atlanta) have provided yet another manner by which the federal government assumes state power. The Supreme Court rulings in the 1960s that established the principle of one-man one-vote have further diminished the idea of geographical representation, knocking our factions off kilter, and concentrating power within urban centers. Super-sized congressional districts (harboring some 700,000 more souls than our Founders envisioned) and campaign finance laws, along with concentrations of power within the executive branch and within select entities within Congress (like the Rules Committees) have derogated the relationships between elected officials and run-of-the-mill constituents. Though Latimer looks to transfer payments as a way for the federal government to charitably benefit various locales, this money comes with strings attached, and things like consent decrees further stymie local sovereignty over local issues. These constitutional and interpretative challenges are exacerbated by technical challenges stemming from, first, the Industrial Revolution, and later, the offshoring of most rural factory work, as both sapped rural areas of their population. In other words, the notion of geographical balancing of factions created by our Founding constitutional order as summarized by Madison in Federalist 10 and 51 has been radically undermined by changes to our constitutional order and industrial situation over time. Separation of powers, as it stands today, does little to prevent federal legislation or regulation in those areas that were intentionally reserved to smaller and more homogeneous geographic units for the purpose of preventing large-scale democracy from descending into tyranny of the majority. It turns out that vertical limits upon power, and a serious devotion to horizontal separation, matter very much. In these ways, yes, communitarian advocates of local popular sovereignty do envision some changes to our order, but these changes would be merely therapeutic, restoring the balance sought and instilled by the designers of our polity but altered by political actors in their pursuit of power in the years since. These are not “sweeping changes” that require “a leap of faith.” They would be modest harnesses replaced on federal power and guided by historically sound political theory, for the purpose of preventing the beast from running wild. It is rather whole-sale large-scale centralized government that requires a leap of faith, for it has never been successfully implemented on a massive scale in a manner that prevents tyranny of the majority.
Additionally, the work was limited by my ability to detect the ideological persuasion of the author. Though he cites a handful of leftist localists and their causes, like sanctuary cities and marijuana legalization, he does not chide them or use them to exemplify some danger.[29] Latimer uses his argument for centralization of power to argue for policies such as social justice, redistribution, and a welfare state. He argues for public health over individual freedom.[30] He chastises “white nationalism,” though no one seems to be arguing for it.[31] As quoted above, the issue is very simple: if most people across a large territory would like to have a welfare state (or perhaps to persecute whites in the name of preventing a fictitious white nationalism) it is not tyrannical to produce such policies. He shuns, however, the decision of a school district in Alabama that split apart, at the behest of the voters, leaving one of the two new districts “poorer and more racially segregated.”[32] He shuns localities, whether cities or states, that voted against vaccine or mask mandates during Covid.[33] Though it is the pedestal upon which his entire argument rests, he does not provide a good explanation for why these decisions are tyrannical or dangerous. The work would have been deepened through a judicious engagement of ideology, and by demonstrating the harms that result from localism in a tangible way.
As reviewed above, Latimer insists that there is nothing about a locale that is unique or special relative to other locales, and that all meaningful needs can be communicated by a locale to a central government who can then make sure that meaningful goods are distributed to that locale. But there is more to life than economic planning: what happens when a locale communicates a value-based need that is rejected by the central planners? In, for instance, the school district cited above that is pursuing excellence over equity, a value judgement is clearly made by Latimer. He writes very clearly that “I think we have an affirmative duty to attempt to sympathize with distant others … to try to do what’s not actually a duty of ours.”[34] He sees this duty as not only good, but “heroic.”[35] If a central government were to share Latimer’s value for altruistic heroism, they would not be inclined to support the values and therefore the needs of this community. Due to a difference in values, it is possible that those affected by the decision to create new school districts see the outcome as productive, not harmful. Sometimes one man’s heroism is another’s annoyance. Perhaps there are indeed certain cultural values that cannot be communicated to central planners who possess distinct values, and that this type of information does matter very much to those holding the belief or value that is being spurned. And there are of course cases like the Kulaks and the Jews – no amount of communication could have made up for the fact that the Russian and German powerbrokers actively wished to harm them. Other historical examples could be employed to make this point.
Latimer argues fervently that “localism is dangerous.”[36] Though he doesn’t do an acceptable job of demonstrating what these dangers are, they must pale by comparison, at least in scale, to those faced by minorities like Kulaks in massive, concentrated polities. The danger of communitarianism in a properly balanced federal system in which government power is limited and individual rights constitutionally protected is merely that relatively benign policies that some don’t endorse may come to fruition in some specific locale, and when this system is also centered around regular and fair elections, such policies may soon change if some harm is deftly and persuasively demonstrated to those living in that locale – especially if the citizens in that area are properly educated for a life of liberty. There is an ocean between pursuing educational excellence for one’s children in this political context and engaging in dangerous behavior. By diminishing the subtleties of American’s constitutional history and federated nature, and by focusing his list of dangers associated with local rule around conservative issues, Latimer oversimplifies and vitiates a complex and important subject. He argues that “one serious problem with arguments for localism … is that they are unlikely to convince those of us who don’t already share localism’s underlying worldview.”[37] I agree about localism as he construes it, but this too was my conclusion of Latimer’s book for centralized power in a globalized world. Localism is a strawman and the real opponent of Latimer’s thesis is a whole different beast: a complex federated polity in which power is distributed, or at least once was, based upon the purpose of the power and inherently limited at the national level.
Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism
By Trevor Latimore
Washington DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2023
NOTES:
[1] Aaron Zitner. Wall Street Journal. They’re the Happiest People in America. We Called Them to Ask Why. 4/21/23. Available at: <https://www.wsj.com/articles/happiest-people-america-poll-ef7c854c?mod=hp_lista_pos3>
[2] Trevor Latimer. Small Isn’t Beautiful: The Case Against Localism. Washington D.C.: Brookings Institution Press, 2023, 27. By this he might be referring to a neighborhood, town or city, state, nation or even planet. (27-29) And do not expect any advice on the best size for a polity: “it depends.” (92) The work is disappointingly vague on this important question.
[3] Ibid. 14
[4]Ibid. 50-1.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid, 50
[7] Ibid. 58
[8] Ibid. 63
[9] Ibid. 37
[10] Ibid 71
[11] Ibid. 70
[12] Ibid. 71
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid. 72
[15] Ibid. 86-7
[16] Ibid. 104-5
[17] Ibid. 96-102
[18] Ibid. 118-122
[19] Ibid. 124
[20] Ibid 135
[21] Ibid. 130-4
[22] Ibid. 152
[23] Ibid. 156
[24] Ibid. 156-7
[25] Ibid. 134
[26] Ibid. 134
[27] Ibid. 99
[28] Ibid. 159
[29] Ibid. 10
[30] Ibid. 13
[31] Ibid. 27
[32] Ibid. x
[33] Ibid. xi-xii
[34] Ibid. 224
[35] Ibid. 223
[36] Ibid. 13
[37] Ibid. 105
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