“Federalism is a fourth
orientation in American life, one which has so dominated the mainstream of the
American experiment that it is utterly taken for granted.”[1] With that, Daniel Elazar starts his accounting
of the last of the four views he attributes to Americans, that is views they have
held from the very beginning of their experience in North America. The last three postings, in turn, describe
the other three views: individualism,
collectivism, and corporatism. This
posting addresses federalism.
In the colonial period there was John Winthrop and his
promotion of federal liberty, the right to do what one should do, being free of
one’s natural passions that can enslave a person. In the Revolutionary period, there was Thomas
Jefferson and his promotion of ward republics.
There, governmental functions are controlled and performed close to the
citizen, i.e., in subdivisions of a city or a county. At that level, everyone knows everyone else,
and Jefferson’s idea has survived in the existence of small townships, voting
precincts, neighborhood associations, and school districts.
Elazar claims that this concept is not totally original
with Americans. One can find its
rationale in the writings emanating from civil societies, such as France. There, political thinkers write of “integral
federalism.” Here in the US, that ideal
has been part of its fabric all along and, therefore, assumed within its
political theorizing from the earliest colonial days. One can say its elements have been beyond
discussion.
In a nutshell, all that federalism denotes is that the
individual citizen faces his/her social world through the mediation of various
cooperative networks; they include the family, local associations, unions,
religious communities, ethnic groups, and all the other partnerships one joins
through the course of life. It stands in
the face of anarchic qualities related to individualism and provides the
rationales one can believe in and feel for, motivating one to set aside purely
selfish modes of behaviors.
In its way, it allows the person to engage in collective
endeavors while not succumbing to the forces that lead to collectivism (in
which individuals lose their individuality).
And finally, it harnesses corporative endeavors within the parameters of
just aims, goals, procedures, and functions.
It places the acts of collectives, associations, communities,
assemblages, and governmental entities within a path of establishing,
maintaining, and strengthening meaningful partnerships.
Can one detect within any such congregation various
betrayals of such lofty ideals? Of
course, one can. One can even see that
“normal” behavior or anticipated behavior would and does fall short or go
contrary to such values as those expressed above. But the telling factors that portray those
ideals are found in the accepted and functioning structures of government or of
private entities. They are found in the
patriotic symbolisms that a people utter or illustrate. They are found in the documents held sacred. In other words, they are found in those
artifacts that represent espoused values.
If they don’t determine behaviors or the anticipation of
behaviors, what good are they? They set
the moral tone, they define what is good as opposed to evil, they determine
what is right as opposed to wrong. They
are the baseline of the law – probably its most consequential function – or how
one will disparage laws that don’t measure up.
All of this is difficult to measure, to quantify, but the qualitative
power of its presence cannot be overestimated.
That is why, unlike Elazar, this blogger is seriously and
professionally preoccupied with his, this blogger’s, judgement that since the
years after World War II, this nation, as a people, has replaced federalism as
its dominant view of governance and politics.
And while one can find people who think and assign value in terms of the
federalist perspective, the nation has instead opted for a natural rights view
as dominant.
This blog has shared many
of this writer’s reasons for this judgement.
He holds it with deep regret and hopes the nation can find its way back
not to its initial version of federalism, but an improved version. Not back to what can be termed a
parochial/traditional view, but a liberated federated view. That is a view that is truly inclusive of all
peoples – races, nationalities, ethnicities, gender, and people of all ages – on
an equal basis and that live in die in this land.
[1] Daniel J. Elazar, “How federal is the
Constitution? Thoroughly.” In a booklet
of readings, Readings for classes taught
by Professor Elazar (1994, 1-30) prepared for a National Endowment for the
Humanities Institute. Conducted in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, 15.
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