JUDGING LIBERATED FEDERALISM, VIII

 

Liberated federalism, the view that this blog promotes to guide curricular strategies in civics education, has as one of its elements the idea of communal democracy.  In turn, communal democracy is distinguishable from what the dominant view of today is.  That is the natural rights view, which promotes a democracy that is based on an electorate of individuals as opposed to a reflection of a community.  In this area of concern, Philip Selznick offers significant insights.[1]

In most day-to-day life, there is not much difference between the two perceptions, but over the long haul, the differences are significant.  For example, individualistic views rely on governance and administration of policy, both from the public and private sectors, to be bureaucratic.  The communal view strives, where possible, to rely on people-to-people services and orientation.  The US has come to accommodate the bureaucratic approach.  A more federated mode of administration would shift people’s expectations to the latter approach.

          That is, a post bureaucratic response to social demands and ills is central to a communal democracy.  It calls for policies by government that are sensitive to community resources and to their needs.  These are judgments that sense and accommodate the fact that communities differ, but that all of them need human interactions, not cold calculations of cost-benefit analyses.

          A classic bureaucratic solution to a social problem area was the decision to put urban police officers in patrol cars and to eliminate the neighborhood police officer.  Another example, the proposal of vouchers for school choice, also infuses the cold calculations of a market to meet the human, community problems associated with education.  These examples are only two in the “sea” of systemic solutions which make sense utilizing marginal analysis but are inefficient when measured by holistic community standards and by real human needs to interact with real people.

          Central to the federalist view is the intervening role of associations between the individual and the state.  These associations include such basic institutions as families and churches.  The aspect of communal democracy on which this reliance is based is on what Selznick calls political pluralism.  Here, the aim is to disperse power by allocating to these associations a certain level of autonomy.  The quality of democracy is enriched by the texture of its elements as expressed within the commonwealth and that these associations provide.

          They add a source of identity, provide a training ground for leadership, act to discourage impulsive actions, and function as a restraint on government.  “Federalism is the keynote, and the federated unities are major groups – religious, educational, economic, cultural, ethnic, political.  In this view, the effective participants in the political community are associations, not individuals.”[2]

          In the model this blog will present in a future posting, this view of effectiveness will play a central role.  But a word of warning is called for – albeit reluctantly:  As an aspect of communal democracy, this view can also be used as a justification for collectivist solutions.  Unfortunately, fascist or communist models can also employ this same rationale to bolster their claims and prescriptions to remedy perceived social maladies.

          In guarding against such applications, personhood must never be sacrificed for the aims and tactics of any association – be it political, social, and/or economic.  This does not preclude socialist policies but limits their vibrancy or encompassing provisions.  Association or organization is seen as a method, not an end, of individual welfare. 

In another area of concern, even under the auspices of a liberated federalist approach, communal democracy as an attribute of an association should not be employed to justify a status quo that entrenches the privileges of the elite class.  The nature of associations tends to protect their own internal, existing power distribution arrangements.  Therefore, the principles of a communal democracy need to be applied to policies that govern these associations, as in labor laws that regulate the internal activities of unions.

And one might ask:  with so much being placed on people being communal, does this leaning leave one unprepared for the actions of factions?  James Madison defines factions as “… a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.”[3]

First of note is Madison’s concern for the “aggregate interests of the community.”  That betrays the founder’s ultimate concern and his federated leanings.  But beyond that, he reveals between what Selznick calls democratic pluralism and oppositional pluralism.  Somewhat in counter position to democratic pluralism is oppositional pluralism. 

This Madisonian principle calls for the conflict between associations and factions to be the bulwark against arbitrary and authoritarian government.  This civil antagonism acts as a preventor of any single or oligopolistic – where the few rule – control of the government in which the interests of the general welfare would be sacrificed.

          Madison did not foresee the concentration of economic and political power that has ensued in the American arena.[4]  Selznick labels this Madisonian view as liberal pluralism or oppositional pluralism.  In this arrangement, the government is to find the equilibrium among these factions.

But irrespective of what the national or commonwealth interest might be, such concerns pose a threat to a federated polity and are enhanced by the existing concentration of economic power.  That is where a strong cultural, federated base is essential – a common belief in federated values.  And there lies an important role for civics education.

          Added to this concentration of power and wealth, America has also experienced the pluralization of its cultural base.  The Madison view was written under a significantly more, assumed homogeneous population.[5]  So, what one can say and be aware of is that the nation, demographically, has gone through significant changes and if for no other reason, earlier views of federalism need to be changed accordingly.  Adopting a vigorous view of democracy, one that is in tune with the nation’s population, is prudent if not necessary.

          With that consideration, communal democracy respects the minority’s value to cultural membership – however that might be defined during a given period.  It would find coercive assimilation unhealthy to its principles and would proceed to avoid it, if not prohibit it.  On the other hand, it would similarly look with displeasure at any cultural subgrouping that coerced its members into maintaining any person’s membership in a culturally based association.[6]

          The only insistence this view would hold, according to this blogger, would be that culturally, any messaging and other language orientating communication within the populous, if relevant, be in support of the nation’s constitutional principles (of which there is an array of foreign cultural beliefs that do not fall in line with such principles). 

Any other type of substantive messaging is open to how individuals wish to adopt and accept their personal relationship with any cultural preferences they might hold.  And with this disposition among Americans, it promises – as it has done so to this time – make life in this nation more interesting and enriching.  This posting will end with this note, but the next will continue in the vein.

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[1] Philip Selznick, The Moral Commonwealth:  Social Theory and the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:  University of California Press, 1992).

[2] Ibid., 518, emphasis added.

[3] James Madison, “The Advantages of Union,” in Great American Thinkers Volume I:  Creating America from Settlement to Mass Democracy, edited by Bernard E. Brown (New York, NY:  Avon Books, 1983), 218-252, 220.

[4] For example, Stacey Vanek Smith and Cardiff Garcia, “Companies Get Political,” NPR/WFSU (January 13, 2021), accessed July 1, 2023, https://www.npr.org/2021/01/13/956553990/companies-get-political#:~:text=Companies%20Get%20Political&text=They%20donate%20billions%20of%20dollars,aloof%20from%20the%20political%20scrum AND Robert L. Heilbroner and Lester C. Thurow, Economics Explained:  Everything You Need to Know about How the Economy Works and Where It’s Going (New York, NY:  Simon and Schuster Inc., 1982).

[5] At least as expressed by John Jay.  See John Jay, “Concerning Dangers from Foreign Force and Influence [Federalist Paper, 2],” in The Federalist Papers (New York, NY:  Signet, 2003), 31-35.

[6] Most commentary on this topic has been on forces in society that discourage or insist on abandoning cultural traditional beliefs or customs from foreign cultures.  Yet back in the late 1990s, Michael Walzer wrote of this bit of pressure in reverse, i.e., of foreign groups enforcing cultural modes to be insistent upon by immigrants.  See Michael Walzer, On Toleration (New Haven, CT:  Yale University Press, 1997).